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Meaning of the menu

Sort of rant, but I have to write it down, maybe it will be just useless, maybe not.

Why do we need the "main" menu?
Let's leave the nostalgia and the "the users know it and expect to find it there) out of the discussion for a moment.

Home: completely useless, in each and every page you go there is the "ElkArte" (or other name of the forum) that brings you to the main page (and it's *exactly just below the home button).
Help: I always found it completely useless even more with just links to another website (not that I want to bring the old help back, that one was useless as well IMHO).
 Search: barely useful (even though people don't use that button anyway), but it can be easily re-placed somewhere else.
Moderate: maybe
 Admin: same as moderate
Profile: I think a link to the profile could be easily moved somewhere else.
 My Messages: ...dunno, dunno.
Calendar: (do we need a calendar? :P)
 Members: maybe
Login: uselss, there is the quick login (and i people disable it, we can simply make it the only way to log :P)
 Logout: could be a sub of Profile.

So, right now, without think too much, I would propose at least a re-organization:
drop home, help, search and login/out
 Make "Profile" 1st element and add logout as last element of the dropdown
Admin
 Moderate
Updates => dropdown with unread topics and unread replies (the idea of have the in the linktree is nice, but it clashes badly with long topic titles and/or deep child-boards
 Calendar
* Members
The last two until a better location is found.
The "search" instead could be moved next to the "search" button, the classic "advanced" or so.

For guests the menu in that configuration would become just...register and calendar...or nothing at all.

tl;dr I don't like the menu. :P
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Re: Meaning of the menu

Reply #1 –

Playing a bit.
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Re: Meaning of the menu

Reply #2 –

Quote from: emanuele – Playing a bit.
Pretty good! Although remove Admin/Moderate and its a bit bare, although totally agreed help is useless and I wrote it.

Re: Meaning of the menu

Reply #3 –

Interesting.

Re: Meaning of the menu

Reply #4 –

F##K!!
Why the hell I didn't enable the draft autosaving!!! :'( :'( :'( :'(

 emanuele starts again a long post that he doesn't remember any more... :'(
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Re: Meaning of the menu

Reply #5 –

Summary of things I was writing:
1. consider search a la amazon/ebay (everything integrated, "go" is also interesting because it would allow bigger text and less space, though it's already used for the "jump to"),
2. clean VS cluttered websites sites (analysis), in both cases the first part of the home page is usually structured to be as self-contained as possible, here we don't have much here, would be possible? What would be the most important things to show?

About 2, I think concentrate on how guests see the forum is probably the most important aspect, users would expect something different and that's fine.
Not so important things in board index:
linktree
 news box on the top right if there is the "news on board index" enabled
logo and name of the forum are taking away quite a lot of space (maybe in a corner?)
 quick login could go as a dropdown of "please login"? (or maybe "Please login |_________| or register", the moment you start typing in the login box, the password appears below, don't know how it would work with browsers that fill in forms automatically, but it's a "thinking out loud" topic, so who cares :P) Also is the session important in the quick login? (yes, it may be useful to someone, but it would be interesting to understand how many*)
 menu is still pending
* boards and categories organization...dunno, something is boring about them, but I have to play a bit...

Quote from: Trekkie101 – Although remove Admin/Moderate and its a bit bare, although totally agreed help is useless and I wrote it.
Don't know, the bare aspect may depend on the fact we only know that way to see things, though some of the buttons in the menu are there just because "there must be a menu" (i.e. home).
I wonder if the personal messages couldn't be moved to a sort of board...darn, that's your fault Arantor and the approach you are taking for the moderation center at wedge, merged with the idea of allow users to re-order the categories proposed at sm.org a couple of days ago.
So, no menu, and sort of category with blocks: "last (personal) messages", the calendar (if enabled), moderation reports if available, etc. Just a container of links, nothing more. Yes, it adds a bit of overload to the home page, not sure how much.

Okay, I stop here because is becoming cluttered again... ::)

ETA: yes, of course I'm focusing on the main page losing sight of everything else, well, that's not so important. :P
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Re: Meaning of the menu

Reply #6 –

vBulletin handling AdminCP / Mod CP buttons as link on bottom (maybe the only thing helpful for us from vbulletin :P). Left side of "Contact us".

Re: Meaning of the menu

Reply #7 –

Cross-posting for reference:
Quote from: emanuele – The experiments go on:


At least that way the menu is actually useful! :D :P
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Re: Meaning of the menu

Reply #8 –

Basic idea is worth thinking about. I've long thought endless lines of menu tabs didn't make much sense. Even when adminning/modding a site, there is an awful lot of functionality that is rarely used and does not need to be in one's face all the time.
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Re: Meaning of the menu

Reply #9 –

I think I'm "happy" with the menu in that last post:
is visually consistent (all the entries have a dropdown),
 it doesn't have misplaced/duplicated entries (the search is in one place on the page, no need to look at one place to find the "quick" and to another to find the "full" (or semi-full depending on settings), logout is together with the profile (because it's about "you", though a slightly more prominent button somewhere else for logout may be worth)),
* what is left can stay there for a reason.
Having admin and mod links in a visible place is not that bad (I'm always a bit confused when I have to use one of the other scripts that hide the admin link in a corner and you have always to think "where the heck is now gone?" lol).

After I came up with that screenshot I'm not so sure that entirely remove the menu is the best option, though I'm not yet convinced of the contrary either.
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Re: Meaning of the menu

Reply #10 –

Quote from: Antes – vBulletin handling AdminCP / Mod CP buttons as link on bottom (maybe the only thing helpful for us from vbulletin :P). Left side of "Contact us".
Is that "bar" at the top or at the bottom?
 emanuele doesn't know very well vBulletin...
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Re: Meaning of the menu

Reply #11 –

Well, the menu is now completely different (I still have some doubt about the new post/replies there, but it's very convenient so I'm not going to complain :P), so probably my rant can go have some rest. ;D
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