Forum feature requests and Ideas

[Melooon]

if that's against the design philosophy

Do people really think I have a design philosophy??   

[teatime]

Do people really think I have a design philosophy??   

your design philosophy is to make-a the website 

as for the forum previews i personally prefer something that looks the sitepreviews mod. it reminds me of the mouseover effect wikipedia has for its links, and i think that's neat :)

also minecraft counter is cool too   

[Memory]

To be honest, just looking at website speed, Melonland is one of the worst performing message boards I've ever seen. And interestingly, the reason isn't evil JavaScript, like in 99% of all the web out there, no. It's because of all the animations going on. Poor Icecat chokes like on Melonland like on a furball. I know, my machines are outdated by decades, but hey, that's the point, isn't it?

When using the old Netscape, it acually loads and performs much faster, especially noticeable on scrolling. Also, on the Netscape side it's always nice weather, when I'm sailing over here to Melonland, but the sky must be foggy, no stars visible.

I'd suggest to keep website performance in mind, when adding new features. The thumbnail thing sounds unnecessary to me, but if it doesn't cost too much performance... whatever. I'm ready to test and complain.

[Memory]

To be honest, just looking at website speed, Melonland is one of the worst performing message boards I've ever seen. And interestingly, the reason isn't evil JavaScript, like in 99% of all the web out there, no. It's because of all the animations going on. Poor Icecat chokes like on Melonland like on a furball. I know, my machines are outdated by decades, but hey, that's the point, isn't it?

I believe you, but I can't confirm that on my machines. I am writing this on a Pentium III processor with 256mB of RAM and no graphics card comfortably, and it worked on my Nokia E90 Communicator in Opera Mini too.

Perhaps we should make the Newspaper theme not only the readable theme but also the performant theme. Can you enable/disable features based on theme?

[Melooon]

my machines are outdated by decades, but hey, that's the point, isn't it?

Its actually not; this forums design was never done with old computers in mind; it very much follows my homepage's approach of old look with modern tech! It still shockes me that people can get it running at all (more on this below)

Perhaps we should make the Newspaper theme not only the readable theme but also the performant theme

I think that's making an assumption that the people using the Newspaper theme are the same people who like using retro browsers; from what I can tell thats not the case! Everyone using retro browsers uses the default theme.

Themes in general are a very unpopular feature: only 4% of people active in the last 6 months use a theme - and in the forum's entire history only 9% of people have ever tried changing their theme.. so while anything is possible; it's just not worth putting time into theme centric features

*--*
I think the best I can offer here is that I can put a little time into improving compatibility for old browsers on the default theme - however, I don't really have a way to do that right now    If someone can setup a thread (or maybe a wiki section) (if there is not already one) explaining how to setup an old OS to work on the modern web (and how to setup VirtualBox to simulate old hardware) then I should be able to do more!

Also don't forget WAP is available as the ultimate performance mode 

[SilkSkull]

Next to the "Own Posts" button could we put an "Own Threads" button? I think it would make things a lot easier for going back to see what people recommended me or see what a solution to a coding problem was.

[Memory]

@Melooon: Perfectly understandable. Comparing one computer solving it all vs four different for every task, well it probably needs a heart of gold for those old machines and lots of room. But it surely would be an authentic thing, if this message board would work on an old Netscape. It's like a seal of quality. Also, if it works on Netscape, it will work everywhere and probably perform like a miracle.

Now these performance issues on a modern browser like the Icecat are really surprising. My machines, that get into trouble, are like of around 2010, with no dedicated graphics card, both running on Linux, so nothing of high-performance. Graphics performance surely would be better, if those ran on Windows. When shrinking the browser window, therefore reducing the area of blinking stuff, things calm down and fluent scrolling becomes possible again. However I'm really surprised, that it's this particular message board that gives those browsers a slowdown. Still, the message board can be used, but it's just 90% nice.

@/home/user/: My odd P3 has no problems with forum.melonland.net either. On a P2, it loads pages with lots of text like it's the internet speed of 1999, but isn't that rather authentic?

