A couple of minor (I hope!) changes that would greatly improve my DU4 experience

[Emrys]

The main one is that I'd like to see the "Your Posts" button reinstated, separated out from "My Stuff".

On DU3, when it lit up, it was a very useful cue that someone had engaged with one of your posts and you had the option to read and reply.

In the new format, it requires an extra click to access this among a large number of options. An extra click isn't going to kill me, but since you can't centre mouse-click to open "My Stuff" in a new browser tab, checking out why "My Stuff" has lit up and viewing post replies forces me away from whatever I was reading at the time.

There's space available to the right of the header of each whole-forum view, next to "About forum", to neatly accommodate an extra button.

A less crucial change, and maybe more tricky, is that I'd like to be able to customize what sub-forums appear in the upper left column on every screen. Currently, it just lists Latest Breaking News, General Discussion and The DU Lounge. I'd like to be able to add more options without having to subscribe to a subforum. For instance, I liked having Editorials & Other Articles available at a single mouse click on DU3. I've subscribed to that forum on DU4 so it's now easily available, but I don't need constant alerts about posts on it. I know I could have the "Navigate" tab permanently open to let me have one-click access again, but it takes up quite a lot of top-screen real estate and is more cumbersome.

Other than that, I'm pretty happy with the changes, especially using the trainer wheels of Skinner Mode!

[intrepidity]

1. Good, thoughtful points

I wonder how hard it would be for them to add the context menu to the buttons? I notice after you click into the Navigate arena, *those* buttons pop up the menu so you can open in new tab. It is just the Navigate and My Stuff buttons that don't. Maybe an oversight?

I get your points. Right now it hasn't bothered me, but over time it might become tedious.

[Wonder Why]

2. I agree. In fact for the My Posts, it should highlight unread replies. Right now, if you read one

and don't notice that there are other posts further down that have new replies, the "MY STUFF" yellow color goes away anyway.

[edhopper]

3. Yes to My Posts

and customizing the sidebar forums

[Scottie Mom]

4. Totally agree.

There are other changes that IMO need to be done:

My request would be, as with the former Skinner set up, when you read a thread that it turns blue so that you are immediately aware when you go back the the main DU page with Trending, etc., that you have looked at the thread. That allows you the option of skipping or going back to see if there is something new to read or view.

I found that Skinner feature to be very useful when I was busy and just wanted a quick look-around after an initial check in at the DU at an earlier time of the day.

I really dislike the look of the site -- it reminds me of 1970s "kewl." Yuck.

[XanaDUer2]

5. I agree eom

[EarlG]

6. The new top menu bar is obviously the biggest change

My hope is that if people who are used to the old DU stick with it, it will become second nature very quickly. I've obviously been using DU4 for quite some time behind the scenes as we were developing it, and I zip around the site just as quickly as I ever did on DU3.

I don't want to sound blasé to the people who are having a hard time with the change. I understand that it's not easy to go from something you're used to, to something you're not. But I do hope that people at least give it a chance.

So, the issue with separating the My Posts button out now is that there's nowhere to put it. Bear in mind that anything you add to the layout has to work across all different devices. So dropping an extra button in there on a big desktop monitor might not be a problem, but there won't be enough room for it on a mobile device.

As far as the right-click aspect is concerned, it doesn't work on the Navigate and My Stuff buttons because those buttons don't link to another web page, they link to Javascript code which opens and closes the menu. So there is no page to open in a separate tab.
The buttons INSIDE the menu, however, link to pages, so they can be right clicked. If you have new posts and your My Stuff button notifies you, you can click My Stuff, then right-click Posts and select "Open in new tab" and that page will load separately for you.

With regard to subscribing to the Editorials forum -- there is a way to do this without receiving the left sidebar notifications. If you go to your Feed page -- https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=feed -- you can uncheck "Subscriptions (Forums)" in the left sidebar and those notifications will no longer appear. This is a bit unwieldy at the moment -- currently it's not refined enough that you can uncheck specific forums (which I think would be super useful) but I hope to improve on that in the future.

Which brings me to one last important point -- while there are certain things about DU4 which are now pretty much set in stone (like the navigation system) there are plenty of other areas where we will be able to experiment and make changes and improvements. Part of the reason for making this system-wide overhaul is that with DU3, a 12-year-old design, we were constantly attaching band-aids just to maintain it. DU4 gives us a new foundation to build on, which makes it much easier for us to make adjustments and improvements, and add features going forward.

