SMF Development > Next SMF Discussion

More flow to SMF.

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Arantor:
Oh, dreaming is great, but you just know that if you make it generally available, you're going to have even more support nightmares than you do now.

Akyhne:
In 10-15 years, this discussion won't even be here, because servers got way fast enough. It's also a bit funny, because until maybe a year ago, we talked about optimazion for the user, due to slow internet connections. Now We hardly care anymore, as internet connections improved a lot.

The question is wether there really is any bennefit to a feature like this or not and wether it could be done differently. Let's take the 5 seconds update Arantor is talking about. 5 seconds would be total overkill in most situations, as you'd have to be at the bottom of the topic to benefit from it.
So how about every minute? If it's a new topic to you and there are several posts, you can easily use several minutes to read the topic. So every minute would be fine. And what do you really miss, if you leave the topic right before a new post is made?! If it's really such a big deal to you not to miss anything, even 5 seconds between updates would not be good enough.
And if you're hooked on the topic, you have probably already enabled notifications on the topic. So you are noted "instantly" by email. That's how I do it anyway.
There are other ways it could be done. Like if you hover over the last post, a request is made. And/or if you write in the quick reply, like I do now, a request is made every 30 seconds or so.
And there is already a notification on new replies to a post, if enabled by the user (which is overkill as one would always like to be notified. Remove the option to disable it in the next SMF!).

So what I'm trying to say is that if you are not reading the entire topic, and you are not on the last page of a topic and in the bottom of it where you can see the last post, there's no reason to update it.
I can see the benefit of instant notifications when we talk about a build-in chat, but people generally have a lot more to say in a a forum.

I'm personally hooked on Ajax requests, but I mainly see them as benefits when I click or do an action, like changing to the next page of a topic or posting in the quick reply. I don't see them as a benefit when I update my forum profile, that's a task I maybe do every 3 month in average.

AngelinaBelle:
until maybe a year ago, we talked about optimazion for the user, due to slow internet connections. Now We hardly care anymore, as internet connections improved a lot.[/quote]
This is true in many places in the world, especially in the cities and suburbs of first-world countries.  But not in rural areas, and some emerging internet markets. In many areas, mobile users have limited cellular bandwidth when away from "home". Even if they can find a 3G or better cell.  In some locations, wifi-only users are limited to "internet cafes" and other semi-public venues (stores, RV parks, marinas, hospitals) with slow wifi or just too many people trying to use the wifi bandwidth at once. Think of the kind of bandwidth that was available to "Arab Spring" users attempting to create internet hotspots using tools designed just for that purpose.  And think of people trying to use a forum and also trying to avoid over-running their cellular data plan at the end of the month.

Many forum owners still need to consider the load this kind of thing places on the server as well as on the user's internet connection.
If AJAX can be used to put up needed new information without imposing an entire page re-load on the server, user, and internet connection -- so much the better.

Where AJAX winds up being used to make "more cool stuff", like shoutboxes that poll every second from every open window open to the forum everywhere in the world, it will be a problem for some forums and users.

It is still a matter of what it is used for, and how it is used.

That said, some of what the user suggests is doable just in JS, without AJAX at all.
Form validation can be "interactive" not requiring the user to hit the submit button (or even disabling the submit button until the user fixes the data). That would improve "flow".  "enter the password again" comparison can be done as soon as the user fills the second field.

In some cases, using multi-tabbed forms for admin settings MIGHT make sense, for some forms, avoiding extra page loads. It might also lead to users switching between forms and not saving changes, unless it were implemented very carefully.

It could also mean re-arranging the forms, so that things that logically belong together will be found together, instead of (or in addition to) on the forms they have historically be on for the last 7 years. SMF 2.0 has some more complicated options than 1.x has, and that means a little re-thinking might be in order as we move on into future SMF versions. This is more about design focussed on usability, and may have nothing to do with page loads per se.

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