Author Topic: [WEBSITE v2] MusicBee website and forum redesign  (Read 551692 times)

AvikB

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Look at how hard it is to get bugs in bugs,
Bug report is one of the thing i don't get. For MusicBee 3 all bug reports are is discussion thread, so it is confusing if i should use bug thread to report or just post them in discussion?

Also sometime it gets more confusing if a certain MusicBee behavior is intended or not! and ends up being a bug :S
Maybe merge them with questions! Or a single sticky thread just like for MusicBee 3 to post bugs and get them fixed.

portable devices in portable devices, keep questions out of tips & tricks, and so on already.  It would create a lot more work for the mods trying to keep things in the right place.
I do get it. But Customization and Plugins (as of now) boards/topics are used by skinners/plugin developers, and they are not novice. I wouldn't worry about them.

hiccup

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- Questions under Support section is not necessary as quite often a question develops into discussion. Also people will keep posting questions on General Discussions board.
Well general is for discussion if a question ever turns into discussion op will be asked to create a new thread in general for discussion purpose.
For a big forum with lots of mods and members, it might work. But not for this forum.

Especially frorm the standpoint of new users (which many seem to care a lot about here), I feel it is very natural to have a separate 'Questions' board.
A newbee with questions will immediately understand where to go, and will feel welcome. Members with the initiative to help other users will also now exactly where to go.

And there are topics that deserve such a separate board such as 'General Discussion', and preferably shouldn't be mixed with 'Questions'.

To name a few examples:

- [NEW UPDATE] MusicBee website and forum redesign!!
- GUI changes for v3.0
- Official MB appreciation thread
- Wiki pages
- Any polls could go there
- other matters which are not a specific request for help or assistance.

When transitioning from the old to the new board, we can move all topics from the current 'General Discussions' board to the new 'Questions' board, except for the very few from the above example, which go the new 'general Discussion' board.
I thnk after that it will be very clear to everybody where to post and look.
The new 'General Discussion' board will probably get a lot less activity and new topics after that.
It will therefore be quite easy to maintain it in the rare case that some user asks a question, and oversees the big 'Question' board.


Summarizing, I think it is a logical improvement, and I don't see any problems we can't easily handle.
What I can see happening in the beginning, is that some more experienced members that are used to posting in 'General Discussion' might have some short learning curve to learn that also their questions belong in 'Questions', and that it is not some 'newbees corner'. But that would be easy to control and correct.

As a moderator I would probably hardly ever touch or move a post posted in 'Questions'.
And in the case that an initial, clear question turns into something that is not a question anymore, I myself would just leave it under 'Questions' and wouldn't bother on evaluating or deciding on if I perhaps should move it.
Anybody involved in that topic who feels that a matter that deserves a 'General Discussion' evolved from that question, is very welcome to create a topic for that in 'General Discussion' possibly with adding a simple link to the original question.

I would keep an eye on 'General Discussion' though, and would probably only have to move posts from there to 'Questions' that are clearly questions for help on a specific matter.

So, I am all for it.

Absolute worst case scenario: it doesn't work as well as I believe it will, and then we just merge those two boards again at a later moment. No harm done.

hiccup

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@Steven,

For the new forum structure, I oversaw that there currently is a child board 'portable devices' under 'Bugs'.
Do you want that to be the the same for the new board?
Perhaps other changes or additions to that?

I have no specific suggestion right now, but we might consider some mechanism that could perhaps decrease the amount of posted bugs that actually concern plug-ins and add-ons, and not MusicBee itself.

AvikB

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@hiccup can you check this out and let me know if it works for you or not?
@hiccup since you are a global mod, help me out on testing if the following work or not:
go to dashboard and see if you get this message:



If you can see this try to approve it and tell me if it works properly for global mod too.

I have already approved the one that phred_phred submitted and it seem to work.

hiccup

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Works!



A few observations, I first couldn't find 'Dashboard'. I didn't expect to find it under the 'little man icon'. Wouldn't a fixed text button be better?
The above message appears at the right bottom of the screen. Perhaps better if that was more in the centre of the screen?
'Successfull' should be spelled 'Successful'

AvikB

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Works!
Good to know :)

A few observations, I first couldn't find 'Dashboard'. I didn't expect to find it under the 'little man icon'. Wouldn't a fixed text button be better?
yeah i guess you are right. I will make some adjustment in this area.

The above message appears at the right bottom of the screen. Perhaps better if that was more in the centre of the screen?
at first it was at the top of the screen, then side and now bottom. is there any reason for it to be on the center? it is just a notification not a prompt.

'Successfull' should be spelled 'Successful'
Thanks fixed for the next update.

hiccup

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at first it was at the top of the screen, then side and now bottom. is there any reason for it to be on the center? it is just a notification not a prompt.

Well, my precious eyes wasted 1,119 seconds of their life searching for it ;-)
Wouldn't 'centre' be the most logical location for pop-up messages?

AvikB

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Well, my precious eyes wasted 1,119 seconds of their life searching for it ;-)
Wouldn't 'centre' be the most logical location for pop-up messages?
it is not a intrusive popup, much more like a subtle notification saying "hey the last action is successful! just so you know!"

hiccup

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Just a fun observation, I noticed how the childboard buttons change color when you change between light and dark theme.
Very sophisticated. I just can't stop myself switching themes now ;-)

hiccup

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Well, my precious eyes wasted 1,119 seconds of their life searching for it ;-)
Wouldn't 'centre' be the most logical location for pop-up messages?
it is not a intrusive popup, much more like a subtle notification saying "hey the last action is successful! just so you know!"

Ok, you are probably right.
I closed it with the 'X' button though. Does it fade away after a few seconds by itself?

hiccup

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When I collapse a board category, the whole panel jumps to the bottom of the screen, so you will have to scroll up again?

AvikB

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Just a fun observation, I noticed how the childboard buttons change color when you change between light and dark theme.
Very sophisticated. I just can't stop myself switching themes now ;-)
haha. it uses a transition based animation thats why a little bit delay between changing colors.


AvikB

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Ok, you are probably right.
I closed it with the 'X' button though. Does it fade away after a few seconds by itself?
nope. i haven't implemented that yet. maybe in future. not a priority now.

hiccup

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Ok, you are probably right.
I closed it with the 'X' button though. Does it fade away after a few seconds by itself?
nope. i haven't implemented that yet. maybe in future. not a priority now.

Ok, but in that case, if you do have to click it to go away, then 'centre' would be much preferred in my opinion.

AvikB

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Ok, but in that case, if you do have to click it to go away, then 'centre' would be much preferred in my opinion.

well i have plan to implement autohide in future. so it would be waste to put it in center and then put at the corner again when autohide is added!