FA Project: UI Overhaul

[Dragoneer]

So, we've been talking among ourselves and we've decided that it's about time that we take a bit of spit and polish and do a nice hardcore overhaul of Fur Affinity's interface.

Not just a lil' tweak here and there but a complete rehaul -- improving things across the board!

Where do you come in?

• Request interface features!
• Propose new color schemes -- and if we pick your scheme as the default, we'll even allow you to name it!
• Express your opinion on the current UI so we can ensure that we can improve upon the areas you want most!

The project estimate is at about one month from now, and we plan on getting changes worked on ASAP. So, lend us your ear and your opinion! FA is about community, and we want to make sure we can accomodate you the best we can!

Post thumbnails, pics, suggestions, highlights, whatever! All will be read, all will be considered (and yes, if we pick and choose your suggestion, full credit will go to you on the site!).

 

[duncan]

The one feature that I've wanted for a while:

Within each submission, the ability -- either publicly or privately -- to see which users have favorited it. Unless the submitter saves all the "favorites" notifications it's really hard to remember who did. And it'd be an incredibly nice networking feature to check out which users liked a particular artist's piece.

Other ideas:

- Archiving shouts that have scrolled past the display number.
- A less temperamental way of pulling up the full version of the image. Right now you click on the thumbnail, and you *might* get kicked to the larger image. Or you might not. It's a crapshoot.
- The ability to have submitters flag whether or not they're the one responsible for the image uploaded. Too many times I've seen submissions by a member and think, "Hey, this guy's pretty darn good...I should watch them" and then realize all the user's doing is uploading commissions and gifts other artists gave to them.

This is just off the top of my head.

-- Duncan

 

[yak]

- A less temperamental way of pulling up the full version of the image. Right now you click on the thumbnail, and you *might* get kicked to the larger image. Or you might not. It's a crapshoot.

Done.

 

[Dragoneer]

Personal List of Wants/Needs:

• Less intrusive "admin shouts" by makin the admin/site news more apparent and visible to all users. It's always been a pet peeve of mine having that stuck up there under admin notices. I think it would be better to reserve it for truly high priority matters.
• Toggable pages. Aka, if a user doesn't want to have the "commissions" info tab open, they can turn it off... so people don't have to see it. This will make the page have more meaning and give commissioning artists more visibility.
• Gallery for users to post fan art to.
• Gallery for users to post Second Life screenshots to.
• Enhanced user info -- adding options for "contact" info like Skype, Wii Code, Xbox Life, Jabber, Livejournal.

I'll add more as I think of them.

 

[Azul]

One feature that may help: Search option! I feel bad about the fact that I don't know why it was removed in the first place. And as for a color scehme, how about orange and gray?

I pray that helps.

 

[capthavoc123]

A section for a user ID would be nice, kind of like what they have on deviantART.

 

[dave hyena]

Nav links bar put under the messagething a la:

It puts everything one needs to click on most in one place.

Perhaps it can be combined w/ what preyfar suggests above and the admin notice bar can be removed,reduced or placed elsewhere to allow fr. more room for it.

 

[foxfeather]

(Updated species list!) would be really nice - An expanded commission page would be really nice, perhaps with thumbnails and a price range, something like that. And I definitely agree with some way to easily/visibly mark pieces that are commissions and not actual artwork, it can be frustrating to be looking at a gallery then realize the person didn't do any of the art - it would be great to be able to see that at a glance.

 

[Psycho333]

1. Search returned to us! ((If we want to find something specific))

2. Gore/kill art in it's own catagory instead of it being with "Other Fetishes" ((It'll make browsing easier))

3. have multiple color schemes ((Like maybe a Sonic based one a Digimon based one a violence one etc etc etc)) and allow the user to choose

4. this one is important but if were registered to FA ((The place witht he art)) shouldnt we automatically be registered to here as well?

