FA Project: UI Overhaul

[yak]

Actually, a more convenient way has been implemented a couple days ago: http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/41799/

Wow, a news post should be added when the site is updated. I've been wanting something like that, and I had no idea. o.0 But thanks for that new functionality! :3

That's what I get for not +watching yak. So now there's two ways to do it.
--PCJ

I'm always opened to suggestions, as far as text parsing on FA goes. It's an easy thing to do and takes a small amount of time, so i can get it working quickly.

As for site updates, i usually note them on my journal and the Changelog thread. I really can't spend more time updating some other places

 

[blotch]

First off, here's an idea for a new FA default skin! If it wins, I'd called it "Leopards Totally Pwn Hyenas."
[attachment=1207]

Anyway, seriously, I think the way Private Notes are handled is a pain. I admit after I read one, I sort of forget it ever existed and so if I don't reply right away, the chances of me rememebring to later are slim...Also, it's sort of a round about way to get to them if I have no new ones. Not really sure how to fix this without making it all too extensive or obtrusive, but just something I've had a headache or two over.

Making the Commissions Tab an option, off by default, would be fabulous. Also, I think it needs a little more work to be functionable--perhaps a way to upload a couple "portfolio" pieces to it (ArtSpots has something similar, you can pick your 5 "best" works to display on your main page. If in the commissions tab, you could display some samples of past commissions, it would be nice.)
Also, it's been said but more options, even just a thumbnail of the "examples" would make it a lot more useful.

Personally, the only "tab" I'd add other than one for screen caps/Second Life would be something for gift art or trades from other people. They could automatically upload like "scraps" so they don't show on the main page and possibly double spam.
Along the same vein you could have a tab just for commissions, but since a lot of people who dont draw upload commissions, as opposed to artists who upload their own art AND trades/gifts etc, maybe just making commissions "flagged" as "not my art" would be the best solution.

Lastly, how about letting us write HTML into journals? ;] It'd be nice to link to something without have a huuuuuge string of a URL. Could even be FA specific, something similar to the user icon tag :iconUSER: -- I know I for one sometimes link back in my journal to older pieces on FA that are either for sale, or have limited prints, etc.... though, HTML tags in journals would be for the win.

 

[dave hyena]

Lastly, how about letting us write HTML into journals? ;] It'd be nice to link to something without have a huuuuuge string of a URL.

FA automatically compresses great long URLS down. You can also use BB code in journals:

{url=yoururlhere} this is a short URL thingy{/url}

(replacing { w/ [)

Check out Yak's journal for more infomation on this kind of thing and a list of what you can do:

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/41799/

 

[blotch]

Check out Yak's journal for more infomation on this kind of thing and a list of what you can do:

http://www.furaffinity.net/journal/41799/

Aaah, thank you! That makes my life a little less messy. Every bit helps. ;]

 

[yak]

First off, here's an idea for a new FA default skin! If it wins, I'd called it "Leopards Totally Pwn Hyenas."

I kind of like it.
If you'd make an image of the spots patters that could tile horizontally and vertically.... :roll:

Anyway, seriously, I think the way Private Notes are handled is a pain. I admit after I read one, I sort of forget it ever existed and so if I don't reply right away, the chances of me rememebring to later are slim...

How's about flagging, like most of the email clients can do?
You just click the message and it becomes flagged, click again and the flag is removed. Simple yet convenient.

The whole on-site messaging system requires a serious revamp anyway, and as many suggestion we can gather about it, the better it will come out in the end. It could possibly expand to include emails later, be it sending or receiving, but don't get your hopes up just yet, this is a suggestion like any other

Also, it's sort of a round about way to get to them if I have no new ones. Not really sure how to fix this without making it all too extensive or obtrusive, but just something I've had a headache or two over.

You can always type furaffinity.net/msg/pms in the URL bar, but i understand what you're saying. Perhaps display the number of new notes constantly, even if their number is zero? That's the first thing i can think off, and the easiest to do.

Making the Commissions Tab an option, off by default, would be fabulous. Also, I think it needs a little more work to be functionable--perhaps a way to upload a couple "portfolio" pieces to it (ArtSpots has something similar, you can pick your 5 "best" works to display on your main page. If in the commissions tab, you could display some samples of past commissions, it would be nice.)
Also, it's been said but more options, even just a thumbnail of the "examples" would make it a lot more useful.

