Development WG's famous to do list

[Mr Euro]

Seems that a majority is against the new look. So back to the old one?

[kettenseger]

There are >8000 active user the last 30 days on ebt and >5000 users in the forum(not all of them were active).
Only a handful of users have posted that they don't like the new design.
I think the design shouldn't be changed back, because a small group didn't like it.

I guess many of you use google for your daily search.
Google had changed the logo and some other things in their layout.
Do you use bing or yahoo now?
Or have you written to google webmasters to rechange their layout?

Wikipedia have got a new design a few weeks ago, but i guess you use it anyway.

[MDeen]

There are >8000 active user the last 30 days on ebt and >5000 users in the forum(not all of them were active).
Only a handful of users have posted that they don't like the new design.
I think the design shouldn't be changed back, because a small group didn't like it.

I guess many of you use google for your daily search.
Google had changed the logo and some other things in their layout.
Do you use bing or yahoo now?
Or have you written to google webmasters to rechange their layout?

Wikipedia have got a new design a few weeks ago, but i guess you use it anyway.

Yes, and especially with wikipedia I have the impression that a small group of users call the shots and do not care about the rest.

I still do not like the new colors. The saturation and the contrast are both too high. The colorscheme just does not work.

[dippu]

I don't understand why asking about the new color scheme AFTER applying it to the website?

[eddydevries]

I don't understand why asking about the new color scheme AFTER applying it to the website?

I think, it's because you can hardly ask: "Do you want to change the colors of the website?".
If people don't know how it would look after the change they'll say : "I like it the way it's now. So don't change it." (most people want changes only if they know (proven) it's an improvement).

Now the colors have changed, people can comment it with reason. Than the management can act on that.

Personally, I think the change is "okay" (for me, it wasn't neccesary, but I'm not against it either).
But there might be more contrast between the backgrounds of the lists (I mean the changing of color after each two notes). At this time there's so little difference, I missed some notes while counting them.

[CarlosManta]

Personally, I think the change is "okay" (for me, it wasn't neccesary, but I'm not against it either).
But there might be more contrast between the backgrounds of the lists (I mean the changing of color after each two notes). At this time there's so little difference, I missed some notes while counting them.

I agree 100%

[dserrano5]

when u enter a serial number in the expert field u can always change the numbers seperatly in the fields below

would it not be possible to do the same with the comment ( like if u see one has a dot or a stamp on it and change it in the comment field )

That's something I would appreciate too!

Sorry, this won't be implemented, at least not by me. But feel free to build something suitable in GreaseMonkey or similar and see if you can come up with an easy, consistent UI concept. If it's good I'll migrate it to the main site

I don't think a consistent UI can be achieved without giving up many features of the form. That very features are what make it inconsistent! I'm talking about the different behaviour that the form entries "Value", "Short code", "Serial" and "Comment" have. It's nice to have a drop-down for the values, but it's inconsistent with the rest. It's nice to have short code validation before making it the default value, but it's inconsistent with the rest, and so on. Please note that this is not a criticism, just my own personal thoughts.

This said, I've made a quick GreaseMonkey script that allows users to modify individual comments and values after having set their default values. It does it by overriding the javascript functions that provide the "default value" functionality with modified versions that don't disable the 25 form fields below.

An obvious drawback of this, is that as soon as the original functions have some new features, they won't be available in these modified versions until locally modified to mimic them.

This is the code:

Edit: I haven't actually submitted any form using this modified javascript. Use at your own risk!

Code: Select all

function setDefaultDenom(a){ 
    var b=a.selectedIndex; 
    var d=a.options[b].value; 
    if(d!="-"){ 
        switch(d){ 
            case"5":d=1;break;
            case"10":d=2;break;
            case"20":d=3;break;
            case"50":d=4;break; 
            case"100":d=5;break; 
            case"200":d=6;break; 
            case"500":d=7;break;
        } 
        for(var c=0;c<numRows;c++){ 
            document.notes.elements["my_denomination"+c].selectedIndex=d; 
            //document.notes.elements["my_denomination"+c].disabled=true;
            //document.notes.elements["my_denomination"+c].className="disabled"
        } 
    }else{ 
        for(var c=0;c<numRows;c++){ 
            document.notes.elements["my_denomination"+c].selectedIndex=0; 
            //document.notes.elements["my_denomination"+c].disabled=false;
            //document.notes.elements["my_denomination"+c].className=""
        } 
    } 
} 

function setDefaultComment(b){ 
    if(b!=""){ 
        for(var a=0;a<numRows;a++){ 
            document.notes.elements["my_comment"+a].value=b; 
            //document.notes.elements["my_comment"+a].disabled=true;
            //document.notes.elements["my_comment"+a].className="disabled"
        }    
    }else{ 
        for(var a=0;a<numRows;a++){ 
            document.notes.elements["my_comment"+a].value=""; 
            //document.notes.elements["my_comment"+a].disabled=false;
            //document.notes.elements["my_comment"+a].className=""
        }    
    }    
} 

function js_override() {
    document.body.appendChild(document.createElement('script')).innerHTML=setDefaultDenom.toString();
    document.body.appendChild(document.createElement('script')).innerHTML=setDefaultComment.toString();
}

window.addEventListener ('load', js_override, false);

[Nerzhul]

Don't worry, the color scheme and design aren't set in stone. I'm open for all suggestions and comments, but please be a little more constructive than "just doesn't work".

