Kaelten asked me to take another look and give new feedback, so here's a new thread since I probably still can't post a reply without using Internet Explorer.
Summary:
I don't see a lot of changes. A few things have improved, most things are the same, and some things have even gotten worse. I feel like whoever is writing this stuff is in the same situation as whoever is writing Blizzard's UI Lua code. It's not their area of expertise, but somehow they got stuck with the task and are just kind of muddling through.
--------------------
This WYSIWYG editor is still terrible. 13px font size is unacceptable. Controls and even basic input are buggy; for example, pressing Enter sometimes does nothing at all. Selecting text (eg. to apply formatting) is broken and hellishly slow even when it sort of works. The UI is also super ugly and strongly reminiscent of Windows 3.1. Please just get rid of WYSIWYG and implement basic Markdown and/or BBCode support. Anyone posting on a gamer site knows how to use one or both of those.
I am now switching to Notepad to write the rest of this post.
--------------------
On to the actual site! Looking at beta.wowace.com ...
body { font-size: 13px } is 130000000000000% unacceptable. Stop it. Nobody can read this. If you can, your face is way too close to your monitor and/or you are actually an eagle. I'll be zoomed to 170% for the remainder of testing, which is utterly insane.
--------------------
The home page layout seems to have undergone some kind of regression, and apparently wasn't tested in *any* browsers prior to deployment. (Yes, I also checked back at 100% zoom. Problem still exists.)
- The giant header area's text is off-center in all browsers. This results from specifying "margin-left: auto" on ".home-header div.e-wrapper div.e-container" but not also specifying "margin-right: auto". This is especially bad in IE where it pushes the text all the way to the right. I think it might be intentional that it's not completely centered, but it definitely isn't working as intended in all browsers.
- The giant header area's background image doesn't cover the full width of the header in some browsers. This results from setting "max-width: initial !important" on "#site .atf" in your CSS. Even though "initial" seems to be allowed in the spec, in practice it seems to not be understood by all browsers. Changing "initial" to "100%" achieves the desired result in all browsers, and is fewer characters anyway.
--------------------
You guys should acquaint yourselves with the glory of flexbox and stop floating every. single. thing. everywhere. in your layout.
--------------------
You should also acquaint yourselves with mobile-first design. Right now your <body> has a "responsive-enabled" class, and some changes do happen when I resize the window to a phone-like width, but I feel like whoever implemented this stuff doesn't really understand the concept on a fundamental level.
For example, on the home page, the nonsensical order of things in your HTML source (sidebar content before real content) means that I have to swipe down and down and down and down some more to see the actual page content. You're also hiding some of the page content (the things that tell me what the site is about and what it offers) when it's not really necessary, and you're **not** hiding the incredibly gigantic site header, which is even more miserably gigantic on a phone-sized viewport and also totally useless because the top bar already includes the WowAce logo. I can also see now that you're using a hardcoded linebreak in the header "tag line" which is unnecessary -- just set the width of the element so it wraps in a way you find satisfying -- and makes it look strange at non-desktop resolutions. The "search" icon in the top bar is also broken -- for some reason you've implemented it as a circle icon and a separate bar icon, but they're not arranged correctly to look like a magnifying glass; it ends up looking like a stopwatch.
--------------------
Dashboard
Only shows issues (not comments) and they're not sortable or meaningfully filterable. Filtering by title or description (fake label inside the text field is truncated, and stop doing this, just use a damn label, that's what they're for) is almost never going to be useful (I can't recall a time where I've ever wanted to do this). This list should be filterable by tags (eg. so I can see "all bugs" or "all feature requests") and should be sortable (by submitted date, last commented date, project name, etc.)
There is also nothing showing me which content is new. Which tickets have I not viewed yet? Which comments (on tickets or anything else) have I not read yet?
--------------------
Onward to a project page. Using Grid again for testing since that's what I used last time and it uses every project feature (issues, pages, localization, etc.)
- Header is way too large. At a readable size (170% zoom) the network, site, and page headers take up more than half of the vertical screen space; at 100% zoom they're still taking up well over 1/3 of the viewport height. You're wasting a lot of horizontal space. Move the site menu (Home, Projects, Forums, Dashboard) and site search box up onto the same row with the WowAce title. In the next section down, get rid of the tiny screenshot thumbnail; it's too small to be of any use. Also increase the size of the project name (it doesn't stand out enough as-is) and remove the "Addons" label (what is that even for?). Now that row is smaller too.