That section is actually underdeveloped and is /known/ to be broken, so i'm a bit surprised people actually use it, and it works for them.

 

[blotch]

I kind of like it.
If you'd make an image of the spots patters that could tile horizontally and vertically.

First off, here's an idea for a new FA default skin! If it wins, I'd called it "Leopards Totally Pwn Hyenas."

Pass it on to Dragoneer then and we'll get 'er rolling! ;]

Perhaps display the number of new notes constantly, even if their number is zero? That's the first thing i can think off, and the easiest to do.

That'd be a pretty nice, quick solution. Saves a step getting to read notes that way. I could type it in too I suppose, but I'm just sooo lazy! ;]
Maybe next you could engineer an FA UI that just posts porn whenever I think about it?

Making the Commissions Tab -- blah blah

That section is actually underdeveloped and is /known/ to be broken, so i'm a bit surprised people actually use it, and it works for them.

I figured it was a known issue, but thought I'd drop in my two cents. I'm happy with the way you guys have really tried to make the site not only user friendly, but also artist friendly. :]

Thanks for the answers!
Cheers,
-Blotch

 

[Archet]

This is probably outside the scope of the current reconstruction, but one thing I really miss from FA's first incarnation is the username-first format for the files. That made it so much easier to sort files I had saved to my PC; just hit 'sort by name' and the job was already done. The current setup, with the number soup first, is completely useless in that respect.

On the UI end, there's only a few things that personally bug me now that the mouseovers are fixed. One is the lack of a specific date on submissions. It's anal, I admit, but I'd much rather see 'Submitted on: xx/xx/xxxx' than the current 'On FA for: period of time'.

Also, an opt-out of sorts for the image size limit would be nice. There's been more than a few times that an artist I watch has tried to post a purposefully large work- usually one that was only oversized in one dimension- only to have it get shrunk down to muddled illegibility. I'm all for weeding out the people who post wallpaper-sized raw scans of their rough doodles, but the across-the-board restriction really seems like the laziest way to do it. An 'oversized image' checkbox on the submission page triggering mod review or something along those lines would at least let through the pictures that actually need to be that big.

Lastly, I definitely like the idea of turning off the Commisions tab if a person isn't using it. Would it also be possible to turn off other unused tabs? It'd be nice to be able to see at a glance if a person isn't using the scraps gallery, for instance. And I'd like to add my assent to the suggestions for subfolders, moving the navigation panel back to the top, and the OC thing. (Not that I use OC, but what the hell, eh?)

 

[lolcox]

This is probably outside the scope of the current reconstruction, but one thing I really miss from FA's first incarnation is the username-first format for the files. That made it so much easier to sort files I had saved to my PC; just hit 'sort by name' and the job was already done. The current setup, with the number soup first, is completely useless in that respect.

Seconded.
As it stands, I had to go through with a regexp to move files from the general "one-click saves" folder on my computer, into the hierarchical preference that I use, and I had to make sure that it didn't accidentally pick up stray names when I did that (for example, if Strider_Orion did an image for Scappo, and gave it a file name that includes `Scappo` in it, my regexp had better be looking for a delimiter after an artist's name, so that when I go through alphabetically, because Scappo comes before Strider, it doesn't end up in Scappo's folder).

It'd be far easier if the number soup were done in the old way from the earlier versions of FA:
username_numbersoup_filename.ext
(or, better yet, drop that number soup altogether. it makes no sense, since you're already sanitizing the names by adding the user's name in front of them, so two people can upload fluffy-kitty.jpg, and they'll still get their respective file. if one person uploads two fluffy-kitty.jpg, then stop 'em on the second one, say "hey, you're already using the same file name. do you want to update the first picture with this file, or would you like to make this into a new submission?" and go from there.)


