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Horrible new "Search Classmates" feature

Forums: General Discussion
Created on: 03/22/12 12:43 PM Views: 1593 Replies: 13
Thursday, March 22, 2012 at 12:43 PM

Is there any way to get rid of the horrible new "Search Classmates" feature? It's an ugly, unnecessary intrusion. Or if it has to stay, can you redesign it so its not so distracting and obtrusive? It really screws up the design and layout of the page.

Also, many schools all over the world don't have such a thing as a yearbook with photos. i already have classmates asking me about "yearbook photos" that I am forced by Class Creator to advertise -- but dont have!

If you can't change the nasty thing, can you at least give administrators the option of sticking with the previous, discreet, and full functional version?

Thanks.

Ian

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Thursday, March 22, 2012 at 1:34 PM - Response #1

Ian,

Thanks for the feedback. A number of things are still in transition, and you are not entirely alone in your perception of the effect on the design. We'd like to have the full range of search features available, especially for larger classes, but there's no reason they have to be displayed by default.

As for the yearbook photos, this was a highly demanded feature and it has been a display option on the Profiles page for a long time, though previously it was a checkbox rather than a button. Perhaps the solution is to have a radio button in the Manage Classmates section where admins can select either to incorporate Yearbook Photo functionality into their site or not.


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Thursday, March 22, 2012 at 2:19 PM - Response #2

Here are specific problems I have with the new feature that you might look at:

1) It's hideous and disruptive.

2) It assumes there is a class yearbook, with photos. But many schools including mine had no such thing.

3) It transports my users to a pageful of blank rectangles when they click on the new "Show Yearbook Photos" button. Even if I could put their profile photos there I would still have two problems: (a) most of them don't have photos and (b) many of their photos are from decades after they left the school...not exactly yearbook stuff.

3) It assumes that some classmates have maiden names. Actually most schools in many English-speaking countries such as Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa were single-sex for most of the past century, and many still are. Asking for maiden names for a boys' school is an irritant that makes the website look irrelevant to us.

4) It's redundant. I have a list of 164 classmates arranged alphabetically on the same page. What on earth do I need a search engine for, when anybody smart enough to know the alphabet can just click on the name he wants?

A reason I have always liked Class Creator and recommended it to others is its flexibility. It's flexible enough to be used in other English speaking countries without its American origins getting in the way. This new feature, stuck right there where nobody could miss it, SCREAMS irrelevance to many potential users you might have in the rest of English speaking world.

It shouldn't be that hard to let administrators choose which features they want. You could probably fix this today.

While you are at it, can you also allow administrators to choose whether they want website dates to be displayed as month/day/year or (as is the case with most of the world) day/month/year?

Thanks!

Ian

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Friday, March 23, 2012 at 1:38 AM - Response #3

I see that for my website at least, you have fixed all the problems I had. The new look is terrific -- an elegant solution that looks even better than the original!

Thanks for responding so quickly and effectively. Great work.

Ian

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Saturday, March 24, 2012 at 9:34 AM - Response #4

Hi guys.

It's something I've already mentioned (Yearboook Photos etc)on another of the Forums but, as a UK website, most, if not all, of this is irrelevant to us and I would like the option of not having it show up as it will only serve to confuse Classmates and prompt them into asking me questions.

UK English spellings was something I mentioned a couple of years back with reference to Message Center ('Centre' in the UK) and was told it would be changed but have yet to see it yet. We were happy to live with it temporarily but it's become irritating.

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Saturday, March 24, 2012 at 12:10 PM - Response #5

Hi all,

US spellings like "center" instead of "centre" used in the rest of the English-speaking world are a relatively minor irritant to non-Americans, because we are all familiar with the American variant.

However the US date format of month/day/year instead of day/month/year is a different matter, because outside of Canada few people are aware of this American variant unless they have personally encountered it in the USA.