- The "table of contents" link at the top of the project description is still useless. Again, if you can't generate a meaningful TOC with the chosen markup type (though you really should be able to generate a TOC with Markdown!) don't show this TOC link and its equally useless popup.
- The first sidebar box ("about this project") is largely non-interactive and uninteresting. Nobody cares when the project was created. There's no need to show the last release date here when it's shown in the "recent files" box where it's actually associated with something actionable (a download link). The total downloads and license are of very little interest to the vast majority of people who will view this page. Move the "view on curse.com" link up next to the "follow" link. Now what's left of this box can be moved to the bottom of the sidebar, since pretty much every other box is more useful/interesting.
- The "recent files" box should be at the top of the sidebar, since actually downloading the addon is one of (if not THE) most important actions on this page. For the most part this box is pretty good. My only complaint is that the logic should be improved. Currently it's displaying the "latest" alpha file, which is from 2012 because after that I turned off alpha packaging. Beta and alpha files should only be shown here if they're newer than the latest release file. Alpha should only be shown if it's newer than the latest beta too.
- The "categories" box needs a visual overhaul. Just show the category names as text. These icons are largely meaningless (the only useful ones are for classes and professions) especially at these sizes. Just show the damn category names.
- The "members" box still doesn't show user avatars, even though it has space for them. It's also not sorted logically. Maia (whose role is "former author") is shown above Pastamancer (whose role is "author"). It should go project owner > author > maintainer > translator (if that still exists) > documenter (if that still exists) > former author.
--------------------
Project Page > Files
For the most part, this page is pretty good.
However, the way nolib packages are shown is bad. Having a "+1 more" button next to each file is confusing and not even remotely suggestive of its actual meaning (which is that a nolib version of this file is available). Better solutions include:
- Just show the nolib package below the regular package for each version, like the current site does.
- Have a toggle at the top (next to the "game version" dropdown) for switching the list between regular and nolib packages.
--------------------
Project Page > Files > invidual file
This page is also bad. The changelog is THE most important information on this page, yet it's almost pushed totally out of the viewport at 100% zoom (and it's definitely out of viewport at readable zoom levels) and shown in a tiny box that requires even more scrolling.
- Move all the metadata (nobody cares about the filename, uploader name, or MD5 hash; almost nobody cares about the file size; and the download count is only mildly interesting to a few people) from the top of the page into a sidebar. Show the supported game versions first, since that's the only metadata item that really matters to most of the people who will view this page.
- Remove the scrollbar on the changelog.
- Move the "additional files" and "related projects" sections into the sidebar below the metadata.
--------------------
Project Page > Images
There's still no way to zoom in and see images at full size.
Images that have a higher height/width ratio than the thumbnail box are still cropped, with no way to see the hidden portions.
There's still no way to choose the project's default image.
There's still no way to change the order in which images are displayed.
--------------------
Project Page > Issues
This page still uses a space-wasting layout and is not sortable.
If "ticket type" and "ticket status" are going to be merged into a generic "tags" feature, then the tags should be editable. The terms "defect" and "enhancement" are pretty awful, and not intutive to many users, especially users whose native language is not English. "Defect" should be "bug" or "problem", and "enhancement" should be "feature request" or "suggestion" or "idea".
--------------------
Project Page > Issues > individual issue
The contrast on buttons is still way too low.
There's still a sidebar offering to filter on ticket status and tags, which makes no sense since I'm looking at one ticket, not a list of tickets.
As with pretty much every other page, there's way too many levels of navigation and metadata bars above the actual content.
The reply form area seems unfinished, especially the assignee dropdown, tagging interface, and "close issue" checkbox. The assignee and tagging should probably be in the sidebar anyway.
--------------------
Project Page > Pages
As with the project overview, the TOC popup does not show a meaningful TOC outline.
Clicking links in the page content sends you to an annoying interstitial "are you sure you want to click this link?" page. Nobody likes these, and they don't improve security, especially when they don't even show you the URL of the link you clicked on.Just get rid of it, and do it now. It's also pretty bad when you add them for links to other parts of your own site, like the forums.
