Board Name Length Not Limited

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Board Name Length Not Limited

February 29, 2016, 06:41:19 pm

Fails my 'alphabet board' test.

A board name can be so long that it breaks the visual of the forum. A drop down boxes will get a slider to accommodate the length but you have to move the slider all the way to the right to begin to see the board name.

If the too long name is say last in the list, you will not see the other boards until you move the slider to the left. Attached pictures show some idea. They are from the top of the forum, inside the board and in the Maillist Settings tab. When first entering the Maillist Settings you do not see any board name due to the alphabet board being last in the list and the other boards having shorter names.

My personal take is that a board name should be limited in character length and not be permitted to go above the board width. As well, if the length is permitted the drop downs should expand downward to accommodate the name and not width wise. At least width wise with that width being limited to something reasonable like 120 characters. Unlimited or too long names probably play havoc on phones and pads.

Re: Board Name Length Not Limited

Reply #1 – February 29, 2016, 07:01:40 pm

1. Not too sure how many people would have this issue.

2. Not every forum, is same actual width, so the problem would be at what to set it to.

3. Some people may have long titles that need to be complete, due to whatever the forum is about, and limiting them on that, could be a way to get them not to use ElkArte.

4. Better idea, would be a cut-off with the ever popular ... if title is longer than board width. This, coupled with hover text to get the full name, would cover most of the above.

Re: Board Name Length Not Limited

Reply #2 – February 29, 2016, 07:07:35 pm

I would add a max-width: 100%; on "input, .input_text, button, select", not sure if it could break anything (I humbly don't think so?), but it would surely fix it.

Code: [Select]

input, button, select, textarea, .editor {
    border: 1px solid #ccc;
    border-radius: 2px;
    background: #fff;
    color: #666;

make it

Code: [Select]

input, button, select, textarea, .editor {
    border: 1px solid #ccc;
    border-radius: 2px;
    background: #fff;
    color: #666;
    max-width: 100%;

For the board index...

Code: [Select]

.board_name {
    padding: 0 0 1px 0;
    font-size: 1.143em;

Code: [Select]

.board_name {
    padding: 0 0 1px 56px;
    font-size: 1.143em;

Do I like it? No, just don't use ridiculously long names, lol.
Did I test it? Of course not

ETA: I'm talking about index.css, didn't mention the file.

Re: Board Name Length Not Limited

Reply #3 – February 29, 2016, 07:49:12 pm

hmmmm....well obviously this is not a problem then with Elk. Honestly fellows, from where I come from and my background...this is a problem. I respect everyone's opinion so I am not going to flog this issue into submission. In my view folks either inherently understand why you don't let something like this break the look and feel of the software or, they do not. I am not in a position to argue my point nor do I care to. This is a showcase theme for Elk, I would expect it to express itself flawlessly to those that show an interest in Elk. Sometimes one just has to tell the user they can't have a 2000 character board name.

Emanuele; please lock this topic.

Thanks

Re: Board Name Length Not Limited

Reply #4 – February 29, 2016, 07:58:30 pm

Quote from: Lou – February 29, 2016, 07:49:12 pmhmmmm....well obviously this is not a problem then with Elk. Honestly fellows, from where I come from and my background...this is a problem. I respect everyone's opinion so I am not going to flog this issue into submission. In my view folks either inherently understand why you don't let something like this break the look and feel of the software or, they do not. I am not in a position to argue my point nor do I care to. This is a showcase theme for Elk, I would expect it to express itself flawlessly to those that show an interest in Elk. Sometimes one just has to tell the user they can't have a 2000 character board name.

Emanuele; please lock this topic.

Thanks

Problem is, that some people may need to have long names, due to whatever their site is. I for one, choose not to use very long names, but have seen some sites, that have to, although, not to the extreme of your test... XD

Now, like I said, having it cut off, and have a hover to see full name, depending on the board width, would be nice, especially with the various settings people have for screen size, and zoom.

Re: Board Name Length Not Limited

Reply #5 – February 29, 2016, 08:06:54 pm

Quote from: Lou – February 29, 2016, 06:41:19 pmFails my 'alphabet board' test. A board name can be so long that it breaks the visual of the forum. A drop down boxes will get a slider to accommodate the length but you have to move the slider all the way to the right to begin to see the board name.

