Hide Unused Features

[slvr_phoenix]

Can we have a way to expand/contract things so that what we commonly use is visible, but what we don't give a flip about isn't? For example, I can't see myself using the "Emoticons", "Cross-Post to Newsgroups", "Options", "Add a Poll" cells frequently. I'd really like to be able to hide these things with a small placeholder option to unhide them.

For that matter, is the "Cross-Post to Newsgroups" always unchecked by default whenever it even is an option? (Because it should be unchecked by default IMHO.)

 

[Ned_Flanders]

My request is related to this too

 

[Rob423]

that's a cool idea.. nice thinking guys.

 

[steve_sa]

Slvr, while good items, they are IMHO lower on priority. I am creating a post right now and I cannot see what harm the emoticons, or usenet cross posting, etc. are doing to me. In other words, someone has to program it, and then the user may need the feature and forget that he/she turned it off. I have not seen the option to turn stuff off to that level of complexity.

comments?

 

[Ned_Flanders]

What about what I suggested then in my link above?

 

[steve_sa]

What about what I suggested then in my link above?

There must be a reason bb has it there. I have never looked into it. It's worth finding out.

Attach sig: I cannot think of a time you don't want to attach it either.

Low on the priority totom pole, but let's put on the list.

 

[Ned_Flanders]

What's at the top of the pole then?

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Slvr, while good items, they are IMHO lower on priority. I am creating a post right now and I cannot see what harm the emoticons, or usenet cross posting, etc. are doing to me. In other words, someone has to program it, and then the user may need the feature and forget that he/she turned it off. I have not seen the option to turn stuff off to that level of complexity.

comments?

I agree it's a low priority. But you probably don't see the harm in a million unuseful features because you're browsing on a large monitor with a high resolution setting and probably even with a maximized window. For those of us with much smaller realestate, all of these extra features that we have no intention of using are annoying and time consuming to scroll past.

What I've noticed, that is a very nice feature, is that the "View more Emoticons" link brings up a popup window for more features. Personally, I think ALL of the emoticons should be done this way, so that the only real estate on the page is for the one link/button/whatever to pop up the emoticon window.

The same technique could also be used for other things. All of the "Options" checkboxes for example, could be in a popup window spawned from a simple little options button.

For that matter, even the formatting tag buttons and combo boxes could be done the same way from a formatting button.

And even more ideally (though yet more work), in our profile settings, we could set whether we want each of these clusters of stuff to be shown or hidden individually, so that each of us can optimize to show/hide the feature we use most/least individually.

I'm not sure how the posting page is written, but writing it to dynamicly show sections or hide them based on profile settings by replacing the sections with nice little buttons to bring up popup windows would be super neato keen. But again, I understand that's of a pretty low priority. Fix bugs first.

 

[steve_sa]

Actually it is easier than that, now that I am thinking it thru. On could put a "show/hide emoticons" next to emoticons, and one can turn on/off accordingly. It would use a cookie to save the info, so no extensive db change or profile change is necessary.

Much easier to do, but still I have a million things on my plate. Duly noted.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

Cool.

But do cookies get wiped if you close and open new browser? If so the values would have to be stored on the server or else you'd always be reverting back to defaluts.

 

[Ned_Flanders]

No, cookies live for as long as you / they want.

But, it would still be better to have most cookie data stored server side - As all your preferences would be lost if you use more than one PC.

 

[slvr_phoenix]

That's true, but I'd rather have a quick fix soon than a server fix a long time from now. Maybe the cookie implement could even be done first and then later when/if server implement is done it could grab the cookie data if there are no values in server.

 

[steve_sa]

cookies hang around (if you set them up that way), but they stay on that particular computer. Ok, so if you have two computers, you just click on that option twice and you are done (unless you are a roaming person :lol: )

 

[Ned_Flanders]

I use Uni PC's. Also, some people (SoD no doubt) block cookies as some can be classed as spyware.

 

[steve_sa]

I use Uni PC's. Also, some people (SoD no doubt) block cookies as some can be classed as spyware.

Block cookies, then you cannot login to the forumz :lol:

 

[Ned_Flanders]

Well, SoD is fooked! But regardless, I'm sure a lot of people will use different PC's at work too, and it is a complete hassel to log in and find all your read threads are lying to you!