Radified Community Forums

Hello all!

Is the red dot blinking or not? I think it's more difficult to scan compared to the old style when there either was or wasn't a blue "NEW" label. What do others think?

Christer

I dislike the blinking dot very much! Things blinking on a page is really annoying! I liked the way it was before. That is really the only complaint I have about the new boards.... so far.

Christer

NightOwl is rocking back and forth chanting:

*Change is good, change is good, change is good........* :D

ckcc

I'm not a fan of animated whatever on webpages--especially advertising--can be really distracting! But I suspect we may be stuck with this *feature* as part of the new board version!

Personally, I would prefer they use the same *flagging* as they do in the individual board indexes where there's a little blue box with *New* in it--but that's me! ;)

I also prefer the previous style of flagging boards with new posts. The blinking is less effective and somewhat annoying.

On a positive note, thanks for fixing the breadcrumbs. That makes it much easier to navigate the new board.

To be honest, I don't remember exactly how it was in the previous version, if it was a label or a different colour on the main page but I know that I don't like the new style. Imagine a traffic light, if the red light is fixed = stop, if the red light is blinking = go!

Christer

I can replace new gfx with old gfx if you find that blink annoying.

That's easy.

Don't do it because I am whining. There must be some kind of consensus behind such an action (or if the boss want's to).

Christer

Christer

I've done a little research on the coding and it looks like it should not be too difficult to edit this function--just have to get Rad's attention ;) !

On the main forum page, the blinking red dot is the *on.gif* http://radified.com/yabb22files/Templates/Forum/black/on.gif :

If I *right mouse button click* on the image and select *Properties*, this is the *Address: URL* that is shown:

Code:

http://radified.com/yabb22files/Templates/Forum/black/on.gif

And, on the main forum page, the steady red dot is the *off.gif* http://radified.com/yabb22files/Templates/Forum/black/off.gif :

At the moment, I don't have any blinking red dots indicating *new posts* on one of the boards, so I can only look for the *off.gif* webpage code: So, here's the code from selecting my browser's menu item *View>Source*, and then using the *Edit>Find* function of *Notepad* to look for the first *off.gif* on the main forum page:

Code:

<td class="windowbg" width="6%" align="center" valign="middle">
<a href="http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?board=ghost9_10"> <img src="http://radified.com/yabb22files/Templates/Forum/black/boards.gif" alt="Norton Ghost 12, Ghost 10 + Ghost 9 Discussion Board, including Norton Save + Restore" title="Norton Ghost 12, Ghost 10 + Ghost 9 Discussion Board, including Norton Save + Restore" border="0" /> </a>
</td>
<td class="windowbg" width="54%" align="left" valign="middle">
<img src="http://radified.com/yabb22files/Templates/Forum/black/off.gif" alt="No New Posts" title="No New Posts" border="0" style="vertical-align: middle;" /> <a name="bghost9_10" href="http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?board=ghost9_10"><b>Norton Ghost 12, Ghost 10 + Ghost 9 Discussion Board, including Norton Save + Restore</b></a><br />
This board is dedicated to discussions regarding Norton GHOST 12, Ghost 10 & Ghost 9, including Norton Save & Restore (NS&R) .. all of which are based on the new, Windows-based version of Ghost (originally developed by PowerQuest).<br />

There are three more boards with the *off.gif* indicated, plus the bottom bar that shows the example of what to look for for *New Posts* and *No New Posts*.

I vote for changing the *New Posts* gif to the one used on the Board Index page in front of the a thread that is showing as *New* for the user: http://radified.com/yabb22files/Templates/Forum/black/new.gif :

The *poor man's* coding to change the above could be to simply re-name the *new.gif* file to the *on.gif* and then save it to the source directory file http://radified.com/yabb22files/Templates/Forum/black/on.gif ,over-writing the original *on.gif* file.

The better way would be to figure out which template file calls for the needed image file, and changing the coding to point to the gif file you want to call.

I will change. Nobody likes it. I don't like it myself.

I will simply overwrite files in \black gfx directory with those from default (which are not animated).

Okay. I changed.

It appears the DEFAULT on gfx is also animated .. less noticable than the red-on-black .. but still animated.