Other things that I want:

1. A switch, to turn comments display on, or off. -- This goes without saying. Try browsing FA on a mobile device, and looking at a popular artist's page. Hahahaha, NO.
2. Flexible. Valid. Semantic. XHTML. -- I've been asking for this for a while, and since you're asking for things that we think would improve FA's UI... This, combined with the above commentary switch would improve FA's UI tremendously.
3. HOSE the mouseover on the main page. -- Thankyouthankyouthankyou for killing that mouseover with fire on the browse page, and for pretty much dampening it down to just an avatar on the messages page. But it still exists on the main page.
4. Please, FTLOG, remember my browse preferences. It'd be nice to not have to constantly set it to 64 when I'm on a regular computer.
5. This one's off the wall, but, perhaps, a way to log in on a mobile browser, without punting the home browser off FA, requiring a log in there. This causes me to pingpong myself between the two logins. So far, I've gone around this by creating a second account for my phone, but then I'd have to check it at home to comment on pics.

 

[yak]

On the UI end, there's only a few things that personally bug me now that the mouseovers are fixed. One is the lack of a specific date on submissions. It's anal, I admit, but I'd much rather see 'Submitted on: xx/xx/xxxx' than the current 'On FA for: period of time'.

Hover it. It was there from the very moment the dates were changed in this 'fuzzy' format.

 

[yak]

In response to lolcox.

FA 'user handles' do not contain underscores, so splitting over the first one encountered will guarate you parse out the correct user name.
The current format is *UNIX_TIMESTAMP* . *USER_HANDLE* _ *SUBMISSION_TITLE.replace(' ',_)* . *EXT*
*ALL* the files on the server are stored internally in this format, so changing it isn't something trivial.

(d{10}).([^_]+)_(.+).([wd]{3,4})$

$2___$3.$4

Will turn something like 1176391633.vera_verapeeweebarnhole.jpg to vera___verapeeweebarnhole.jpg

I am not going to be suggesting the right tool for the job, since their use is preferential, you pick it yourself. There are plenty of batch file re-namers out there, and most of them understand regexps.

 

[lolcox]

On the UI end, there's only a few things that personally bug me now that the mouseovers are fixed. One is the lack of a specific date on submissions. It's anal, I admit, but I'd much rather see 'Submitted on: xx/xx/xxxx' than the current 'On FA for: period of time'.

Hover it. It was there from the very moment the dates were changed in this 'fuzzy' format.

Then, um, let's make that an option too. The furry dates are okay, but they have their limitations. I do like the real date a fair bit better than the furry dates.

 

[reaux[no verification e-mail]]

ok, i didn't read through every page here, so this might've been mentioned. but! it would be cool to have some sort of filter thing for irl pic of people, so they don't show up on the main page when i just want to browse through art. even a category to choose, like "pictures of yourself" or "pictures of friends" would be neat. there seems to be a growing trend of artists/members taking pics of themselves and posting them--which is cool--but it would be great to be able to look at JUST pictures of folks, or JUST art.

honestly, i don't like the myspace-y feel of clicking the browse button and seeing 87648 pictures of people. :lol:

 

[Rimpala]

Well... I definately want to see the "Watersports (adult)" filter fixed of course

Maybe some "species" filters for hoofed species, and dinosaurs and fender

In case you want to browse Fender art

 

[robomilk]

(or, better yet, drop that number soup altogether. it makes no sense, since you're already sanitizing the names by adding the user's name in front of them, so two people can upload fluffy-kitty.jpg, and they'll still get their respective file. if one person uploads two fluffy-kitty.jpg, then stop 'em on the second one, say "hey, you're already using the same file name. do you want to update the first picture with this file, or would you like to make this into a new submission?" and go from there.)

No. Not good for people like me. I have previously uploaded art with the same filenames. (Blame my art indexing method.)

 

[Tinintri]

One tiny thing, if I may interject again, that would be nice if anyone hasn't already brought it up...

On people's pages, under their info, the favorite link never work correctly. It ends up giving a 404. Say you link to www.myspace.com. When clicked, the link brings up http://www.furaffinity.net/user/____/www.myspace.com

Just a tiny thing.

 

[yuriatayde]

I hope these weren't suggested already but I may have missed it, that's alot of reading material and I sorta skimmed.

