New Library or forum based Library?

[Akasha]

As Pernicious brought up in the Feedback Time! How do you like the new Library? thread:

Most of those votes are on what people think of the first system. it stands to reason that you'd want to take a new poll on how it currently is to see if people think more highly of this new layout. As it is now, someone that voted negatively isn't able to change their vote if they approve of the new look, and visa versa.

After messing about and reinstating the forum based library, it's time for poll #2! Which version do you like the best?

1) The new segregated Library here: Library

2) Or the revamped forum based Library here: The Library - The Warlocks Den Forums

*** Information added 12 Minutes and 43 Seconds later... ***

P.S. Please (/beg please!) feel free to post what you do and don't like about either version. Some things may be able to be brought over to either which will help try and find a best solution.

[Turmeric]

Multipage guides are fine, but there's a feeling of "it ain't broke so don't fix it" from my point of view. Taking Cpimp's guide as an example, its only marginally easier to navigate in the new format and we lose some functionality that isn't as easy to stomach.
I also like in the old guide the consistency between forum and library; you can be assured visitors to the library that are familiar with the almost universal forum system on the interwebz will not have problems navigating.

[Feeblejuice]

I like the new format a lot. I confess to being somewhat confused about what, exactly, all the differences are. Could you elaborate on it? I definitely think having the guides consolidated in one location was highly useful and I found it quite easy to navigate and browse. I also like the way CPimp's guide had links per item. It was much easier to navigate that way.
However, I'm not totally sure what you think you're losing by switching to that format.

[Nereida]

New Library:

I love the featured guides links on the left-hand-side of the main library page. It allows me to hit the guides I need quickly without any searching.

I am not a fan of the page between the main library page and the guides themselves. It feels unorganized. If it were a simpler list, like in the forum style, it would be easier to find what you are looking for quickly.

Forum Library:

I do like the straight-forward listing of the forum style library.

The only down-side of this is the lack of navigation bars and the navigation box listing featured guides.

Conclusion:

Is there a way that we could be directed to the library main page, then after choosing the appropriate Category, be linked back to the forum listings? This way updates and responses would show up like many people miss while the quick navigation of the new library main page could be maintained.

[Pernicious]

For the sake of this clarity, I'll refer to the forums as Versions 1, 2, and 3, where Version 1 is the original, 2 is the newer segregated library in the different format, and 3 is the revamped forum version.


Version 2, of the Library, has many benefits in my opinion. The left hand navigation area has a lot of features that Versions 1 and 2 do not. Some of these are fantastic, while others aren't quite as useful for everybody.

• my guides - Very useful for tracking guides that I've written, though this feature would only be useful for those that have written guides.
• my drafts - Another very useful feature that really only serves those that write guides.
• my favorites - A feature that is great for everybody to take advantage of. Being able to flag guides you enjoy so they're easier to jump to later on.
• my subscriptions - I'm not entirely certain how to make use of this feature.
• New Posts - Useful, like the New Posts function in the forums.
• What's Popular - Another good list, featuring those guides that get the most attention and are the most useful at the time.
• Featured Guides - I like this list as well, as it tends to open my eyes to guides I didn't know were in the library that have some interesting information in them.

These features are fantastic additions to the library, but aren't needed. I'd consider all of them to be icing on the cake as it were, the content being the most important piece in the library.

The Request a guide section of the library doesn't quite mesh in with the way Version 2 is constructed. In order to submit a request, you must click the "Submit a Guide" button, fill in your request and submit it. Then it goes through the same approval system as a normal guide would before it can appear on the page. This can be very quickly done, or it can take a while depending on Akasha's availability to push it through. Not quite a bad thing, but it just doesn't flow as well as I'd like.

One hurdle I find with getting to the libraries content is the middle page. That is, the screen that lists the guides under a category.

What I like about this page is the fact that the guides feel solid, like stacked books almost. For me, and it's difficult to explain, it actually feels like a library. However, I think that the books are too thick and make the page feel unnecessarily long. I think part of the problem is that the blocks showing individual guides aren't laid out well enough and become slightly confusing. The largest text in the block should be the link to the actual guide, and it should be on top of everything else. Currently the largest text is the Author of the guide. Under that is the guide link, and below that is the top few lines of the guide. The fact that the link to the guide is smaller, and often matching the text of the first line of the guide itself (the title) It looks a little redundant and isn't clear that the link is separate from the guide summary. I would like to see the guides top and largest sized line be the title/link to the guide, and under that the authors name. Below that could be a 1-2 line summary of the guide, text only with no links, that actually describes the guide and isn't just a title and table of contents for the guide.

On to the guide itself now. In Version 2 of the Library, the guides have the ability to become multi-page with a right handed navigation linking all the sections together. FANTASTIC. This feature I love more than all others. It seems to me that should the guide be broken down like this, it becomes a lot easier to jump to the section that you wish to view as well as providing the ability to comment on the section your viewing. Unless I'm mistaken and that any comments apply to the entire guide and not the individual pages of the guide. This is by far the strongest perk of Version 2.


