FA Project: UI Overhaul

[katz]

I suggest allowing the use of custom Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for the page, other than having some ready ones.
This will give people the chance to set each and every color in the site to their liking.
Also if done so there should be a dedicated forum thread for posting these styles and previews of them, so any interested people, not familiar with coding would choose from them.
Though a little more php code will be necessary it will cut some html work and open room for improvements.

Also I think I still remember how to code a dynamic GD2 image. I believe I write a simple image with a avatar (either the current or user-selected) and statistics of the total pics, pageviews, watches etc.
It's simple enough. And the GD module is already loaded in the server, since it generates it's own thumbnails.

 

[Rhainor]

...

It has been said, repeatedly, that the species drop-down list will be removed altogether with the switch to Ferrox, to be replaced by submitter-specified tags.

 

[silver_raccoon]

...

It has been said, repeatedly, that the species drop-down list will be removed altogether with the switch to Ferrox, to be replaced by submitter-specified tags.

thats wonderful, until i see it happen i remain skeptical however. To address the rest of my post, what about the forums? why is it kept seperate from the rest of the site? I am not a forum whore, most of the times i have posted here it was about the problems previously mentioned. and it is quite annoying to have to log in twice. and once i am here its a whole other world. none of the styles follow me, my userpic is somwhere else, and even though i post quite a bit to FA, when i come here i have that infuriating "pup" hovering under my name, it might as well say "N00b t4rdLOL" or something equally obnoxious.
just sayin'

 

[dragonfan]

You need to add a lot more species to the pulldown list when browsing, or at least organize them into better categories.  There is no obvious choice for example for rabbit, which is a pretty big oversight right there if you ask me.


Here are some suggestions:

Armadillo
Badger
Bat
Bear
Beaver
Bird
Pig
Elephant
Fish
Hippo
Camel
Shark
Sheep

Cats:
House Cat, Leopard, Panther, Cougar, Lion, Tiger

Canids:
Dog, Wolf, Fox, Coyote, Dingo

Marine Mammals:
Dolphin, Orca, Whale, Seal, Manatee

Mustelids:
Ferret, Skunk, Otter

Rodentia:
Squirrel, Rabbit, Chinchilla, Hamster, Mouse, Rat, Meerkat, Raccoon, Porcupine

Amphibians:
Frog, Toad, Salamander, Turtle, Tortoise

Australian:
Kangaroo, Platypus, Koala, Dingo, Wombat

Hooved:
Horse, Zebra, Giraffe, Cow, Donkey, Mule, Deer, Moose, Elk, Antelope

Lizards:
Crocodile/Alligator, Gecko, Chameleon, Snake, Dinosaur

Mystical:
Gryphon, Dragon-Western, Dragon-Eastern, Unicorn, Werewolf, Centaur, Gargoyle

Cartoon:
Digimon, Pokemon, Sonic


I would also add an "other" option to each category, and allow a user to select other when browsing and select the category name to for example, get all Canids.

i agree with you on this suggestion it's more open than the old feature.

 

[Gronthar]

High Importance:

• Fix tagging & Filters. Auto suggest common tags (like Flickr and other taging sites) so we don't have 30 variations on the same theme.
• Add the ability to "dismiss" announcements.
• Ability to flag users & submissions for TOS/AUP violations for systematic admin review.
• Add the ability to make user pages accessible only to logged-in or adult users.

Stuff that I'm semi-expecting:

• Ability to watch submissions, Scraps, and Journals Separately
• Folders (so we can sort our stuff)
• Groups (for character fan clubs, themed works, and community projects)
• A cleaner UI. (Or at least code your pages so every DIV has it's own ID and CLASS so the layout can be changed using CSS). I'd tried making my own style sheets using greasemonkey scripts... but all one can really do is change the color. 0.o;

Stuff That would be nice:

• The ability to have previous and next links for serialized submissions in a folder. (Like Comics or transformations sequences.)
• Ability to add a poll instead of or addition to comments. (Might encourage feedback better than a comment box. And sometimes people just want a "thumbs up/thumbs down/not my thing" instead of an actual critique.)
• More Color Themes.

