Notes on navigating around MyOpera
Friday, 9. September 2005, 14:38:24
Overall I love the new community. It looks & feels fantastic, the extra functionality is superb. I'm also quite excited by the potential for all the extra features that I know are on the way. I'm sure the speed problems & server errors will disappear in time. I think the biggest (& easiest to fix) problem with the community is the navigation. There are several instances where links are missing (or included) which make navigation through the community difficult &/or confusing. What follows is my take on what needs to be done to improve the system to provide the most logical & intuitive interface. My notes focus primarily on the blog side of the community, I'll get to the forums another time.
Firstly though:
Pet hate
Please do away with the 'Edit Title' button completely. It looks really untidy & out of place floating in mid air. The logical place to edit a blog title is on the Blog settings page, which you can already do. Fix this & I'll never complain about anything ever again (not true).
First Page
When I first log in why am I taken to my account page first? The account page provides links to lots of pages where I can make changes to options which I don't need to change everythime I log in. It takes far too many clicks to complete the tasks I perform most frequently, yet the tasks I only need to look at once are all accessible in one click.
When I log in I want to go to a page with the following links:
Back to the page I just logged in from
Add new blog post
My Blog
A list of my friend's blogs
Main list of forums
A list of my favourite forums
Private Message system
Account
Account
This page needs an option to remove the link to the Get Started guide, once i've got started I don't need to start again.
Web Page Layout
Include links to:
customisation/web design forums - where user can get help with CSS from the community
Upload files -user may want to upload background images.
Blog Settings
Include links to:
Web Page Layout
Countdowns
Access Rights
Tags
Links
Remove these links from the Account page
Links
The link input screen is very but I'd like to be able to set the order of the categories as they appear on the links page & also the order with which the links appear in each category without having to delete & retype them.
The links page is ok but why the uneven two column layout? It just looks messy.
Forum settings
Include links to:
Ignored users
Friends
a control panel page like the old forum!!!
Ignored users
Fine & dandy
Group Memberships
Not sure about this yet, a group is simply a private forum. There is not enough distinction between the private forums & the public ones. I've not actually created or signed up to any groups to make use of this feature yet.
Edit Profile
Very comprehensive, clean, simple & self explanatory. I'm glad nothing is compulsory!
Spotlights
Fine & dandy again.
Countdowns
Fine & dandy again, but how about specifying who can see the countdowns like the whisper tag?
My Files
I'd like to be able to set up my own directories in addition to the standard /blog & /files
Access Rights
Fine & dandy
Tags
Include links to:
related tags (against each tag)
most popular tags
New Blog Post
Very cool!
When using the whisper tag I would like to be able to select usernames from my friends list or add all friends with one click (I can never remember whether lokutus_prime is capitalised or not). I'd also like to see my own whispers by default without having to list my own username.
Adding a hyperlink can also be a bit cumbersome, I like to drag a tab into the text area which automatically inserts the URL, but I can't drag a tab into a javascript prompt box. The prompt box requires you to know & manually type in the URL, which makes linking to complex URLS like forum posts for example a right pain. I'd like to be able to select the text of a URL & click a hyperlink button to add the correct tags around it rather than the current method.
More later I'm sure...
Firstly though:
Pet hate
Please do away with the 'Edit Title' button completely. It looks really untidy & out of place floating in mid air. The logical place to edit a blog title is on the Blog settings page, which you can already do. Fix this & I'll never complain about anything ever again (not true).
First Page
When I first log in why am I taken to my account page first? The account page provides links to lots of pages where I can make changes to options which I don't need to change everythime I log in. It takes far too many clicks to complete the tasks I perform most frequently, yet the tasks I only need to look at once are all accessible in one click.
When I log in I want to go to a page with the following links:
Back to the page I just logged in from
Add new blog post
My Blog
A list of my friend's blogs
Main list of forums
A list of my favourite forums
Private Message system
Account
Account
This page needs an option to remove the link to the Get Started guide, once i've got started I don't need to start again.
Web Page Layout
Include links to:
customisation/web design forums - where user can get help with CSS from the community
Upload files -user may want to upload background images.
Blog Settings
Include links to:
Web Page Layout
Countdowns
Access Rights
Tags
Links
Remove these links from the Account page
Links
The link input screen is very but I'd like to be able to set the order of the categories as they appear on the links page & also the order with which the links appear in each category without having to delete & retype them.
The links page is ok but why the uneven two column layout? It just looks messy.
Forum settings
Include links to:
Ignored users
Friends
a control panel page like the old forum!!!
Ignored users
Fine & dandy
Group Memberships
Not sure about this yet, a group is simply a private forum. There is not enough distinction between the private forums & the public ones. I've not actually created or signed up to any groups to make use of this feature yet.
