Oh durr right, the purpose of this thread!

Suggest features and layouts here, even if it's a shitty mspaint doodle done in fifteen minutes if you have some ideas link 'em. Anything that has promise will be refined into a proper pitch for web development if popular enough.

The suggestion to separate SFW and NSFW is both good and important.

>>130280
oh absolutely.

Let's just not talk the site code and backend because it's not going to be productive, k?

Layout improvement suggestions sound fine. I'm already working on improving the layout to be less of a confusing mess. Honestly changing the reply box and how you open threads makes a big difference all by itself...

So to start with, do tell me more about how you would deal with suggestions and discussion on the same page~

And there is most of a plan for SFW mode set.

I suppose I could start the wiki make a document of what's planned and in progress.

>>130280
yeah, forgot to add that to the opening post. nsfw would be filtered by default so you have to opt-in, as per US law (since I believe dylan's a burgerfat like me).

>>130282
Two ideas I have: One is a direct feed to the quest author, the other is more of a mini-forum type deal that acts like a discussion thread. Similar imageboard format, though I may ask for adjustments to the layout since the way images offset text always sets my ocd off super hard. Maybe something kind of tumblr in terms of format, so people can post commented fanart or memes or what have you.

This option's also ideal since it could factor in that tag system I'd like the website to have.

The other idea is a bit simpler to implement and it's just two seperate disqus-style post boxes.
One for suggests, one for discussions.

As a general suggestion, we could drop Futaba/Burichan with the name change and introduce an [invisible] text tag to replace that old text color trick.
Also some sort of dark mode. Though it also occurs to me that since we have color tags, a dark mode(or any background color change really) might cause some font colors to be hard to read.

Riotmode 2019/07/21(Sun)20:52 No. 130290 ID: eb1fcc
File 156376756834.png - (25.85KB , 800x600 , tgchan pitch.png )

>>130286
here, shitty doodle for a beta layout idea. Side-bar on the right would be collapsible, and suggestions would with luck be constrained to each individual post.

Discussion, on the other hand, would be a continuous thread like most other chat rooms but formatted similarly to tumblr's content feed, complete with tags for general site searching if we can implement that.

>>130290
The main problem I see with that is that updates tend to reference past suggestions, and if suggestions are confined to a post that could get a bit tedious to follow along with. Unless a better quoting system is introduced at least. Also, I'm not so sure about putting suggestions to the side and separated. I feel they should be more part of the post, but that could just be me.

I think the basic thread scrolldown is perfectly functional and nicely uncomplicated, myself. You've got a nice straightforward feed of the latest quests on the front page and when you're reading the quest you can just scroll and see the quest and the other suggestions nice and easy. You don't want to have people have to scroll through different sub-frames or click through a few links to see other suggestions, or have to switch back and forth from viewing the quest and viewing the suggestions, or so on.

It'd be nice to have some system for community-suggested tags that show up at the bottom of the first post, maybe an option to automatically hide threads with tags that you've blacklisted. If you had that I don't think a SFW/NSFW segregation beyond that would be necessary.

I'd prefer minimal alterations, essentially. Just slot improvements in that wouldn't be obtrusive. We definitely shouldn't try to be some Web 5.0 Infinite Canvas experimental webcomic thing.

Oh, and remember that we do have some text quests, and some combination some-image-posts-some-text-only-posts quests.

>>130293
Easily fixable I'd hope, simply keep the post numbering system and the ability to reference suggestions by number like we're doing right now.

>>130295
for sure, that's why I included a "return to old format" option in the necessities list. Some people are just gonna prefer wading through the muck of a chan-format board because change scurry, anticipating that and keeping the board formats sensible will help the transition not suck for older users.

Minor text change:
The line near the top of the site with [Catalog View] etc should have a [Discord] link.

tgchan-BLICK features to have on the base site:
Post preview
Buttons for putting in the bold/italics/color/etc codes.
Improved watched threads (Always accessible from the right side of the screen, can set to highlight only on new image posts or a post by a specific id/name instead of all posts)

Big dreams:
Night/dark mode
Another text color that changes based on board theme like > does, since even with just the current modes it's hard to do colors that work well across all the themes.
Bring emote reactions back, but can be disabled per thread by author and no negative emotes.

Here's something to keep in mind: minimize distractions from the audience's reading. Quests are basically a type of webcomic, and one of the first principles of designing a site for a webcomic is make sure someone who's reading through a big chunk of the work at once can do that without being interrupted by anything disruptive. You want them to be able to get into a nice simple rhythm of repeatable actions, like just clicking the "next" button, or just scrolling, or so on. You don't want to put any feeds or other stuff up in the direct field of view or anything like that, as well. You also want background elements and color palettes that won't draw any attention away from the quests themselves.

Essentially, we need to facilitate people being able to just sit down and sink themselves into comfortably reading for a long time. This isn't just a site for running quests but for storing them, hopefully for a very long time.

We can probably borrow from fanfiction sites, as well. A03 (archiveofourown.org), for example, is a well-structured site with probably a lot of stuff for us to take note of in how they do things.

On this subject, the ergonomy is not the same for mobile and desktop users: Reading a Webcomic on desktop, I don't mind clicking "next" for new pages if there's one easily accessible that doesn't move around from one page to another (which means, if a page is bigger than the typical screen, there should be a "next" button both on top and bottom; or the whole comic page could be a "next" button; also, keyboard shortcuts)

For a mobile user on the other hand, the clasdic thread format is preferable, allowing to load the whole "last 50 posts", disable DATA, and read it all in the subway.

