On Jul 27, 2009, at 10:09 PM, Blake Johnson wrote: > > Arthus, you make a fair point that the timeline is decidedly less > readable for users that do not have many posts per month. I also hear > your point about time representations in video/audio viewers. This way > of representing time is not universal, however. Many video and audio > editing applications make use of this fixed size = fixed time > representation. These apps usually also allow for zooming, but that is > because video and audio editing require precise time control. I am not > sure that selecting blog posts requires the same kind of precision.
Right, I don't think we should have zoom controls. That would complicate things further, unnecessarily. What I am saying is this: the massive blank space in the timeline serves no purpose, other than to cause potential confusion. However, i do understand your points about complicated algorithms. So, I'd like to borrow a suggestion from mikelietz: 1) Start at 10px per blog post, until the timeline is full. 2) Knock it down to 9px, until the timeline is full. 3) ... 4) Have a floor of 1px per post. I think this is an improvement over my previous suggestion because it is stabler: the pixels per post would change only occasionally, at 10 points in the lifetime of your blog. It would also make better use of the added "TIMELINE" label, since new posts would still be added progressively. > I think the real issue at stake here is that the timeline is confusing > for new users with few posts. I believe that the proposed suggestion > to add a background fixes this. I do not consider myself a new user, yet the timeline is still confusing and largely useless for me. I'm not sure what "DC" is. Fundamentally, the issue is that there are many types of bloggers. A) Some are new to blogging, and do not have many posts yet. The current timeline does not work for them, but the "timeline" label would remedy their situation. B) Some blog prolifically, with many posts a day. The current timeline works fine for this type. C) Some blog rarely, with a couple posts per month. The current timeline does not work well for this type, but simply labeling the "timeline" as such would not improve the situation. I think the addition of some sort of dynamic resizing would significantly improve the situation for categories A and C, while not hurting category B it all. In fact, for the majority of those in category B, the timeline would not change at all. --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/habari-dev -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
