The new user interface

Continuing the discussion from Notice: Diatribe migration:

Now that we have a basic setup, can we hack the user interface, or give users the ability to select interface themes and styles as suggested here?

While I’m used to strongly curating my experience and am happy to mute things right left and centre if I find them uninteresting, “latest” is difficult to use and off-putting if you’re not in that mindset. And for people who are used to the phpBB experience of “look down categories to see if there’s any traffic in the two I’m interested in”, that info is now hidden from them (especially with the mashing of regional discussions into their subforums).

Basicly I’m wondering if we can get new and unread posts per category (optionally) listed in the category list, or let users choose an interface like the one discussed here which presents the info in a sidebar.

Yeah, the categories issue is something I’ve noticed too. It isn’t really a very useful view without it indicating new posts at least. Its really sub categories that are the issue - discourse doesn’t really like them and we structure most of our threads that way. We really only use categories as a way of adding headings to groups of subcategories. Maybe we don’t need to do that? We could move all our sub categories out into full fledged categories, but it would require another change in how we think about things.

I’m not sure I like the idea of individual themes, as 1. that involves maintenance costs, and 2. I’m more interested in unified branding and consistent experiences. Though I think maybe a light and a dark version would be ok (assuming someone has made a plugin for it).

That would work. For example, we’ve traditionally categorised campaigns and events by region, so that e.g. Crucible is under Auckland and Hydra is under Wellington. But we’re effectively a national market now, so there’s no real need to do that. Each category has an “about” post, so that can be edited to highlight location and point to game information elsewhere (e.g. the Crucible or Chimera sites, the Hogwarts Facebook group etc). And it would also let campaigns control their own subcategories (so all the TWTI subs could be moved under its main category).

The community categories could be rationalised as well, with “international” under “Larp discussion” and “How-to guides” (and its associated backstage development forum?) under “Gear” (or maybe not, because its also got stuf fon budgeting and writing big games). “Calendar” can go under either “Larp discussion” or “Game ideas”; it kindof fits in either.

One downside is that it would potentially create problems with archiving when a campaign with subcategories ends.

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I gave this a shot but it produced a list that was a little unwieldy, so I put back the games that currently don’t have subcategories (bar 1 or two that most likely will in the future). Its possible the design can be tweaked to make it work, but as is it was a bit over whelming.

I think splitting the top categories up a bit has worked though? It at least means you are more likely to be interested in changes within the whole category.

I have increased the number of “featured topics” in the category listing to six. This should make new topics quicker to spot (it also grabs pinned topics).

I have hidden the category label when it is a direct match to the view, so it’s easier to spot sub categories in category streams.

What I want to do is maybe create another link in the top menu to “games”, and have a view that only shows game categories. But that looks like it could be a lot of work. I suspect that after the initial transition period, latest might make a better default home page…

Appreciate the time you’re volunteering to do this!

I’ve always browsed by latest activity, so the latest tab works for me - but love the idea of a dark version if there is a plugin out there.

Stoked to see we can download all our posts! I’ve done heaps of writing on here I’d like to keep! :smiley: Cool that we can grab out content for posteriety! Eh @Orlandus? (Tagging is cool too!)

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Is there anyway of connecting our google/facebook account to our current diatribe account?

Sorry if this isn’t the right place to post

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If you’re using the same email address on diatribe as facebook / google+ then it should probably just work. It did for me.

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Try it, the first time, when you are logged into Facebook in another tab. Otherwise, make sure the email addresses used by diatribe are the same.

Ah nice, that worked well

I was trying to find the Dry Spell rules. I can find the posts that talk about the rules, but cannot seem to find any links to the rules themselves. Am I missing something, or have linked files not been transferred ?

Is there a dead link? Or just nothing?

EDIT: Yeah, I think you’re correct - it hasn’t migrated attachments.

Can they be extracted from the old database on request? I can think of a few specific ones people might want to save.

The files aren’t kept in the database, they live somewhat scrambled in a folder - renamed, with no filetype1. I can copy over the folder, but finding specific files could prove difficult. There are scripts that can be run, but I think they are for working instances of phpBB. If you find them while Craig’s server is still active, they may be easier to retrieve (but it’ll be a manual process).

I still have access to the old Diatribe (as does anyone else with admin rights on the old forums). So if you have anything specific we can likely retrieve it for you.


  1. Which will be why they haven’t been migrated.

The new format doesn’t appear to let you use “backspace” as a shortcut to go back one screen - Alt-Left Arrow and the back button on the toolbar both work. Bug or feature?

Edit: Actually clicking on the screen, then pushing backspace works. Is it losing focus every time it loads a new screen?

People do that? That’s a thing people do? :smiley:

According to the keyboard shortcut cheetsheet in the hamburger menu at the top the shortcut to go back is ‘u’.

Yes, that’s a thing people do. It’s a function of the browser, not of the UI, which an aspect of the software is rendering non-functional. Is it fixable?

What on earth is a “hamburger menu” and while we’re on the subject, how is “u” an intuitive shortcut for “Go Back”?

U-turn?

And its the first time I’ve seen that term as well, but it works - three stacked lines totally looks like a squashed, mass-market hamburger.

[quote=“IdiotSavant, post:18, topic:21214, full:true”]
U-turn?

And its the first time I’ve seen that term as well, but it works - three stacked lines totally looks like a squashed, mass-market hamburger.[/quote]
Once pointed out, sure. It’s not at all what I would have thought of without prompting. It’s the same icon that on (most) smartphones and I’ve never heard that term for it before in my life

It’s what a lot of web developers/designers call it. It started as a joke I suppose. And now it’s worldwide nomenclature. Guess that’s how words are formed. :stuck_out_tongue:

As for the backspace to go back thing, the best place to log that bug would be with the Discourse people. I didn’t know that was a thing browsers did, so they might not either… It’s certainly not something I have ever tested for.

I suppose the reason it doesn’t work out of the box would be that it’s a JavaScript application - there are no real page loads - it’s very easy to miss little things like that when making an app this big.