Author Topic: [WEBSITE v2] MusicBee website and forum redesign  (Read 551538 times)

Alumni

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Lord, no. 

If you must, make sure that there is an option to hide them, and sigs, and any other personalization junk.  This isn't 4chan.

That's a bit of an overreaction, most forums do have avatars, sigs, etc.
I'm sure the members of this forum are mature enough not to abuse it.

hiccup

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Using the dark theme: when you click 'quote', the text in the editor window is almost as black as the background and therefor unreadable.
If you hover-over with the mouse, it gets light and you can read it.

any screenshot?



Also: I first couldn't find the 'quote' button just now, but I now see it is hidden by default, and becomes only visible when you hover-over the pane.
I think it would be better to have it sticky.

hiccup

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I do agree at some point. Lets get few fact straight:
Basic and necessary button that are required:
           Bold, Italic, Underline, Strike, image, link, code, quote(I REFUSE TO REMOVE CODE AND QUOTE!, specially typing the blockquote is really not intuitive and painful)

The way it was available to be found (with some effort) on the current forum seemed to work very well in my personal opinion.
But what I do agree with you on, is that there have been two very often recurring 'problems' for posters:

1. Adding a screenshot.
I think I saw you have an entry for that now? (I'll have to check yet how that works)

2. Adding code.
Many users post code without this feature, what results in very large text and postings.
So it's a very good idea to have that one easily available. With some explanation!.

I could also agree on having 'bold' and 'underlined'.

For all the other options, in my personal opinion they can be hidden, only to be found when users take the small effort to go to help > forum > posting
(hmm, I see that's gone now in the current smf 2.0.11 forum?)

AvikB

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The way it was available to be found (with some effort) on the current forum seemed to work very well in my personal opinion.
But what I do agree with you on, is that there have been two very often recurring 'problems' for posters:
The problem is not everyone is used to use bbcodes. Heck i even sometime confused them with HTML codes.
Also that EFFORT part really is not everyone's cup of tea. Most user will want to get their job done(which is posting for help or other task), not learning a bbforum software.

1. Adding a screenshot.
I think I saw you have an entry for that now? (I'll have to check yet how that works)

2. Adding code.
Many users post code without this feature, what results in very large text and postings.
So it's a very good idea to have that one easily available. With some explanation!.
Yep, they are easy to add and hardly require any explanation. Explanation(or docs) if required, will come in a later date. But markdown is WAY easier and better than this bbcode, maybe one day smf will move to markdown.

I could also agree on having 'bold' and 'underlined'.
For all the other options, in my personal opinion they can be hidden, only to be found when users take the small effort to go to help > forum > posting
(hmm, I see that's gone now in the current smf 2.0.11 forum?)
Oops, no more help is now included.(even smf stuff got tired of updating their document, i guess :P)
I will try to make some compromise, but i won't remove all of those option. Because some are very useful to others. The one thing that i will drastically reduce(hope no need to remove) is the color and size option. They are useful in certain area, but no one needed them for everyday task.

The new forum update may come tomorrow or the next day after that.

phred

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Under the text entry box why does it say "Attachments and other options" when nothing there has to with attachments?
And in that same section there is an option to "Lock this topic."  I think only Steven and the moderators should have access to that.
[
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

----------
The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here

Steven

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phred

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i disabled attachments (and dont plan to enable them in the live forum)
So the word "attachments" is hardcoded into SMF and can't be removed, right?

What about the "Lock Topic" option?  Can that be set to be visible to moderators only?
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

----------
The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here

AvikB

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i disabled attachments (and dont plan to enable them in the live forum)
So the word "attachments" is hardcoded into SMF and can't be removed, right?

What about the "Lock Topic" option?  Can that be set to be visible to moderators only?

No, it can be changes via language file. I can send you the file if you want to change few of these terms.

as for lock topic, in the current forum it is available for users, i don't see any reason to disable it in future. :/

Skoop

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Quote
you can already do this by going to your profile and disable avatars and sigs.