Also a minor tweak to the chan pages: I've seen some chans limit images to the width of the screen in the "inline" view, and I think this one should do the same; most people don't like horizontal scrolling, and opening the image in a new tab allows viewing it full-size anyway.

>>130312
Good call. The lack of mobile usability has actually been a huge hassle for me during my lurking, since i'm usually checking in from my phone. Images either load too small to see without opening in a new tab, or I'll accidentally open them in a new tab anyways because I fat-thumbed the wrong spot on screen.

DEFINITELY a high priority thing to work on.

wouldn't be too much work to make the pages load in-line on mobile, one would hope(?)

This isn't exactly a suggestion, but how about looking at what other quest sites do, if only for feature ideas? There's several I can think of, although they're usually more of a forum format (fiction.live, questionable questing) or general webcomic hosting format (MSPFA), rather than an imageboard.

i like the basic thread format and would really prefer for it not to change too much, but i’ve always had some gripes abt the things that make threads easier to read (last 50/100 posts, expand all images, honestly even the fact that you have to click the link above the image to expand it inline rather than clicking the image itself) difficult to find, and not intuitive for new readers. or old ones! maybe i’m just an idiot, but as someone without a chan background, i didn’t realize what the last 50 posts function was or WHERE it was until i’d already been questing for a few years.

i think it would be nice to have the option to toggle between a long thread loading as several pages or an entire top to bottom scroll, esp bc i’ve had readers tell me the entire thread loading at once can be a real pain on mobile. ive thought before in the past about maybe handling thread compression by having all suggestions after a certain number of posts collapse between author updates — but i don’t know how that would be implemented in a way that accommodates authors having changing ips (and the fact that not all updates have images attached, so you can’t just say “collapse all posts without images bc theyre assumedly suggestions.”) i know that you’ve mentioned an updates only mode that is probably basically this, but i hope it would be easy to toggle/open the hidden suggestions to reference what’s been said before bc i think that’s important.

also — while i understand what u mean about wanting to be able to maintain some control over what does/doesn’t have work put in by paying for it yourself — once we’ve more or less decided on something we all like, please think abt at least letting us pitch in, even if the design quote isn’t like totally obscene. i really like this idea, i want it to work and to go as smoothly as possible, and if we can all help make sure we have enough to do whatever needs to be done i think i’m not the only one who would be willing to throw some cash at it too.

Doomsby 2019/07/22(Mon)10:41 No. 130318 ID: e7c7d3
File 156381728198.png - (145.73KB , 800x600 , Illustration.png )

I"m not sure I have much suggestion for the actual layout as more of just small features and general streamlining. One thing that bugs me is that when you open the frontpage about half of the screen is taken up by the "Start a new Thread" fields when it isn't really used 90% of the time. Kinda also feel at this point that the General and TG channels should prolly just be combined. I'd almost say drop them completely but there should be a place where people can talk not about quests.

Otherwise most of my suggestions are just more info available in the OP posts. Have a clear marking of a thread being SFW or NSFW, (which would be hidden until the user opts-in from settings)a simple "watch" toggle that would add the thread to your watch list, and I wouldn't mind a "last updated" counter. Something that counts up the days since last update and is reset whenever "update" is put into the email field, (which should prolly just be renamed as Function at this point.)

>>130315
Absolutely! That's more a measure to make this not come off as a "we can totally do it guys, gibe mone" situation.

I'm more than willing to accept help paying for whatever the final product would wind up costing.

>>130318
These are all good ideas for the kusaba format update, the "last author update" timestamp in particular makes me smile.

I'll just leave this here
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1yg1ZP5cbilJbUPOUkJjvSABZK8WA4Yp4Ll1QipT12hE/edit?usp=sharing

It's a thing I started writing a while (read: over a year) ago, but then I got the lazy. The Future section is mostly unfinished, some stuff is in the wrong sections, some stuff is inconsistent with other ideas or not up to date... I wanted to illustrate each feature with an image / prototype, etc...

I should probably finish it.

Still, I'm surprised that quite a few of my ideas overlap with the ones already mentioned here.

>>130326
Hard disagree on removing the fanart thread or separating out questdis into two boards. These are both things that would decrease activity. Various things in here are downgrades, but this is the one thing that would actually have a huge negative impact on the site.

/tg/ could just be combined into /meep/
/graveyard/ should have a line like "The graveyard contains abandoned threads. You can report your thread asking for it to be revived, or ask a mod or admin in the Discord and it will be moved back to /quest/ so you can update it."
/questarch/ could use a short description saying that they're completed quest threads.
[Reply] changing to [View Thread] and getting rid of "Click Reply to view." is probably reasonable. Maybe where "Click Reply to view." is instead have a clickable link to view the thread.
Remove "Images greater than 250x250 pixels will be thumbnailed." text

>>130331
>Hard disagree on removing the fanart thread
I did not propose a removal of the thread. I merely pointed out the redundancy of the thread because it's causing confusion for the users who want to post fanart. Do they post it in the quest's questdis thread? Or do they post it in the fanart thread? Or both? Do they even know that a fanart thread exists? Well, the thread definitely should not be removed because currently, some quests do not have an accompanying questdis thread at all. I also mentioned that this problem could be solved with a "Fanart Overview" feature. This feature, as I imagine it, would be a site section that would aggregate fanart from all the quest's individual fanart sections. Altho that's a part for The Future.

>separating out questdis into two boards would decrease activity
Why do you think it would decrease it?
I would argue that by doing so, it would be easier for users to find the right threads, making it easier to participate, thus increasing the activity.
I'd also like to mention that when I first got here, I wanted to post a thread, but was super confused about where to post it. It was a quest-related thread, so I couldn't post it in meep, because that's for general stuff. And I couldn't post it in questdis, because that's for quest discussions. Well, now I know that questdis is for whatever, but as a newcomer, that really threw a monkey wrench in my plans. So from the first-hand experience, I can say that this confusion decreases activity.

