UI update v0.2: All-in-one home page / Play page rework

[shamisen]

quick update – a few more tweaks and dialogs (few more days) then ready to start coding:

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@Regenwasser

As a quick fix this might be alright.
But if this should be the new great startpage design then simply “filling space” is not a good goal IMO.

And because the re-design is this large, it should be rolled out in increments – some quick fixes in the first update should be better than nothing.

@Regenwasser

For example, instead of having a button “forum”, you could actually show the first entries of the forum like in jlt’s design.

@jlt

An idea (which could be improved, I’m just showing what I think should be displayed on the homepage).

(and below ladders there are still “groups” and “chat with friends”.

I’m not sure if that’s a home page anymore, that’s more of a replacement of the Chat page at https://online-go.com/chat…

@Regenwasser

I’m saying you should use the viewport real estate you have on a desktop computer to place widgets instead of buttons.

I might not agree with all of your solutions, but I can understand where you’re coming from. I removed the buttons as you suggested. I’ll do my best to achieve a middle ground.

[Regenwasser]

@shamisen

quick update – a few more tweaks and dialogs (few more days) then ready to start coding:

This already looks great. I know it’s too much to do everything at once but just some ideas.

Regarding the “Play menu”

• Maybe make the Play section buttons a little larger, I mean they are the most important elements and this is the play page after all
• I wonder if there is a good way to give more attention to the Board Size and Game Speed buttons because those need to be selected by the user
• I would put “Play Computer” and “Custom Game” in the same line
• Instead of “Custom Game”, I personally prefer the lichess wording “Lobby Game”
• Instead of “Quick match”, I personally prefer the chess.com wording “Play Online”
• It seems that your current version doesn’t allow the user to choose “multiple” options at once?

Regarding the Tournaments & Ladder buttons

For the tournament section why not use a widget like lichess:

For the ladder I have a great idea but I guess that’s out of scope for this version.

The space below the streamer section
I think we still have quite some space below the streamer section. I would put one of these two widgets there:

• Either a puzzle of the day widget
• Or a recent forum messages widget (again not chat just the top forum posts)

[shamisen]

@Regenwasser

Regarding the Tournaments & Ladder buttons

For the tournament section why not use a widget like lichess:

The all-in-one home page is going to be on hiatus actually. If we want meaningful content on a new home page, some heavy UI work would need to be done to create new widgets, and I don’t want to spend time on that at the moment. I’ll mostly work on improving the existing Play page. The current home page will not be replaced by the new Play UI anymore.

@Regenwasser

I would put “Play Computer” and “Custom Game” in the same line

You mean vertically? or horizontally

@Regenwasser

Instead of “Quick match”, I personally prefer the chess.com wording “Play Online”

@Regenwasser

Maybe make the Play section buttons a little larger, I mean they are the most important elements and this is the play page after all

I agree.

@Regenwasser

It seems that your current version doesn’t allow the user to choose “multiple” options at once?

I don’t think the live website allows choosing multiple options either, except for time settings within the same category. I’d have to take a closer look at the code to see what’s possible. People have been requesting the ability to automatch multiple board sizes and time settings across speed categories at the same time.

[shamisen]

requesting this thread be locked too – I’ve given up on the concept of all-in-one home page. Too ambitious and too unpleasant to do complicated UI work with the online-go codebase. Final efforts will be posted on: UI update v0.3: Home page / play page rework

@shamisen