dw_design | What are the best ways to roll out styled icon/profile pages?

What are the best ways to roll out styled icon/profile pages?

So, one of the projects Styles has been working on is custom icon and profile pages. The stunning

exor674 has implemented a backend for custom icon pages; after we implement them for all styles, we will be working on custom profile pages.

One of the concerns is that a good amount of people are going to not see icon pages--and especially profile pages, which are difficult enough to do effectively without shoehorning them into a style--in styles. But we don't want to multiply too many options. Possible strategies are:

Add a separate display option for icon and profile pages, or just profile pages since icon pages are far less likely to be troublesome in styles.

Don't add any options. All styles will have the ability to display icon and profile pages in the site style, just like entry pages. Somebody who doesn't want to view them can use the style=mine sticky display and set them thus. This will not satisfy the people who don't want to set display options for style=mine, but it's probably the fewest options.

Hooking them up to the entry display option--probably not a good idea.
Hooking them up to the journal display option--also not a good idea, since few people will be using the site view for their journal.

Other ideas welcome!

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I think a separate display option for icon and profile pages would probably be best, if connecting that to the entry display option isn't a good idea - I imagine most people who wouldn't want to see the profile page in someone else's style also wouldn't want to see the icon page in someone else's style.

I imagine most people who wouldn't want to see the profile page in someone else's style also wouldn't want to see the icon page in someone else's style

I don't think that follows. I am waiting for the code to go live to style my icon page almost immediately, my icons are mine, etc.

But I'm less sure about styling my profile page, as I know that'll mostly be used by other DW users, not off site users like the rest of my blog.

Lots of people go to profile pages to look at specific bits of info, and I'm less keen on styling that immediately.

I suspect I'm going to anyway, but I don't think the order you put it in follows--someone wanting to look at icons in site style will also want profile in site style most of the time, but the reverse I think is less likely.

I'm confused. It sounds like you consider that off-site users are more likely than DW users to view your icons page. Why would you consider that to be the case? That doesn't make sense to me.

That's not what I meant to imply, althought that's possibly how it's read.

My icons are my icons, if you're looking at them it's because they're of interest to you in some way, how the surrounding page is styled is broadly irrelevent, the only extra info on there is the notify on upload link.

Ergo, I want that styled to look like it's part of my journal ASAP, as essentially it is part of my journal.

However, the profile page is used by lots of people for various reasons, registered users specifically look there to add people, find interests, etc. There are many many navigation items there that existing users are used to finding, and in specific places. Styling it allows me to do things to it that would confuse some people.

Essentially, it's not who is more likely to use the page, more that a styled page will be more likely to annoy a registered user, an unstyled page more likely to annoy an off site user, I want my icons to be part of my journal, whereas my profile is part of my journal and part of my DW site profile.

Existing DW users will look at profiles for specific things, whereas the icon page is just a set of pictures and keywords, how it's styled is less important as there's nothing there to look for to find that styling may confuse.

I'm not sure I've explained that any better this time either, sorry.

I think I understood it pretty well, and I think I agree with your points. Icons are mostly used by the person who put 'em there; people looking at your icons are not going to be seeking standardized data (except for the icon data itself!). People looking at a profile will be looking for specific things, which should be in standardized places.

Exactly. Having said that, I'd hope although haven't looked that everything will remain in standard places on a styles profile page, it'll just have my style surrounding it instead of site chrome.

My approach generally is that everything that's matgb.dreamwidth.org/whatever is mine and should look like it's part of the same site--search engines will treat my icon page and profile page as part of my site, not DW, so they should look like they're part of it.

But I can see many people wanting to be able to find key data quickly that are used to the site chrome anyway, thus a profile page should always have a clear option to be in sitescheme to logged in users (That's in the navstrip I think but...)

By"icon data", do you mean keywords, comment, and description? (I'm not sure what other useful data there is on that page, except perhaps the number of icons.)

The icon itself, keyword, comment, and description, yes. And at that, the keyword, comment, and description can probably move around a bit, so long as it's clustered pretty close to the icon itself and retains informative names.

I read it as DW users are more likely than off site users to view the profile page, whereas icons page will be viewed by off site users as well as DW users. Does that help, or just confuse things further?