>>130278
It's important to note that people use TGChan for quests because they want to use this site for quests. They're running quests in the image board format because that's what they choose to do. Thinking of optional improvements that people can choose to use/enable if they like them is good and helpful. Thinking of a completely different, "better" site that we "should" be instead of what we are is not. If you want to help the site, think in terms of adding to what we've got rather than making a new one from the ground up.

The thread format is important to our quests. They aren't like regular webcomics. Suggestions and comments are an integral part of the experience; the author posts an update, the players react to the update and decice what they want to do, and the author incorporates those suggestions into the next update, like a conversation between the writer and the reader. Many quests were written with this site's format and features in mind; all of them would be fundamentally different stories without it.

Trying to be clever with the code and format is risky, because of the chance that the extra add-ons won't work for someone. That's one of the reasons why it's important to make them options that people can use if they like. Another reason is so that any existing extensions that people have for this site will still work.

>>130340

As a begrudgingly professional web developer (yes, I'm salty about my career as an SE), this guy gets it.

As nice as the latest and greatest thing is, we can't guarantee that every user, every browser, every system will be up to date. I'm still writing garbage that does in-line shimming by doing feature tests for this very reason.

The reason the Kusaba stuff has stuck around so long despite it all is because it works on the equivalent of a potato.

>>130340
how many times do I have to go over this?

I will be EXPRESSLY developing this alternative option as just that, an ALTERNATIVE. Tgchan's classic format is not something I want to do away with.

Try to think of it like the toggle furaffinity has between its classic layout and the new layout, that's kind of the system I'm envisioning here.

This website's ALWAYS been detrimentally risk-averse, and the whole point of my funding this is to try and push the site past that.


So, to recap:

-there will be improvements made to the default format (like update timestamps, for example) but it will NOT be changing much in terms of layout so as to leave folks like you who like that format better undisturbed

-there will be a more newbie-friendly format to encourage new users with a less web-1.0 front page that will be default until toggled.

Any future comments about this will be regarded back to this post.

>>130343
You better keep in mind, then, that some authors like to play around with the site's features. The fonts, spoiler text function, spoiler image function, and putting stuff into the different fields (name/email/subject) are all things people have messed with to put a spin on their quest experience. Like, I've done that, and I'd say I plan to do more.

So, whatever new version of the site we end up with, it needs to cross-connect strongly to those, or those quests will "break" (slightly, but still) when read that way.

Of course, adding some features could make things like that MORE possible. It'd certainly be nice for authors to be able to edit their own text and swap images without having to bother a moderator for it.

>>130344
for sure. A small list of things that need to get added to the base website design:

-proper text formatting tools, the tags already exist so all that's left is to actually staple standard format buttons in

-timestamps on the header or on user posts (whichever's easier) telling the viewer when the last author update to the thread was

-making the post-box not take up half the screen when you first show up, could be done by just sticking it under a toggle honestly

-tagging system for thread headers and individual posts (not sure if this is compatible with how kusaba works)

-some way of better integrating /icons/ so that we can just pop in new emotes for text formatting without having to first upload junk to a seperate board

-the "I came" button from r34.xxx

>>130335
People complain about Lago "dominating" the ITQ thread, forcing a thread split. Cool, it now becomes easier now to find Lago questions or questions for non-Lago characters, mission complete. Activity drops in half on ITQ, both non-Lago authors not posting, and less questions coming in.
Having a bit lower efficiency can mean people are actually checking out the rest of the store on their way to the milk.

>>130343
The OP made it seem more like your plan to rewrite the site from the ground up was meant to replace our current layout as the default, with a "switch to classic mode" alternative option as an afterthought for people who already liked the site. Which is, at best, assuming that the switching function of your new site works as intended.

This wasn't helped by your previous suggestions which involved a "preview" picture of a completely different site layout which essentially split every thread into three separate threads.

It also wasn't helped by your current statement that the simplified "newbie-friendly" design is actually intended to be the new default rather than an alternative.

I'm trying to explain why these are bad ideas. If you've decided not to do them, okay.

A gentle reminder that Riot's not in charge~

igh

>>130351
what siphon said. I'm being authoritarian to a degree about this design as a PITCH because the Change Scurry thought process held by the site admins and users alike was something that frustrated me as far back as 2010 when I was first getting used to the community. there's a sense that change is needed, but nobody can agree on what changes needed or if that change is even a good idea. Something as simple as a name change has been dreadfully controversial just because people are afraid it will tilt the balance of community discourse too far or it will "besmirch the history of tgchan" or whichever of the same tired old excuses are being made to resist actually solving a problem.

I have my own disagreements with how the site is run but as I'm not particularly well respected so I suspect I'm not really the one to bring these problems up. I'll instead focus on what I can change, that being a mechanical issue.


once the new format is fine tuned, pre-built, and ready to go it's only going to be a pitch to Dylan to actually use it.

if it goes through and nobody likes the new format, sunk cost be damned I'll be among the first going "alright, back it up"

however, it being a DEFAULT is kind of important to the whole exercise here. while not meant to be exactly a de facto replacement, the new layout is something that will make the website more appealing for newer authors who might decide to check the website out further. The image board format will still exist as the secondary option, and it will be very easy to turn it on and off as desired to avoid alienating the oldies, but combating the stagnation is important to me.

