Support NeoGAF

[mescalineeyes]

I am really sad. The mockup is a step down in usability in every way.

I will type up a longer post one of these days because it's my most used app on the iPhone and I don't want ckohler's work to be in vain.

 

[J Tourettes]

I am really sad. The mockup is a step down in usability in every way.

I will type up a longer post one of these days because it's my most used app on the iPhone and I don't want ckohler's work to be in vain.

No time like the present, especially as he's working on it now.

 

[RdN]

+1 for the Dark theme. Our bateries will take you forever.

 

[ScOULaris]

I am really sad. The mockup is a step down in usability in every way.

I will type up a longer post one of these days because it's my most used app on the iPhone and I don't want ckohler's work to be in vain.

I'm really curious to hear further elaboration on this from you. I haven't come across anything that seemed like a step back in usability. The only thing about the mockup that I don't care for is the new homescreen icon. I preferred when it was just the GAF orb with a grey background.

 

[charlequin]

I am really sad. The mockup is a step down in usability in every way.

I will type up a longer post one of these days because it's my most used app on the iPhone and I don't want ckohler's work to be in vain.

Not that I even remotely agree with you, but speak now or forever hold your peace because you're pretty close to running out of time to influence it at all.

 

[scorcho]

the only aspect of usability that seems dramatically affected is screen estate on a phone due to the ad/settings banner bar. otherwise the 'shortcuts' used to navigate the mobile site are similar, whether it's jumping between the top and bottom of the page, going to the last post of a new thread, or even quick switching between the gaming and OT.

overall it's nice. i prefer the aesthetic of neowin's mobile forums a bit more, but this redesign isn't far behind.

 

[FantasticMrFoxdie]

I'm cool with a dark theme, as long as it's an option. That stuff is hard on the eyes.

The current official app has the 'invert colors' option in the settings if some of you didn't know.

Maybe that could just be transferred over to the mockup.

 

[ckohler]

The current official app has the 'invert colors' option in the settings if some of you didn't know.

Maybe that could just be transferred over to the mockup.

That's what the Theme preference setting will be for. I'm saving that for last.

 

[Cr0wn0]

This is easily the best mobile forum experience I have seen and used. I say keep doing what your doing cause IMO its awesome. I wish your work could be converted to some other forums I frequent.

 

[mattiewheels]

Mockup on the retina iPad is really something. It's like the purest form of a great site, so intuitive and fluid.

 

[Tunesmith]

That's what the Theme preference setting will be for. I'm saving that for last.

Personally I'm cheating and using the built in White on Black feature of iOS, triple click home button and bam, inverted colors while browsing, white spoilers and all.

 

[Battersea Power Station]

Personally I'm cheating and using the built in White on Black feature of iOS, triple click home button and bam, inverted colors while browsing, white spoilers and all.

Forgot I can do this on Android as well.

Dunno if there's a shortcut, but you can go to the browser's settings and look under accessibility.

 

[Battersea Power Station]

Personally I'm cheating and using the built in White on Black feature of iOS, triple click home button and bam, inverted colors while browsing, white spoilers and all.

Forgot I can do this on Android as well.

Dunno if there's a shortcut, but you can go to the browser's settings and look under accessibility.

http://www.imgur.com/Ph8BF.jpg

 

[kehs]

ckohler: not sure if this will resolve itself when it goes live and gets incorporated or not.

If you have gaf set to not show pictures, then the inline function of the web app won't work. It will just open images in a new tab because it just displays a link instead of an [ img ] tag

 

[Particle Physicist]

Personally I'm cheating and using the built in White on Black feature of iOS, triple click home button and bam, inverted colors while browsing, white spoilers and all.

Is this in the settings somewhere? I just tried it and it didn't work.

[EDIT]
Found it!

 

[enzo_gt]

So.. Is the ad just floating in a random pool of blackness going to be fixed or is that a design choice? It looks seriously awkward and even if you want some breathing room between that and other elements it's adjacent to, the amount of blackness there is kinda ugly and excessive IMO.

 

[abracadaver]

Is this in the settings somewhere? I just tried it and it didn't work.

[EDIT]
Found it!

Where ?

 

[CrunchinJelly]

Where ?

Settings - General - Accessibilty - Triple Click Home right at the bottom.

 

[sruckus]

Is there a possibility of including the "go to last page" button somewhere again? I know the arrow can be customized to do that, but I am now using the "last read post" functionality and would really like a shortcut to both if at all possible.

 

[ckohler]

So.. Is the ad just floating in a random pool of blackness going to be fixed or is that a design choice? It looks seriously awkward and even if you want some breathing room between that and other elements it's adjacent to, the amount of blackness there is kinda ugly and excessive IMO.

The ads are fixed width. There will have to be space to either side of them when on wider resolutions. If there is going to have to be space on the sides, then I want space above and below as well.

Is there a possibility of including the "go to last page" button somewhere again? I know the arrow can be customized to do that, but I am now using the "last read post" functionality and would really like a shortcut to both if at all possible.

Tap the Go To Page button at the bottom.