The particular content on this page -- http://beta.wowace.com/projects/grid/pages/faq-and-known-issues -- shows that there's not a good size difference between h1, h2, and h3. They're pretty much all the same size, which defeats the purpose of using heading tags instead of just "big" and "b" tags to mark up headings.
--------------------
Project Page > Localization
Still just as bad as the last time I looked at it.
There are now slightly more translations per page, but still not enough. If loading translations from your database is too expensive and your server is getting hammered loading 25+ translations per page, add a robots.txt directive excluding these pages from search engine indexing.
Translations are still not editable on the page. The "edit" link now opens a modal popup instead of loading a new page, but that's not really an improvement. Just make the text an input element on this page like it is on the existing site. Translating is already enough work. You don't need to make it harder with all these extra clicks and popups.
The search filters should be collapsed by default, with a button to click on them on the right at the same level with the section header (eg. "All Namespaces / English ..... [Filters]"). Also, the filters themselves are unnecessarily difficult to use. Text filters should default to "contains", not "equals" -- or just get rid of that dropdown and always treat it as "contains". There's no need for a "translator" filter here. If I want to see all translations by a particular person, I'll click on their name in the translator list.
The page numbers at the top are overlapping the box for the first listed translation.
The namespace title is still given way too much prominence. There's also no need to show the name of the person who created the phrase, or the date the phrase was created. Remove those, move the namespace title to where the username is now, and move the edit/lock/delete buttons and checkbox down onto the same row after "revisions" so you only have one row of things.
A translator would need to mouse over the truncated phrase, read the tooltip, then remember the entire phrase (remember, this person is probably not a native English speaker, and may have limited English fluency) before clicking the "edit" link and the entire time they're entering their translation. This just isn't realistic. I generally do my own Spanish translations, and though my Spanish is decent **and** it's my own addon using text I picked in the first place, there's no way I'd remember the entire phrase in the above case if I had to stop in the middle to go look up one word I wasn't sure about.
--------------------
Project Page > Localization > individual phrase
This page is surprisingly good. My only immediate complaint is that the translations appear to be displayed in a random order. Please alphabetize by locale code, like in the "languages" box in the sidebar.
I'd also suggest adding a way to view the translation history from this page. Actually, it doesn't even need to be linked from the main list of translations. It's such an infrequent activity that it's better off being relegated to the individual translation page anyway.
Dear god, why?! The version of this page on the current site is 100 times better than this. Two very obvious ways to improve this page and stop making me scroll 4903842342 times everywhere:
- Move the settings into the sidebar. This page doesn't need the sidebar from the main translations listing.
- Use a horizontal layout for the settings.
Also, why are the "missing phrase handling" options implemented as radio buttons, when the other options are all implemented as dropdowns, even those with fewer options? Just make it a dropdown for consistency.
--------------------
Project Page > Relations
Still listing old dependencies that haven't been used in the project since WotLK or earlier. Also would be better implemented as a table instead of a list. There's no need for tiny screenshot thumbnails, download counts, descriptions, or meaningless category icons on this page. A nice simple table like this would be better:
Title | Category | Author | Updated Ace3 | Libraries | Kaelten | Feb 24, 2015 AceGUI-3.0-SharedMediaWidgets | Libraries | yssaril | Oct 14, 2014 ...
--------------------
Project Page > Settings
General: List of secondary categories is apparently unstyled. Use something like "column-count: 3" and "column-gap: 20px" to reflow it into multiple columns instead of filling 4 screens with mostly empty space.
Description: Why is this in the "settings" section? This isn't a project setting, and there's already a dedicated tab for this.
Issues: Okay, I see I can add and remove tags here. This should probably be moved into the "issues" section instead.
Issues: When adding a new tag, it's forcibly lowercased. This is inconsistent with the default tags, which all have an initial capital. I'm okay with lowercasing tags, but please lowercase the default ones too.
Issues: After deleting a tag, if I try to add a new tag with the same name as the deleted one, I get a popup error that says "Unable to Create Tag / An Error has occurred. Please contact support and try again later".
License: It seems the existing license was not ported over from the current site. That may be related to using a custom license, but it's not really acceptable. In Grid's case it's not that bad, but for someone who explicitly wants their project to be open source, changing it to "all rights reserved" would be pretty bad.