>>130356
That seems a bit like trying to jump too far ahead all at once. If we're looking to add some basic features to the site anyway, it'd be better to do those and THEN think about further possible iterations. Like, take things a step at a time, you know?

>>130358
I can't say I have faith in that as an option anymore. "When's booru?" was a meme people would shunt at dylan for about a year and a half before it actually got done, and we still don't have many of the features that come basic with other imageboards.

For example, why don't we have proper reply formatting yet? Why don't posts show links to replies for keeping track of conversations easier, like 4chan and other imageboards currently do?


This isn't really intended to drag Dylan, he's busy with his life, but the development of the website is slow enough it feels like things won't really get done unless work is completed from outside the board.

Hell, even the users are slow, I don't think many people outside of the chatroom are even aware the fanart booru exists, let alone regularly use it!

>>130359
Even if you hire someone from outside to do the work, there's like, an order of operations to be done with development. Once you've created a mirror of the default site, the fact that you have that will make development for both ways of viewing harder, since things done to one might mess up the other. If you're planning to have work done on both, then, you should work on first one and then the other, and the simpler work on the already-existing site should be done first because that's just the more sensible way of arranging the work schedule.

Like, if you bought a single-story house, and its a perfectly functional house but you'd like it to be bigger, and also you always thought it'd be good to add some insulation, and rework the plumbing to be more accessible and get a maintenance inspection done and shore up the supports, you should get all that taken care off BEFORE you build another floor on top. Because those are all relevant to how you're going to be adding things, and it'll be harder to get them done once you've started adding things anyway.

Yes, I agree. You're making assumptions here about the process Jukashi, this whole thread is to PLAN OUT improvements rather than just jump into it balls first like Reaver did.

I'm not building the house and then adding on, I'm designing a new house while I sketch up some improvements for the current house.

I'll improve the house we got first as best I'm able, then start work on the new house with a better foundation and prettier walls.

>>130340
>It's important to note that people use TGChan for quests because they want to use this site for quests. They're running quests in the image board format because that's what they choose to do.
You make it sounds as if it's their fault that they chose to quest here. That, because they made that choice, they should be forced to stick with the chan-format and just suck it up.

I don't think that's fair. Just because someone found great quests here, or is a fan of a certain author, it doesn't mean that they shouldn't be given a choice of which format they want to use.

>"better" site that we "should" be
Fun fact: How good a website is something that can be proven with measurements. It's not art heh. It can scientifically be proven that one version of the site is better than the other.

>>130342
>we can't guarantee that every user, every browser, every system will be up to date
Ever heard of polyfills?

I like dark backgrounds with white text. Can this be an option?

Other than that I would like separate control over the the image size and the text size.
Large letters are more comfortable to read in general but when I zoom in the images become too large to use the "Expand all images" feature. Also this feature only work if the images used are appropriately sized by the quest authors, so would be nice if there were a similar option to expand all images to a standard medium size that fit the screen better.

>>130368
I think there is a way to set things up so that an expanded image grows to fit the horizontal size of the window you have it in, since I've seen it elsewhere.

>>130368
night mode will likely be an option, yes. Even I can implement that, I remember setting that up when I had a bumblr blog.

If there will be some light changes for the chan format I suggest you:

-Put the message feature at the bottom of the page.
You only write messages after reading. Why do we see the message box before the thread itself?

-Rename "Reply", "Last 50 posts" and "Last 100 posts".
It's not obvious that "reply" means "open the entire thread" instead of "write a reply". Something like "Open Thread" or just "Thread" in big letter next to the title could work. Maybe the thread title itself could be the link.
"Last # posts" is descriptive but long, and the two options are too similar. All we need is one option like "Latest" on the main page and the other option would still appear inside the threat itself.

>>130377
rename reply? sure. Rename last 50/100? Probably gonna veto that, there's no wasted space for the length and it's perfectly fine as is.

popping my head back in to add my support for a standardized image expansion size. i frequently see new quest authors rendering their threads unreadable with 3000px wide images, and a lot of times readers will accidentally stretch out a thread by uploading a dress-up suggestion that’s too wide, etc. it’s a small thing that’s annoyed me for ages.

>>130381
That one gives me some server space worries since to counter that problem there'd have to be a script active that hosts original-res through a clickthrough and a resized "standard" rez in addition to the thumbnail. That's like, 3x as much image hosting space requirements.

Probably doable though, I foresee a lot of documentation for this specifically

>>130382
I think there's a way to get most of the common browsers to do something like that on the reader's end.

>>130383
that could work, imageboards are low impact so I can't imagine a clientside thing would impact performance much

talking out my ass of course, I'm still lear the code

>>130383
that could work, imageboards are low impact so I can't imagine a clientside thing would impact performance much

talking out my ass of course, I'm still lear the code

>>130382
1. Resizing images is what all web browsers do really well on their own. It's not necessary to store intermediate size images and limiting image size to the window width is a tiny css fix. This is a non-issue.
2. Server storing intermediate size images is also not an issue because of how cheap storage space has gotten. In fact, it's usually worth using disk space to save on bandwidth.

Recap post for the imageboard format tweaks Riotmode 2019/07/24(Wed)13:16 No. 130394 ID: eb1fcc
File 156399940637.png - (161.88KB , 685x939 , in-line mockup.png )

aight, cool.

so, to cover what we need for the imageboard rework:

-Timestamps pertaining to author updates. Perhaps run this through IP, or a login system if possible?

