Author Topic: [WEBSITE v2] MusicBee website and forum redesign  (Read 551468 times)

AvikB

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Quite frankly, once I had the sig set, I never had to edit it as the link was static.  MB patches were also posted to the same link.  Personally, I'll hold any judgement about the badges until I see them. 
huh, i never noticed that the url don't change :S , but still you need to update the info on the sig tho.
It is mostly a side project than the site. The API was simply built to make maintenance much more easier for me, but i will make some badges and referral (or support images) for musicbee.

It should be glorious when done. I will listen to the community for what to include or what to not :)


for those that are interested, the api request will return json format, i have no plan for xml format but if needed it can be extended.
here is one of the request for getting release info, it returns both stable and beta info, including download link and warning message and other:
http://test.getmusicbee.com/api.get.php?type=json&action=release-info


the type is json (needed) and the action parameter will request for certain task in future.

AvikB

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The drop down line appearing with suggested names for the recipient is very hard to read.
Also it extends very wide to the right beyond the border of the specific pane.


2.
When the recipient has been selected, he disappears from the 'To' field, and is relocated somewhere below under BCC, which gives the impression that that member will be bcc'ed, instead of being the main recipient.

3.
Some coloring might be improved on.
1 and 2 are difficult to read.
3, the green and red buttons kind of stick out like a sore thumb on this dark theme.

This one is not about cosmetics;
I would prefer having CC as a (primary) option, not BCC, since I believe the need for CC will be much higher than for BCC.
Also I feel BCC is a bit of a dishonest way of using mailing/posting which should be avoided as much as possible.

Thanks for reporting those issues, they are fixed for the next update

AvikB

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A few cosmetic observations on the dark theme for the forum:
1.
The drop down line appearing with suggested names for the recipient is very hard to read.
Also it extends very wide to the right beyond the border of the specific pane.

2.
When the recipient has been selected, he disappears from the 'To' field, and is relocated somewhere below under BCC, which gives the impression that that member will be bcc'ed, instead of being the main recipient.

3.
Some coloring might be improved on.
1 and 2 are difficult to read.
3, the green and red buttons kind of stick out like a sore thumb on this dark theme.

4.
This one is not about cosmetics;
I would prefer having CC as a (primary) option, not BCC, since I believe the need for CC will be much higher than for BCC.
Also I feel BCC is a bit of a dishonest way of using mailing/posting which should be avoided as much as possible.

Another update pushed and those bugs are squashed without any mercy ;)
some additional fix and tweaks are also in this update.

Let me know if you find more bugs.

AvikB

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i have added some more musicbee version(which does not exists, just for demonstration purpose), and a release note is automatically generated.
One major bug fixed, where the major versions are not marked major and minor versions are showing as major.

if you don't mention any release note it will automatically show a black box with text mentioning the release is a minor one.
You will be able to jump to any specific version release note by selecting it from the dropdown.

http://test.getmusicbee.com/release-note.php

hiccup

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Thnx for getting the cosmetic bugs in line.
And a few new observations:

1.
When logged in on the forum, I see no 'messaging center'. I believe a number is shown with the little guy icon when you received a message, but otherwise I can find no direct link to go to your messages to e.g. create a new one.

2.
I notice it is still BCC. Do you intend to change to CC, or have you decided against that suggestion?

3.
When using the dark theme, I notice sometimes a child board button has a slightly lighter font color. That is probably meant to indicate something, but in the light theme I notice no such font color/brightness differences.




4.
The 'remove' buttons here could probably be graphically improved a bit to be a little bit clearer.



5.
And some nutritious baby-bugs for you concerning some locations having those ugly-edgy fonts:














AvikB

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When logged in on the forum, I see no 'messaging center'. I believe a number is shown with the little guy icon when you received a message, but otherwise I can find no direct link to go to your messages to e.g. create a new one.
Yes as of now it will show the numbers when you ONLY receive a new message. I have removed the 0 beside the bell since there is no point of showing it.

I notice it is still BCC. Do you intend to change to CC, or have you decided against that suggestion?
I haven't look into this. It should be fixed in the next update.


When using the dark theme, I notice sometimes a child board button has a slightly lighter font color. That is probably meant to indicate something, but in the light theme I notice no such font color/brightness differences.
If you visited the link one, it will have dim color(it is the only difference between the light and dark theme, i probably wont fix it, as it is not a bug nor intended), other than that when a new post is made to a child board, that child board will have a bolder font.


The 'remove' buttons here could probably be graphically improved a bit to be a little bit clearer.
It is the default one smf uses. But yeah i will change them in the next update.

