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Poll

Name the buttons - win a case of beer!

Call the staff button "Staff"
[ 0 ] (0%)
Call the staff button "Manage"
[ 6 ] (42.9%)
Call it something else (please specify)
[ 1 ] (7.1%)
Call the user's button "Personal"
[ 0 ] (0%)
Call the user's button by the username
[ 4 ] (28.6%)
Call it something else (please specify)
[ 3 ] (21.4%)

Total Members Voted: 7

Topic: New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal (Read 23341 times) previous topic - next topic - Topic derived from Re: Linktree and Drop...
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New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal

Quote from: Antechinus  - 
Well you can call yours whatever you like, and so can any other admin, so as long as it's clear and not insane I think just about any name is fine for default.

I associate staff with the "staff room", which is what we used to call the private staff boards (and we called them staff boards too, and so do other sites I've been on), so it works for me. Control sounds a bit too megalomanic for my taste. I'm not too worried about it all though. Hey ho.
Ok, carrying on from this, I say we put the button names to a vote and go with whatever gets the most votes. "Community" seems the obvious English choice for  the first one. I favour "Staff" and "Personal" for the other two. TE prefers "Manage" and the user's name. Anyone else got any suggestions they want to put forward?

ETA: Basic array code is here. Still needs slight tweaking.

Changes content depending on the viewer's permissions. If they don't have PM permissions, they just get profile stuff. If they don't have profile permissions, they just get PM stuff. Similar for admins vs mods on the staff tab.






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Anyway speaking of staff page, I had thought that the staff tab (if labelled as such for ordinary member view) would be a handy place to have links to contact form, staff page, etc. Those aren't standard features now, but would be easy to implement and are potentially useful and popular. Admins and mods wouldn't really need to see those pages straight from a tab, so it could make the one tab do three different and useful things, depending on who is looking at it.

Anyway, sleep. Later. :)
This is another thing I think we should do (extra feature stuffz). There's an option in admin to "show contact form in menu" but it doesn't seem to do anything. If it does do something, it's so well hidden that I can't find it. :P

My 2c is that we should have a staff page that is a sub area of the memberlist, with different formatting (ie: more spacious ansd welcoming). The memberlist already sorts by group, so it is easy to make a sub area of it that only pulls out the admin and moderators for listing. These can then be listed according to their group, with nice headings and separators between groups.

The same "Staff" tab should also handle contact forms and any other related stuffz., when ordinary members are looking at it.  Top level title can be changed according to the membergroup of the viewer, as can content.  Easy. :)


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Re: New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal

Reply #1 –
Quote
This is another thing I think we should do (extra feature stuffz). There's an option in admin to "show contact form in menu" but it doesn't seem to do anything. If it does do something, it's so well hidden that I can't find it.
Its on the registration page.
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Re: New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal

Reply #2 –
Umm, so how is the "in the menu"?
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Re: New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal

Reply #3 –
Well after you select registration in the menu, there it is  :P
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Find a bug,
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Re: New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal

Reply #4 –
Ha. :P That is not "in the menu" as such. It is "in the registration form, hiding well away from the menu, where nobody who wants a contact form at any given time wll be able to find it after they have registered". :P :P

Why don't we provide a contact form that anyone can use at any time?
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Re: New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal

Reply #5 –
Yup we could move the form to other spots ... the idea was that its not uncommon for members to have trouble registering and if so there is not a convenient way to contact a human  ... the form was just there for that (and a bit controversial since like any "contact us" thing it can and will be exploited.)  Once they are registered I would think the PM and Posts would be enough though?

emanuele may have some more to add, this was his baby as I recall, I just lifted it :P
Squish squish. squish, squish, squish.
Find a bug,
Make a wish.

Re: New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal

Reply #6 –
Ok, well that makes sense as far as it goes, but I can recall cases where somebody wanted to contact the staff without registering, or after they have registered and forgot account details. So, since it's common practice for sites to provide contact details (often with a dedicated top level link for the purpose), it seems a bit funny the way it is now.

