Recent enhancement to the website: notifications
Posted by Huw,
I have made some changes this morning, including:
- Amazon.pl data is now being imported three times a day and BargainWatch alerts will begin to be generated from around 3pm today. You can view all the bargains on the Buy page, which currently include a 73% discount on Vidiyo BeatBoxes!
- Notifications: When someone mentions you in a comment or quotes a comment of yours, a notification is raised. These are indicated by a red number next to your name at the top of the page which will be shown when you log in, or visit the site after a period away. Clicking it will take you to a list of your notifications, which is also linked to on My Menu. It's been difficult to test in isolation on my development machine, so I have no idea how well it works, and I am sure there is scope for further improvement. If you're a regular commenter, let me know if it works for you.
You can view all changes on the change log. Many of those made are as a result of user requests, so if you have ideas for improvement please add them to the suggestion box, where you can also see what others have proposed and add your support.
67 likes
22 comments on this article
@CCC said:
"I clicked the red notification number, and got an error.
But it went to the notifications once I clicked the link in the article."
Thanks, I think I've fixed that.
Any chance of an ignore list? There's definitely people whose replies I don't want to hear.
@MisterBrickster said:
"Any chance of an ignore list? There's definitely people whose replies I don't want to hear."
Same here.
Let's make sure the basics are working first!
Huw, the last couple weeks, the site takes some time to load (it's uneven). Firefox here if that helps.
i can't see the ebay tab in the database listing of the sets. just lego, bricklink , amazon
Appreciate the addition of notifications, as well as the ability to sort sets by launch/retirement date!
@derek1974 said:
"i can't see the ebay tab in the database listing of the sets. just lego, bricklink , amazon"
Neither can I! Not sure where that's gone but it's definitely AWOL!
Very excited for notifications, its something I've really wanted for a long time.
Anyway, since the last one of these posts, I've given some thought to what a UI for tagging multiple parts at once might look like. And Im not a web designer or anything, and of course I dont know what this site's back-end looks like, but here's what I've come up with from a user perspective:
'Add tags" becomes a button somewhere in the parts browser, I think next to the view layout options would be best. Once clicked, the user selects the desired parts. Once all desired parts are selected, the user should click another button or something (maybe the same button), which opens the existing UI for adding tags. From there, tags are added as they currently are for a single part, except the tags are applied to all selected parts.
And ah, just for some context on why I want this so badly, a few weeks ago I went and tagged all the untagged minifig parts in black. Just in black. It took over an hour. With a system to tag multiple parts at once, I could've tagged all untagged minifig parts in every colour in the same amount of time.
Though I recognize that if implementing such a UI were to take more time than it would take to tag all untagged parts with the current system, it may not seem worth it
@ineedabrick said:
"Huw, the last couple weeks, the site takes some time to load (it's uneven). Firefox here if that helps."
Nothing showing up as abnormal on Google Analytics site speed graph. Anyone else seeing this?
^ The site gets slow on rare occasions for me but nowhere near as often as a few months back.
I didn't know about the support function on suggestions, thanks for mentioning it.
@Huw said:
"Let's make sure the basics are working first!"
Fair enough!
@CCC said:
"I'm still getting "You've encountered a bug!" when the red number shows."
OK, I'll work on it. Because I'm almost always logged in during the day I don't often see the red number, so it's difficult to test myself.
That's a shortcoming of the system that I will look to address at some point.
@LegoSonicBoy said:
"Appreciate the addition of notifications, as well as the ability to sort sets by launch/retirement date!"
Where does this data come from anyway? I've never seen Lego publish their set retirement dates. Is this just an estimation?
Thanks for adding notifications! Much easier than scrolling back through a thread to see if anyone has commented on a post...!
I like the set up, too - clicking on the link simply shows you the notifications that do exist (for me, going as far back as Oct. 15), but you don’t have to read them if you don’t want.
Great improvement! Thanks!
@everyone
@Huw said:
" @ineedabrick said:
"Huw, the last couple weeks, the site takes some time to load (it's uneven). Firefox here if that helps."
Nothing showing up as abnormal on Google Analytics site speed graph. Anyone else seeing this?"
It gets slow for me sometimes
Great addition, I think that was the greatest weakness of the site. Especially since it's been possible to tag sets, tagging people and letting them know there's a potential reply to their post is fantastic. Great job, and thank you Huw!
Love this feature (the notifications), thank you for adding it! Perhaps you can gather a ragtag but resilient group of testers to work out bugs.
@Wasthereonce said:
" @LegoSonicBoy said:
"Appreciate the addition of notifications, as well as the ability to sort sets by launch/retirement date!"
Where does this data come from anyway? I've never seen Lego publish their set retirement dates. Is this just an estimation?"
Huw told me this in private as a courtesy when I asked about it previously, so I don't believe I'm at liberty to say! However, judging by today's change that also hides retirement dates more than 6 months into the future, it's probably indeed just an estimation. I guess 6 months is enough time for most people to plan purchases...
Love the new feature where you can break down holdings into new and used. If I've already got that data in ACM, does it automatically populate?