Rearranged the menu...

[roddy]

I've rearranged the top level menu in the header to...

 

a) show everything at once, rather than on mouseover (apart from My Activity Streams, which is still a drop-down)

b) Give more prominence to the stuff that gets used most

c) Remove some things I didn't think were needed - specifically the header links to search (there's a box on every page), online users (did people use that link? It's still accessible via the box on the home page) and the 'Featured' page, which was highest ranked users by reputation, which nobody seemed to be looking at. 

 

I can make more changes, or reverse those, if necessary, let me know what you think. I based some decisions on low levels of use. I'm not sure the 'my activity streams' one is needed now, but that's not accessible elsewhere at the moment so left it. 

[Shelley]

What happened to the link for the clubs?

[Shelley]

Have we lost the clubs?

[roddy]

I don't know what you're talking about. There's no such thing.

 

Can I take it the lack of complaints mean everyone loves the new menu? If so I'll proceed with my next tamper.

[Lu]

I love the new menu tabs, so much more convenient and easier to see what's there. But I do miss a tab for clubs.

[roddy]

Given that there's currently one club, with a handful of members, it doesn't get a tab. It's just Chinese-forums.com/clubs 

[Shelley]

Or go to your own profile, club tab there.

[abcdefg]

WAIT，RODDY.

 

This morning I see yet another change has been made. You have a column on the right side of all pages dedicated to recent posts, similar to the one on the home page.

 

This absolutely kills anything like my food posts which have lots of pictures. It's a deal breaker. I hugely object. Please re-think it.

 

For example, revisit my latest post about Cantonese dim sum, and see how it is messed up.

 

https://www.chinese-forums.com/forums/topic/54982-enjoying-dim-sum/?tab=comments#comment-424016

 

Maybe you don't want any illustrated posts as part of Chinese Forms. If that is the aim, then this page formatting style will insure that you get very few or none. It's already difficult to post photos, cumbersome and time consuming. This makes it next to impossible to do what I think of as a "photo-essay."

 

I will also send these comments to you as a private message since I feel urgently about them.

[Luxi]

The tabs don't show in the iPad,  both Safari and Chrome only show Chinese-forums.com as a title but the link to browse the forums isn't at all clear. I think it should be more prominent, a newcomer wouldn't bother to click around searching for it. 

 

There are 3 buttons on the browser top right corner: middle one for Search - obvious from the icon, the other 2 aren't. Button 1 leads to Activity (I never found any use for it) and the 3rd opens a menu tab where finally there are buttons leading to Forums, Blogs, Activity (again!). It seems a rather long process to reach the Literature Sub-Forum. If only there was a way to create an individual shortcut to Favourite Sub-forums.

 

 

[roddy]

Create your own activity stream for the forums you're interested in here

https://www.chinese-forums.com/discover/?do=create

(when you select "topics" as a Content Type there'll be the option to narrow it down by forum)

 

Once created it appears under 'My Activity Streams'

 

Visit the stream. Look at the title - to the right of the title there are 'edit / delete / tick' icons. Select the tick. That's now your default activity stream and the "Button 1" you refer to will take you directly to it.

 

That's not, I appreciate, very intuitive. But it should work. 

 

I think that three-line icon or similar, at top left or right, is pretty standard as a "the menu is here" icon online nowadays. The only thing I could do is change the width at which the site switches between mobile and desktop views, but I suspect that would annoy as many people as it pleases. 

 

Also, creating more activity streams for your interests would make them easier to get to again, I think. And you can combine forums - maybe have one for literature and culture, another for tattoos and reading.

[Luxi]

5 minutes ago, roddy said:

Create your own activity stream for the forums you're interested in here

 

I wouldn't have guessed in 100 years. That could be really useful, thanks!

[roddy]

I posted about it last upgrade, but if you didn't read that and don't notice the "create activity stream" link and play around, you wouldn't know. It's not, after all, much use to most people. 

[Luxi]

5 minutes ago, roddy said:

 

I posted about it last upgrade, but if you didn't read that

 

 Touchée...

[roddy]

Well, you can't be expected to read everything I write. Apparently... 

 

Seriously though, it's a relatively obscure function. It's like Pleco's bluetooth monkey control, lots of people just don't know it's there. 

[roddy]

Also, that default feed appears on the desktop view, under the header at top right, next to "Mark site read"

[Mati1]

3 hours ago, roddy said:

It's like Pleco's bluetooth monkey control, lots of people just don't know it's there. 

Pleco can control things via Bluetooth? Since when, how and why?

[imron]

5 hours ago, roddy said:

It's like Pleco's bluetooth monkey control, lots of people just don't know it's there

It's worth paying for Pleco just for this feature alone. 

[somethingfunny]

Since 2013 apparently.

 

You just open the 'animals' page in the settings module and its got remote control options under each of the different animals.