[Cha]

7. TY for all that info and

what's possible to change and what isn't.

Is it possible to stop the light flashing in DU4 and just have a solid yellow notification?

I just USED NOTES and I love it!! Also love the New PM set up. and the Tweets with the little Blue Bird.. Epic!

TY!

[Emrys]

8. Thanks for this detailed reply

So, the issue with separating the My Posts button out now is that there's nowhere to put it.

I'll bow to your knowledge and experience about what's feasible, but as I pointed out in my OP, it looks like there's space in the subforum header bar, to the right of "About forum", on a desktop with Skinner Mode engaged anyway - in fact, it almost looks as if space has been deliberately left for an extra button!

Failing that, there's space in the lefthand side column. I dont think it would be obtrusive to add a button at the top of that column - in fact, since that space currently carries details about our own account (which wasn't displayed in forum view in DU3, and I really wouldn't miss in DU4), it would arguably be in context sitting underneath name, star member status, post count and joined date, and I think it could work well.

It looks like this is a change quite a few people would like to see from the responses on the couple of threads today. I understand your point about time and familiarity, but no amount of familiarity is going to get around the fact that the old system of showing post replies was extremely convenient and user-friendly, and the new system just isn't. Since posts and replies are obviously absolutely integral to a forum, I'd urge you not to dismiss this as just another among the large number of gripes you're no doubt fielding at the moment. A few minor tweaks like this could help make people feel more at home, and possibly more receptive to the other changes.

[Emrys]

9. OK, I tried your solution to my second issue

With regard to subscribing to the Editorials forum -- there is a way to do this without receiving the left sidebar notifications. If you go to your Feed page -- https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=feed -- you can uncheck "Subscriptions (Forums)" in the left sidebar and those notifications will no longer appear. This is a bit unwieldy at the moment -- currently it's not refined enough that you can uncheck specific forums (which I think would be super useful) but I hope to improve on that in the future.

I did what you said, and sure enough it cleaned up the sidebar - but that wasn't the problem I was trying to solve. I wanted a way to have my favourite subforums listed on the left without receiving distracting notifications.

I still get "My Stuff" lighting up whenever somebody posts an OP on a subforum I subscribe to. I have no way of knowing if it's lit up because of a new OP or a reply to one of my posts unless I click on "My Stuff", so I can either click on it every time it lights up, or risk missing a reply to me - not a helpful choice, and a regular minor annoyance that may get more grating over time.

Without addressing my first point about a separate post reply button, I guess a solution would be to make it so that turning off subscription notifications also stopped "My Stuff" lighting up. If I don't want to be notified, I don't want to be notified at all.

[EarlG]

11. There's a fix for that too

1) Go to My Stuff > Account Settings

2) Scroll down to the “My Stuff” notifications section

3) Set Show "My Stuff" subscription notifications to No

If you do that, the My Stuff button won’t notify you about Subscriptions.

[Emrys]

12. I don't know whether I'm being dense or blind here,

I'm certainly not trying to be deliberately obstructive and I do appreciate your time, but I've checked and rechecked this, and the only options I have in My Stuff > Account Settings are:

Site settings

General Settings
Auto-add new discussions to Journal
Available to serve on DU Juries
Time zone

Visual appearance
Default Mode
Night Mode
Skinner Mode
Day/Night Cycle

Show avatars
Show signature lines
Use large fonts
Tooltips

Social media integration
Show Facebook button on OPs
Show Twitter button on OPs
Show tweet indicator
Show video indicator

My solution for now is to remove Editorials & Other Articles from my subscriptions, as new posts appear there regularly, but that's obviously not ideal!

As an additional observation: if an objection to adding a standalone "Your Posts" button to the left-hand column is that this would duplicate the "Posts" button under "My Stuff", we have a "Feed Settings" button in the left-hand column which duplicates the "Feed" button under "My Stuff".

Surely if the design can accommodate the standalone "Feed Settings" button, adding a "Your Posts" button in that column wouldn't break anything?

An alternative would be to add a "Your Posts" button alongside the "Navigate" and "My Stuff" tabs at page top, so it would then appear on every page (I know they would function differently, "Your Posts" being a true hyperlink button and the others triggering scripts, but that shouldn't matter).

If you simply don't want to add a "Your Posts" button, that's fine, and obviously your prerogative, but lack of space doesn't seem like a sound reason.

