[mb-users] A Call For Feedback - "StructuredXHTML" branch

[Aaron Cooper]

On 7/11/07, Oliver Charles <oliver.g.charles at googlemail.com> wrote:
> Hi Aaron, thanks for the feedback!
>
> > On 7/11/07, Oliver Charles <oliver.g.charles at googlemail.com> wrote:
> >> Without furthor ado, the pages I've have reworked:
> >>
> >> http://musical.raccoonz.net - The main homepage, should let you
> >> get an idea
> >> of what the new site will look like (not much different)
> >
> > The first thing I notice here is that there is a lot of padding in the
> > sidebar.  Personally, I don't like the sidebar taking up anymore space
> > than it has to and having more buffer above and below each section of
> > links just makes for more scrolling.  This also applies to the
> > headings in the sidebar.
> I've chopped about 2em's out of the sidebar now, you should find it a
> fair bit narrower now, and I think it looks quite a bit tidier :)
> Good point!

Love it, looks much tidier, I agree!  By the way, I am using Firefox
2.0.0.4 on Mac OS-X 10.4.10


> > I agree with Frederic's comments about the readability of the links
> > (they're a little faint) and the grey labels in the search boxes are
> > also not very easy to read.
> Have darkened (see my reply to Frederic)
>
> > Not sure if this is by design or not, but once a search box in the
> > sidebar is cleared and you leave the box, it stays empty.  This would
> > very easily cause confusion about what the heck the search box is for
> > (since we don't have labels near each box).  I guess you'd have to
> > refresh the page if you wanted to find out what search you were about
> > to do.
> The search boxes were a mockup idea, and the javascript is very
> hacky, and as such doesn't fully work. If people want to see me
> progress with this type of search field, I can do - but I've had some
> people vote against dynamic text fields like this. Do you have any
> ideas? Also, the search boxes should have an icon in them, unless I
> messed something up - this is a  release/artist/label/track icon.

I see the icons now - very cool idea.  They didn't show up before, so
perhaps you fixed something?  I'm still wondering about some strange
behaviour inside the boxes though:

When you click in the top 4, the word is erased and then if you don't
type anything they stay empty.  Is this desired?  I think if they're
empty and it's possible it would be good to refill them with the
search type word (artist, album, etc).

Also, the 5th search a) has no icon and b) the text doesn't behave
when you click inside the box.  I'm sure we could rig up a simple "MSN
guy"-type icon to represent editors (if we don't have one already).


> > Another thing about the sidebar searches: It would be beneficial, I
> > think, to expand them to utilize the width of the sidebar rather than
> > leave some empty grey-space after the search box.  We would be able to
> > see more of what we're typing (which would be helpful because the
> > search boxes are pretty small at the moment).
> You forgot to tell me what browser you were using! I just checked and
> in Firefox they do fill the sidebar, and they're a bit short in
> Safari - which are you using? Either way, there's a bug there :)
>
> >
> > If I could nit-pick one more thing, I'd say that the "[ ] Direct
> > Search" and "Other Searches" links may be a little confusing if you
> > haven't used them before.  Perhaps there could be some space between
> > the two links or maybe "Direct Search" could be moved above the text
> > boxes.
> >
> Agreed, I think overall the whole search section there needs an
> overhaul. It's not very intuitive that if you fill in both artist and
> release, it'll only search in where you pressed return. Mo wanted to
> see advanced query support in these boxes too, which would be good.
> As always - please share any ideas :)
>
> >> http://musical.raccoonz.net/search.html - The search portal
> >> http://musical.raccoonz.net/search/external.html - External
> >> searches
> >> http://musical.raccoonz.net/browseartists.html - Browse
> >> artists (please try edge cases, such as the last page. I did have
> >> some bugs
> >> with this earlier!)
> >> http://musical.raccoonz.net/browsevarious.html - Browse
> >> releases
> >> http://musical.raccoonz.net/browselabels.html - Browse
> >> labels
> >
> > On the browse pages, my first tab takes me to the search text boxes in
> > the sidebar.  I think it would make more sense if tabbing took you
> > first to the text field to enter the browse character.
> I've added a form focus field, so it's focused on there by default.
> Not sure about changing the tab order yet, but I've made a note :)

It doesn't focus there by default for me.  I've tried refreshing a few
times but no luck.  Again, I'm running Firefox 2.0.0.4 on Mac.


> >> Not much so far, but if I could get feedback on these, and get as
> >> many
> >> people to agree on them as possible, I can get the bugs down, and
> >> start
> >> merging it into the trunk when we're ready :) I'm around in IRC
> >> most of the
> >> time, so if you wanted to talk with me and get me to mock some
> >> ideas up, etc
> >> - I'm there!
> >>
> >>
> >> Thanks for reading, I'll shut up now :)
> >> - Ollie / aCiD2
> >
> > I hope you find my comments constructive - that's how I meant them to
> > be interpreted :)
> Oh, it's brilliant feedback! Just what I'm looking for - thank you :)
>
>
> Thanks all, and keep it coming!
> - Ollie

Cheers!
-Aaron