And some nutritious baby-bugs for you concerning some locations having those ugly-edgy fonts:

i will fix them when the theme is complete.

hiccup

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When logged in on the forum, I see no 'messaging center'. I believe a number is shown with the little guy icon when you received a message, but otherwise I can find no direct link to go to your messages to e.g. create a new one.
Yes as of now it will show the numbers when you ONLY receive a new message. I have removed the 0 beside the bell since there is no point of showing it.

Yes, but suppose:
You login to the forum, have no new messages, and want to create a PM.
How do you get to your 'message center' to do that?

edit:
Fuggedabout it. I now see a 'bell' icon at the top menu.
I would swear it wasn't there earlier, but it's probably me.
Last Edit: December 22, 2015, 10:41:23 AM by hiccup

AvikB

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Yes, but suppose:
You login to the forum, have no new messages, and want to create a PM.
How do you get to your 'message center' to do that?

Here is the future plan for the notification:
when a user clicks on the notification icon at the top a drop down will show where you will be able to see a glance of old and new message without going to forum's message center. there will be option to create a message(which will redirect you to forum's message center).

More advance function such as reply from the dropdown or mark them read will come later. :)

AND
I just looked into the cc, bcc matter. Curently that field you are referring as bcc is actually cc, you have to click on the add bcc to add bcc.
After steven updated the current forum to 2.0.11, it should have also showed the same option, but didn't so i did some check and find out the current forum's message page has 2 errors about being failed to use some certain script that is responsible for using that cc/bcc function.


this is the error(and the script) that is responsible for the cc/bcc function as well as suggestion.
but it is broken in the current forum. :/

AvikB

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Fuggedabout it. I now see a 'bell' icon at the top menu.
I would swear it wasn't there earlier, but it's probably me.

The only issue i can think is the cache. The icon is actually a font(not image), so the cache needs to rebuild.

hiccup

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I just looked into the cc, bcc matter. Curently that field you are referring as bcc is actually cc, you have to click on the add bcc to add bcc.

Maybe I am a bit thick, but I don't see a field referencing anything concerning cc at all.
All you can do is add more recipients.

Last Edit: December 22, 2015, 11:05:15 AM by hiccup

AvikB

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I just looked into the cc, bcc matter. Curently that field you are referring as bcc is actually cc, you have to click on the add bcc to add bcc.

Maybe I am a bit thick, but I don't see a field referencing anything concerning cc at all.
All you can do is add more recipients.



Isn't To and CC are same ? Bcc only prevents you from sending other recipent's email to the sender.
I am not much into mailing stuff, so correct me if i am wrong.

AvikB

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Also does the current forum has any cc stuff? Cause i cant see it. It is the same as demo forum

AvikB

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Here is an explanatio fro how to geek about cc and to

Quote
The To and CC fields work similarly. Whether you put four email addresses in the To field or put one email address in the To field and three in the CC field, the four people will all receive the same email. They’ll also be able to see every other recipients’ email address.
 
When it comes to email etiquette, the To field is generally used for the main recipients of your email. The CC field is used to send a copy to other interested parties for their information. This isn’t a concrete rule, and usage of To and CC can vary.

hiccup

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There are a few important differences between To, Cc and Bcc

With Cc, you inform others besides the main recipient.
Then the main recipient knows that that message was copied to other persons too, and the other person(s) know that they were purily 'informed', and they are not specifically required to respond to that message.

So in our situation an example would be: I ask you a question, Cc it to another member of who I know is also concerned with that subject.
- You then know the other member is also informed. And you are able to Cc him too when answering so everybody is up to par about the subject.
- The person Cc'ed then is informed about the subject being under discussion, but he is not specifically required to respond.


With Bcc, it is about secrecy.
The recipient will never know the message was shared with somebody else.
I can only think of using that when 'warning' or 'reprimanding' a forum member in the capacity of moderator, and you want to inform other moderators about it.


This is common practice in e-mailing. With fora, I am not a big pm'er myself, so it could well be that this might work slightly different there.
But I would assume it should work the same.

ps
Also note the correct capitalization of Cc and Bcc I used in this posting  ;-)

hiccup

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Another request comes to mind.

As a moderator, once in a while you have to move a post from one thread to another because the poster choose the wrong thread/board to post it.
It would be decent to inform the OP by PM that that was done, so he might learn from it, and he can find his post in the new location.

With the current forum when moving such a post, you can only select to inform about moving the post in the thread itself, so leaving traces of that in the thread you were trying to keep clean in the first place.

I sometimes inform the OP by sending a PM when I relocated his post, but that is an effort I could do without.
Does the new forum engine allow to have a simple checkbox in the 'move post' pane called something like "inform OP about his post being moved"?