While I think that the custom profile and icon pages would be absolutely delightful for those who want to use it, I know that I'm going to constantly be clicking "style=mine" every single time I see a custom page. I'm used to scanning for specific information in specific locations, and I can already tell my frustration levels would go high if I had to squint at every page because someone thinks it's awesome to put their text in yellow on blue.

I'd love to have a ticky I can set in my user preferences that says "never show me custom pages for X". I never want to see custom pages when reading comments, and I never want to see custom pages when looking at icons.

Actually, you can already never see custom pages when reading comments:

http://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/settings/?cat=display

Set "Entry View Style" to "My own style" (or one of the other options).

It sounds like you'd be covered with scenario two, which is the bare minimum, so there's nothing for you to worry about, I think.

I have that set. It's the first thing I did as soon as it was available. XD I want this to also be an option for once the custom icon/profile pages go into effect. Not just entry view, but all site pages. I see the FAQs in Tropo Purple, comments in Tropo Purple, latest things, interest search, inbox, etc. all in Tropo Purple. I never want to see profiles/icon pages in anything but Tropo Purple, and want that as a ticky option.

Do you have the journal view style to your style, too?

I have entry view set to site skin, and journal view set to original style. I don't mind seeing the wrapper someone's put on the package, but once I open the box, I want everything homogenized. Basically, musyc.dreamwidth.org = "Oh, look, purple, nice", but musyc.dreamwidth.org/XXXX.html, musyc.dreamwidth.org/icons, musyc.dreamwidth.org/profile, etc. = Tropo Purple and that's how I want it no matter what journal or page I'm viewing. If it's a page that comes after .org/, I only want to see the site scheme, whether that be Tropo Purple, Celerity, or Lynx.

*nods. The only pages I like seeing in one's style are the recent page and the reading page. Sometimes I'd even like it better if archive and tag pages were site-styled.

:DD Same. Partially because it would be SO much easier to design for if things like that damn single tags-container h2 didn't have to be taken into account. >.>

OMG I hate that thing with a passion! The tags page is horrible to customize. Well, not as horrible as the entry page but pretty horrible.

LOL, yeah. The number of times I've stared at the tags page swearing to myself because ALL the text is visible EXCEPT THAT WHAT DO I HAVE TO CHANGE LKSJD:FKLJS WTF NOW **ALL** MY H2S IN MY TEST POST ARE DISPLAYING WEIRD.

*cough*

There's nothing worse than .page-month to customize with CSS. I promise! Try it sometime if you haven't already. At least, it's the hardest thing to code in Transmogrified that I know of (besides reply forms, which can also get a bit nightmarish) - it's just rip-your-hair-out-worthy. The Tags page is a breeze compared to that one.

...I would love it so much if I could see archive and tag pages in site style. Even if it was only the ones on my journal.

I like user-styled archive pages, but site-styled tag pages (even if it were only my journal's tag page) would be great, I agree!

You can, actually, if you add ?style=site to them. But I'm still working on styling them still, so they look rather rough yet!

Ooh, yay! Thank you. It's greyed out in the navbar so I just assumed it wasn't possible, but it looks great already!

Add a separate display option for icon and profile page

This for me, and include them in the journal view option as well. I've always liked site pages better for large/long content, whatever that is.

If there's a separate display option for icon/profile pages, then that would mean not including them in the journal view option, though.

Oh, entry view is not included in journal view?

Nope! They're entirely separate.

Hmm. Weird. But then I don't use the journal view option. :)

I would say add a separate display option. It's probably the most time consuming to implement, but it's also the safest, since people react better to change when there's always easy, accessible options to not-change.

I agree. Particularly when it's something so comparatively big as a completely new way to display pages that's looked the same more-or-less "forever".

+1!

This. As much as I'd prefer the second suggested implementation, styled profile and icon pages seems to me to be one of those changes that fits into the "let people opt-in if they want it" window.

As far as I can tell it'll be opt-in to display, but opt-out to view.

Custom profile pages? I would actually pay for custom profile pages that would work in our own styles. Maybe with style=light or style=mine built in without use of the nav bar(?), which I don't like using and/or customizing to work with custom CSS...the entire idea would be beyond awesome.