-Standardized image width

-Formatting buttons on the postbox

-move post-box to bottom of screen instead of top

-more modernized post reply system

-rename "Reply" to "open thread" or something to that effect

-better thread-watch integration (perhaps use rss? Older standard, but still plenty reliable)

-make it detect mobile browsers and adjust button sizes for ease of use

-text resizing options

-re-organize threads to an in-line format to make it more compatible with reading (May be easy enough to do in an afternoon, I've worked with this before back when I was using tumblr and if I can get at the back-end I can probably hack this one together myself)

+Support for multiple images per post?


If I'm missing anything note it here.


Attached is my vision for a more mobile-friendly thread format, including in-line images/text, text size options, reply formatting update, and a wider thread layout. Ideally text would stay constrained to wrap about as far as the post block thingies, as I've shown here.

Images would not be shrunk, I just didn't think to resize them when making this.

Plain text posts would be indented to align right, posts from authors (or just posts containing images) would not.

slight clarification thanks to the discord:
-some people dislike the new image position. That's unfortunate, because the word wrap on some mobile devices (like mine) is so bad as to make threads with expanded images unreadable for the first few lines. Perhaps expand all option displaces text below the image?

-Someone else mentioned that we could just use tripcodes instead of the wiki login system. I agree with that, but we'll need to make documentation for how tripcodes work more visible to newcomers

The way it was put would make it pretty hard to read on PC's

>>130395
For a variety of good reasons, websites generally have a mobile version and browser version whenever possible. What works well on a PC and what works well on mobile are very different, and aiming for one design that works for both will usually just end with something that no-one likes.

>>130398
Agreed. I'm sick of websites giving me a infinite vertical scroll and/or leaving massive amounts of empty space on the sides.

>>130399
>>130398
a fair point. This is mostly designed for mobile use more than anything, so I'll save this particular design for SPECIFICALLY that. Perhaps a manual big-button toggle on the top right along with the other style formats like nice and pony?

>>130402
It should be pretty easy to put in something that automatically detects whether you're using a mobile client or not, if you're going to be paying for a professional to do this stuff. It's pretty standard feature in web design these days.

Really, whatever ends up getting decided in this thread, you're going to have to talk to whoever you hire and listen to them about what's possible and what is or isn't a good idea, anyway.

For sure, but I still want to go to them with a solid agreed-upon idea here. Is there anything else that should be added that would make the imageboard format better?

>>130405
>Is there anything else that should be added that would make the imageboard format better?
Ask and ye shall receive. In the document I posted, I identified about 70 minor issues. Here, have 10 of them that only deal with how a post element is displayed.

>The >> doubledash on the left of each non-OP post should be removed.
This visual element seems to serve little purpose when the thread doesn't support any post hierarchy. And in case you'd need padding to signify a post is a reply to another post, white space should be used.
>The Checkbox next to each post should be hidden until hovered over.
It makes little sense for this rarely-used feature to be visible on all the posts all the time.
>The poster name and poster ID should be together.
For two elements in the post's header that basically serve the same purpose (identifying the poster), I don't quite understand why one is on the left and other on the right side of the header.
>If using the pony theme, the pony icon should always be on the left side.
With how a post width varies from post to post, the icons keep jumping left and right. One of the consistency UI design principles teaches us that common visual elements should try to appear in a consistent manner so that the user can always expect to see them in the same way. There's also several other problems, such as the fact that the icon is too large, that it has no padding, etc. Altho, the pony icon itself has some value in terms that, a user avatar serves many useful design purposes.
>If using the pony theme, the pony name should be together with poster name and poster ID.
Altho we then get some problems with redundancy where you now have 4 elements serving to identify the poster - poster name, poster ID, pony icon and pony name.
>The time in the post's header should be localized.
It's confusing to the user who doesn't live in the server's time zone to see the server time.
>The time in the post's header should be relative. Optionally.
More often than not, a relative value (eg. 15 minutes ago) would be much more valuable to the user. It should be possible for a user to customize how they see dates and whether they want to see absolute or relative time.
>Post ID in each post's header should be hidden until hovered over.
I have a lot to say about how post ID is an irrelevant visual element and how one should not expose the inner workings of the website to the user. But let's just say that the number itself is metadata that no one reads when reading the quest, and the only thing that matters is the reference.
>Post file info should be hidden by default.
How often are post file's data size, pixel dimensions, and its filename relevant? Relevant, as in, will affect the way user handles this file? Almost never. So this info should either be permanently hidden, or shown after hovering over the thumbnail.
>When clicking on an image, the default action should be to expand the image (and not open it in a new tab), but be limited by screen width and height. The "Expand all images" link should also expand the images in this way.
This one problem you already discovered on your own :P
>There should be an easy way for the user to differentiate between his own posts and posts of others.
For instance, by changing the background color of the poster name.
Ok, this one isn't really a minor fix without implementing a user system. Technically it would be possible if you used a static list of names, and you then find posts with poster names from this list.

>>130417

>When clicking on an image, the default action should be to expand the image (and not open it in a new tab), but be limited by screen width and height. The "Expand all images" link should also expand the images in this way.

Why

>>130419
Because it creates a better reading experience:
- It isn't disruptive (opening the image in the new tab is)
- It doesn't break the layout (horizontal slider appearing can result in many visual artifacts and is usually a big no-no for user experience)
- It is more consistent (images of varying sizes can be expected to be aligned more often; the user can always expect to see the whole image)
- the user can always open the image in a new tab, or zoom in, to further increase the size of the image. Note that looking at an image when you can only see a part of it, is usually frustrating to a user

>>130417
honestly, a lot of these are ones I don't fully agree with since they fall under the oversimplification peeve. The checkbox isn't all that intrusive and I find the double-arrows helps readability.