Version 3, of the library, has benefits of its own. The first being the main library page. While it doesn't sport the cake icing i mentioned above, what it does have is consistency with the forums (which comprise of the majority of the website), the ability for guide comments/replies to appear on the main website's new post section, and a slightly smoother method of requesting guides that show up immediately rather than having to go through the approval process as in Version 2.

I do not believe that Version 2 has a very large learning curve given that it looks different from the forum portion of the website, but Version 3 has very little risk of confusing anyone on how to navigate it.

The between page (after you select a guide category, and are looking at the list of guides within that category) Is a lot easier to look through than in Version 2. The guide titles are the primary text with the authors listed under the links. And each guide is slim keeping the page from growing too long. One thing that would make this page look a touch nicer would be the ability to see a line or two of text describing the guide as I suggested for Version 2 as well.

Looking at the actual guide, through the Version 3 library, reveals a very long page with no easy navigation for jumping through the guides. As the guides are all on one page taking up 1 to several posts to fit it, the screen sizes vary. Often user submitted guides can vary in layout making some of them very difficult to scroll through to find the section you need. Also, searching for a comment can take a while to scroll down, then back up to see what the comments were referring to.

The perfect Library, in my opinion, would feature the initial page of Version 2, the category listings from version 3, and the actual guide (multipage with navigation) from Version 2 again, with the ability to see new posts or submissions on the main website under the New Posts sections. I'm aware that this isn't possible given the Version 2 library software and the Forum Software's unwillingness to work together. Perhaps Akasha can find a way to bring the stronger points of each version closer together?

Thanks,

[Alifeyl]

I agree with Pern and Nereida: I like the new separate library except for that middle page that lists the guides. It's not easy to read or scroll through.

Of course the forum-style library is easy to use because we are all used to it, but I like some of the features of the new library, if only we could have a different list of guides that is easier to navigate.

Great work as always and thanks again, Akasha.

Ali

[Debuff]

I prefer the forum-based library. When you were actually viewing a very long guide the table of contents thing from the new version is handy but I think that keeping the guides forum based is easier to view, easier to see updates on, and just plain more intuitive since it follows all the same visual clues as the rest of the forum (since it's forum-based).

[Absalom]

I think that the new Library has a lot of potential though it isn't quite there yet.

I really like the my stuff section. The layout for each section is generally pretty nice but I think something should be done to the content in order to really make it awesome... and what that is would be to make a formatted template for guides.

For example, if you take a look at General Information section, the first two items are not formatted the same way. The first one just starts into explanation while the second item has a clear and visible title showing you what to expect from the rest of the entry.
When simply scrolling down this section the only things that stand out to me are:

A guide to do dailies
A guide on the midsummer festival
How to get exalted with UC
One about abbreviations

The other entries, which I'm sure are just as valuable, are very easy to skip right over.

If there were something that made adding a guide ( a cut and paste template or a wizard-like interface which likely isn't built into vBulletin) easier, I think that might help out with the formatting. I also think it would be cool if we could add an index to the guides in order to find information even faster in each guide.

Some of these ideas are likely just the way people write the guides but I believe they would help out the way the new library UI presents information. I also think that if there is something that could be added to make adding guides a bit easier where formatting is concerned, that would be a great addition as well

[Akasha]

LOL! I put up this second poll as the first one was too close. This poll has sat at 50/50 the entire time rofl!

Multipage guides are fine, but there's a feeling of "it ain't broke so don't fix it" from my point of view. Taking Cpimp's guide as an example, its only marginally easier to navigate in the new format and we lose some functionality that isn't as easy to stomach.

Can you please elaborate? What loss of "functionality that isn't as easy to stomach" exactly? If something is so bad to requires comments such as that, you need to tell me exactly what the problem is so I can address it. Otherwise, I can't help.

The perfect Library, in my opinion, would feature the initial page of Version 2, the category listings from version 3, and the actual guide (multipage with navigation) from Version 2 again, with the ability to see new posts or submissions on the main website under the New Posts sections. I'm aware that this isn't possible given the Version 2 library software and the Forum Software's unwillingness to work together. Perhaps Akasha can find a way to bring the stronger points of each version closer together?

Looks like I am having a WoW-free weekend coming up... I got a lot of work to do!

If there were something that made adding a guide ( a cut and paste template or a wizard-like interface which likely isn't built into vBulletin) easier, I think that might help out with the formatting. I also think it would be cool if we could add an index to the guides in order to find information even faster in each guide.

Heh, the four you listed (along with Canadianpimp's guide and a few others) were all manually formatted by me. The problem with requiring a format however, is not all guides follow the same structure depending on their contents. Or do you mean something simple like 'Introduction' 'Content Menu' etc?

Indexing is possible for all multi-page guides. Unfortunately, the way the forum software (and all like it) works, you can't do links within the same post like a html page.

[Pernicious]

I get the impression, Akasha, that whatever you choose people will be fine with. Almost everyone seems to be about 50/50 on the issue themselves which implies that they don't HATE either of them, and like elements from both. I'm sure whatever you decide upon we'll all be happy with