 

[SkieFire]

• A "what's new" portal page, customized based on your watched users and what the system might think you may like. Kind of like "outlook today", showing the newest submissions from the artists you have watched. It could also look at other users who have very similar watch lists as you (therefore assuming you like the same styles) and then serve up things from users that aren't on your radar but are on other peoples with similar tastes lists (or just have users specify tastes and have stuff randomly thrown up at them from the pool)
• The ability to track comments to a submission. If I commission someone, I'd like to see what comments the piece gets without having to re-check it.
• The darker colour scheme should be the default, or any new scheme should stay on the darker side of things.
• Have 18+ submissions show up, but not clickable and the thumbnail replaced with a warning sign if someone has the option to view them disabled. I bet plenty of people miss a lot of things simply because nothing shows up, instead of an indication that the item is there and just not visible under current settings.
• Fix the broken tags on the Journal overview page.
  

 

[dave hyena]

(Updated species list!)

2. Gore/kill art in it's own catagory instead of it being with "Other Fetishes" ((It'll make browsing easier))
...
4. this one is important but if were registered to FA ((The place witht he art)) shouldnt we automatically be registered to here as well?

A tag system will be introduced in the ferrox update, & the species list and category will be replaced by the aforementioned tags I believe.

As for four, the forums are on a seperate server so that people can be directed here when FA is down for maintence and the like, and considering how many forum regulars there are versus the number of people on FA proper, it's just not worth making everyone on FA registered on here, or so I have heard.

 

[SFox]

I'd like to be able to choose which favorite is displayed on your user page. (sort of like the featured submission thing)
Also, when an artist deletes an image, a dead link to it remains in your favorites list. Would it be possible to have these removed automatically?

 

[kjorteo]

Seconding already-mentioned calls for seeing who favorited something, returning the search, and fixing anything that's currently broken.

Also adding: GROUPS. That was the biggest thing I missed after moving here from Y!Gallery.

 

[Kanga274]

I would like to see

Search box for - To look up Users, To Look Up Art, stories, or poems that have keywords

Keywords - I like to see that you Have to Put a Keyword in.

Journals - If the Journal has been up for more then say half a year to a year with no comments being posted anymore. Its automacticly deleted, or a note is sent to the user first saying it will be deleted in 15 - 30 days.

Users - To allow other people to join and have an account they want. I think, Any User that hasnt logged on in at least a year and a half. There should be sent a email to the registered user to that account saying that there account could face deletion if they dont log back in 60 to 90 days.

With that stuff done, I think there will be less server down time too in the long run.

Also, I think if the user could pick there own background color for there user page. and Colored Text.

 

[Dragoneer]

I'd like to be able to choose which favorite is displayed on your user page. (sort of like the featured submission thing)

I'm sure that can be arrangred. What if it were something like an "All time favorite" and then your regular favs, too?

 

[Torin_Darkflight]

There's a couple things I mentioned a year or so back that I feel are worth repeating.

To begin, here's a little scenario to explain the first idea. Let's say someone on AIM sends me a link to an adult-themed artist on FA. I click it, and the page loads. But, of course, it won't let me look at their art because I'm not logged in yet. So, I then click the Login link at the top, enter my username and password, and it logs me in. It then gives me a "Continue" link to click on...which takes me to the main index page. Ok, now I gotta open the AIM window again and click the link my friend sent me a second time to get back to the page I wanted to view in the first place.

That's how it is right now. It's kinda annoying. My suggestion is this: when you log in, it should remember where you were before logging in, and send you back there instead of the main index. For example, let's say I'm viewing the artist page for DannyDog, but I'm not logged in. When I click the Login link, it should include code that lets it remember where I just was. Thus, after the login is complete, when I click the Continue link, it should send me back to DannyDog's page instead of the main index.

--------------------------------

The second idea is for when the search function comes back, a sort of "automated" search function, a feature that automatically alerts you when any new submissions matching certain keywords are posted, even if the uploader is not on your watch list. For example, I am a huge Spyro fan. At least once every few days back when the search was working, I would regularly do a search for Spyro to see if there was any new Spyro art on FA. I also would do occasional searches for other favorite keywords (Bowser, Flamedramon, etc). Now, instead of having to manually do those searches, it would be nice if there was an area in the control panel where I could enter my various search terms, and have the system automatically search for them like once every few days or so. If any new results are found, it would then alert me through the messages area, allowing me to view the thumbnails. Think of it as a sort of watch list for search results.

