Comment Feed for Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"? (Coffeehouse on Channel 9)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Bas — Sat, 09 May 2009 08:20:08 GMT

Isn't there a paragraph in Code Complete about how, when two designers argue about which UI they should use, the worst possible solution is "Let's add a button and let the user decide!"?

Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Joshua Ross — Sat, 09 May 2009 03:05:22 GMT

While were talking about the masthead, there is an out of place white pixel on the c9 guy's left shoulder.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Duncan Mackenzie — Fri, 08 May 2009 23:42:32 GMT

the css to hide other users was just a joke, because I used it as my custom css example when we launched the feature folks... I wasn't saying it was equivalent to a 'hide users' feature :)

As far as the 37 signals guys and preferences, it is a balance of course. Lots of their software is customizable and we have preferences too, but I just find that whenever a developer sees a possible choice (should we go with 10 or 20 posts per page is a good example) the natural response is to add a settings option. Over time, this behavior can lead to a site that is very customizable for the 1-2% who want to and is hard to use for the rest. Yes, an 'Advanced' settings area certainly helps with that problem, it is worth considering. I'm not suggesting we won't add more options to C9, but just that I like to avoid them where possible. Like any set of 'best practices', the 37 signals book talks in absolutes, when the real world (including their own software) is more about the compromises.

@blowdart ... I'm not taking them as gospel by referencing their content, I'm just saying there are reasons not to make everything configurable. I think Windows or even Office is not really comparable to a website when it comes to this discussion though. Windows is how *your* machine works, the place where you do all your work/play and it should have a great deal more customizability than you will find when you visit some particular website. Customization creates additional complexity, but I definitely think that is a price that a 'base' piece of software like Windows has to choose to accept.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Christian Liensberger — Fri, 08 May 2009 20:24:38 GMT

Kim Possible is awesome! :)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

figuerres — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:31:31 GMT

DUncan: IMHO having to use CSS to filter posts is a total hack / kluge and just wrong.

CSS should be for things like colors, fonts, size ....

not for filtering posts, threads, topics ....

the system should allow me to set options for each.

but not use css for both.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

blowdart — Fri, 08 May 2009 19:30:17 GMT

Oh and come on you can't take those arrogant sods at 37 signals as gospel either. There's a bunch of rebuttals all over the place, and their attitude (and lack of scalability) has cost them lots of customers

Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

You can't handle my name — Fri, 08 May 2009 18:54:38 GMT

hangon.. you've given me a link to http://gettingreal.37signals.com/ch06_Avoid_Preferences.php? wtf is that sh/t?!?! is this the reason why MS employees hardcode 'little' settings (settings that some might actually like to tailor for their non noob workflow)... not bother making even the simplest of settings that should be user customizable and easily accessible, instead forcing users to go trawl though search results after search results, looking for sodding reg tweaks, all because some lazy programmers couldn't be bothered to make a decent options dialog available (I'm looking at you Explorer you big heap o'junk!)... I wonder if that was written by someone working at MS? bcus that would explain an awful lot.

---
Decide the little details so your customers don't have to

You're faced with a tough decision: how many messages do we include on each page? Your first inclination may be to say, "Let's just make it a preference where people can choose 25, 50, or 100." That's the easy way out though. Just make a decision.

---
lol'd at the example.. so what if you're designing a forum for a considerable userbase, and your decision is to just hardcode what you feel is best? its funny every other popular forum base gets this right, your choice is choosing what your feel are the best default settings not just making them the only settings - that is lame!!!

and another reason that annoys me is this site does have a fixed messages per page.. and that c9 doesn't provide anyway of allowing you to directly click on any links within a topic let alone from a main thread view to open a page2, page3, page4 of the same topic etc in different tabs for when you're replying to multiple people... instead you either duplicate the page, and then move onto the next page .. its just rubbish linear worfklow.. actually c9 has a some other problem with loading direct page links pages and ajax links ..I can't be bothered to describe in detail right now.

Anyway I'm not bothered about you guys making custom event themes and turning them on overiding users css styles, what bothers me is that you should at least allow us to be able to go back to the our profile and overide it after seeing it.. that way we at least see a new custom event theme when its added.

So yes the 'do not show special event themes' option would be good, and you could turn them all off whenever you add a new event theme(they don't happen that often, And its also one less step for us to go turn it off, - check out event theme- and if the user wants to turn 'do not show special event themes' back on again then so be it, at least you've shown off your new event theme.

"css in there to just hide a particular user for example"

who actually goes and hides other users comments thats pretty shallow.