Stuff That would be Awesome but I don't expect:

• Ability to just use the rss feed from blogs/livejournals for your journal posts in FA. Maybe even set up something to FA updates your journals when it gets pinged.
• Ability to get an RSS feed of your messages (submissions, comments, journals, and notes.... but you'd still need to log in to the site to see them though).
• Ability to make your submissions viewable only to users whose age has been verified. Of course, that's exceptionally tricky. :3 But I'd toss my vote in anyways.

 

[robomilk]

Sukebepanda, Arrow: *smiles* do you have any CSS editing skills? I'm going to be pretty busy with other stuff, and will probably not have time for custom styles, unless they're delivered on a plate.

Hell, CSS is my specialty! I've coded 238 lines of it just today!

I'm also a whiz at (X)HTML, however PHP and Javascript are still damn hard to me >.<

 

[dave hyena]

what about the forums? why is it kept seperate from the rest of the site?

The forums are on a seperate server so that people can be directed here when FA is down for maintence and the like.

Futhermore, 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.

 

[Fennex]

I suggest allowing the use of custom Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for the page, other than having some ready ones...

I really like this idea. Unfortunately very few people know enough css for this. And the HTML is so heavily table based right now that style sheets can't be used for anything more than color changes.
An alternative might be letting the user choose the base colors.



as for a more concrete suggestion:
http://www.furaffinity.net/view/###/
Right now a bit of javascript is used to load the full version of a big thumbnail when you click on it.
linke this:

<td class="alt2" align="left" valign="top">
  <script type="text/javascript">
    var small_url = "http://data.furaffinity.net/art/username/###.xxx.jpg";
    var full_url  = "http://data.furaffinity.net/art/username/###.half.xxx.jpg";
    var is_full = 0;

    function xor_view() {
      var url = "";

      if (is_full == 1) {
          is_full = 0;
          url = full_url;
      }
      else {
          is_full = 1;
          url = small_url;
      }
      return url;
    }
  </script>
  <img id="submissionImg" title="Click to change the View" alt="Detail preview" src="http://data.furaffinity.net/art/username/###.half.xxx.jpg" onclick="javascript: this.src=xor_view();" style="cursor: pointer;">
</td>

But when javascript is disabled that won't work. (even though the tooltip and the cursor tell the user it should work)

By changing the code a bit, it can work even with javascript disabled, or when the user chooses to open the full view in a separate tab or window:

<td class="alt2" align="left" valign="top">
  <script type="text/javascript">
    var small_url = "http://data.furaffinity.net/art/username/###.xxx.jpg";
    var full_url  = "http://data.furaffinity.net/art/username/###.half.xxx.jpg";
    var is_full = 0;

    function xor_view() {
      var url = "";

      if (is_full == 1) {
          is_full = 0;
          url = full_url;
      }
      else {
          is_full = 1;
          url = small_url;
      }
      document.getElementById('summissionImg').src = url;
    }
  </script>
  <a href="http://www.furaffinity.net/full/###/" onclick="xor_view(); return false;">
    <img id="submissionImg" title="Click to change the View" alt="Detail preview" src="http://data.furaffinity.net/art/username/###.half.xxx.jpg">
  </a>
</td>

Nitpicky, I know, but it can avoid a lot of confusion.

 

[BuddhaBurn3rr]

I'd like for the gender tab to have more options, such as girl on girl, and guy on guy

 

[AllenR]

Dragoneer and anyone who has used OpenCanvas 1.1 should understand this request.

1) Give OpenCanvas its own category (alongside, traditional and digitalart, etc)

2)Allow OpenCanvas category to open up the option to post EVENT FILES (.wpe I believe) as attachments along with the actual image.

Those replay files, so that people with opencanvas may have the option to download them and then watch them in Opencanvas... Um... That's it..

I'm curious as to how large these replay files can get. Because if they're going to be a couple of megs and up, several artists posting quite an amount of them could be hell on the server. But if they're not very large then I don't see why not.

 

[Taoren]

hehe well id like to suggest a couple of things that i think would be a great addition to the whole community...

