Improving presentation activity page

[bram]

Now the great TeaPlanet has joined TeaTrade the activity page (and stream on front page) is becoming more and more a mix of different things. It might be a good idea to make more clear what message belong to what type of post. Especially if there will be more to add.

There is a filter, but I can’t filter on (new) products or TeaPlanet posts. (might be useful)

And if I want to see several things I have to use the filter several times. I can’t select more than one option at a time.

Another trick would be adding  a mark denoting the type of message (blog post, comment, teaplanet post etc)

For example:

1. different background colour. I advise against this, because it would probably ruin the page
2. icon in the message you need to find a good place for them and design
3. a coloured border (or only left) around the message
4. …

If done well this makes reading the page and thereby navigating all what’s new easier.

Just my few drops of tea.

 

[peter]

This is a topic that bears discussion.

I don’t think the products are huge problem, since we only have a few sellers. The products are designed to enter the activity stream anytime a seller adds or updates a product. Historically, I don’t think its been a problem since we have only a few sellers. The Tea Planet locations work on the same principle, however, they are going to be a lot more of them and, hopefully, get added with some regularity.

Right now, the way Tea Planet works the same way, but because of your feedback, I’ve changed the way it behaves when it is updated to prevent it from getting “bumped up” in the stream. Before this, whenever an existing location was updated, it would be recorded in the activity stream with the new timestamp from the time of the update. This caused it to get bumped and reappear since the activity is chronological. The result is that every time a typo is fixed, the activity stream record rises to the the top. I’ve also added this to products as well, to prevent them from being bumped in the stream.

In addition to this, I altered the default text that appears in the record to read as:

User added a new location, Jims tea shop to Tea Planet

The bold is intentional. Also, to help differentiate the locations, I’m attempting to set the Tea Trade user @teaplanet as the poster for each one. Note that teaplanet has a unique avatar icon.

I would like to add the products, locations, and wikis (from the hitchhiker’s guide) to the dropdown filter at the top of the activity page, but haven’t worked out a bug-free way to do that. I’ll add here, that these items are a certain kind of blog post type in WordPress called custom post types, currently I’ve got them integrated into the activity stream using a very hacky method, because there is no default way of doing it. This is why they appear in the Blog Posts filter when you use it. That said, this morning I discovered that integrating these post type items is currently under development, so in the next few months, their integration may be more elegant than what I have currently hacked into place.

At the end of the day, Tea Planet as an integration into Tea Trade is basically ready, but is not bug-free and feedback like this is an important part of tuning it into good form.

[Jackie]

@bram I do see what you mean. Especially if there were a lot of Tea Planet posts entering the stream. We should certainly monitor how that looks. Right now, Tea Planet is still unknown really, so it appearing in the stream, reminds people of its presence. And that it is changing and growing.
We’ll keep an eye on the stream and can perhaps decide a little further down the road how to handle its presentation. I’m certainly aware of the issue, just not sure yet how best to deal with it.

[bram]

Actually marking the difference more visible works several ways. It makes it easier to find what you want. But it also points out that there is more. So it attracts attention. Your “bold” suggestion might be enough.

I don’t think the products a huge problem either. I just noticed it while writing the post. And if you start marking one type you should also mark the other.  On the other hand: marking them out might put attention to them. (not getting lost between updates and blog posts) That could be a service to the traders.

My intention was mostly to start the discussion and stimulate thinking about it. Because once this gets going or once you add something TeaNewSite it might become a problem.

 

[bram]

@jackie I want them in the stream. Otherwise I will miss them 🙂

[Author]

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