UrbanToronto Redesign

[Edward Skira]

Thanks @WislaHD

 

[Edward Skira]

One thing I wish you would/could do would be to REPEAT all of the navigation links (Mark Forums Read Search Forums New Posts Alerts etc etc ) at the bottom of each page (not only at the top.)

Done

 

[DSC]

Done

Merci

 

[WislaHD]

Done

Could Unread Watched Threads be added to this?

 

[ADRM]

Not sure how possible a solution might be to affect, but I do find the search functionality within the forums quite cumbersome. It's not particularly intuitive and it's difficult to find the most relevant threads in a clearly represented way.

 

[Edward Skira]

Not sure how possible a solution might be to affect, but I do find the search functionality within the forums quite cumbersome. It's not particularly intuitive and it's difficult to find the most relevant threads in a clearly represented way.

You find this hard?

http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/search/?type=post

 

[ADRM]

You find this hard?

http://urbantoronto.ca/forum/search/?type=post

I'm not sure if that was intended to be snarky (I most certainly hope not), but yes, I find the search functionality overly cumbersome and very much not straightforward.

 

[Edward Skira]

Not snarky at all. Want to make it work as good as possible. How is it cumbersome and not straightforward? @ADRM

 

[ADRM]

Not snarky at all. Want to make it work as good as possible. How is it cumbersome and not straightforward? @ADRM

Great, and thanks for clarifying -- trying to help and appreciate that you're crowdsourcing recommendations. It's toughest navigating on mobile (which is more about responsiveness than the search functionality itself, I think), but I find it a little difficult to sort through to find the most recent part of the thread I'm most likely to want to find, which is typically the most recent comment on a consistently and recently popular thread (i.e. looking for the most recent One Bloor buildings and construction post to add a photo or comment to).

I'm not sure there's any way around this particular issue specifically without using a different underlying engine, but it's quite difficult to find the post you're looking for if you don't remember the exact title of the thread -- i.e. was it "1Thousand Bay", "1,000 Bay", "1000 Bay", etc.?

Similarly, here's what a search for One Bloor (yes, without quotations) with the "most recent" box ticked returns:

But if you navigate into the first result, the last comment in that thread was made on November 4. The thread for One Bloor E doesn't even appear on the first page of that search result, even though it has daily action. I know that "One Bloor" in quotations drastically narrows the search results, but that's where you run into the difficulties with the naming conventions making it difficult to know what term to use.

It's not horrible, for sure, but I do wonder if there's a way to streamline it to prioritize in the results the more heavily trafficked posts, as I would think looking to contribute to more heavily and oft-trafficked threads is a very frequent behaviour across the user base. I just don't find it particularly intuitive despite using the functionality frequently, and I imagine I'm not alone (though it's certainly possible!).

 

[salsa]

Not snarky at all. Want to make it work as good as possible. How is it cumbersome and not straightforward? @ADRM

For me personally, one thing that annoys me is that when I search posts under a keyword, the thing that I'm looking for will often get buried under a whole bunch of irrelevant results such as this:

Example keyword: "rough"

Result: "I was thoroughly unimpressed...

 

[Johnny Au]

For me personally, one thing that annoys me is that when I search posts under a keyword, the thing that I'm looking for will often get buried under a whole bunch of irrelevant results such as this:

Example keyword: "rough"

Result: "I was thoroughly unimpressed...

View attachment 93700

Not just that, but just "roug" would bring up stuff such as Rouge River and Rougned Odor, not just "rough," "through," "thorough," or "thoroughfare."

 

[DSC]

I normally tick the "Search titles only" box. Doing this certainly cuts down the number of hits BUT many of them do NOT have the word or words being searched in the thread title (or any apparent connection to it either.). If this feature worked (and if thread titles were a bit more consistent!) fixing this would solve most of my concerns.

 

[Skeezix]

I can't say that I find the search function to be that good. If I am looking for a particular old discussion involving, say, trees and road salt, it doesn't seem to understand boolean searches such as "trees AND salt" - I just get every post that contains either or those words (which is useless). Maybe there is a way to do boolean-type searches on UT (please someone tell me if there is), but it is not evident. I end up using Google to search UT, which works a lot better.

I do actually find the "search titles only" function works quite well when I am trying to see if there is an old thread on a topic.

 

[ADRM]

I normally tick the "Search titles only" box. Doing this certainly cuts down the number of hits BUT many of them do NOT have the word or words being searched in the thread title (or any apparent connection to it either.). If this feature worked (and if thread titles were a bit more consistent!) fixing this would solve most of my concerns.

That's actually a way better/more concise way to say exactly what I was trying to say up-thread.

 

[Edward Skira]

The new site is a work in progress but here's a chance to preview it. Please use the alpha at the end of the url to see it properly. And please don't click on any of the social links (FB/Twitter/Share etc) as we don't want the site to be publicized just yet. This is just for UT members just now. And no we are not changing the name and url.

http://toronto.skyrisecities.com/alpha/

Please leave comments and questions here.