Messages?

[Chemlak]

Originally Posted by AEIOU

Sorry, reading through this thread I tried to convince my 13-year-old it was about mess-ah-ges, not mess-uh-ges. It certainly makes for an interesting discussion as he changes into 12 shades of rogue (<---see what I did there, hah!)

Sorry for taking this even more sideways....

Better than 50 shades of...

[ChrisRevocateur]

Originally Posted by Chemlak

Better than 50 shades of...

Well, anything's better than that schlock posing as a legitimate form of alternative relationship.

[AEIOU]

Originally Posted by Aaron

Sometimes Y?

And W. Why do people always forget about W? How in the heck do you spell cwm without a W?

[ruhar]

Today when I opened RW there was a red number above "Messages" so I opened it. It must have taken me a minimum of 15 minutes to try and figure out what message it was referring to. All of the messages in the Message Center looked alike with no indication of the specific message that had not been "read". Can we get a better indication of what should be opened and "read" like bold text, flashing red circle, pointing arrows, anything? I don't even think the teeny, tiny, microscopic envelope changes from what I think is a closed envelope to an opened envelope.

[Joe]

Originally Posted by ruhar

Today when I opened RW there was a red number above "Messages" so I opened it. It must have taken me a minimum of 15 minutes to try and figure out what message it was referring to. All of the messages in the Message Center looked alike with no indication of the specific message that had not been "read". Can we get a better indication of what should be opened and "read" like bold text, flashing red circle, pointing arrows, anything? I don't even think the teeny, tiny, microscopic envelope changes from what I think is a closed envelope to an opened envelope.

I hadn't thought to make icons with closed envelopes vs open. Perhaps I will some day when I have time!

There are a few easy ways to tell:

1) In the list of threads on the left, threads with unread messages have their message count number on a green background. Threads with no unread messages have a gray background.

2) In the thread display on the right, messages that are unread have a small green envelope icon next to them. Messages that are read have a gray envelope.

3) If you want to quickly see only unread messages, click the tools menu at the upper right of the message center, and uncheck "show read messages". Only threads with unread messages will be shown, making it easy to find them.

4) You can also archive threads you're no longer interested in to remove them from the list (if you ever need to look at them again, there's a "show archived messages" option under the same menu!)

[ruhar]

Joe, 3 & 4 is helpful, but I don't feel that 1 & 2 work.

For #1 the font for the number is very thin and the size is equally very small so you can't see the difference between green and black. If the numbers were bigger and bold then the colors might be distinguishable. However, what about someone who is color blind or in dim light? Black and green will look similar in both cases.

For #2 the icon is a little more noticeable than the numbers, but you still have an issue with the color like #1. It's also not very noticeable or I would have realized which message was the unread message.

You might look at different email programs to see how they differentiate between read and unread. It needs to pop, to say, "Hey, you haven't read this message yet!" You have plenty of room with the envelope so I would increase the size of the icon. I would not use the colored number because it just doesn't work. I would also change the color, maybe red which would catch the eye and say, "Hey, you haven't read this message yet!"

That's my $.02.

[Parody]

Bold text. Every graphical email system (application or web) I've ever used showed unread messages with bold text in the message list.

[Joe]

Originally Posted by Parody

Bold text. Every graphical email system (application or web) I've ever used showed unread messages with bold text in the message list.

This was one of the first things we thought of. It was a while ago so I can't quite remember, but it may have been that the list control we used didn't support bold text (or at least, not without some time spent on customization). At any rate, its something we'd certainly consider for the future, but right now just isn't a high priority.

[Teresa]

I'm sorry but I have read this thread and, as this is my first forum, I am confused:
as long as I am logged in (I am always logged in, though, I just open the browser and the page is up and running) I find the new messages highlighted in bold. So, what isn't customized?

[MaxSupernova]

Originally Posted by Teresa

I'm sorry but I have read this thread and, as this is my first forum, I am confused:
as long as I am logged in (I am always logged in, though, I just open the browser and the page is up and running) I find the new messages highlighted in bold. So, what isn't customized?

They are talking about messages in the Realm Works program itself, not in this forum.