Client Exclusions: Stop using fake "labels" inside the text field. In this case, the "label" is too long and I can't even see all of it, so I really have no idea what this field is for. Just show the text above the damn field.
Yea, there are so many issues and problems. Funny, that they are working on it so long (counting from time when they announced future new platform).
I on my own spend some time of hard work with http://zschocianow.pl/ (and currently some large extra modules, not yet publicly available), basing on graphic project (as I just can't imagine some things, I am not graphic). Moreover - the previous site was Joomla 1.5 (now it's latest WordPress) and about 450+ post to even rewrite to make them look aesthetic (the website administrator is just so ignorant, why they paying him so much for nothing...). It take me most time on content, website is simple layout tested on old machines and browsers and I think it's fine. Fast, elegant, simple.
You should take it as example how to create website that will satisfied many people.
And the most important - read every single character (even dot and space) of given feedback. You asked for it, we did it seriously, use it for make professional service.
Some quick feedback on the feedback. Seems like a few things have changed since.
Agree with the following:
WYSIWYG controls look very dated and out of place with the rest of the site.
WoWAce page header indeed a bit big, especially considering the one on the CurseForge site was made to fit neatly in the main navigation bar.
'About this project' not very interesting and should probbly not be on top.
Icons for categories not very obvious/useful.
Too much overhead on individual file page. All those details should be in a box like 'About this project' if anything. No reason change log should be scrollable in its own box.
Need ability to set default image and image order.
Need quick edit for localisation. (also on invidual phrase pages)
Client exlusions. I also cannot tell what purpose these are supposed to serve.
Do not agree with font size. I understand that you have eyesight issues, but I absolutely don't think this is unacceptably small. Not sure if we're looking at different texts, or using very different settings (I use 100% scale and font size 16 in browser settings, but I don't think the latter affects this?), but eg the main text on addon description pages and in these forum posts seem perfectly reasonable to me.
I'll add a quick point of my own, that I think I may have mentioned before. The click box of navigation menu items is annoyingly small and only barely covers the text. That's for the project menus and sub menus. The main site navigation menu has done it right.
Kaelten asked me to take another look and give new feedback, so here's a new thread since I probably still can't post a reply without using Internet Explorer.
Summary:
I don't see a lot of changes. A few things have improved, most things are the same, and some things have even gotten worse. I feel like whoever is writing this stuff is in the same situation as whoever is writing Blizzard's UI Lua code. It's not their area of expertise, but somehow they got stuck with the task and are just kind of muddling through.
--------------------
This WYSIWYG editor is still terrible. 13px font size is unacceptable. Controls and even basic input are buggy; for example, pressing Enter sometimes does nothing at all. Selecting text (eg. to apply formatting) is broken and hellishly slow even when it sort of works. The UI is also super ugly and strongly reminiscent of Windows 3.1. Please just get rid of WYSIWYG and implement basic Markdown and/or BBCode support. Anyone posting on a gamer site knows how to use one or both of those.
I am now switching to Notepad to write the rest of this post.
--------------------
On to the actual site! Looking at beta.wowace.com ...
body { font-size: 13px } is 130000000000000% unacceptable. Stop it. Nobody can read this. If you can, your face is way too close to your monitor and/or you are actually an eagle. I'll be zoomed to 170% for the remainder of testing, which is utterly insane.
--------------------
The home page layout seems to have undergone some kind of regression, and apparently wasn't tested in *any* browsers prior to deployment. (Yes, I also checked back at 100% zoom. Problem still exists.)
- The giant header area's text is off-center in all browsers. This results from specifying "margin-left: auto" on ".home-header div.e-wrapper div.e-container" but not also specifying "margin-right: auto". This is especially bad in IE where it pushes the text all the way to the right. I think it might be intentional that it's not completely centered, but it definitely isn't working as intended in all browsers.
- The giant header area's background image doesn't cover the full width of the header in some browsers. This results from setting "max-width: initial !important" on "#site .atf" in your CSS. Even though "initial" seems to be allowed in the spec, in practice it seems to not be understood by all browsers. Changing "initial" to "100%" achieves the desired result in all browsers, and is fewer characters anyway.