I love the idea of displaying my icons page in my journal style, but I'm really unsure on profile pages. My profile is my outward-facing page, my icons are a part of how I use my journal. I like having a profile page that's easy to find things on because it's laid out like everybody else's. If I could have a custom icons page without having a custom profile page, that'd be awesome. (Too many options, though, probably.)

Actually, displaying will definitely be two separate options in the customization wizard, so I don't think you have to worry any.

This is more about people viewing other people's styles, so they don't have to view profiles in other people's styles if they don't want to, even if the person has their profile set to be in their own style.

...okay, so the main thing I am worried about here: there needs to be an easy, one-click way to get from any page on the site to a site-scheme page, whether you are logged in or not, without using the navbar. (Particularly when you are not logged in, because the site-scheme pages have the login boxes.)

I don't use persistent cookies, so I end up on DW pages not-logged-in all the time, and I am used to just clicking on the nearest userhead to get to a site scheme page where I can access the login (and all the site menus.)

So my most important requirement here: either profile pages display in site scheme by default to non-logged-in users, or something is done to styles so that there is a guaranteed, easy-to-find way to get from any user-styled page to a site scheme page, whether the navbar is there or not.

That's a really difficult problem, because that's what the nav bar is for, but lots and lots of people don't like it and disable it. So pretty much there isn't an easy one click way to get from a styled page to a site schemed page that people will accept on their journals.

There's not much of a point in giving users styled profile pages if they're displayed by default in the site schemed to logged out users.

Maybe the profile pages could always display the nav bar? I don't have it enabled on my journal but wouldn't have a problem with having it show up on my profile.

Tbh, I would hate this if I had to see it. However I wouldn't mind at all having it show up for logged-out users. I've just realized that one of the reasons I disabled the nav bar for logged-out users is that it also disables it for me. The two options are tied. I wonder if it's worth suggesting separating them.

Edited 2011-02-25 23:59 (UTC)

I know it's not an easy solution. But as it currently is, if I lose site-scheme profile pages, it's possible that I could end up on somebody's DW page and not be able to navigate from there to a login screen, unless I luck in to clicking on somebody who does enable the navbar for logged-out people.

Actually, with a little bit of poking around, I guess most of the styles do have a link to the DW homepage at the very bottom of the page? Is that a required element for all styles? I *suppose* I could get used to using that instead, if I had to, I guess. :P But it would still be nice if there was some more prominent way. *curmudgeon*. (I suspect there are a lot of other people who are used to using userhead-to-profile as a shortcut to site scheme, too, because there's no other obvious way. And DW's site scheme is just so useful now.)

It's not a requirement for all styles, it's just a module that can be enabled/disabled.

Unfortunately, your very requirement (that it be prominent) is the thing that drives people to not want it on their styles, and since it's their journal, it's hard to force the matter. And the userhead to profile shortcut will definitely still work for a user who wants it--but it means being logged in, which doesn't fit your requirement.

Yeah, as a person who does a fair amount of using public computers, and sets cookies on my main browser to expire when the browser closes, I get the impression I see my sites logged-out a lot more than most people do. But I think, and not just for me, it's important to keep capability there for non-logged-in members to still be able to find things. And get to a screen it's easy to log in to from anywhere on the site. (Custom comment pages don't count. Half the time I can't find my way around them anyway.)

Could the link to the DW homepage be made a required element? Or would that cause a ton of screaming and yelling/break too many styles? I think if I knew it was guaranteed to be there, and in more or less the same place on every style, that would be enough to minimally satisfy me, once I got used to not being able to use profile pages anymore.

Having the navbar show on profile pages no matter what, as suggested above, would also work.

I know I could always manually type the address, but having to switch to typing mode just to get to the site's main page can be really annoying, especially if I'm navigating with my tablet or a touchscreen or a cat on the keyboard or one hand immobilized or something like that.

Definitely don't hook them to the entry or journal display options!

Allowing them to display in site style sounds like a good compromise.

Add a separate display option for icon and profile pages
What exactly do you mean by this?

Option 2 sounds okay to me.

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What are the best ways to roll out styled icon/profile pages?

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