Ryan
Well-known member
It's been about 2 weeks now. Things are moving rapidly and shaping up very nicely here. I had a concern early on and that concern still lingers. There have been many cases where I've seen a new feature implemented that looks cool and is flashy, but it interferes with my use of the forums.
Examples
- Multi-Quote
That feature, to me, is for single-quoting, and nothing more. It's fine when quoting one person, but it is not realistic as a multi-quote feature. It's annoying to have to scroll up and down and up and down and up and down to quote multiple people.
- The confirmation dialog on "Mark all forums read"
It's just unnecessary. I know why it was put there - and that's because people were accidentally clicking on the link (myself included) when it was first in the sub-navigation. Problem is, you fixed this accidental clicking by moving the link - you don't need to add a confirmation on top of that.
- The "mini me" avater to indicate you've posted in a thread
When you shrink an avatar down that small and then put it on top of another avatar, it looks like a mess. It's hard to pick out when scanning an entire page, defeating the purpose of the indicator. Also, when you shrink an avatar down that small, it's hard to even tell what it is a picture of. The fact that it's your avatar is a moot point by the time you lean in close to the screen to squint at it. A simple icon is all that is needed there.
- The "bouncy" effect used when zooming to quotes or resizing images
When you click the up arrow in a quote, you're shot up to the original post. When you get to the top, the screen bounces back and forth real quick. It looks cool the first few times, but it gets annoying fast. The same is true for the animation effect when you click on an image that's been resized. Unnecessary animations make me cringe.
- The floating description when you hover over a subforum
The description should just be fixed underneath the title
Now, before you start throwing stones at me...Kier and Mike are doing a lot of things correctly here. There are a lot of flashy features here that I love (member card popups, thrread page number scrolling effect, quick nav in the footer, alerts...). They're being very innovative and cutting-edge. Most times, they're hitting the target, but a lot of times they are not. I understand that in order to be innovative, you've got to be radical. When you are radical, you're going to try stuff that doesn't work, and maybe that's what they're doing.
Not here to argue individual features (there is a separate thread for every one of these). I'm more here to point out this basic trend that I've noticed that features are being add that look cool and hip but aren't very practical. I don't want XF to get bloated with animations, popups, etc. Part of what is so appealing to me about XF is how sleak everything is.
Am I alone?
Examples
- Multi-Quote
That feature, to me, is for single-quoting, and nothing more. It's fine when quoting one person, but it is not realistic as a multi-quote feature. It's annoying to have to scroll up and down and up and down and up and down to quote multiple people.
- The confirmation dialog on "Mark all forums read"
It's just unnecessary. I know why it was put there - and that's because people were accidentally clicking on the link (myself included) when it was first in the sub-navigation. Problem is, you fixed this accidental clicking by moving the link - you don't need to add a confirmation on top of that.
- The "mini me" avater to indicate you've posted in a thread
When you shrink an avatar down that small and then put it on top of another avatar, it looks like a mess. It's hard to pick out when scanning an entire page, defeating the purpose of the indicator. Also, when you shrink an avatar down that small, it's hard to even tell what it is a picture of. The fact that it's your avatar is a moot point by the time you lean in close to the screen to squint at it. A simple icon is all that is needed there.
- The "bouncy" effect used when zooming to quotes or resizing images
When you click the up arrow in a quote, you're shot up to the original post. When you get to the top, the screen bounces back and forth real quick. It looks cool the first few times, but it gets annoying fast. The same is true for the animation effect when you click on an image that's been resized. Unnecessary animations make me cringe.
- The floating description when you hover over a subforum
The description should just be fixed underneath the title
Now, before you start throwing stones at me...Kier and Mike are doing a lot of things correctly here. There are a lot of flashy features here that I love (member card popups, thrread page number scrolling effect, quick nav in the footer, alerts...). They're being very innovative and cutting-edge. Most times, they're hitting the target, but a lot of times they are not. I understand that in order to be innovative, you've got to be radical. When you are radical, you're going to try stuff that doesn't work, and maybe that's what they're doing.
Not here to argue individual features (there is a separate thread for every one of these). I'm more here to point out this basic trend that I've noticed that features are being add that look cool and hip but aren't very practical. I don't want XF to get bloated with animations, popups, etc. Part of what is so appealing to me about XF is how sleak everything is.
Am I alone?
- at least his are good-natured though.