1) Groups - i think these will boost up a bit the community spirit and bond people together, i know it sounds cheesy but still... users will communicate more amongst each other. ... but then again i just know a lot of people will make 10 same groups and then fight which "same themed" group is the best XD

2)i support that OC event file idea... i uploaded mine to box.net and then provided a link in the description but i dont think its noticeable enough...

3)Adding species "Rabbit" to the list

4)on Y!Gallery was a method to submit a art piece that is a collaboration or giftart between artists and when that drawing is submitted both names that worked on the piece are seen and they both receive comment and favorites notifications... i am sure SOMEONE knows what the hell i'm talking about...

5) whatever you do dont add the "Popular" page! the popular page can motivate people to submit more and work harder and all that but it always turns out to be a popularity contest

well thats all of my ideas... i wanted to suggest change of themes but i guess we already got that and i am happy :3

thanks for reading

 

[SFox]

I'm curious as to how large these replay files can get. Because if they're going to be a couple of megs and up, several artists posting quite an amount of them could be hell on the server. But if they're not very large then I don't see why not.

Yeah they go up in the megs.
I do not agree with the idea, it could end up increasing bandwidth and space usage by a significant amount.

 

[DominusLudus]

1. I'd like an option in the Account Settings that allows people to see Mature artwork, but not Adult.

2. The FA banner should be customizable. In other words, users could use their own banner for their own page, if they wish to.

3. A functional search engine with keywords would be nice.

4. This may seem a little trivial, but I feel that there should be more options in the "Species" list when categorizing a submission.

That's it.

 

[Growly]

Keeeee-rist, I wish people would read before they post "add more species to dropdown list!" and "get search back up!"

 

[dave hyena]

Keeeee-rist, I wish people would read before they post "add more species to dropdown list!" and "get search back up!"

Putting in a list of the most common things (species lists, search etc) & how ferrox will deal with them in the first post might help, since I expect a lot of people are following in the link from the main site and just looking at the first page/post.

 

[AllenR]

Keeeee-rist, I wish people would read before they post "add more species to dropdown list!" and "get search back up!"

Agreed. Dragoneer, I might advise that you should maybe update your first post with things that have already been suggested and noted.

Edit: Curse you Dave beating me to it by 2 minutes.

 

[sad_kathras]

How about this:

Your pages have an XML version tag on the top, but fail to be valid XML. I think the problem lies in the tooltip code, as you've got unescaped angle brackets hanging out in the onmouseover/out attributes. Replacing them with &lt; and &gt; would make my life as someone writing an object model for FA a lot easier (I don't care about standards.)

Then again, I'm writing an object model so I don't have to use the FA website interface and so I can implement features you guys haven't done yet, like watches that don't show up on a watch list, richer support for non-image or Flash content (RTF, Word documents, plain text, embedded archives), search, filters, customized user pages, and anything else I can think of. Also because then people can operate on FA's data from code, which is something only a dork like me would ever do.

 

[Fieron]

Dragoneer and anyone who has used OpenCanvas 1.1 should understand this request.

1) Give OpenCanvas its own category (alongside, traditional and digitalart, etc)

2)Allow OpenCanvas category to open up the option to post EVENT FILES (.wpe I believe) as attachments along with the actual image.

Those replay files, so that people with opencanvas may have the option to download them and then watch them in Opencanvas... Um... That's it..

I Aprove of this message

 

[foxystallion]

I don't seem to be able to Save Private Messages that I have sent. This would be a handy feature, especially for keeping track of commissions. At present, I have to select the outgoing message text, and paste it into a text file. This is an unnecessary hassle. The disk storage space required to Save outgoing PMs would be trivial.

Go to your notes, look left, and click on "Outbox."

 

[foxystallion]

Thank you. I didn't think that it was working because I erroniously expected the message to be moved from the Outbox to Saved rather than duplicated to Saved. Since it was still in the Outbox, I thought that Save wasn't working. Many thanks!

 

[Shira]

1. Tags, as opposed to a fixed list of categories. No matter how many categories one tries to put into a list, there's going to be an omission or variation that isn't accounted for.

2. User-definable styles or colors. Even if it's just something as simple as allowing users to define exactly what colors they want for the various elements of the page, it would solve a lot of debate over which style is better.

