TEST: New Like System

cameronh · Sep 5, 2016

It's rather confusing. I use the app 98% of the time, and the site 2% of the time (which the site is confusing to me at times) so I got on the other day and saw all that and was confused.

Also, is there anyway reef2reef can make their own app? After all, this forum is huge and I think we can do better than tapatalk. I've brought this up in the past and I'm hoping that we can make our own. I have the site icon on my phone but it loads rather slowly (and at times isn't user friendly) where as the tapatalk app is very user friendly and loads very quickly (but has its limits)

I'm a bit off topic I know, but just throwing in a suggestion so maybe #mods, can look into it with the help and approval from @revhtree, I'm not trying to rattle the cage, just trying to make the best of both worlds here at reef2reef.

Thanks!

DLHDesign · Sep 5, 2016

Only thing about the new system I have an issue with is that it puts the usernames involved behind a click. I can no longer see who thinks what is popular and who is participating in the thread at a glance; it takes an addition action. Which isn't a big deal for a single new post, but is a bigger hassle when catching up on multiple posts (or worse; pages of posts). Not the end of the world and I'm sure I'll adjust, but my initial impression is that it's turned the fairly low-key "like" feature (which was, admittedly, limited - as they always are) into a much more prominent distraction.
By "distraction", I don't mean the input of others (which is awesome), but the icons themselves. Because the icons are (currently) high-contrast, they tend to draw the eye when scanning the page. So while before there was just a highlighted section, it was tonally even - the color blended into the page more and allowed the eye to continue scanning the page without interruption (because that was just more text to be read). Now with the icons in the highlight bar, however, I'm finding that my eye stops and waits to process the thing it's seeing. The icons break up the "smoothness" of the page for me.

Anywho; sorry - didn't mean to rant there. I work in UI/UX website design, so things like page flow and scan potential bug more far more than the average viewer, I'm sure. ;-) (It's why I turn off emoticons whenever I have the chance, for example.)

cameronh · Sep 5, 2016

DLHDesign said:
Only thing about the new system I have an issue with is that it puts the usernames involved behind a click. I can no longer see who thinks what is popular and who is participating in the thread at a glance; it takes an addition action. Which isn't a big deal for a single new post, but is a bigger hassle when catching up on multiple posts (or worse; pages of posts). Not the end of the world and I'm sure I'll adjust, but my initial impression is that it's turned the fairly low-key "like" feature (which was, admittedly, limited - as they always are) into a much more prominent distraction.
By "distraction", I don't mean the input of others (which is awesome), but the icons themselves. Because the icons are (currently) high-contrast, they tend to draw the eye when scanning the page. So while before there was just a highlighted section, it was tonally even - the color blended into the page more and allowed the eye to continue scanning the page without interruption (because that was just more text to be read). Now with the icons in the highlight bar, however, I'm finding that my eye stops and waits to process the thing it's seeing. The icons break up the "smoothness" of the page for me.

Anywho; sorry - didn't mean to rant there. I work in UI/UX website design, so things like page flow and scan potential bug more far more than the average viewer, I'm sure. ;-) (It's why I turn off emoticons whenever I have the chance, for example.)

I agree! It's rather bothersome

Turbo's Aquatics · Sep 5, 2016

DLHDesign said:
Only thing about the new system I have an issue with is that it puts the usernames involved behind a click.

Good comment. I use this on another site and you're right, but if more than a few people like a post, it only shows the first few and then "others" link. It might be worth suggesting to the addon developer that this be changed to list out "a, b, c, and 4 others rated this post" and then have the links to how they rated it, etc - kind of a blend of both.

the "at a glance" being gone is true

DLHDesign said:
So while before there was just a highlighted section, it was tonally even - the color blended into the page more and allowed the eye to continue scanning the page without interruption (because that was just more text to be read). Now with the icons in the highlight bar, however, I'm finding that my eye stops and waits to process the thing it's seeing. The icons break up the "smoothness" of the page for me.

That is a easy style tweak though...a few click and that's back to the way it was

cameronh said:
Also, is there anyway reef2reef can make their own app?

This is a lot harder than you think, it has been a huge subject on the Xenforo forum, and there are competing developers for this type of thing. One essentially does a browser wrapper, the other is an actual app. Might happen down the road, driven by essentially disdain for Tapatalk.

120reefkeeper · Sep 5, 2016

BoneXriffic said:
I still use metal halide lights so this system may be to complicated for me

So do I lol

cromag27 · Sep 5, 2016

Then you guys are actually ahead of most people here.

120reefkeeper said:
So do I lol

120reefkeeper · Sep 5, 2016

I've been around the tank a few times. Lol

revhtree · Sep 6, 2016

Ok the new system has been deactivated until we work out the details and bugs! Thanks.

Nibejeebies · Sep 7, 2016

I hope it comes back. I enjoyed it myself.

cameronh · Sep 7, 2016

I don't like it because it took away the likes you had and who all liked it. If yall can work that bug out......it will be alright

Turbo's Aquatics · Sep 8, 2016

That was not supposed to happen by the way...if you notice, they're all back. They weren't actually ever gone, they just weren't showing up for some weird reason. When you had "liked" a post, you could not re-rate it - if you hovered over the rating area it showed "undo rating" but didn't show how you had previously rated it...my guess is something glitched during the installation which runs a process that converts "likes" to the rating "like".

cameronh · Sep 8, 2016

Floyd R Turbo said:
That was not supposed to happen by the way...if you notice, they're all back. They weren't actually ever gone, they just weren't showing up for some weird reason. When you had "liked" a post, you could not re-rate it - if you hovered over the rating area it showed "undo rating" but didn't show how you had previously rated it...my guess is something glitched during the installation which runs a process that converts "likes" to the rating "like".

Yeah I took a look at it after I was taken down and saw that everything was back to normal, I was thinking it wiped everything clean. I can see it being a nice thing to have. Hope you guys can figure it out[emoji1]