The image thing I agree with especially for mobile browsing though, it's a lot harder to click the file url to expand the image than it would be to click just the image.

>>130424
>the oversimplification peeve
Sigh. Have you taken any classes on GUI design? Read any books about what makes a good GUI and good user experience?

You could call it oversimplification if I was suggesting to remove certain functionality, but I'm not doing that. However, I totally understand why you would call it that way. It's because you have expectations and pre-existing knowledge. Because you're so used to seeing the visual complexity of an imageboard. All of us are. This makes it incredibly hard to have a neutral opinion and it's important you realize this.

Do you believe that visual simplification is simply someone's subjective opinion? I thought so at first as well, but I quickly found out how wrong I was.
It's all about efficiency. Pure speed at which the user is able to accomplish what they're trying to do.
Larger font size? Easier to read. Faster to read. Less time spent reading.
Less visual clutter? Less distractions. Faster for your eyes to find the data you're looking for. Speed.
For you, this may not be so apparent because you're already used to where everything is, but for a new or a casual user, it makes a world of difference. Imagine going down the street, except that you would be half-blind because one of your eyes was showing you random stuff. You would still get there, but you'd probably hit a few street lamps on the way.
Of course, there's tradeoffs everywhere. You can only increase the font size so much before the reading speed becomes slower due to your eyes having to constantly jump to a new line, or you have to scroll down.
Hiding elements makes general usage faster, but it makes it slower for the user to access these elements. So it becomes important to know (or be able to estimate) how often which visual elements are accessed. When you read an archived quest thread from the beginning to the end, how often do you need the checkbox?

>the double-arrows helps readability.
Actually, they don't. You could argue that they serve as an anchor for eyes to find the place where the post begins, but that's incorrect. The top-left corner of the post is actually identified by the change in the bg color and the poster name. The double arrows are simply redundant.

>>130417
>>honestly, a lot of these are ones I don't fully agree with since they fall under the oversimplification peeve. The checkbox isn't all that intrusive and I find the double-arrows helps readability.

Thanks for saying it so I didn't have to.
I don't use the pony filter, so no strong feelings there.

>>130431
The people who redesigned twitter all took GUI coursework, look how that turned out lmao

And again, this is something that peeves me. Slapping features behind menus or hiding them when they don't need to be is a sucky new fad I want to go away. It usually just winds up alienating new users, and these are small enough changes that they wouldn't actually help or hinder a new user all that much.

>>130433
and it looks like I'm not the only one, lol

>>130435
>look how that turned out lmao
Seems it turned out quite well based on how many millions of users they have. That isn't a coincidence. It's because Twitter was easy to use that a lot of people adopted it. Laugh at their success all you want.

>a sucky new fad
I agree. There's a lot of websites which don't properly hide features, that is, they go too far into mobile GUI design, so they unnecessarily hide too many things and thus hinder the user experience for desktop users. That is something I'm aware of and took into great consideration for every single change I proposed.

>it looks like I'm not the only one
It's entirely understandable that old and experienced users would dismiss changes that would benefit new users. After all, if a change doesn't directly benefit you, then for you it's unnecessary.

Look, I'm extremely grateful to hear that you'd consider financing development of tgchan. As such, it is your right to express which changes you'd prefer, and which you don't. I just wish you would think of the new users a bit more because, well, they're a boon to the site.

>>130437
as someone who spends all my time on twitter, i think the point being made is that they just redesigned the desktop interface to be Sleeker and More Modern and absolutely everyone (that i’ve seen) fucking despises it and we’ve all immediately downloaded chrome extensions to forcibly reverse it. millions of people (myself included) being gluttons for punishment and staying on the hell site no matter what dumb shit they implement bc all our friends use it =/= “twitter is super successful at web design.”

anyway with that being said big agree on swapping the image click/file link click functions. it’s so much more intuitive to have clicking the image expand it in the post and it’s a seemingly small thing that’s always bothered me. but stuff like the checkbox and a bunch of other tiny design oriented things i’m not personally worried about. i’m far more concerned with making the site easier to navigate and use intuitively in plain and practical ways than i am with like, changing everything just because we can

People are only new to the site once, so while the new user experience is important, you have to remember not to sacrifice a comfortable reading experience for people who have settled in. Also, I don't want to be all "normies get out", but people who want to read weird interactive webcomics are probably at least one or two steps up on the internet nerd ladder. There's a certain level of crunchiness to the basic concept of quests to begin with.

Again, I think AO3 is a good example of the kind of site we'd want to be, just made for quests instead of fanfiction.

>>130437
Some of your suggestions are good, the rest aren't so much. You don't need to worry much about my bias affecting the design too much, but you're also the distinct minority on this particular sticking point and I happen to agree with the majority.

Fractal has the right of it, my point was that the update follows a lot of modern GUI design fetishes and is a far worse interface for it. I think that that would happen here if we got too into changing around normal features just to make things more "sleek."

I rarely used twitter already because the overall format is the worst idea for effective communication since interpretive dance, and the new interface update was what made me finally go pull the plug on my account.

>>130440
mind expanding on that? Ao3 is great, but I'm not perceptive enough to really tell why besides the comprehensive user-generated tagging and a good search functions.

>>130394
I think this looks and would work pretty well for browsing the site on mobile phones. On desktops though, I feel like I'd run out of screen room for longer updates. Be fine if it was something you had as an option to switch to.

>>130448
Yeah, this was meant specifically as a mobile design. It's good to hear it's working out well for that.

>>130417
>How often are post file's data size, pixel dimensions, and its filename relevant?
I've seen quest authors include information as part of the filename. Pretty sure it's been plot-relevant at least once.