[highplainsdem]

14. Emrys, there are no account settings for shutting off Subscription notifications in Skinner mode. I had to

go back to the Default mode to get rid of those.

So if you're using Skinner mode, you're stuck with notifications in every one of the forums you subscribe to as a way to get one-click access to them via the left sidebar.

[EarlG]

16. Thanks -- you found a bug (well... not really a bug, more an oversight on my part)

I took a look at Account Settings in Skinner Mode and realized you are correct -- there is no "My Stuff" notifications section. Since you can't change the style of the notification on Skinner Mode (it's identical to the way it was on DU3 -- just lights up plain yellow), at some point I must have ditched the entire section thinking it was unnecessary.

However, it obviously is necessary because while the notification style can't be changed, you should still be able to choose what types of notification you want to receive.

I've just restored that section to Account Settings in Skinner Mode, so if you look again, you should be able to choose from the following options:

Show "My Stuff" subscription notifications: The "My Stuff" button will notify you whenever someone starts a new discussion in a forum you are subscribed to, or whenever a person you are subscribed to starts a new discussion

Show "My Stuff" reply notifications: The "My Stuff" button will notify you whenever someone replies to one of your posts

Show "My Stuff" mail notifications: The "My Stuff" button will notify you whenever someone sends you a DU Mail message

If you set the first option to "No" then the My Stuff button will not light up when there's a new post in a forum you're subscribed to. The Subscriptions button inside the My Stuff menu will still light solid yellow, but the My Stuff button won't.

As for providing a direct link to your Posts page without going through the My Stuff menu -- I was previously of the opinion that there wasn't any room for it in the site navigation, but putting something in the left column box, where your username is, is not a bad idea... Let me have a think about it.

[Emrys]

18. Wow!

Now that's what I call service.

Thanks, EarlG. I'm very grateful for the time and effort you've put into this among everything else.

And thanks also for thinking again about the "Posts" button. I do think it would please quite a few people, but you'll get no more nagging about it from me!

[Cha]

10. I found out how to get a Solid Notification.. TY

[Ms. Toad]

13. My Posts is, I think obviously, one of the most used clicks on this site.

Probably second only to navigating to a specific forum. Probably even first for most of us. Adding clicks to access the most used features is just inefficient design. I can resolve the added clicks to get to specific forums by subscribing to them (at least on my laptop). But there's nothing I can do to avoid two clicks every time there is a response to my post . . . which, of course, may not be a response because it could be a new post in a forum I've subscribed to solely for the purpose of being able to get to it in a single click - or, heaven forbid, a new post by a person I've subscribed to.

Most of the rest of My Stuff is used occasionally (at most, I'd guess, once every few visits - as opposed to My Posts, which I use several times each visit if I'm actively posting). Why not give My Posts the upper right link? It can still double as the sign-in link, since when you aren't signed in you don't have posts. Move My Stuff either to a link within Navigate - after all, it's just one more thing I need to navigate to occasionally - or to the upper left box where all the rest of stuff related to me lives.

Where to find things - I'll get used to. I've been using computers since the 70s, and have moved from DOS to Windows, from Clevenet to the wide open internet, and through multiple iterations of word processing/spreadsheet/graphic/etc. software. But what my experience tells me is that while I'm pretty tolerant of subjective change, I'm pretty grumpy when the change objectively creates more work for me even after I've retrained my brain as to the new paths. (Both the vast quantities of white space (added scrolling) and added clicks make this objectively a less efficient site.)

[ecstatic]

15. I agree about separating My Posts from other stuff. Also,

When navigating inside of a thread, I've noticed that individual posts no longer have a link back to the post it was in response to (which is really helpful when reading subthreads). Each post only links back to the original OP.

[EarlG]

17. Hello again

I'm not seeing this issue, although we could be looking in different places. When I look at replies, I see a link in the top right hand corner linking to the post which it is in reply to.

For example, the post I'm reply to in this thread is Post 15. In the top right corner of this post, it shoud say "Reply to ecstatic (Reply #15)" with a link to your post.

Is that what you mean, or are we thinking about different things?

(To be clear: If you are on a mobile device, the link I'm talking about does not appear -- it just shows the time of the reply -- but that's exactly how it was previously on DU3.)

[ecstatic]

19. Ok thank you for clarifying. I use both the desktop

and mobile version so I guess I mixed them up.