--------------------
You guys should acquaint yourselves with the glory of flexbox and stop floating every. single. thing. everywhere. in your layout.
--------------------
You should also acquaint yourselves with mobile-first design. Right now your <body> has a "responsive-enabled" class, and some changes do happen when I resize the window to a phone-like width, but I feel like whoever implemented this stuff doesn't really understand the concept on a fundamental level.
For example, on the home page, the nonsensical order of things in your HTML source (sidebar content before real content) means that I have to swipe down and down and down and down some more to see the actual page content. You're also hiding some of the page content (the things that tell me what the site is about and what it offers) when it's not really necessary, and you're **not** hiding the incredibly gigantic site header, which is even more miserably gigantic on a phone-sized viewport and also totally useless because the top bar already includes the WowAce logo. I can also see now that you're using a hardcoded linebreak in the header "tag line" which is unnecessary -- just set the width of the element so it wraps in a way you find satisfying -- and makes it look strange at non-desktop resolutions. The "search" icon in the top bar is also broken -- for some reason you've implemented it as a circle icon and a separate bar icon, but they're not arranged correctly to look like a magnifying glass; it ends up looking like a stopwatch.
--------------------
Dashboard
Only shows issues (not comments) and they're not sortable or meaningfully filterable. Filtering by title or description (fake label inside the text field is truncated, and stop doing this, just use a damn label, that's what they're for) is almost never going to be useful (I can't recall a time where I've ever wanted to do this). This list should be filterable by tags (eg. so I can see "all bugs" or "all feature requests") and should be sortable (by submitted date, last commented date, project name, etc.)
There is also nothing showing me which content is new. Which tickets have I not viewed yet? Which comments (on tickets or anything else) have I not read yet?
--------------------
Onward to a project page. Using Grid again for testing since that's what I used last time and it uses every project feature (issues, pages, localization, etc.)
- Header is way too large. At a readable size (170% zoom) the network, site, and page headers take up more than half of the vertical screen space; at 100% zoom they're still taking up well over 1/3 of the viewport height. You're wasting a lot of horizontal space. Move the site menu (Home, Projects, Forums, Dashboard) and site search box up onto the same row with the WowAce title. In the next section down, get rid of the tiny screenshot thumbnail; it's too small to be of any use. Also increase the size of the project name (it doesn't stand out enough as-is) and remove the "Addons" label (what is that even for?). Now that row is smaller too.
- The "table of contents" link at the top of the project description is still useless. Again, if you can't generate a meaningful TOC with the chosen markup type (though you really should be able to generate a TOC with Markdown!) don't show this TOC link and its equally useless popup.
- The first sidebar box ("about this project") is largely non-interactive and uninteresting. Nobody cares when the project was created. There's no need to show the last release date here when it's shown in the "recent files" box where it's actually associated with something actionable (a download link). The total downloads and license are of very little interest to the vast majority of people who will view this page. Move the "view on curse.com" link up next to the "follow" link. Now what's left of this box can be moved to the bottom of the sidebar, since pretty much every other box is more useful/interesting.
- The "recent files" box should be at the top of the sidebar, since actually downloading the addon is one of (if not THE) most important actions on this page. For the most part this box is pretty good. My only complaint is that the logic should be improved. Currently it's displaying the "latest" alpha file, which is from 2012 because after that I turned off alpha packaging. Beta and alpha files should only be shown here if they're newer than the latest release file. Alpha should only be shown if it's newer than the latest beta too.
- The "categories" box needs a visual overhaul. Just show the category names as text. These icons are largely meaningless (the only useful ones are for classes and professions) especially at these sizes. Just show the damn category names.
- The "members" box still doesn't show user avatars, even though it has space for them. It's also not sorted logically. Maia (whose role is "former author") is shown above Pastamancer (whose role is "author"). It should go project owner > author > maintainer > translator (if that still exists) > documenter (if that still exists) > former author.
--------------------
Project Page > Files
For the most part, this page is pretty good.
However, the way nolib packages are shown is bad. Having a "+1 more" button next to each file is confusing and not even remotely suggestive of its actual meaning (which is that a nolib version of this file is available). Better solutions include:
- Just show the nolib package below the regular package for each version, like the current site does.
- Have a toggle at the top (next to the "game version" dropdown) for switching the list between regular and nolib packages.