And people on mobile with a limited data plan like to know when a recent post in /draw/ is 8MiB instead of 300KiB.

Riotmode 2019/08/01(Thu)18:32 No. 130567 ID: eb1fcc
File 156470957552.png - (57.61KB , 960x540 , new layout.png )

Alright, here's the next iteration of the front page.

Keep in mind this is very much a loose sketch, the only important takeaways here are layout ideas, featureset, and possibly the color scheme.

some notes on the design I wasn't able to include:

-that sidebar on the right is my proposed watchlist design. Shows the name of the thread and the last 3 posts. Would probably look nicer than this and would be collapsible into a tab on the side or bottom-right of the screen.

-Fanart button links to the booru.

-Nsfw tagged threads will have a nsfw tag symbol somewhere on their OP tile, probably a no-under-18 symbol.

-the options menu lets you switch back to the old layout, faff with your watch list, etc. All things that aren't board specific go there. Would also include a toggle for nsfw tagged quests, ideally.

-The grid layout adjusts to monitor width, ideally shows 10 quests in two columns but could either be forced to just one column or adjust with screen space. Talk about this, would be helpful.

-Threads with animated OP images will animate only when moused over


still to-do for the front page design:

-updated posting box (honestly though I'm probably just gonna snag a standard forum post formatting box, it's tried and true.)

-cleaned up version of this draft image

major to-do:
-thread view (while in a thread)
-tag/search function layout
-budget estimation

Post your feedbacks on this now!

im tired and my brains not firing on all cylinders rn so i might come back to this with more thoughts later but at a first glance this looks good and i’m not seeing anything i dislike outside of maybe the color scheme. i think the color scheme already in place is nice and neutral (i normally prefer dark mode on almost all sites but.... idk, i like the washed out yellow and tan here. it goes with everything and it’s nice.)
i do wonder how it’s gonna change things to not be able to see the last few posts in a thread while browsing quests you haven’t gotten into/watched yet, but i do still like the idea of the quest front page having more at a glance summaries (plus u can just toggle back to the old format whenever so it’s a nonissue overall i guess)

>i do wonder how it’s gonna change things to not be able to see the last few posts in a thread while browsing quests...

That is good point. The most recent posts are good indicators of recent updates on slower days.
Maybe they could be replaces by a pinned post to show the most recent update. The ability to pin a post could require a password so only the author could use, or be open to every user with the understanding that the misuse of this feature would be a rule violation.


Maybe it's just a silly convention, but I prefer the title to be at the top, not the button.

I'm not a fan of this brownish grape tone.

The news barely update. Prior to Slinko's message the last one was from 2014. Is it really worth having a collapsible window for something that get so little use?

>>130571
I'll try and update the color scheme to match tgchan classic, if anyone can help by grabbing hex codes for everything I'll get on that when I get home.

The news list was mislabeled, was one of the last things added and by the time I was working on it I was in an autopilot fugue state from a new medicine. That's supposed to be a collapsible watchlist, as mentioned.

>>130568
Also @fractal here, regarding my earlier comments in the other thread:

Sorry if that came off as a dig at you. I like you and your work, that dig was directed mostly at people who thankfully didn't stick around much.

I remember having a lot of beef with some new people who joined after you started posting update links on tumblr who would start arguments in other threads, usually because "you can't write that!!" or other similarly tepid reasonings.

Coulda picked my wording on it better, shouldn't type mad.

spoilered for not really relevant to the thread and specific to one person.

>>130567
Seems a little similar with some QoL improvements. I'm fine with it. The only things missing are a link to the archive and graveyard, and a catalog view. I guess for archive/graveyard they could just be a tag though.

I think keeping the catalog view around would be nice.

>>130577
catalog view?

Buckwheat 2019/08/02(Fri)20:22 No. 130584 ID: 15a025
File 156480257855.png - (327.72KB , 889x513 , catalog.png )

>>130578
It makes it a lot easier to see all the threads and see what's been active recently.

>>130584
oh! Yes, I have a few ideas in mind for that. I can't seem to find it in my files but I even had a small rework proposal for exactly this.

It's scrapped regardless, but I'll try to implement some of the ideas I had when I remake that part.

>>130575
it’s cool, i don’t care. it’s also cool when people Don’t like me or my work. one thing we definitely agree on is that people have a responsibility not to engage with people or content they find offensive or irritating. i only get frustrated when people try to make it My problem when ppl who may have found their way here through my offsite audience are misbehaving, bc i’m not their mom and i don’t have control over anyone’s behavior but my own. i don’t have a problem with ppl expressing frustration w that kind of stuff as long as they don’t drag me into it.

>>130439
>absolutely everyone (that i’ve seen) fucking despises it
You know what my reaction to the twitter change was? It was "Fuck this shit, bring back the old design!" haha.
This is totally normal because, once you're used to something, once you expect this button to be here, and that button to be there, and this feature to look like this, you'll get mad if they're suddenly moved elsewhere or changed since you basically have to relearn the website. People generally don't like that.

But then I looked at the changes from an objective standpoint, and I have to say that, for someone without any preconceptions - a new user, twitter looks much better and easier to use now.

You could say that twitter took the risk of angering existing users with the objective to make the site easier to use in the long term. Sadly, I agree with their decision because people come and go, so it's simply better in the long run.

Mark my words, use Twitter's new design for a year and you'll learn to love it all the same. No, once you get used to it, you'll rather eat ghost chilies than go back to the old design heh.

Anyway, we're dealing with more or less the same situation here. Where the vocal majority of old users is drowning the pleas of the new users.