3. Put all the links in one place. Keep the links in a consistent place on each page. Right now, the "nav links" jump around depending on where on the website you are, and it's quite annoying having to guess where the "browse" button is going to be.

4. Allow users to specify who the actual artist of a given submission is. That is, allow a "created by" attribution for those who frequently upload work commissioned of their characters. This could also be useful to allow artists to credit all contributers to a collaborative work or an OC session.

5. Fix and re-enable things that are currently disabled, such as filters and search.

6. Improve the story uploads. That is, actually display the contents of an RTF or DOC file, and possibly support additional formats such as HTML (with inappropriate tags scrubbed, of course; no need to allow things like scripting when text is the focus of a story).

7. Anything that can be done to improve the performance of the site. It's running a lot smoother these days, but hey, faster is always better. This is why we love broadband, isn't it?

I'm sure there are other things I can think of, but I'm heading to bed. *thud*

Oh, by the way

Keeeee-rist, I wish people would read before they post "add more species to dropdown list!" and "get search back up!"

Putting in a list of the most common things (species lists, search etc) & how ferrox will deal with them in the first post might help, since I expect a lot of people are following in the link from the main site and just looking at the first page/post.

Actually, I did exactly that: I clicked the link, skimmed the first post, then posted this. I'd think of it as reinforcing the message or casting another vote for these particular items instead of just mindless repetition.

 

[Dragoneer]

1. Tags, as opposed to a fixed list of categories. No matter how many categories one tries to put into a list, there's going to be an omission or variation that isn't accounted for.

I think it would possible to use tags right now, even if they are not implemented. That would be Yak and Crypto's call though.

2. User-definable styles or colors. Even if it's just something as simple as allowing users to define exactly what colors they want for the various elements of the page, it would solve a lot of debate over which style is better.

I am going to veto this right now, and flat out say NO. I have seen other sites do it, and some users come up with some rainbow guacomole mutation that looks like it got shot out of a clown's ass going 90MPH. Needless to say: it's ugly.

I funny understand wanting to come up with a combination that's inheritly personal and reflects your style, but... I'd rather users be able to select a color style that displays on THEIR page out of some selections, but I'd rather FA have a somewhat consistant look.

3. Put all the links in one place. Keep the links in a consistent place on each page. Right now, the "nav links" jump around depending on where on the website you are, and it's quite annoying having to guess where the "browse" button is going to be.

That's a big part of it, and to make the UI as efficient as it can be.

5. Fix and re-enable things that are currently disabled, such as filters and search.

I think filters should be the higher priority in this instance. I KNOW everybody wants search back, but it's not as simple as flipping a switch.

6. Improve the story uploads. That is, actually display the contents of an RTF or DOC file, and possibly support additional formats such as HTML (with inappropriate tags scrubbed, of course; no need to allow things like scripting when text is the focus of a story).

Actually, I want to remove story uploads altogether, and let users post "text" which they can format in FA using BBCode tags to add bold, text, selections, etc. I think it's a much more efficient format.

7. Anything that can be done to improve the performance of the site. It's running a lot smoother these days, but hey, faster is always better. This is why we love broadband, isn't it?

That's a big aspect of this. =) Make a more efficient UI and remove inefficiency.

 

[Zekumas]

Here is an idea....adding a auto log-out feature set for a predetermined period of time.....Yahoo has an option that keeps you logged in for two weeks before logging you out automatically.

 

[crabby_the_frog]

Yes, I've thought of another one.

PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make "Digital Colorist" as an occupation. I have writer down, but I don't write anymore. I can't do artist sice I can't draw, but I can color... digitally.

Either that or add a customizable tag on the main site like here on the forums.

 

[Zjonni]

I'm not liking the lack of user icon/creator popups on mouseover from the 'Browse' page today. It's pretty difficult to judge quality from those tiny little thumbnails of the art, so in the past I tend to just mouse over anything I'm unsure of. If I recognize the artist's name and know I like their work, I clicky. If I recognize the artist name and it makes me want to bleach my memory, I don't clicky. Now there's no way to tell...If you are trying to make page loads faster/less resources then skip the icon and add a artist-name in addition to the image title beneath the thumb.