As for democracy, there's really no practical way to ask everyone about everything before doing anything. If you asked 10 users you'd get 11 opinions and nothing would ever move forward.

So IMO the better way is to implement new and improve existing features as I see fit and then finetune them with a greater audience. This has worked quite well in the past, and unless a significant number of users suddenly steps in and helps working on the website nothing will change about this modus. (So if you want to participate in the development process and be heard BEFORE changes go live I suggest joining the Web Development working group. )

As for the design itself, let's discuss this openly. The main motivation behind the recent changes was that the old color scheme wasn't working either:

• low contrast (grey text on grey background)
• dark, dirty and depressing color scheme (dark, blueish greyish theme, little color, little accents)
• tiring to look at, especially in darker environments

In addition I see issues with the main layout itself (tables, boxes, little accents, no semantic structure) and the structure and menu (overloaded, unintuitive). There will be changes in the future addressing these issues.

If you want to help, feel free to post suggestions, samples, templates or ideas...

[bren_nmgn]

i would just LOVE some more colors in the lay-out!
but that might be a typical woman's opinion.....

[eddydevries]

I would like to ask another thing.

I don't know if you can change something at the forum (or maybe this only can be done by phpBB), but I would like to ask something about the search function at the forum.

With this function you can search for messages containing some words.

Now I wonder if it's possible to enlarge this search function to the "Personal messages".
Now I can't search for messages I wrote (or got) about (for example) "Meeting Malta".

[Jes]

I like -and preffer- the new version. Brighter makes me feel happy(er)

Anyway, whatever is chosen at the end, both of them are ok for me.

[eddydevries]

Another new question:

I previously saw something about the translation of the website (some words / sentences were forgotten to translate or to translate them differently). Then I sent a PM to all the Dutch translaters mentioned on this site.
But because there are many Dutch translaters (13), a lot of them reads my PM after the changes has been done. So they're reading this without reason.
For languages with 1 or 2 translators I think it's a good way to reach them, but if there are so many translators it's a bit "overkill".

I wonder, if it's possible to reach the translators at another way (maybe with this page?)?

(and no, I'm not soliciting for translator, because there are already much of them )

[Nerzhul]

Today's update contains a set of small improvements:

• news items are only shown while they're young and fresh
• exit warning in all note entry forms (you must confirm navigation if there's valid note data, which makes it harder to accidently lose entered note data by accidently clicking a link or closing the browser)
• beginner form now contains some of the Javascript magic of the other forms (autotab, flags, input colors showing valid note data)

[yli]

[*]exit warning in all note entry forms (you must confirm navigation if there's valid note data, which makes it harder to accidently lose entered note data by accidently clicking a link or closing the browser)

I also get this warning when I press OK to enter notes.

[MDeen]

Don't worry, the color scheme and design aren't set in stone. I'm open for all suggestions and comments, but please be a little more constructive than "just doesn't work".

What more than "bland, to bright, tiring, please let us have the old scheme back" do you need?

As for democracy, there's really no practical way to ask everyone about everything before doing anything. If you asked 10 users you'd get 11 opinions and nothing would ever move forward.

So IMO the better way is to implement new and improve existing features as I see fit and then finetune them with a greater audience. This has worked quite well in the past, and unless a significant number of users suddenly steps in and helps working on the website nothing will change about this modus. (So if you want to participate in the development process and be heard BEFORE changes go live I suggest joining the Web Development working group. )

As for the design itself, let's discuss this openly. The main motivation behind the recent changes was that the old color scheme wasn't working either:

• low contrast (grey text on grey background)
• dark, dirty and depressing color scheme (dark, blueish greyish theme, little color, little accents)
• tiring to look at, especially in darker environments

Personally, I do not recognize any of these objections. As I said before, I think the new scheme has to little contrast, is too bright (to "solarized") and is tiring to look at, and especially in darker environments.
I don't know how you think that a light scheme will be easier to look at in a dark environment. It usually is not. The eye adapts to the dark, and having to look at something bright is less pleasant than looking at something dark.

I know why no opinions were asked beforehand. Most people do not care and will not say anything. So a question "do you want the colorscheme changed" will most likely result in a "no". Only if the scheme is really horrible and illegible, people will complain.
I have not seen any complaints about the old scheme.

But really, my feeling is that objecting is of no use. Although you say that we can discuss openly, the only answer we get is "the majority does not complain, therefor it is better". To me this is the same as saying "we don't really want to listen to what it is you have to say.".
If that is the case, please tell us. I at least feel that nobody cares about the uservoice and that the opinion is "it's my website, it's my desicision".
I'm not going to dispute that, but please tell us if it is, so I know I don't have to complain anymore.