--------------------
Project Page > Files > invidual file
This page is also bad. The changelog is THE most important information on this page, yet it's almost pushed totally out of the viewport at 100% zoom (and it's definitely out of viewport at readable zoom levels) and shown in a tiny box that requires even more scrolling.
- Move all the metadata (nobody cares about the filename, uploader name, or MD5 hash; almost nobody cares about the file size; and the download count is only mildly interesting to a few people) from the top of the page into a sidebar. Show the supported game versions first, since that's the only metadata item that really matters to most of the people who will view this page.
- Remove the scrollbar on the changelog.
- Move the "additional files" and "related projects" sections into the sidebar below the metadata.
--------------------
Project Page > Images
There's still no way to zoom in and see images at full size.
Images that have a higher height/width ratio than the thumbnail box are still cropped, with no way to see the hidden portions.
There's still no way to choose the project's default image.
There's still no way to change the order in which images are displayed.
--------------------
Project Page > Issues
This page still uses a space-wasting layout and is not sortable.
If "ticket type" and "ticket status" are going to be merged into a generic "tags" feature, then the tags should be editable. The terms "defect" and "enhancement" are pretty awful, and not intutive to many users, especially users whose native language is not English. "Defect" should be "bug" or "problem", and "enhancement" should be "feature request" or "suggestion" or "idea".
--------------------
Project Page > Issues > individual issue
The contrast on buttons is still way too low.
There's still a sidebar offering to filter on ticket status and tags, which makes no sense since I'm looking at one ticket, not a list of tickets.
As with pretty much every other page, there's way too many levels of navigation and metadata bars above the actual content.
Attached images were not migrated with tickets. Example: http://beta.wowace.com/projects/grid/issues/53666 vs http://www.wowace.com/addons/grid/tickets/806-enable-a-groupnumber-icon-indicator/
The reply form area seems unfinished, especially the assignee dropdown, tagging interface, and "close issue" checkbox. The assignee and tagging should probably be in the sidebar anyway.
--------------------
Project Page > Pages
As with the project overview, the TOC popup does not show a meaningful TOC outline.
Clicking links in the page content sends you to an annoying interstitial "are you sure you want to click this link?" page. Nobody likes these, and they don't improve security, especially when they don't even show you the URL of the link you clicked on.Just get rid of it, and do it now. It's also pretty bad when you add them for links to other parts of your own site, like the forums.
The particular content on this page -- http://beta.wowace.com/projects/grid/pages/faq-and-known-issues -- shows that there's not a good size difference between h1, h2, and h3. They're pretty much all the same size, which defeats the purpose of using heading tags instead of just "big" and "b" tags to mark up headings.
--------------------
Project Page > Localization
Still just as bad as the last time I looked at it.
There are now slightly more translations per page, but still not enough. If loading translations from your database is too expensive and your server is getting hammered loading 25+ translations per page, add a robots.txt directive excluding these pages from search engine indexing.
Translations are still not editable on the page. The "edit" link now opens a modal popup instead of loading a new page, but that's not really an improvement. Just make the text an input element on this page like it is on the existing site. Translating is already enough work. You don't need to make it harder with all these extra clicks and popups.
The search filters should be collapsed by default, with a button to click on them on the right at the same level with the section header (eg. "All Namespaces / English ..... [Filters]"). Also, the filters themselves are unnecessarily difficult to use. Text filters should default to "contains", not "equals" -- or just get rid of that dropdown and always treat it as "contains". There's no need for a "translator" filter here. If I want to see all translations by a particular person, I'll click on their name in the translator list.
The page numbers at the top are overlapping the box for the first listed translation.
The namespace title is still given way too much prominence. There's also no need to show the name of the person who created the phrase, or the date the phrase was created. Remove those, move the namespace title to where the username is now, and move the edit/lock/delete buttons and checkbox down onto the same row after "revisions" so you only have one row of things.
