[WEBSITE v2] MusicBee website and forum redesign

[psychoadept]

I can confirm it looks right in Firefox.

Although the comment you responded to had nothing to do with this issue. Just offering alternatives to resetting your whole profile when you want to test something.

[hiccup]

Trying to imagine how the structure for the upcoming new board category would work best, I took a fresh look at the current implementation of child boards.
I think there are currently two problems with them.
(the second one has always been slumbering obscurely in the back of my head, but I can now describe it specifically)

1.
If the new 'f.a.q.' board topic expands and contains a lot of child boards, the front page can become very busy with all these child board shortcut labels.



2.
If you currently open a board category that happens to contain a child board, the focus of the user will immediately be drawn to the list of posts.
There is a good chance he will not even notice the child boards that are available from there.

(how many of you never noticed the child board here for example?)


- - -

My proposal is:

A.
Remove the child board shortcut labels from the main board completely.
It only takes a single click on a main category to open it and immediately see the child boards that it contains.
And they are presented in a better way there, having their descriptions included.

B.
As soon as a main board topic gets a child board: Add another one, and move all current posts to it.
So when you open a board category that contains child boards, you will be presented with these child boards only,  and open the one that interests you.
So there would never be a confusing mixture of topics and child boards displayed on the same page.

Looks clean doesn't it?:



The same should apply to subsequent child boards.
In this way the navigational structure will remain clean and consistent, and also problem nr. 2 that I mentioned will not occur.

[Freddy Barker]

Indeed looks clean and simple to my OCD head...
But how about if the SEARCH option was greatly improved?
Drilling down through forum-boards, sub-boards and child-boards, the newbie OP needs to know terminology and buzzwords to get to the appropriate help section...
Freddy

[hiccup]

Indeed looks clean and simple to my OCD head...
But how about if the SEARCH option was greatly improved?

I don't think that is a realistic option at the moment.
The forum 'engine' (SMF) is not the most modern or sophisticated, and it is already a marvel how well it works thanks to AvikB's work and talent.

I believe a rather big SMF update is planned for sometime next year. Perhaps that update will bring some desired improvements on things like 'search', adding a screenshot to a post, etc. Who knows...

Drilling down through forum-boards, sub-boards and child-boards, the newbie OP needs to know terminology and buzzwords to get to the appropriate help section...

I strongly believe that a good structure using child boards is much more preferable compared to having one enormous stewing pot containing dozens and dozens of mixed topics, but having a good search machine available to find something.

[AvikB]

Indeed looks clean and simple to my OCD head... But how about if the SEARCH option was greatly improved? Drilling down through forum-boards, sub-boards and child-boards, the newbie OP needs to know terminology and buzzwords to get to the appropriate help section... Freddy

Indeed looks clean and simple to my OCD head...
But how about if the SEARCH option was greatly improved?

I don't think that is a realistic option at the moment.
The forum 'engine' (SMF) is not the most modern or sophisticated, and it is already a marvel how well it works thanks to AvikB's work and talent.

I believe a rather big SMF update is planned for sometime next year. Perhaps that update will bring some desired improvements on things like 'search', adding a screenshot to a post, etc. Who knows...

Drilling down through forum-boards, sub-boards and child-boards, the newbie OP needs to know terminology and buzzwords to get to the appropriate help section...

I strongly believe that a good structure using child boards is much more preferable compared to having one enormous stewing pot containing dozens and dozens of mixed topics, but having a good search machine available to find something.

Making a custom search engine is really hard, i would rather change the forum system to something with better search already implemented rather than making my own.

As for changing forum board structure, it should be doable in the forum admin board, but you need to speak with other moderators and steven.

[hiccup]

As for changing forum board structure, it should be doable in the forum admin board, but you need to speak with other moderators and steven.

I am pretty sure they will be reading this and will voice it if they have different opinions or alternative suggestions  ;-)

[phred]

I am pretty sure they will be reading this and will voice it if they have different opinions or alternative suggestions  ;-)

I am and I will.

I'm all in favor of seeing all the child boards move up to the root level.

A new search engine would be wonderful and if it can't be accomplished if/when SMF has it's next upgrade, perhaps it's time to move to a different, yet free, forum application.

I also think that for the MegaFAQ, none of the 'topics' should be the same as the 'regular' forum topics. We'll get all sorts of double-posing and/or "I didn't know where to put this so I put it here."

[hiccup]

Hey AvikB

This is about the formatting of a forum post.
We have some shortcut buttons available to apply stuff like bold, text colours, code, etc.:



But I think it is a limited selection of what SMF makes available to implement?

For the sake of creating articles for the new FAQ board, it would be nice if some additional formatting features, such as bullet points could be added.
Also the use of [Tab] seems a bit problematic, or maybe just unsupported?

Do you think some of this could be improved on?
Do you happen to know of a link or document that shows what is available for this?

[hiccup]

Another request/observation.
When creating a weblink, I noticed that trying to colour format it to make it stick out a bit better didn't work.

But then I saw that when I switch to light theme, the link will be blue (as people are probably used to)
So the dark theme seems to have that missing at the moment?

(in case you have to decide on a colour manually, something like #31B1F9 looks nice on my screen)
A testing post (temporarily) to give an impression on what I am talking about: https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=33740.0

[AvikB]

Another request/observation. When creating a weblink, I noticed that trying to colour format it to make it stick out a bit better didn't work. But then I saw that when I switch to light theme, the link will be blue (as people are probably used to) So the dark theme seems to have that missing at the moment? (in case you have to decide on a colour manually, something like #31B1F9 looks nice on my screen) A testing post (temporarily) to give an impression on what I am talking about: https://getmusicbee.com/forum/index.php?topic=33740.0

I can make some changes to the link colors.

Ok, nevermind the ul tag is blacklisted. I have to see how to allow it.

[hiccup]

Ok, nevermind the ul tag is blacklisted. I have to see how to allow it.

(I read what you wrote before the edit too):
To be clear, I am not asking this for myself alone.
While it might be interesting and useful for me to know of some less obvious way to achieve this, for this I think it is good if formatting options such as the ones I described would be easier available for more forum members.
Am I on a wrong track thinking that SMF allows for it but it just hasn't been enabled?

[AvikB]

Ok, nevermind the ul tag is blacklisted. I have to see how to allow it.

(I read what you wrote before the edit too): To be clear, I am not asking this for myself alone. While it might be interesting and useful for me to know of some less obvious way to achieve this, for this I think it is good if formatting options such as the ones I described would be easier available for more forum members. Am I on a wrong track thinking that SMF allows for it but it just hasn't been enabled?

Yes SMF does support it. It is disabled, but i am not sure if it is in the admin panel or the editor mod panel. I have to check it and let you know.

[hiccup]

Yes SMF does support it. It is disabled, but i am not sure if it is in the admin panel or the editor mod panel. I have to check it and let you know.

Great, no hurries at all.
It is for the new FAQ board, but I am guessing it is going to take at least a week before editors of that board might feel a need to have such options available.
(and I can wait)

[AvikB]

👌👍

[The Incredible Boom Boom]

Could an emphasized blurb that there is no virus or trojan in the executable and @Steven's explanation for why anti-virus software false flags MB be added to the Downloads page, in hopes of mitigating the once-a-week posts from people who don't bother to thoroughly search the forum for the answer to this issue?