 

[sruckus]

Tap the Go To Page button at the bottom.

Awesome, that makes perfect sense and saves adding another button. Thank you!

 

[kaizoku]

Awesome work on the app! Made my iPhone browsing a joy. Is there or will there be a way to subscribe to threads via the app? New or old...

 

[alvmew]

Great on iPhone and iPad, thanks for the hard work Ckohler!

Awesome work on the app! Made my iPhone browsing a joy. Is there or will there be a way to subscribe to threads via the app? New or old...

He's working on it.

Mockup Update

New stuff:

• Viewing Private Messages added
• New PMs badge appears in JumpTo menu
• Locked threads now indicated by icon
• Fixed a bug with list groupings
• Links in tags to GAF posts stay in web app
• Multi-quote icons no longer ugly
• Multi-quotes expire after 15 minutes
• Other fixes

Left to do:

• Composing/Replying to PMs
• Subscribing to threads
• Viewing thread top posters
• Viewing all active users

 

[Baconbitz]

Need a way to pm someone from there profile. Like in the (old?) app.

 

[Gonky]

Need a way to pm someone from there profile. Like in the (old?) app.

Dude, pay attention. Look at the post before yours.

 

[Gowans]

My only issue is the multiquote I image is too long horizontally.

I use 70% test and it keeps the grey bar size height large.

 

[mescalineeyes]

main gripes I have:

The NeoGAF Icon being the back button is completely counter-intuitive.

The top-bar going to the bottom feels really odd.

2 clicks to go to the last page needed instead of 1 as in the old web app.

Being able to go the last page from the first page was really nice in the old web app.

one oddity I noticed:

The placement of the NeoGAF logo appears off-center due to the nature of the background (this is an optical illusion technically)

 

[noah111]

The NeoGAF Icon being the back button is completely counter-intuitive.

I sort of see where you may be coming from, but I totally disagree. It isn't simply a back button. When you've been browsing a thread, how are you supposed to get back to the board list? You can't tap the system browser back button a bunch of times to finally get back to where you once were, and at the same time using the drop down board selection menu doesn't solve that. It makes sense, imo.

The top-bar going to the bottom feels really odd.

Again, disagree. What would be your alternative? This is more or less how it's always worked, and I may agree that it's somewhat odd (esp. for a new-comer) but it's something that the user gets 'used' to.

2 clicks to go to the last page needed instead of 1 as in the old web app.

Being able to go the last page from the first page was really nice in the old web app.

That's the only thing I agree with, and it's not a huge setback at all. You can still do all of that, just with on extra tap. Perhaps ckohler could incorporate it in a way where those buttons are always displayed (not hidden). But imo, it's not all that necessary.

The placement of the NeoGAF logo appears off-center due to the nature of the background (this is an optical illusion technically)

Yeah, this was my only issue with the mockup in the beginning, but no one else seemed to mention anything, so I didn't bring it up. It's not a big deal, just that the "<" graphic is too close to the N-ball.

My only gripe with anything is that the iOS home screen pin icon isn't the updated version I did, but the old first-run one. The current one is all too dark and un-optimized for the iOS look.

I'm using this one on my home screen; http://cl.ly/EiJ9 And it looks much better side-by-side than the other one, imo.

 

[Keylime]

I love the current ball icon functionality (going back to previous major section). It's a great way to walk backwards through the web-app and behaves as I'd expect an iOS native app's back button to.

In a post/reply: Takes you back to the thread where you left off
In a thread: Takes you to that thread's forum directory
In a forum directory: Takes you to the forum selection screen

Seems perfectly implemented to me.

...

The main issue right now is the functionality of the "Go to last viewed post" functionality of the '>' icon. While I love it in general, I miss the ability to just go straight to the last page of a given thread.

Some threads I read move way to fast to try and play 4 pages of catch up on 100 PPP. I'd rather just jump to the end of the thread and catch up on whatever the current conversation is about.

Would it be possible to do some kind of hold vs. tap functionality on the arrow? Tap to bring you to last post you read vs. hold = last page of thread? I know real estate is rough so I'm trying to save you another icon.

The alternative would be putting two icons on top of each other vertically to save horizontal space for the thread titles. Like the '>' icon takes you to your last post you read and a '/' takes you to the last page...something like that?

Admittedly would need to play with the graphics a bit, but I'd like the ability to do both from the thread selection page if at all possible.

 

[Buckethead]

I don't see a easy way to directly quick scroll to the bottom of the page like on the last version.

Put that shit right next to the "grid" button.

 

[Keylime]

I don't see a easy way to directly quick scroll to the bottom of the page like on the last version.

Put that shit right next to the "grid" button.

Just tap the thread title at the top and it zips you down to the bottom.

 

[Buckethead]

Neato.

 

[noah111]

The main issue right now is the functionality of the "Go to last viewed post" functionality of the '>' icon. While I love it in general, I miss the ability to just go straight to the last page of a given thread.

Well you know this is optional, right? You can change it to exactly that functionality via the settings. And the tap and hold stuff can't be done anymore iirc, because of incompatibility across browsers.

