Timeline

[tedstein]

Add timeline look and feel to the stream. Inverted Ideas?

[InvertedVantage]

Sorry, I've been incredibly busy with other things. I'm not sure what you mean by timeline look and feel to the stream? Are we just straight up copying Facebook's timeline?

I was thinking that each message would be boxed with a light background color, perhaps with a disintegrating hexagonal background as a graphic element. When the user is tagged in the message or something else pertaining to them, it could flash twice and then change it's color to a different one (user-changeable?).

[macourtney]

I was thinking the stream, what we are calling Masques version of your facebook home page, would have the lines and dots like Facebook's timeline. But, not as confusing with the line along the middle. Instead the line would be to one side with the date with each item of the stream. I'm thinking it would make viewing and understanding when messages were sent easier.

Alternatively, we could use something like OSX's time machine graphic with items in the stream going back into space as they go further back in time. While it could look pretty, it would be far more involved.

[tedstein]

InvertedVantage: This isn't copying Facebook. Facebook has two columns of data with the timeline in the middle, as well as other random stuff. It is a confusing cluster fuck.

The idea here is to have the line on one side (like a normal timeline) and only have data with a temporal aspect on it. Make sense? Thoughts?

[InvertedVantage]

How about a forum structure? Posts are listed in descending order, from newest to oldest. Posts wherein a user is tagged are highlighted. I'm not sure if posts with a reply should bounce back up to the top or not? Then it might be TOO much like a forum. We could combine the two, where by default posts are sorted from top to bottom by date originally posted, adding in the features of Facebook's timeline (dotted, sorted by time, allowing images to be the main identifier of the post, sort of like FB+4chan), but with the added possibility of having a post jump back to the top of the que once a new reply is done (so "sort by date posted" or "sort by date replied").

What do you guys think?

I've always liked VBulletin's layout; clean, easy to use, and used everywhere on the net;

http://www.vbulletin.com/vb5demo/forum/main-demo-forum/off-topic-discussion

[tedstein]

Forums are greate and vb does it great. They didn't make the v1 feature list though:

http://wiki.findmasques.org/doku.php?id=v1_feature_set

I moved your (excellent) comments here:
#39

Also, Inverted, your comments here would be helpful:
#35

[InvertedVantage]

@tedstein I was talking about forums as an integrated part of how Masques is arranged, not as a separate function. TBH if you want Masques to function as a social network for social activism, then people are going to need an easily accessed, archiveable method of discourse that can be used by large amounts of people or small. Facebook style wall posts will eat any sort of legitimate discussion, that's why I think the forum system should be integrated more fully into the project from the get go and not just something that's tacked on later. :)

I'll comment on that other one in a second.

[tedstein]

Ahhh! @InvertedVantage I see what you are talking about. Sounds great.

We also have comments. On every share.
https://github.com/tedstein/masques/commit/982f528cd44691def80857d4b0bc52ee8e8b7700

Should we add the ability to reply to a particular comment?

[InvertedVantage]

Sort of like a nesting comment system? I think that's one possibility, though I'm not a huge fan. What if each person's profile page was set up so that personal posts were set up like hyperlinks, then within each of those hyperlinks was a thread? So I post:

"Don't you just hate cheeseburgers?"

which is highlighted as a hyperlink. If I click on it I'm taken to that thread's page, where I can reply. So all replies to a comment are contained within that hyperlinked thread?

[tedstein]

I like that. Reddit-like. Works great. Also, it allows you to easily handle many levels of nesting.

Small detail: let's use the word "button" instead of "content type."