Inbox Redesign

[momijizukamori]

This post is for feedback for the redesigned inbox! As this is a redesign rather than a port, 'it's different' isn't useful feedback - please let me know how that difference is impacting you!

In particular, I'd like feedback from phone/tablet users, and from people who regularly get inbox messages in languages that use different character sets than English (languages that use Cyrillic, various East Asian languages, etc) - a lot of the elements of the redesign were meant to address problems with these.

Fixed Issues

• 'Unread' message filter missing from the navigation sidebar
  
• All entries are showing up collapsed, even unread ones.
  
• Odd word-breaking behavior in subjects and messages
  
• Action/navigation buttons are no longer in the footer as well
  
• Spacing between subject and timestamp
  
• Have to click on the checkbox rather than anywhere on the message to select it
  
• Expand/collapse does not work on read messages
  
• 'Delete all for this entry'/'Mark all read for this entry' does not work
  
• Selected messages aren't highlighted
  
• Intermittant weirdness/failures when using the in-message comment moderation tools
  
• The bottom message on one page is duplicated at the top of the next page
  
• Clicking a link in a message also causes that message to get marked as selected.
  
• Missing link to the beta comm in the header
  
• No confirmation dialogue for 'Delete All'
  
• Deleting messages via JS causes expanded/collapsed status to reset on other messages on the page.
  
• Current page button color is incorrect in all site schemes
  
• Not enough space between compose button and manage/refresh links
  
• Following reply link does not mark message as read
  
• Actions doesn't work with JS off
  
• Links in read messages aren't muted in color
  
• Images embedded in inbox notifications overflow badly
  

Fixed But Not Live

Known Issues

• Navigation buttons reflow in a kind of ugly way on some screen sizes
  
• Not enough space between action buttons
  
• Mark All Read button doesn't update text on press
  
• No warning when you've hit the max number of flagged messages (just silent failure)
  
• Left-clicking on message actions is slow and does not always correctly redirect.
  

Possible Tweaks

• Separate filters for comments and entries
  
• Wording for buttons
  

EDIT: A proposal for alternate button interaction, to cut down on the number of action buttons for people with JS on (no-JS would still get a slightly cluttered view):

• if nothing is selected, the two buttons are 'Mark All Read' and 'Delete All'
  
• if anything is selected, 'Delete All' becomes 'Delete Selected'
  
• if anything selected is read, 'Mark All Read' becomes 'Mark Read' (or possibly 'Mark Selected Read') - a mix of read and unread marked would get this
  
• if all selected are read, 'Mark All Read' becomes 'Mark Unread' (or 'Mark Selected Unread'
  

Comments

[theladyscribe]

A couple initial thoughts. I'm using the latest version of Opera on a Macbook Air.

- Seconding the above issue with text wrapping in the subject lines of the threads.
- Things feel a bit cramped, which may be partially due to the text wrapping issue. Some extra spacing between the subject line and the timestamp section might help this (and make both the subject line and timestamp a little easier to parse).
- I'd personally like a little more color contrast or borders between inbox messages. I'm using the default site skin, so it's alternating light gray/dark gray. The lighter gray messages especially sort of blend into the page itself.
- I'm not sure how I feel about the navigation buttons being between the Mark Read/Mark Unread/Delete and Mark All Read/Delete All buttons. Would it be possible to have the navigation buttons on a separate line and the action buttons either above or below them? In addition, there's a single navigation button below all of the others, which bothers me aesthetically, especially because it's not centered (I actually didn't notice it at first, but it's right below the p1 button).
- There's no space between the "Delete" button and the page 1 button (or the arrow button if you click to another page of messages). The spacing between the page buttons and between the Mark Read/Mark Unread/Delete buttons is fine.
- Is it possible to add the navigation/action bar as a footer in addition to having it as a header?

[momijizukamori]

Yeah, the buttons arrangement was kind of a 'best first attempt', but there's just too many edge cases where there's not enough space or they start wrapping strangely, and I think they're going to to need rearranging. Extra copy of the buttons bar at the bottom is definitely doable! I think I actually meant to (as the old version had buttons both places) and then - forgot?

Will def look into the the text wrapping and spacing issues!