1) Mouseovering occasionally extends the picture description waaaay off to the right when I'm browsing peoples galleries (I read before clicking) I suggest for the thumnails on the right side of the page to have left aligned popup thingies, so the text box always appears where there is already screen. (it's difficult to scroll right so I can read it while keeping my mouse over the thumbnail so the text box doesn't vanish and shoot my screen back when it returns to normal width)

2) Rejecting watchers. I have a few watchers with over 500, 1000, even 3000 watches! This is not popularity that I want, all they want is for me to return the watch, but I'm not going to do that because I know they're just ignoring everyone anyway. *ahem* I wanna be able to remove them...

 

[Tinintri]

2) Rejecting watchers. I have a few watchers with over 500, 1000, even 3000 watches! This is not popularity that I want, all they want is for me to return the watch, but I'm not going to do that because I know they're just ignoring everyone anyway. *ahem* I wanna be able to remove them...

Ya know, I agree with this in a way as crazy as it may seem. Same crap happens to me and it sucks. I don't watch anyone unless they're a good friend or damn well deserve that watch.

In addition, the comment like "Thanks for the watch" or "Thanks for the fave"... I'd love to see those banished.

 

[Zjonni]

I read every word you typed. Your meaning, while possibly clear to others, was not clear to me. Now it is, and I can say that while you may have preferred the way the mouseovers worked before, you are probably (not definitely, but probably) in the minority on this. I, and most of the people whose comments I have seen on the subject, prefer the new method.

That said, I think there should be a "Mouse-over behavior" option in the user settings, just like the recent light/dark skin option. Having choices is good, everybody can be happy.

Can the condescending attitude, please. I don't expect an apology for your first bit of, but kindly don't continue to huff and snoot.

Now, as far as minority/majority, the majority of the comments on this thread have to do with additions to the UI, not with things people miss...If anything, the greatest majority has to do with resurrecting the filters and with adding species to the species list. There are others querying about the loss of the information previously in mouseover, both in this thread and in other related threads, and even some of the comments which have to do with non-mouseover issues have requesting a 'sort by author' for filenames...Clearly, whose thumb it is matters to some people, as well as the raw image of the thumb itself.

I am not asking for mouseover back. I recognize that it is an additional drag on resources and do like the idea of getting rid of it. I'm asking for the artist name to be appended to the thumb rather than (or along with) the art-title, this presents that useful information at top-level (without need for extra clicking). That's text, and a minor mod. I'll agree that choices are good, but this is a baseline functionality issue: Part of a well-designed thumb gallery is how well it permits a viewer to determine what thumbs they do want to see the full sized version of, and what they don't.

 

[robomilk]

My designing is above average.
My coding (XHTML, CSS) is above average.
My development (PHP, CGI) is absolutely crap.
My web design theory however is top notch. Semantic coding, accessibility, usability and the like. Maybe I could be of some help there.... I also do Web 2.0!

 

[Fennex]

I am not asking for mouseover back. I recognize that it is an additional drag on resources and do like the idea of getting rid of it. I'm asking for the artist name to be appended to the thumb rather than (or along with) the art-title, this presents that useful information at top-level (without need for extra clicking). That's text, and a minor mod. I'll agree that choices are good, but this is a baseline functionality issue: Part of a well-designed thumb gallery is how well it permits a viewer to determine what thumbs they do want to see the full sized version of, and what they don't.

Having the artist name displayed underneath the thumbnail would be nice. But also a part of the issue is the size of the thumbnails, imho. If they would be a little bit bigger it would be so much easier to judge the quality of the submission.

 

[Claw_MacKain]

My suggestion is that it'd be nice to have the member editable userpages again, like the first version of FA, where we could choose our userpage colors and put up our personalized banner.

But another suggestion is one I think is more important, and that is the option to delete comments we've made or the owner of the userpage, submission, or journal commented upon has the option to remove selected messages. This way if there's a missent comment or one we'd like to take back we can just delete it ourselves without having to constantly ask the moderators.

In my case, I'm having to get on FA through proxy sites due to having no computer or my own at the moment, so I'm checking my FA messages at school. Some of the proxy sites cause a hiccuping error that sends out multiple messages just for one send. If I had the option I'd gladly delete the extra messages produced in the error.

