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Activity Stream: make condensed view default?


Kirill N

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What's the reasoning, please and what's the issue you're trying to solve? Are you concerned the condensed / expanded options aren't prominent enough? Why not give your users the opportunity to see everything before deciding they don't need to? 

 

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1 hour ago, Lindy said:

What's the reasoning, please and what's the issue you're trying to solve? Are you concerned the condensed / expanded options aren't prominent enough? Why not give your users the opportunity to see everything before deciding they don't need to? 

 

For me, the logic says that the user should see the Condensed and if he wants more information he can change to the extend. Not the opposite.

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7 hours ago, Lindy said:

What's the reasoning, please and what's the issue you're trying to solve? Are you concerned the condensed / expanded options aren't prominent enough? Why not give your users the opportunity to see everything before deciding they don't need to? 

I feel like the way it is now is bad for forum activity. When everything is expanded, I feel like people will simply read all the new content on one page without wanting to read the rest of the responses and contributing to the topic.

For example, imagine there's a topic with a long interesting discussion going on. And the latest response says "You couldn't be more wrong!" In expanded activity stream view, that response is shown without context and doesn't seem interesting so there's a good chance that a user viewing the stream will ignore it and just keep scrolling. In condensed view, that only says "X responded to a topic" the user, wondering what X said, visits the topic, starts reading the earlier posts and now there's a much bigger chance that they engage in the discussion.

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So, you want condensed as default, or you want to turn it off? They could still set it, when they click a view it saves. I could see condensed as default, but I think I prefer expanded. But admin set default would be nice, different admins have different needs. But then again, they can still change it anytime.

I don't think expanded will inhibit engagement. Take this site for example, I've been using expanded and All Activity, and I still interact. Actually I think seeing the teaser is more engaging. The whole post isn't seen unless it is short, but even so, reading the post does not stop engagement, for me.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...
Just now, Adriano Faria said:

I think it's not there because it doesn't exists as an option. It is two different views stored in cookies. Not 100% sure of this... Just guessing.

Possibly, but if so, you could still set the default.

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also want condensed as default, preferably let admin decide it. 

Yes we know theres option but then again its the webmasters job to make it more userfriendly as possible and if based on community feedback is that condensed is better then let us make it more userfriendly for our members.

 

 

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1 hour ago, Adriano Faria said:

I think it's not there because it doesn't exists as an option. It is two different views stored in cookies. Not 100% sure of this... Just guessing.

Yeap, that's how it is done:

		/* Condensed or expanded? */
		$view = 'expanded';
		$streamID = ( \IPS\Request::i()->id ) ? \IPS\Request::i()->id : 'all';

		if ( ( isset( \IPS\Request::i()->cookie['stream_view_' . $streamID] ) and \IPS\Request::i()->cookie['stream_view_' . $streamID] == 'condensed' ) or ( isset( \IPS\Request::i()->view ) and \IPS\Request::i()->view == 'condensed' ) )
		{
			$view = 'condensed';
		}

 

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This is the kind of thing that wouldn't take a competent developer more than ten minutes.

Yes, those add up, but… I'm surprised, given how "big" a splash Streams made in 4.1, that they didn't make the version they created include some of these nice little touches.

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For those who wonder why we care: my basic goal is to reduce the number of visual differences between our current 3.4 and the coming upgrade to 4.1. Any upgrade is jarring, especially to the less tech savvy of my members (I run a food forum, not a technology forum!) and the more I can implement upgrades such that they appear incremental the better. I took a quick poll at my test site, and while of course the sample size is small, these are the members who would be most receptive to change. If even they feel this way then there is no way I can go live until condensed is the default.

WhyActivityStream.png.a4e08741da2d16dcc5

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Just now, genrobgen said:

But my users are not finding it for themselves.

I thought it was funny, when someone on my board started a topic to complain about the default, a number of other chimed in that they didn't even realize it was only a default, and that they could change it! Now that we've got condensed as the default I don't care as much, but I can vouch for the fact that many readers are not noticing the little gray widgets.

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Its a bit like the Circle (bullet) that takes you to the beginning of a post, most don't know that, i only learnt it the other day, the little toggle switch is certainly a dim light in the background and not seen, something in ACP to make one or other the default would be better as well

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