Re: Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Dorian Muthig — Thu, 07 May 2009 23:56:42 GMT

Well, I was more talking about the login screen, which the background here resembles. And there's no fish nowhere. Looks more like flowers or clover and some pentooling to me, sorta. :)

@Duncan: Avoiding preferences is the same way wrong as it is wrong to make everything a setting. I personally would implement all preferences, then decide how to set them and hide the unusual ones that noone would realy need in some sort of advanced mode, that you would have to manually enable after ticking a checkbox to agree breaking things would be your own fault, accompanied by a reset button. Since this site is for developers (mainly) the advanced options might as well be a simple text field with variables (where you remove messy things from, of course).

Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Duncan Mackenzie — Thu, 07 May 2009 16:10:46 GMT

No, not really... my kids are too young for that, so I'm spared it :) My kids watch other shows on Disney channel though, so we see bits and pieces of it all the time.

Big Kim Possible fan though!

Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Christian Liensberger — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:43:50 GMT

Hehe... you watch Hannah Montana? I had to watch it once because my younger cousin was watching it =)

Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Minh — Wed, 06 May 2009 19:39:04 GMT

I had to do it... It's for the blind children :-)

Re: Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Duncan Mackenzie — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:37:30 GMT

The reason for disabling your custom css wasn't to force you to see the Windows 7 or Birthday theme, it was because we know you created the custom css based on what was there normally... and we couldn't predict how it would interact with our custom theme. We are thinking hard about how to allow the best of both worlds (just like Hannah Montana!). We could certainly just say "if the user has custom css, then don't add in the special event theme code" but that would mean that if you have a single line of css in there to just hide a particular user for example, then you wouldn't see the birthday theme or win 7 or whatever. For some people that would be perfectly fine, but we'd like to believe that there are others that find the custom themes somewhat fun and would like to see them. As much as I am against adding additional options, it is possible we'll need to add a 'do not show special event themes' type of check box user setting.

Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Bas — Wed, 06 May 2009 11:16:52 GMT

What's the new background, anyway? I thought they still used the betta fish by default?

Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Christian Liensberger — Wed, 06 May 2009 10:17:36 GMT

I like the blue background... and now with the black fonts for the main menu entries it's also very readable ;)

Re: Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Maddus Mattus — Wed, 06 May 2009 07:32:04 GMT

Holy moly!

You sound like a user!

ok, agreed, from a user experience design it's not the best color scheme you can choose. But it's workable and it's fun that C9 is in a different theme because of stuff that's going on at Microsoft. I find it very refreshing. But come on, give the guys some slack!

I know we are all experts here, but this is just nitpicking.

Relax, things will return to normal once this whole Windows 7 thing blows over ;)

Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

vesuvius — Wed, 06 May 2009 07:15:16 GMT

Now the Channel 9 menu really is too hard to see.

I am still of the pursuasion that the old menu was fine as it was, and not too much of a problem, but this is definitely a case where the menu text should be a darker colour

Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

You can't handle my name — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:31:10 GMT

same here.. its annoying!

I've decided not to bother with the custom profile css anymore.. seeing as whenever you guys feel like showing off something inferior (like Windows7 -Hello) my css gets disabled! :(

So gone back to using Styler... only now I gotz to mess around with the css again just to stop Styler applying the body { background } css to the sodding iframe editor !important

Also seems like some other css settings have been changed aswel I've noticed.... since moving the user external css back to styler not everything is looking the same.

Re: Re: Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

figuerres — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:15:19 GMT

simple goof, simple fix :-)

Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Árni Gunnar Ragnarsson — Tue, 05 May 2009 21:00:47 GMT

I personally hate it when you disable my custom CSS ... :(

Re: Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Adam Kinney — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:46:46 GMT

My apologies for not checking my work. Thanks for bringing it up. :)

Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

bureX — Tue, 05 May 2009 20:44:59 GMT

A page refresh may be needed to load the new CSS settings ;)

Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Duncan Mackenzie — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:44:53 GMT

And now it has been updated. Thanks for the feedback folks, appreciate it.

As far as 'why the old background'? I think that is a good point, I would have liked to see the new background as well :)

Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Charles — Tue, 05 May 2009 19:40:07 GMT

We're working on this. Thanks for the feedback!
C

Re: Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Dorian Muthig — Tue, 05 May 2009 18:19:28 GMT

This guy made the background. And this guy swapped it out. You can stalk them now, but don't tell them I told you, mkay? :)

Re: Re: Holy crap! Can you say "low contrast"?

Minh — Tue, 05 May 2009 18:12:22 GMT

It's like no one bother to check their work... because with just ONE look, you can see it's a horrible clash