I could put if back if you'd like to see. But for now, I returned to the same gfx we used in YaBB 2.1

What say ye? We can put any gfx we want there. I am not dogmatic about anything. Whatever works for you works for me.

Here are the DEFAULT gfx:

on:

off:

Not too bad. I could live with those.

Christer wrote on Feb 1^st, 2008 at 9:04am:

Don't do it because I am whining.

It's not whining, animation has attention-drawing effects that are basically hard-wired into the human visual system; this is a basic fact that has been widely known for 50 years or more. Take a look at http://www.useit.com/alertbox/9512.html

The correct form of difference indicator for a situation like this is a static graphic different in both colour and monochrome weight (it's important to bear in mind the needs of the colour-blind).

Nigel Bree

Quote:

animation has attention-drawing effects

When I'm at a webpage to *read* information--as opposed to be *entertained*--I'd call it attention *distracting* in this case!

Quote:

The correct form of difference indicator for a situation like this is a static graphic different in both colour and monochrome weight (it's important to bear in mind the needs of the colour-blind).

Very interesting! I wonder how the *old-style* that Rad has switched back to appears to a colour-blind person--I actually find the orange check mark somewhat hard to see--seems to blend into the white (grey?) background box somewhat.

Rad

Quote:

What say ye? We can put any gfx we want there. I am not dogmatic about anything. Whatever works for you works for me.

Here are the DEFAULT gfx:

on:

off:

Not too bad. I could live with those.

(Hmmm...interesting--when you put the image code inside the quote code--the forum software is ignoring the image code!)

I could live with those, too! Gets you attention, but with softer color contrast--could try it for a few days and see what others think.

Rereading my first post indicates to me that my memory is failing. On the main page, it was a check mark in different colours and not a "new" label. I only knew that I disliked the red dot, blinking or not.

I like the old style orange/blue check marks but the colour blind people may have a problem. How does a colour blind person see orange and blue? I know that there are degrees of colour blindness, ranging from a difficulty to differentiate between shades of the same colour or seeing a certain colour when surrounded by antoher colour but do some people see in shades of grey (black-white)?

Christer

It's obvious the INtention of the flashing animated graphic *is* to get your ATtention ("Hey, we have new posts here that need your attention/help/assistance") .. tho I feel the red-on-black was DISTRACTING.

Whatever you guys want is cool with me.

To be honest, I never realized there was a difference between yellow/blue read/unread posts. So I can see how the animation could be useful.

The yellow and blue check boxes are much better. thanks.

I agree that the animation can be useful to get your attention.... but it was very annoying to me. I think that maybe it was mainly the bright red color and that more subdued colors might be better. As long as there is nothing flashing on the posts pages where I spend most time reading then all is well.

Rad wrote on Feb 2^nd, 2008 at 1:55pm:

It's obvious the INtention of the flashing animated graphic *is* to get your ATtention ("Hey, we have new posts here that need your attention/help/assistance")

Except that the legend display showing what the read/unread marks mean that blinking element is always present on the page, harming readability 100% of the time. Blinking is inappropriate for this, full stop.

Honestly, almost anything else - bolding the links, highlighting the background, any one of dozens of techniques - works much better in practice.

By the way NightOwl, with respect to colourblindness it varies but the most common type is red/green, in which (say) orange versus blue is still distinct (I have several friends, and have worked with several people with this form of colour-blindness). The wikipedia page on colour-blindness points to a tool which can help show how web-based designs effectively look to people with varying kinds of colour perception.

The other thing it's always worth bearing in mind is the blind; the Web has been much better than most modern desktop applications for blind folks because it's historically emphasised text. A good introduction to the experience of blind users is Darren Fittler's presentation at Webstock '06, which you can watch (and more importantly, hear) a recording of.

Okay, I'll leave it as it is .. unless you find something different you'd like to try.

Rad (in SeaMonkey)

Radified Community Forums
http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl Rad Community Non-Technical Discussion Boards >> YaBB Forum Software + Rad Web Site >> New post(s) notification on the main page http://radified.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1201774520 Message started by Christer on Jan 31^st, 2008 at 4:15am