[Frost Sheridan]

i've noticed that this forum's default theme really struggles on my older computers as well - both my pentium 4 computer running windows XP and my core solo running vista can barely handle it, even with no other tabs or programs open. however, the cinniland theme runs really well on all my computers, so i use it as my default theme. i'd recommend giving it a try if you're also running into performance issues.

[Memory]

I think this is one of the situations where you have to make a decision between the "retro web" and the "indie web", for the lack of better terms.

I think sacrificing the very intentional weirdness, maximalism and coziness of this forum in favor of compatibility and performance on older computers is a decision to be weighed; one that might or might not appeal to Melon as the gardener of this realm.

It seems to me that it is like I said half a year ago: there's the new, flashy, independent artistic web today that builds a wholly new web based on modern technologies and capabilities, only partly inspired by the old web.

And then there's the revival web that seeks to capitalize on opposition to modern technology, appeal to cozy nostalgia and an imitation and continuation of the old, with retro technology in mind from the first minute.

On these forums, both of these views on the web sometimes positively mix and inspire, and sometimes unfortunately clash, and I think @Melooon rightfully chose his own path here with the existing design decisions that have been made. His work is virtual worlds, art, and using the capabilities of modern technologies to make something new, albeit postmodernly inspired by the past, but with no intention to simply continue or build upon it directly. Melonland is not, as far as I understand, meant to be a retro web community specifically, instead it is meant to be a community bringing artists, people into virtual worlds and games, and people who like experimenting and creating chaos in the indie web in general, from all over the planet together.

I'd say there is room for more than one community in the web revival, and I think if this split gets larger, than there is enough room for another community or forum with more of a focus on retro technology, compatibility, minimalism and performance somewhere else, but until then, I think Melon does good in choosing a direction and sticking with it. :)

[Melooon]

I think sacrificing the very intentional weirdness, maximalism and coziness of this forum in favor of compatibility and performance

I don't think it necessarily needs to be that dramatic - I can ensure that JavaScript elegantly breaks if it doesn't work on older browsers - I can optimise images, and I can make sure that CSS doesn't use any new features in a way that would actually break old browsers that don't support them. I can even employ some clever tricks to try and lower image resolution or disable features specifically on older browsers to boost their speed.

All of that is pretty easy to do and would not take much time - I just don't currently have a workflow to actually test it!

Next to the "Own Posts" button could we put an "Own Threads" button? I think it would make things a lot easier for going back to see what people recommended me or see what a solution to a coding problem was.

Done 

[Inkerlink]

@Melooon
I'm a little confused, what's the difference between 'Unread Topics' and 'Unread Posts'?
Is Unread Posts supposed to be 'Unread Replies'? 

[Melooon]

Yes I renamed it to confuse everyone  Unread Topics is whole topics you have never read, Unread Posts are topics you might have read before but with posts you have not read.

We seem to have an issue where the terms Replies, Posts and Messages are all used interchangeably across different parts of the forum..

EDIT: I switched it back to avoid confusion..

[Inkerlink]

We seem to have an issue where the terms Replies, Posts and Messages are all used interchangeably across different parts of the forum..

Yeah that seems to be the case. It's hard to prevent people from using whatever terms they are used to though I'd guess. I'm usually used to Topics being called 'Threads', but Topics works fine as well since a all Topics are Posts but not all posts are Topics. I'm also used to the first Post in a Topic being called 'OP' (original post). An OP is never a reply though, for obvious reasons. And Messages to me just means a DM (direct message), I don't think I've ever seen it refer to a post before... confused yet? xD

[Inkerlink]

I remember in a lot of old forums I used to frequent, they'd list User's birthdays at the bottom of the index if they opted in to having it shown. I thought it was nice to receive random birthday messages from the forum users without having to announce it with a thread or anything like that. Would you be interested in implementing that on this forum?

[Melooon]

they'd list User's birthdays at the bottom of the index if they opted in to having it shown

Yep, some sort of birthday feature is definitely on the cards; I just haven't spotted a preexisting mod yet that feels correct - but thank you for the reminder! I will have a proper look!