I recognize that.  My post was a hope that such a setting exists in the new setup. 

phred

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i disabled attachments (and dont plan to enable them in the live forum)
So the word "attachments" is hardcoded into SMF and can't be removed, right?

What about the "Lock Topic" option?  Can that be set to be visible to moderators only?

No, it can be changes via language file. I can send you the file if you want to change few of these terms.
Yes, please email it to me and I'll take a look at it.

Quote
as for lock topic, in the current forum it is available for users, i don't see any reason to disable it in future. :/
Ahhh ... I didn't realize that was available to all on the original forum.  I thought I was seeing it because of my mod status.
Download the latest MusicBee v3.5 or 3.6 patch from here.
Unzip into your MusicBee directory and overwrite existing files.

----------
The FAQ
The Wiki
Posting screenshots is here
Searching the forum with Google is  here

AvikB

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Quote
you can already do this by going to your profile and disable avatars and sigs.

I recognize that.  My post was a hope that such a setting exists in the new setup. 

I am not going to disable them since you have option to do so. Options are always good.
If you have a feature suggestion let me know.

AvikB

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Another update. This time it is heavily focused on the home page.

Check out the home page, it is now overhauled and shows the feature in a more elegant way.

Groove section got removed. The reason behind removing it was because of MS's nature of changing thing.
As of today there are over 3 name changes(also api), from zune to now groove. And according to their track record they will do this in the future, so updating static thing is not really intuitive.
In Exchange there is a BETTER quality section.

Few effects are added and optimized, one new effect is the parallax and smooth jump. Also some bug fixes.

a download button and feature section button is added.

Forum got an update too.

Quote
Trying to add a sig in the new forum and I can't see what I'm typing.  The box is too small resulting in not being able to see what I'm typing.  Also the maximum number of character counter doesn't reflect the actual number of characters used.  Nor does it reset from 0 to 300 when the box is cleared.  Lastly, a limit of 300 would prevent my current sig from being used.
Thanks to Phred for reporting this bug. The editor should be big. For the remaining character i will see what i can do.

Also as Hiccup suggested, font colors are disabled, since it is not the most widely used bbcode.

Also i have updated the editor scripts to the latest version from SCEditor's official website. This includes a HANDFUL of bug fixes.
Dark theme is enhanced. Also a critical bug where enabling/disabling dark theme wont work due to cookie path issue.

Also those big colorful boxes are now on the side for less scrolling. In future you will be able to hide them.

Bee-liever

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Also those big colorful boxes are now on the side for less scrolling. In future you will be able to hide them.

Strongly disagree with this change.

Regardless of whether the blue box points to the latest patch or version, I think it, and the red box that informs about having the latest version before posting a bug, should be "front and center" across the page.

It's also totally at odds to the website form of scrolling down the page for more info.
MusicBee and my library - Making bee-utiful music together

AvikB

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Also those big colorful boxes are now on the side for less scrolling. In future you will be able to hide them.

Strongly disagree with this change.

Regardless of whether the blue box points to the latest patch or version, I think it, and the red box that informs about having the latest version before posting a bug, should be "front and center" across the page.
I have reverted back from the sidebar. But in future there will be a option to hide it. SO might not be a big deal for users who want their forum page to be clean.

It's also totally at odds to the website form of scrolling down the page for more info.
Is this about the home page where you have to scroll down to see more info?
If so, this is the modern design principle used by most(if not all) websites. Instead of throwing every single info at your face, scrolling for more if the user is really that interested while presenting them in a visually elegant way.

Steven

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i have to say the home page is really great how it looks, behaves and the general layout.
The only thing i am not completely comfortable with is the quality section. Maybe just the bit about "...making MusicBee a favourite among audiophiles."
and the quality guide section (but I guess it depends on what you had in mind for that).
Also for "The ULTIMATE...", i am not sure about that. To me that comes accross as overselling, but perhaps others might comment on that.
But other than that, the rest of it is jusr fantastic