The base phrase is just truncated when it's too long. It's also not shown at all in the translation popup. Both of these make translation unnecessarily difficult. Example: http://beta.wowace.com/projects/grid/localization/languages/43/namespaces/2521/phrases
A translator would need to mouse over the truncated phrase, read the tooltip, then remember the entire phrase (remember, this person is probably not a native English speaker, and may have limited English fluency) before clicking the "edit" link and the entire time they're entering their translation. This just isn't realistic. I generally do my own Spanish translations, and though my Spanish is decent **and** it's my own addon using text I picked in the first place, there's no way I'd remember the entire phrase in the above case if I had to stop in the middle to go look up one word I wasn't sure about.
--------------------
Project Page > Localization > individual phrase
This page is surprisingly good. My only immediate complaint is that the translations appear to be displayed in a random order. Please alphabetize by locale code, like in the "languages" box in the sidebar.
I'd also suggest adding a way to view the translation history from this page. Actually, it doesn't even need to be linked from the main list of translations. It's such an infrequent activity that it's better off being relegated to the individual translation page anyway.
--------------------
Project Page > Localization > Import Localizations
Dear god, why?! The version of this page on the current site is 100 times better than this. Two very obvious ways to improve this page and stop making me scroll 4903842342 times everywhere:
- Move the settings into the sidebar. This page doesn't need the sidebar from the main translations listing.
- Use a horizontal layout for the settings.
Also, why are the "missing phrase handling" options implemented as radio buttons, when the other options are all implemented as dropdowns, even those with fewer options? Just make it a dropdown for consistency.
--------------------
Project Page > Relations
Still listing old dependencies that haven't been used in the project since WotLK or earlier. Also would be better implemented as a table instead of a list. There's no need for tiny screenshot thumbnails, download counts, descriptions, or meaningless category icons on this page. A nice simple table like this would be better:
Title | Category | Author | Updated
Ace3 | Libraries | Kaelten | Feb 24, 2015
AceGUI-3.0-SharedMediaWidgets | Libraries | yssaril | Oct 14, 2014
...
--------------------
Project Page > Settings
General: List of secondary categories is apparently unstyled. Use something like "column-count: 3" and "column-gap: 20px" to reflow it into multiple columns instead of filling 4 screens with mostly empty space.
Description: Why is this in the "settings" section? This isn't a project setting, and there's already a dedicated tab for this.
Issues: Okay, I see I can add and remove tags here. This should probably be moved into the "issues" section instead.
Issues: When adding a new tag, it's forcibly lowercased. This is inconsistent with the default tags, which all have an initial capital. I'm okay with lowercasing tags, but please lowercase the default ones too.
Issues: After deleting a tag, if I try to add a new tag with the same name as the deleted one, I get a popup error that says "Unable to Create Tag / An Error has occurred. Please contact support and try again later".
License: It seems the existing license was not ported over from the current site. That may be related to using a custom license, but it's not really acceptable. In Grid's case it's not that bad, but for someone who explicitly wants their project to be open source, changing it to "all rights reserved" would be pretty bad.
Client Exclusions: Stop using fake "labels" inside the text field. In this case, the "label" is too long and I can't even see all of it, so I really have no idea what this field is for. Just show the text above the damn field.
Yea, there are so many issues and problems. Funny, that they are working on it so long (counting from time when they announced future new platform).
I on my own spend some time of hard work with http://zschocianow.pl/ (and currently some large extra modules, not yet publicly available), basing on graphic project (as I just can't imagine some things, I am not graphic). Moreover - the previous site was Joomla 1.5 (now it's latest WordPress) and about 450+ post to even rewrite to make them look aesthetic (the website administrator is just so ignorant, why they paying him so much for nothing...). It take me most time on content, website is simple layout tested on old machines and browsers and I think it's fine. Fast, elegant, simple.
You should take it as example how to create website that will satisfied many people.
And the most important - read every single character (even dot and space) of given feedback. You asked for it, we did it seriously, use it for make professional service.
Some quick feedback on the feedback. Seems like a few things have changed since.
Agree with the following:
Do not agree with font size. I understand that you have eyesight issues, but I absolutely don't think this is unacceptably small. Not sure if we're looking at different texts, or using very different settings (I use 100% scale and font size 16 in browser settings, but I don't think the latter affects this?), but eg the main text on addon description pages and in these forum posts seem perfectly reasonable to me.
I'll add a quick point of my own, that I think I may have mentioned before. The click box of navigation menu items is annoyingly small and only barely covers the text. That's for the project menus and sub menus. The main site navigation menu has done it right.