@karmatosed,
I like this. One suggestion: Provide the user with the option in Settings to either show the widgets in the “sidebar” or the “footer”. If “footer” is selected, then this page becomes 2-column, thus providing more content real estate.
Not to beat a dead horse, but this is a great example of why vertical navigation doesn’t work. Look how small the content area is. I know it will change depending on the theme, but you have less than a 3rd of the page. Now how would images or video look in that? Not only very small, but it would also look like Times Square.
@FIQ: This has half the page as the content area if you look not less than a 3rd. But, if you really are keen on other options please submit something as seeing wireframes would be great from anyone.
@FIQ – horizontal navigation tends to work well with a small set of options, but falls over for a flexible site with large numbers of screens / menu options / tabs. As you add more screens (photo albums, events, etc, etc.) you quickly run out of reasonable horizontal space to display the menu tabs. We’ve encountered this on a number of our builds.
Vertical navigation on a flexible (expandable) social site copes better with a large number / growth in menu options. It’s the approach that both Facebook (news feed / landing page) and Google+ take to cope with that situation.
It continues onto Facebook’s mobile app as well — where the menu button expands to a long vertical nav.
Of course, there are those who’ll cry out we shouldn’t copy Facebook — but, that kind of begs the answer “Why not? They’ll have invested considerably in analysing the UX issues / best practices – let’s learn from that.”
[EDIT: In any case, I trust the navigation and the actual content will be rendered via separate template parts – which should make it relatively straightforward (even for ‘default themers’) to present / locate the navigation where they best see fit.]
@rogercoathup: yep you hit nail on head there, the idea is that this is purely the starting option for want of a better term. If you want to then take it and do whatever you want – the entire point of what we’re doing should mean that’s both easier to do.
My point with Facebook has an always will be that it doesn’t do everything right and it doesn’t do everything wrong. As you say, lets learn from it as one of many sources we can analyse.
i have a new(ish) idea if you click the customize from the wp admin bar on wp.com web site you’ll get a frame which comes out from the side so technically it takes no horizontal space in collapsed mode. i think the only challenge (besides maybe coding related stuff as mentioned by @jjj when asked about the popup media uploader box) is that in the collapsed mode it may be too obscure for people to even know its there but i think that particular thing should be easy in that we would just make it more noticeable but i think the real advantage is that being on a separate frame it wouldn’t really matter what the theme was doing. anyway heres an image for those of you who don’t have wp.com accounts:
https://creative.adobe.com/file/6a605f9c-832a-49db-98eb-4a23ed8be3c0
@ubernaut: Hmm not sure how you think this would work in the front or even whether it should. Can you perhaps do a mockup of that not just show the customiser? In your screenshot that is the theme customiser that is now in 3.5 unless I’m mistaken. I don’t see how the should work or could work for default on the front profile.
well I’m only suggesting frame based nav as a possible solution to the issue that @FIQ is raising as it pertains to the spacing issues when it comes to the vertical versus horizontal nav. i have some ideas stirring about how you would implement that in collapsed form but nothing solid enough to share quite yet. ill try to throw something together this weekend.
I think anything that relies that heavily on scripting for navigation will probably bring more issues than it solves to themes. Remember the idea is this doesn’t impact or force themes. It’s not something personally I think belongs in a default UI which we are creating remember. Yes, for theme options or a specific UI it has a place but this isn’t that.
Things like you are suggesting are far more theme than UI. I could see it being done as a released theme or being done as a custom theme. Just seems over kill for a default UI. I could be wrong but didn’t you bring that up before @ubernaut and it was vetoed? If this is menus (which it is) can we move it to the menu thread too please for consistency? Thanks.
I’ve had a look at some options bringing in notifications to the profile as was suggested by @djpaul. I have also added a custom header option to really provide personalisation for users. Avatars are good but they don’t ‘make a home’ so much as having that extra level of personality.
The menu area is longer to show more than anything what a longer navigation would fit – not look this isn’t about design.
<img
src=”https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2339616/profile-yours.png” width=”600″ height=”auto”/>
And here’s a slight variation:
@karmatosed,
I prefer your third variation(eyes focus on one area); however, I would prefer having the option of viewing a timeline of notifications, not just the most recent.
The 3rd isn’t showing notifications it’s showing activity. Perhaps you mean what 2 shows for notifications though?
@karmatosed,
Right. I wasn’t clear. What I meant was that if a running history of “notifications” were stored and available, then it should also be available for viewing. So, would that mean that the yellow notifications dropdown under the avatar becomes its own menu item… I figure that it shouldn’t be incumbent upon the user to determine whether a “notification” is worth remembering and thus, have to make a decision to “remember” that it occurred sometime. If I’m still swimming in muddy water, let me know and I’ll give it another shot.
I like the layout, specifically, the customized header. It definitely would get more user interaction and ownership of their own profile if provided the opportunity to customize it–could slot a slider in there… It would be pretty sweet.
yeah sorry i guess i was posting this idea to the wrong thread since thats where the original issue was being raised but i was thinking of the profile nav. anyway I’m a bit confused aren’t those mockups also in the wrong thread? they all seem to be regarding messages 
@karmatosed
Who is vetoing stuff? What is the point of these topics if it has already been decided. I don’t think any of these “wireframes” have been thought through. I don’t think it matters what anyone says here, this is just an exercise in fishing for people that already agree with what has already been decided.
@FIQ: That’s quite an assumption to make, personally I thought through my wireframes. I’m not going to really comment on the exercise allegation as the developer chats are showing it’s not just that. You are free to check this by reading the irc logs: https://irclogs.wordpress.org/chanlog.php?channel=buddypress-dev (Wednesday 19:00 UTC is the developer chat). You are welcome to your opinion but please come along to see the action rather than assuming. Also please recognise those of us that are trying to do something here not just dismiss our work. We work together to a solution here not against each other and you are more than welcome to be part of that solution.
@FIQ it is somewhat churlish to suggest things are already decided and a little rude, I have said get stuck in and help guide this you clearly have a level of understanding so don’t be put off put those views across and DO attend the dev chats.
@hnla I didn’t suggest it, she did….
“ @karmatosed : Things like you are suggesting are far more theme than UI. I could see it being done as a released theme or being done as a custom theme. Just seems over kill for a default UI. I could be wrong but didn’t you bring that up before @ubernaut and it was vetoed?”
I don’t have a problem if the developers want to make these decisions on their own. That’s fair, they put in the hours to get it this far. What upsets me is wasting our time asking for feedback on things that are set in stone.
@FIQ Please stop trying to take these discussions off-topic. I don’t understand where you’er getting your views from; karmatosed and Hugo have been quite accurate.
@djpaul Off topic? This is 100% on topic.
I was only quoting what she wrote. She wrote things have already been vetoed and are not up for discussion. If you have a problem with that take it up with her because she was the one that wrote it not me.
Don’t worry I won’t comment anymore. Clearly it’s not welcome.
Closing thread. Sorry, Karmatosed – please create a new topic for further discussion.