>>130567
Your design isn't bad. I like the general design of the quest card in terms that you're correctly displaying only the most relevant features. That is, the ones that user will want to read to determine whether they'd like to view the quest or not. For those features, I think "number of views", "number of updates", "last updated date", "number of likes" would also be relevant.

Altho the way the rest of the site design isn't great. For instance, on a landscape-oriented display, vertical screen space is more valuable, so it's better to have things like nav bars and links to site sections on the sides. The main content should take the middle of the screen and be centered there.
Some sections may or may not be necessary, and you completely left out sorting and filtering options. User login?

naileD 2019/08/04(Sun)08:59 No. 130599 ID: fb2a7b
File QuestReaderDemo.mp4 - (18.30MB )

Anyway...

Here, I've uploaded a demo video.

The demo shows a new site extension that I've been working on for over a week now and it's meant as a demonstration of various possible ways one can view quest threads.
This (fully-functional) extension does minimal changes to the design, and mostly focuses on the quest-viewing features:
- Toggle suggestions
- Toggle author comments (you can hide suggestions but still view quest author's comments)
- 3 view modes:
a. Webtoon view -> Whole thread (Same as now)
b. Comic view -> Paged per update (Each page has a single update post.)
c. Comic view -> Paged per sequence (Each page contains a sequential group of updates. When authors make multi-post updates.)
- Hotkeys (It allows navigating between updates, with left and right arrow keys. Probably not useful for mobile users.)
- Auto-expand images (It will only expand the necessary images, for visible updates, to save on data)
- Toggle Reply form (It allows you to move the Reply Form to the bottom and collapse it)
- Settings (It remembers your settings, plus the position in the thread, for each thread separately. So the next time you open it, the settings and the position are restored.

So my question is, would anyone be willing to try it out?

>>130599
Seems pretty handy for imageboard layout. One thing I would change though is have the navigation as a floating element that scrolls with you, rather than requiring you to scroll all the way top or bottom to hit "next post"

Take a look at webtoons.com for an example of what I mean, it's pretty handy just scrolling up a little bit to make it pop up so I can move to another page

>>130599
That looks super neat! If you're looking for volunteers, count me in.

>>130599
>floating element
I'm not sure I understand what you mean. At 0:06 in the video, you can see that there's a floating navbar at the bottom that I'm clicking on. That's how it works in the "Whole thread" view mode. The other two comic-style views are small and don't warrant a floating navbar. However, in the other two views, navigating left or right will automatically scroll to the top (not shown in the video since I'm always at the top). Would you prefer the navbar to be on top?

>>130602
Okay.
You can get it at https://greasyfork.org/en/scripts/387953-quest-reader
Of course, you first need the Tampermonkey browser extension.

Tell me if you find any bugs or you'd like some features to function or look differently. For instance, the buttons look like crap heh.

>>130601
There is floating navigation when viewing the whole thread. When view as sequences or single updates, the navigation is at the top and the bottom.
>>130605
Only finding minor things so far. Not sure how picky you want feedback to be.
-When view as a whole thread, it doesn't keep track of which update you're on. So if you then immediately use the left and right keys it will navigate you as if you were still on the update before using the scroll bar. Using the mouse wheel or up down keys after scrolling does update it to the right number.
-When changing settings, if you don't click off of the menu then the right and left keys will also change the setting as well as moving to the next update. Kind of obvious in hindsight, but did give me quite the confusion when I tried to navigate and it would keep switching from view whole thread and per update.
-When viewing as per update and images are expanded, the text in the second post still wraps as if it's still accommodating for the OP image.
-After setting all images to expanded, changing the setting back to not expanding does not unexpand the images.
-Script does not activate if you enter the thread from "last 50posts" or "last 100 posts"

Otherwise, I'm not finding anything actually glitchy. It works with image, text, and mixed quests(such as iAm). Seems to work to work with all supported media.

As for features and such, going have to wait and do an actual archive binge to see what's comfortable and if anything is needed

>>130599
>>130605

Alright, used it a bit more now. Re-read through a good chunk of FenQuest and general browsing of active quests. I pretty much only got good stuff to say. It's fairly comfy to use and so far has been able to adapt to various ways that quests are run rather smoothly. Kinda reminds me of reading through Tezakia Quest for the first time.

The only other bug I've come across is that sometimes in sequence view navigating to the next update brings you to the middle image instead of the top, but I haven't figured out what triggers it, sorry.

As for features, I wouldn't mind a setting to automatically got to the latest update when viewing active quests, and an ability to go to the next thread when reading archived quests. Otherwise, I'm pretty much happy with how it is. I think you were very thorough with the current features.

>>130622
Sorry for the slow reply. To prevent thread hijacking, I've made a new thread and replied to you here: >>/meep/29338

>>130667
Don't worry too much about that, this is a site improvement thread mostly and you're accomplishing improvements. Just gotta get dylan to hard-bake some of this stuff into the site proper.

ANYHOW, update:
life threw a curveball, this is on the backburner for a bit. Still working on some ideas in my head, but finding a better job and covering some really gnarly sudden car bullshit comes first.

I may be willing to throw money at this place to make it better but I can't be doin' it at my own expense, lol

>>130674
>I may be willing to throw money at this place to make it better but I can't be doin' it at my own expense, lol
Wat

>>130675
rephrased:

I'm willing to spend spare cash on this, but I can't spend living money on it. This will be a savings project for whatever spare I can save.

For what it's worth, I have asked Dylan a few times to make the site open source so that I (a professional full stack web developer) can contribute to it. Not a ground up redesign, that would be an insane months long project, but stuff like showing replies in the post and integrating that Quest Reader plugin.