Here's a screenshot that kinda shows what I'm getting at. It's a year old, so this particular screenshot doesn't quite match the current cosmetic style of the site. But, it at least gets the idea across:

 

[foxfeather]

Very cool, tags will be a nice feature. I look forward to that!

 

[Cyberhorn]

i rather liked the april 1st colors thus a choice of color themes would be a great addition as well as a
better list of species

my 2 bits worth of statement

 

[AndyFox]

Em... not to sound confused or anything, but isn't Project Ferrox suppse to be a UI re-design anyway? Why do it twice, or is Ferrox being broken up into smaller pieces to make it easier to complete?

One thing I've thought would be nice is having user-managed personal folders for organizing your own art into, like being able to have a folder for fan art, or a folder for each of your characters, or a folder for commissions and a folder for art requests. That way if you have 200 pieces of art and someone is only looking for specific things they can just browse one of your art folders.

 

[Dragoneer]

Em... not to sound confused or anything, but isn't Project Ferrox suppse to be a UI re-design anyway? Why do it twice, or is Ferrox being broken up into smaller pieces to make it easier to complete?

A lot of Ferrox was to be backend (e.g. systems). This is mostly going to be an interface update, which can work WITH Ferrox. Frankly, I think we can do a lot more to make the site a bit more visually appealing and easier to use long term.

I just can't go back to the powder blue after our April Fool's dark version. =P There's lots of stuff we need to improve.

 

[SFox]

I'd like to be able to choose which favorite is displayed on your user page. (sort of like the featured submission thing)

I'm sure that can be arrangred. What if it were something like an "All time favorite" and then your regular favs, too?

Yeah, like that.
That would be great.

 

[Dragoneer]

i rather liked the april 1st colors thus a choice of color themes would be a great addition as well as a
better list of species

my 2 bits worth of statement

Read the latest news post. The Dark Edition of Fa is selectable option.

 

[AllenR]

This:

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y233/allenr/Clipboard02.jpg

Should probably have the same design as this.

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y233/allenr/Clipboard01.jpg

Also, the lack of the ability to delete journals past 15 journals should be fixed.

Regarding the whole thing about "users uploading pics they've gotten as commissions or gifts." I think they should probably keeps this as a not allowed policy. Because half the people who would probably use this would end up double posting the same image, and the majority of people probably wouldn't use the feature anyway and just end up submitting it as regular art.

 

[Psycho333]

(Updated species list!)

2. Gore/kill art in it's own catagory instead of it being with "Other Fetishes" ((It'll make browsing easier))
...
4. this one is important but if were registered to FA ((The place witht he art)) shouldnt we automatically be registered to here as well?

A tag system will be introduced in the ferrox update, & the species list and category will be replaced by the aforementioned tags I believe.

As for four, the forums are on a seperate server so that people can be directed here when FA is down for maintence and the like, and considering how many forum regulars there are versus the number of people on FA proper, it's just not worth making everyone on FA registered on here, or so I have heard.

Well the FA forum idea was to make it easier to post here without having to register again but you probibly have a point

and thanks for stating that they'll add a gore/kill art section ((personally gore/kill art and vore are my two fave kinds of art))

as for Search any idea when that's comming back ((It's been gone for as long as I've been here)) Maybe dumping the lost search and replacing it with a new one is an option

 

[SkieFire]

Regarding the whole thing about "users uploading pics they've gotten as commissions or gifts." I think they should probably keeps this as a not allowed policy. Because half the people who would probably use this would end up double posting the same image, and the majority of people probably wouldn't use the feature anyway and just end up submitting it as regular art.

That gives me an idea, actually. How about an area on the userpage that would be like favourites, but more self contained that could show work done by other users but displayed in your gallery too? Say if someone uploads a commission they have done for someone, they can tick a box and enter the commissioners username and it will then automatically appear in that area on the commissioners page. Give them a different colour border and make the artists user icon show up under the image itself.

Dosent duplicate the image, comments or anything and gets rid of people re-uploading commissioned pieces.