Edit Profile
Very comprehensive, clean, simple & self explanatory. I'm glad nothing is compulsory!
Spotlights
Fine & dandy again.
Countdowns
Fine & dandy again, but how about specifying who can see the countdowns like the whisper tag?
My Files
I'd like to be able to set up my own directories in addition to the standard /blog & /files
Access Rights
Fine & dandy
Tags
Include links to:
related tags (against each tag)
most popular tags
New Blog Post
Very cool!
When using the whisper tag I would like to be able to select usernames from my friends list or add all friends with one click (I can never remember whether lokutus_prime is capitalised or not). I'd also like to see my own whispers by default without having to list my own username.
Adding a hyperlink can also be a bit cumbersome, I like to drag a tab into the text area which automatically inserts the URL, but I can't drag a tab into a javascript prompt box. The prompt box requires you to know & manually type in the URL, which makes linking to complex URLS like forum posts for example a right pain. I'd like to be able to select the text of a URL & click a hyperlink button to add the correct tags around it rather than the current method.
More later I'm sure...
WIDGETIZE
lokutus_prime # 10. September 2005, 14:32
I found your exposition - your hints/tips, your suggestions, very interesting indeed, and wish to thank you for sharing your thoughts on New Opera.
For the moment I can only stand 'at the sideline' so to say, and watch what other people are doing.
As one or two of my friends will know by now, I am in something of a 'pickle', I use the polite description. I don't want to exploit your Comments page to go into 'chapter & verse' about other, wider matters -unless I have your approval of course, but hope you will allow this posting.
May I just, for the moment, confine myself to saying what I, personally, can do and can't do within, or on my Opera page, where my alter ego lokutus_prime lives.
I can: Sign On without any initial problems and gain access as a member to the opera Community, but when I then click on the "My Page" icon I am taken to the page containing "My Profile".
I can: click on the icon "Blog" that is shown on that page.
I can't: get to my last blog or indeed to any of my blogs.
Nothing happens. I am left on the same "My Profile" page.
I can: click on any of the following icons (and be taken there, and, once there, I can use the facilities, icons on these pages):
"Photo Album", "Links", "Friends", "About"
I can: "Edit Profile" (My Profile).
I can't: Post, or create any blog/journal, or even get to any area where my Blog page should be.
Yesterday morning (Friday) I had some problems with Opera but was able to see my blog/journals, and indeed able to delete erroneous entries -and NO, I certainly did not delete my Journal Page, per se, and all of its archives and history and contents.
I only deleted three postings that were erroneous entries, i.e. 'treble postings' of one particular journal entry- (please allow me to describe it thus at this moment, for 'Blog' does not seem to fit in with the context I am referring to) I had made while under pressure from a repetitive "Proxy Error" message, that flashed up each time after I thought I had made the original posting.
I then searched Opera, and looked at "Show all journals" A-Z.
But....
I can't: access or see any record of my Master Journal, against which the entire history of all my postings should be recorded, "All Our Todays".
When I do a search on lokutus_prime all that comes up are other variations of that name (all owned by me, but which are 'passive' at present) that go back to older identities and which have nothing to do with the current situation.
So, I am flummoxed. Flummoxed I am! If you or any of our friends can give me advice then I shall be very thankful. I have emailed Steffen Haback pleading for help and I wait for his response. meantime I am, as I implied, an 'observer' of other journals/blogs until things change.
The reason I detail all of this here is two-fold.
1. I may not be the only one with this problem, it may have also happened in some variation, to others in Opera Community.
2. I would like to discover if the 'upgrade', the 'New Opera' launch,
has anything to do with what has happened, or am I doing something wrong, in the sense that I have failed to understand or to follow the modus operandi in some way?
Thanks for allowing me to make my comment here, friend orinoco.
Gratefully,
lokutus_prime
fred # 10. September 2005, 17:50
Thanks for all your suggestions. Many of them are good and I will implement it when I get time.
I guess you have turned off referrer logging. This is why you get redirected to your account page when logging in. If you turn on referrer logging you will stay on the same page.
We have discussed having a 'first page' like the one you are suggesting. Its good to get all the stuff you like directly when you login, but at the same time many people prefer to stay on the same page after they have logged in, specially if they are in the forums. I'll think more about this for future updates of My Opera. Maybe there will be a setting in the profile, where you can choose if you want to stay on the same page when logging in or go to the 'first page'.
lokutus_prime # 10. September 2005, 18:54
lokutus
orinoco # 10. September 2005, 19:29
Hi Lokutus, glad to hear you are back up & running now. I'm pleased to have been able to help!
Ronch1941 # 6. November 2005, 23:54
Opera Executive #2.......Don't know, but they look like troublemakers to me.
Opera Executive #1.......Yeah. We better keep an eye on em. Oh yeah, and fire Fred in the morning. He's only encouraging them.