At the least, the text should be changed in admin, so it's clear what it's currently doing.
Master of Expletives: Now with improved family f@&king friendliness! :D

Sources code: making easy front end changes difficult since 1873. :P

Re: New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal

Reply #7 –
Quote from: Spuds  - 
emanuele may have some more to add, this was his baby as I recall, I just lifted it :P
??? Really?
I thought you added it... :o
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Re: New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal

Reply #8 –
Also added teh poll. Eessh. We haz orange barz! Must change to something more Elkaceous.

Also CSS needs fixing. Someone keeps borking the CSS! :D
Master of Expletives: Now with improved family f@&king friendliness! :D

Sources code: making easy front end changes difficult since 1873. :P

Re: New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal

Reply #10 –
'Manage' or 'Admin' is naturral and usual. Same for the username for their stuff: your username links to your arrea. 'Tis common use.

'Staff' is a terrrible idea IMO: these are tasks, moderation or admin tasks. Functionality. 'Staff' is a terrm talking about the people doing them, not about the tasks. It says "private area where we gossip over a report, even if that's only less than a frraction of what's really here".

Nothing special against 'personal', OTOH. It's just that people are used with their name to lead to profiles, messages, preferrences, in the age of social stuffs all arround us. (call it least surrprise if you will, 'tis a main menu)

Re: New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal

Reply #11 –
K so how's about we make the title "Admin" if they're an admin, and "Moderate" if they're a mod (wot r easy to do coz I already tried it) and then think about making the title say "Staff" or "Contact" or sumpin for ordinary people who might want to get in touch with an admin or mod, and want a nice list of said critters. :)

Swapping the stuff under the tab on the basis of permissions, of course.
Master of Expletives: Now with improved family f@&king friendliness! :D

Sources code: making easy front end changes difficult since 1873. :P

Re: New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal

Reply #12 –
Quote from: Spuds  - 
Quote from: emanuele  - 
??? Really?
I thought you added it... :o

http://www.simplemachines.org/community/index.php?topic=477765.msg3366002#msg3366002

Now what was that about Ant getting old  :P
ROFL!
But it's known my brain doesn't remember anything older than 2 days! :P

Quote from: Antechinus  - 
K so how's about we make the title "Admin" if they're an admin, and "Moderate" if they're a mod (wot r easy to do coz I already tried it)
That's not *so* easy to do.
It would work only if you are using the predefined groups I think.
But if you are using some custom group it would screw up.

Also, if the user is a mod, does the moderate remain a sub-menu?
I tend to think admin and moderate could very well stay separated, in the end is something that very few would have anyway, so it shouldn't be too annoying. Also they could be moved to the end of the row so that the order doesn't change: community | personal | new posts | new replies | moderate | admin
Bugs creator.
Features destroyer.
Template killer.

Re: New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal

Reply #13 –
Quote from: emanuele  - 
That's not *so* easy to do.
It would work only if you are using the predefined groups I think.
But if you are using some custom group it would screw up.
Nope, because it relies on exactly the same permissions conditionals that the existing buttons use. It works. :)


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Also, if the user is a mod, does the moderate remain a sub-menu?
No. It basically reverts to a standard "Moderate" tab like we have now.


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I tend to think admin and moderate could very well stay separated, in the end is something that very few would have anyway, so it shouldn't be too annoying.
You mean it will only annoy adminz and they don't count. Adminz might argue with that. :D

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Also they could be moved to the end of the row so that the order doesn't change: community | personal | new posts | new replies | moderate | admin
Better not, IMO. Even staff will (hopefully) be using the forum as a forum, not just as staff. That means they'll want the unread buttons as much as anyone else. Having them at the end is easiest for quick and mindless use. ;)
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Re: New menu arrangement: Community - Staff - Personal

Reply #14 –
Just tried username as title for the personal stuff button on local host. It feels wrong. Really weird. :P

I just look at it and think WTF? I want things named for their function. I want to look at title and know what it does.
Master of Expletives: Now with improved family f@&king friendliness! :D

Sources code: making easy front end changes difficult since 1873. :P