To an American 2/9/2012 means February 9, 2012. To anybody in the 70 or so countries outside the US that have English as an official language, it means 2 September, 2012. The US govt recognizes the problem and for consular use abroad, immigration forms, etc, it uses the day/month/year format.

The ClassCreator use of the American form (for example, in classmate profiles to show the date somebody joined) is deeply confusing to non-US users who usually have never encountered it before.

So, it would be really helpful if website administrators could have the option of choosing the international format as an alternative to the the American! (The option of changing "center" to "centre" would be nice too.)

Ian

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Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 12:05 AM - Response #6

When you can rename your left-side links to whatever you want, the "Center"/"Centre" problem will not be a problem any more. (later this year)


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Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 11:05 AM - Response #7

Kyle,

At the risk of complicating things a little more, I'm wondering if you might be able to use server-side code that detects the browser's locale and adjusts the spelling and date formats appropriately.

You could detect English as:

en_US, en, en_GB

and then adjust the rendering of the webpage.

This localisation (localization) could make the adjustment automatic for everyone based on their preference.

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Sunday, March 25, 2012 at 11:25 PM - Response #8

I took a look at my Classmates Profiles page to see the new elegant look Ian mentioned above. I did not see a change - still have the two boxes.

Then it happened... as I was looking at the page, it flashed and the following text appeared:

"This note can be seen by Administrator only. You have not yet uploaded any Yearbook Photos. Take the following steps to display Yearbook Photos on this page:

1) Click on the Manage Classmates link.
2) Click the Enter/Edit Classmates link.
3) Click the "Add" link under the Yearbook Photos column."

I know I have not uploaded a complete class of the many we have/may have on the alumni site, yet I HAVE loaded yearbook photos for deceased classmates of the Class of 1970.

Either this message is a blanket message for all sites or the system is a bit off on recognizing my alumni site as "...not yet uploaded any Yearbook Photos."

I'm not upset, as I can ignore that. Sharing, just sharing. Smile

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Monday, March 26, 2012 at 1:16 AM - Response #9

Hi all,

In case anybody is wondering, what I have now in the "Search Classmates" box on my Classmate Profiles page is just the top line of the new feature (the "Show by" line).

CC has kindly deleted the remaining two lines that I didn't want in the new feature (the "Name Format" and "Open Profile Links" lines). The result is actually quite elegant.

This suits me well but I'm not sure how other administrators could drop lines they dont want, other than by asking for it here?

Ian

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Monday, March 26, 2012 at 5:40 PM - Response #10

It just needs a nicer/tidier design. Here's a quickie revamp example

CLICKME

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Tuesday, March 27, 2012 at 8:58 AM - Response #11

The design was changed again slightly last night. Checkboxes instead of buttons. I think it is planned to create an option where these new checkboxes can be hidden by the admin.

The bug that didn't show any of the filtered contents to the admin has been fixed. (related to not having any Yearbook Photos)

Jack - the space to the right of the KEY/LEGEND on the Classmate Profiles page will be used, but not in the way you are proposing. It will be part of the new design for the page where you can have custom images.


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Tuesday, March 27, 2012 at 1:28 PM - Response #12

I'd probably make that a popup system instead of trying to squish too many things into that area. What you need to do is make mockups of several ways of selecting options to keep it clean and simple. I don't think letting admins have to make yet another choice necessary. The main complaints were visual that I saw.

The advantage of drop-lists is that they take a fixed amount of space no matter how many options are added and the visual clutter is reduced.

ATM, the check box and the sort radios still are visually unattractive. Just my opinionWink

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Monday, December 16, 2013 at 11:24 AM - Response #13

Just an FYI:
There is now a DATE FORMAT selection on the PREFERENCES page.

DATE FORMAT

month/day (i.e. "10/31" or "October 31")
day/month (i.e. "31/10" or "31 October")

Use this to set the default Date Format for your web site. Any dates on your site will use this format, however your classmates can override this format with their own personal setting if they choose.


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