 

[yak]

I am not asking for mouseover back. I recognize that it is an additional drag on resources and do like the idea of getting rid of it. I'm asking for the artist name to be appended to the thumb rather than (or along with) the art-title, this presents that useful information at top-level (without need for extra clicking). That's text, and a minor mod. I'll agree that choices are good, but this is a baseline functionality issue: Part of a well-designed thumb gallery is how well it permits a viewer to determine what thumbs they do want to see the full sized version of, and what they don't.

Fair enough, i don't see why not. Though it looks a bit awkward this way.
Actually, if you have better suggestions about each thumbnail layout, or gallery page layout (browse, new submissions, artist's galery, etc.), please do make them.

My designing is above average.
My coding (XHTML, CSS) is above average.
My development (PHP, CGI) is absolutely crap.
My web design theory however is top notch. Semantic coding, accessibility, usability and the like. Maybe I could be of some help there.... I also do Web 2.0!

Give me a few days and i'm sure i can get you involved, unless you reconsider by that time ,of course *smiles*

Having the artist name displayed underneath the thumbnail would be nice. But also a part of the issue is the size of the thumbnails, imho. If they would be a little bit bigger it would be so much easier to judge the quality of the submission.

That's a whole other can of worms, as these 'thumbs' and 'half-views' are stored on the disks. Changing their dimensions would require to go though 80 thousand+ art folders and resize 360 thousand+ images to that new size.
There are other solutions for generating and keeping "the products" off of original 'source' submission files, but that's not an option unless the core code is rewritten. That isn't going to happen until Ferrox.

 

[yak]

But another suggestion is one I think is more important, and that is the option to delete comments we've made or the owner of the userpage, submission, or journal commented upon has the option to remove selected messages. This way if there's a missent comment or one we'd like to take back we can just delete it ourselves without having to constantly ask the moderators.

There's a specific reason as to why comment editing is currently not allowed, apart from it simply not being implemented
Nobody can really tell if a "missent" comment one would like to take back is actually a harassing one, and that the reason for removal is wiping one's trail. This has been discussed on these boards in the past, and we came to a conclusion that comments will be editable in the first *N* minutes after posting them, where N is a number high enough to spot and correct spelling or emo mistakes in what you just made. pardon my small joke

As for the ability of the page owner to do that to other people's comments.... at least i haven't decided on that yet. Though, off the top of my head, this can be severely abused as well, unless somehow prevented

 

[Zjonni]

I am not asking for mouseover back. I recognize that it is an additional drag on resources and do like the idea of getting rid of it. I'm asking for the artist name to be appended to the thumb rather than (or along with) the art-title, this presents that useful information at top-level (without need for extra clicking). That's text, and a minor mod. I'll agree that choices are good, but this is a baseline functionality issue: Part of a well-designed thumb gallery is how well it permits a viewer to determine what thumbs they do want to see the full sized version of, and what they don't.

Fair enough, i don't see why not. Though it looks a bit awkward this way.
Actually, if you have better suggestions about each thumbnail layout, or gallery page layout (browse, new submissions, artist's galery, etc.), please do make them.

Thank you very much, Yak. I actually don't think it looks awkward at all the way you broke it down on a second line, and it fills the role I was talking about perfectly.

Layout: Grid layout is pretty darned standard. Anything else gets _really_ awkward and smacks of 'being different for its own sake'. I really haven't any suggestions for the gallery pages, I have seen some good ones made here but they're refinements, IMHO. As Fennex mentioned, the size of the thumb is sometimes an issue, depending on your monitor resolution. What looks good on SXGA (1280x1024, becoming a fair standard these days) is an itty-bitty blotch on WQXGA (2560x1600, and yeah, I have, and yes I do, although I recognize that it's an extreme). Browsers accomodate this by letting you change the 'default' font size, ramping it up to something legible. I have seen some galleries handle this by having a 'small thumbs' and 'large thumbs' option settable by the viewer. It looks like the current thumb display size is a max 120 pixels/side. Perhaps an option for 150 or even 180?

 

[yak]

If you're using Firefox, you can try giving Fennex' plugin a try.

[edit]
you wouldn't happen to own an x-box by the way?