If the too long name is say last in the list, you will not see the other boards until you move the slider to the left. Attached pictures show some idea. They are from the top of the forum, inside the board and in the Maillist Settings tab. When first entering the Maillist Settings you do not see any board name due to the alphabet board being last in the list and the other boards having shorter names.

My personal take is that a board name should be limited in character length and not be permitted to go above the board width. As well, if the length is permitted the drop downs should expand downward to accommodate the name and not width wise. At least width wise with that width being limited to something reasonable like 120 characters. Unlimited or too long names probably play havoc on phones and pads.

Ok, so three separate issues.

1/ Have never checked that one as far as I can remember, but I can think of a couple of ways around it. Will test later.

2/ As Bloke With Funny Name says, a max-width on the select options would make sense here. You could also use tricks like text-overflow: ellipsis; to get a nicer looking shortening of the names if desired.

3/ Same deal would work here. Use text-overflow to nobble the humungous name down to something reasonable, which should then sit nicely with the other names.

Re: Board Name Length Not Limited

Reply #6 – February 29, 2016, 08:20:23 pm

Well defintely in the drop down windows having a cutoff followed by '...' or similar would work.

At the same time what happens with the front page boards? In this case Light handles the long names quite well whereas besocial sort of crunches up; at least on my localhost and on my server. So, the two themes should behave the same, I would think.

Now, I understand the need for long names, especially for certain languages that tend to have rather long words in them. I did a few SMF themes for some Indonesian sites that did not like the word 'Hey' as a greeting; they considered it a rude greeting. So I do understand the needs of different cultures and languages. Obviously though, there are missing 'checks' to handle the 'extended name' issue. That to me, really is the issue I could have better expressed. But I still have to wonder if having a 2000 character board name should be allowable?

Re: Board Name Length Not Limited

Reply #7 – February 29, 2016, 08:26:48 pm

Yeah you could just add a character limit to the db field too (various other things, like personal blurb, etc have limits). But it would probably be a good idea to allow up to around 200 characters for board name, just in case someone wanted something fairly long.

Re: Board Name Length Not Limited

Reply #8 – February 29, 2016, 08:34:22 pm

You mean in the selects (dropdowns, if you call them that)?

Re: Board Name Length Not Limited

Reply #9 – February 29, 2016, 09:06:27 pm

Quote from: Flavio93Zena (#OpIsis) – February 29, 2016, 07:07:35 pm

Code: [Select]

input, button, select, textarea, .editor {
    border: 1px solid #ccc;
    border-radius: 2px;
    background: #fff;
    color: #666;

make it

Code: [Select]

input, button, select, textarea, .editor {
    border: 1px solid #ccc;
    border-radius: 2px;
    background: #fff;
    color: #666;
    max-width: 100%;

For the board index...

Code: [Select]

.board_name {
    padding: 0 0 1px 0;
    font-size: 1.143em;

Code: [Select]

.board_name {
    padding: 0 0 1px 56px;
    font-size: 1.143em;

Then this for the board names:

Code: [Select]

.board_name>a {
    color: #43a8da;
    font-weight: bold;
    font-size: 1.214em;

make it

Code: [Select]

.board_name>a {
    color: #43a8da;
    font-weight: bold;
    font-size: 1.214em;
    word-break: break-word;

Now if only I could get GitHub properly working... I could actually send PR about these things :/

Re: Board Name Length Not Limited

Reply #10 – March 01, 2016, 02:37:23 am

I'm fairly sure I'll miss something while answering, but... oh well point me to what I missed and I'll come back.

The board name is (for sure) database limited to 255 characters (being a varchar(255)), you can create longer names... that maybe an issue somewhere.
It was tested for long names breaking the layout, but likely not so long, let's say in the realm of the ~80.

Yep, have it break is not nice and fixes should be implemented.

Re: Board Name Length Not Limited

Reply #11 – March 01, 2016, 04:20:22 am

I sort of tested the code above, but I am still missing on the GH part, although I have done several steps into the right direction, I just made a typo while doing the commit (I look at you, stupid indentation!) so I had to revert everything and didn't know how to do it <_< moral is - I'll do it later XD