New Navigation Menu - Page 4

[Nick Evan]

It's very addictive indeed. I might never sleep again. :) I never knew that there was this much activity on Daniweb!

[Dani]

That's what makes the Spy unique from latest post listings. It sorta puts everything more into perspective, and you'll be more likely to randomly spot something that catches your interest or something an online friend of yours posted in a forum you never visit, that you normally wouldn't have found. And the fact that your subscribed stuff gets highlighted ensures that you can very quickly spot what's most important to you.

[Dani]

> I never knew that there was this much activity on Daniweb!
Actually, this is very off-peak for us. Expect to see a LOT more activity in about 5 hours from now.

[jasimp]

I love it Dani :* .I can sit there and eat breakfast, practice my cubing and never have to hit refresh and it helps me find new threads which are interesting.

[Dani]

I don't know what cubing is but sounds awesome.

[jasimp]

Solving my Rubik's Cubes. Right now I am trying to achieve a time of under four minutes on the 4x4x4 cube and an average time of under 45 seconds on the 3x3x3.

[Dave Sinkula]

I'm forgetful. Could there be something of a legend that explains the meaning behind the bold, highlighted, icon'd, etc. in the SPY?

[Dani]

They follow the exact same pattern as everywhere else on the site. Everywhere on the site (forum listings pages, search results, today's posts, control panel, and the spy), when thread titles are in bold, it means there are new posts since your last visit to that thread, and the icon beside them takes you directly to that first new post. From anywhere on the site, you can hover over the button and it says where it will take you. Consistency is the key to usability :)

The only non-standard thing in the spy is that subscribed threads are encased in a big yellow box so they easily stand out, but I don't think it will be too hard to realize that since it is called the Subscription Spy, after all.

[Dave Sinkula]

Should invisible people be visible?

[Dani]

Oooh! You know what, I completely forgot to test if someone was invisible. I'll do that later tonight.

[Dani]

Invisible users no longer show up. It also now tests to see if the user is on your buddy list and puts an icon next to the user if they are.

[WaltP]

On subscription spy I saw:

Pay Per Click ??
in Pay-Per-Click Advertising with 13 replies and 4,097 views
You have no posts in this thread
Thread viewed
by WaltP

I was replying to a thread in the C forum, and never opened a thread called Pay Per Click ??

[Dani]

You're 1000% positive you never viewed that thread, and it still showed up as you viewing it??

[WaltP]

Was it in the C/C++ forum? If not, I did not look at it. I have absolutely no reason to even look at the Pay-Per-Click Advertising forum. Nor any Site Management forum.

So yes, 1000+% sure. :icon_wink:

[MattEvans]

I honestly find the fact that anyone can track my every movement on that page to be a little too 'Big Brother' for my liking, so I also go invisible now. I quite like the feature though: I'll happily one-way spy.

I did notice that it tended to keep saying I'd viewed or was viewing a thread long after I'd left the thread.. that's also a reason I went invisible: since more than once, it would say on the spy page that I'd read a given thread once every minute for 5-10 minutes even if I'd just glanced at the thread in question momentarily..

[Dani]

> I honestly find the fact that anyone can track my every movement on that page to be a little too 'Big Brother' for my liking
The same information on the Spy has always been available in Who's Online and in your Member Profile. It has always also said at the bottom of every thread who is currently viewing it. The Spy just basically gatheres all of that existing data and makes it real-time.

When you're invisible, the rows showing what you're viewing don't show, but the rows showing that you made a post do show, the same way on the forums you can tell when an invisible user has just posted.

> I did notice that it tended to keep saying I'd viewed or was viewing a thread long after I'd left the thread
This was a bug that existed when the Spy first went live. It has since been corrected as of a few days ago.

[MattEvans]

I was/am fine with the Who's Online list, the Member Profile link, and the 'Currently Active Users Viewing This Thread' list. I am, of course, also happy that my posts appear publicly as they are created.

Maybe I'll stop being invisible if/when I get used to it ( the spy ) being there, since I do like being 'publicly present' in any given thread; but not so much having a slightly persistant public trail showing, not just where I am, but where I came from, and where I subsequently go to..