Though I get what you mean, as I don't ALWAYS wish to view the last unread post, either. When enabling the "detailed thread view" in the settings, it shows you the OP and last post made, so perhaps making that 'last post by xxx' a tappable link could solve that.

I don't see a easy way to directly quick scroll to the bottom of the page like on the last version.

Put that shit right next to the "grid" button.

Tap on the dark blue area of the giant bar up top...

 

[Battersea Power Station]

I don't see a easy way to directly quick scroll to the bottom of the page like on the last version.

Put that shit right next to the "grid" button.

... did you try touching the shit right next to the "grid" button?

Edit: I'm late with the reply because I'm still getting used to the > symbol not taking me to the last page. I know I can change it in the settings but j wanted to try it this way first.

 

[mrklaw]

didn't the old webapp have a little discreet 'down' arrow in the title bar though, helping to show it jumped to the bottom?

I didn't realise the right arrow on thread titles didn't just jump to the last page anymore - so it defaults to last post?

Is there any way to get to last unread post?

 

[mrklaw]

I love the current ball icon functionality (going back to previous major section). It's a great way to walk backwards through the web-app and behaves as I'd expect an iOS native app's back button to.

In a post/reply: Takes you back to the thread where you left off
In a thread: Takes you to that thread's forum directory
In a forum directory: Takes you to the forum selection screen

Seems perfectly implemented to me.
.

i don't have a problem with the functionality, just that it isn't intuitive. How about if the background to the gaf ball was a left chevron, to at least show that you're stepping back to the next level up in the forum? Not really sure what was wrong with the previous button (back/main etc) but at least that pointed left and wasn't a hidden feature.

 

[kehs]

i don't have a problem with the functionality, just that it isn't intuitive. How about if the background to the gaf ball was a left chevron, to at least show that you're stepping back to the next level up in the forum? Not really sure what was wrong with the previous button (back/main etc) but at least that pointed left and wasn't a hidden feature.

Logos taking you up a level is pretty standard UI usage at this point, for both websites and programs.

 

[Treefingers]

Logos taking you up a level is pretty standard UI usage at this point, for both websites and programs.

Eh.. generally logos take you to the main page.

 

[enzo_gt]

The ads are fixed width. There will have to be space to either side of them when on wider resolutions. If there is going to have to be space on the sides, then I want space above and below as well.


Tap the Go To Page button at the bottom.

Ah, that's too bad

 

[deim0s]

Eh.. generally logos take you to the main page.

This.

 

[noah111]

Eh.. generally logos take you to the main page.

This.

You have to keep in mind this is a mobile experience, not a desktop one. The logo needs to be somewhere, and having it function in a useful capacity rather than a 'go to main page' capacity is a plus, imo.

 

[kehs]

Eh.. generally logos take you to the main page.

This.

Seems I've been using too many mobile programs lately. You guys are right.

 

[ckohler]

Yes, logos typically go directly to the homepage. However, it was either an arrow button that says "Back" or the logo and there isn't space for both. Evilore wants the logo. The "<" in the design is supposed to subtly indicate it being a back button.

 

[sruckus]

Noticed something weird. If I'm at the bottom of a page and tap the bar to go back to the top and then click the button for menu, it opens the menu but then sends me back to the bottom.

 

[mrklaw]

Yes, logos typically go directly to the homepage. However, it was either an arrow button that says "Back" or the logo and there isn't space for both. Evilore wants the logo. The "<" in the design is supposed to subtly indicate it being a back button.

understood. However if anything, the '<' makes it look like the main title bar steps you back, as thats what has the '<' on the end of it - pointing at the gaf logo. Just doesn't feel clear to me. couldn't you apply the same '<' to the left hand side of the screen?

edit: like this

 

[Treefingers]

You have to keep in mind this is a mobile experience, not a desktop one. The logo needs to be somewhere, and having it function in a useful capacity rather than a 'go to main page' capacity is a plus, imo.

Oh for sure, just saying that it's definitely not the norm.

 

[charlequin]

Yes, logos typically go directly to the homepage. However, it was either an arrow button that says "Back" or the logo and there isn't space for both. Evilore wants the logo. The "<" in the design is supposed to subtly indicate it being a back button.

I thought that was pretty clear, actually, I didn't realize there were people who didn't get that.

Speaking of which: on the mockup, being able to link directly to individual posts now is awesome, but when you view them there's no good way to get back to the whole thread easily. Any way the logo button could take you back to the thread instead of the forum when you're viewing a single post?

 

[mescalineeyes]

The "<" in the design is supposed to subtly indicate it being a back button.

OH SHIT mind blown of FedEx hidden arrow proportions.

Also, ckohler, man, I just want to say thank you. Like a billion times.

 

[tmdorsey]

Noticed something weird. If I'm at the bottom of a page and tap the bar to go back to the top and then click the button for menu, it opens the menu but then sends me back to the bottom.

I get this as well using Safari on the iPad.

 

[Tunesmith]

I get this as well using Safari on the iPad.

Have experienced it a few times in Safari on iPhone as well.