Incidently.. it seems that I can see where other invisible users are.. is that right? Do all invisible users exist in a different slice of reality, where they can see each other but no-one can see them, or is it a moderator thing?

[Dani]

It's a moderator thing.

[jbennet]

i like it

[Dave Sinkula]

They follow the exact same pattern as everywhere else on the site. Everywhere on the site (forum listings pages, search results, today's posts, control panel, and the spy), when thread titles are in bold, it means there are new posts since your last visit to that thread, and the icon beside them takes you directly to that first new post. From anywhere on the site, you can hover over the button and it says where it will take you. Consistency is the key to usability :)

The only non-standard thing in the spy is that subscribed threads are encased in a big yellow box so they easily stand out, but I don't think it will be too hard to realize that since it is called the Subscription Spy, after all.

Hm, I think I discovered what was odd. Threads that are viewed during the lifespan of an item in the spy remain in bold -- as in unread -- after they are read, at least in part of the page.

Refresh cures it a little too much, removing the recent visit(?). Update: ah, refresh renews the time lag(?) and 'current' events have not occurred yet?

[Dani]

I'm confused by what you mean? Sorry.

[MidiMagic]

I find it harder to navigate on the new layout. Half of the things I use were on the main level of each forum, and now they are several levels deep.

[Dani]

I'm not quite sure what you mean? Can you give me examples of specific things?

[MidiMagic]

I used to be able to go directly into the HTML and CSS forum from the Web Development page. Now I have to go into the Web Development page, and then the Web Design page, to get to it. Each page takes time to load because of the ads.

And I have to scroll down to get to the link on each one, because the entire visible top of the page is all header bars and ads. To do that, I have to wait until the stupid ad animation stops, because the scroll stop bug is still there.

[ndeniche]

i know where the bug with the non-viewed-but-viewed threads is...

if there is a thread with no replies after the "limit time" (meaning the time that goes by until the thread is unmarked as recently answered, 13 days i think) and someone sees it, it will appear in the SPY as viewed by you, even though it hasn't been viewed...

would be that both viewed threads and old threads are identified with the same variable?

[ndeniche]

btw... just an idea...

is it necessary that subscribed answered threads dissapear at the bottom of the page like the rest?

what if it's a busy day @ daniweb and i don't catch a subscribed thread and i don't get the reply because it disappeared @ the bottom?

[ndeniche]

noticed something else...

if you answer a thread, go to the spy, click on another thread that appeared, say, 5 actions above yours, and you click on another thread, when you return to the spy, the 5 actions that were above your last activity will be gone... is that meant to be that way?

[Dani]

i know where the bug with the non-viewed-but-viewed threads is...

if there is a thread with no replies after the "limit time" (meaning the time that goes by until the thread is unmarked as recently answered, 13 days i think) and someone sees it, it will appear in the SPY as viewed by you, even though it hasn't been viewed...

would be that both viewed threads and old threads are identified with the same variable?

People who viewed threads and new/old threads have nothing to do with each other. I'm pretty confident that this isn't happening.

btw... just an idea...

is it necessary that subscribed answered threads dissapear at the bottom of the page like the rest?

what if it's a busy day @ daniweb and i don't catch a subscribed thread and i don't get the reply because it disappeared @ the bottom?

The purpose of the spy is to give you a real-time view of current activity on DaniWeb. If you just want to see which of your subscribed threads have received updates today, go here: http://www.daniweb.com/forums/subscription.php?do=viewsubscription

noticed something else...

if you answer a thread, go to the spy, click on another thread that appeared, say, 5 actions above yours, and you click on another thread, when you return to the spy, the 5 actions that were above your last activity will be gone... is that meant to be that way?

The start-up view of the spy shows all posts within the last few minutes, but only shows a random handful of views evenly distributed over that time period. Otherwise, the startup view would always be only views, and I feel that new posts are the more important statistic to see.

[ndeniche]

well... those are pretty good arguments... :P

[Dani]

> I used to be able to go directly into the HTML and CSS forum from the Web Development page.
Fixed.