suggestion Got some ideas/suggestions

[Alexander Bodide]

Very happy with this site, just wanted to toss out a few suggestions, mostly on the nitpicky side, simply because I want to see the site be all that it can be.

First, I think the RP Preferences could be expanded a bit. For my own purposes, the omission that sticks out the most is vore. I had no problem with giving some additional details in a few paragraphs under my "wills/won'ts", and I would encourage everyone to do that. But it would be nice for me to be able to tell at a glance if others had strong feelings for/against vore, because most people just select the dropdown items and leave it at that. I'm sure there's a few other kinks people might like to see added.

Another thing you might add to the preferences is a short menu for "mood" or "tone". Lighthearted, romantic, and dark, for example. Even something like rape can be played for laughs and worked into a lighthearted RP if it's done right (think of a situation in an ecchi comedy that doesn't shy away from its logical conclusion). This would help with knowing what type of RP you could approach someone with.

These next few things I'm not sure are possible, since I'm aware you only have so much control over the design elements of the site.

If possible, a person's Preferences should have more visibility, ideally being a full-fledged part of their profile. Currently I have to click a profile, click activity, and click preferences on the list on the left side in order to find out whether or not someone has filled out their preferences, and if they have, that's another click to reach that page. It would be great if it could just be rolled into the About Me tab or something.

It would be nice if the blurb that appears when hovering over user's names would include their gender and sexuality, and maybe the first few sentences of their About Me page. Currently the blurb really tells you nothing about the person.

I'd love a real friend list or address book easily accessible in the dashboard or home page. It would be great to have a readily accessible list of members who you like to RP with, maybe with the option of adding little notes to yourself about them (for example: "likes X" "prefers Y" "ask before trying Z").

Finally, I visit this site in a private browsing window. My cookies are wiped when I leave, so my color choice for the site theme is not saved. I've given up on selecting a color that I like and have resigned myself to the default purple. It would be awesome if this could be remembered by your profile instead of your browser.

Sorry to go on and on like that! It's only because I care. :)

[Neptune]

We appreciate every suggestion big or small, although you do need to remember that sometimes there are limits to what we can/can't do. I'll address each point;

1 hour ago, Alexander Bodide said:

First, I think the RP Preferences could be expanded a bit. For my own purposes, the omission that sticks out the most is vore. I had no problem with giving some additional details in a few paragraphs under my "wills/won'ts", and I would encourage everyone to do that. But it would be nice for me to be able to tell at a glance if others had strong feelings for/against vore, because most people just select the dropdown items and leave it at that. I'm sure there's a few other kinks people might like to see added.

This suggestion is actually in the works. I collected a nice big list of fetishes that we might be adding in, Vore being one of them. Another one I noticed was missing was Creampie. Even Crossdressing. So yes, we are actually looking expanding the list. Ideally we would love to give the entire section an overhaul to a more tick box system which would be a lot easier for everyone. But, it would require custom software to be coded for us so unfortunately, we're stuck with what we have.

1 hour ago, Alexander Bodide said:

Another thing you might add to the preferences is a short menu for "mood" or "tone". Lighthearted, romantic, and dark, for example. Even something like rape can be played for laughs and worked into a lighthearted RP if it's done right (think of a situation in an ecchi comedy that doesn't shy away from its logical conclusion). This would help with knowing what type of RP you could approach someone with.

That sounds a little similar to the Genre field which again, we're planning on expanding with more suggestions. So maybe Genre/themes instead of adding another field so it doesn't add to more confusion, since some of the themes would pop up in the Genres which might confuse some people.

1 hour ago, Alexander Bodide said:

If possible, a person's Preferences should have more visibility, ideally being a full-fledged part of their profile. Currently I have to click a profile, click activity, and click preferences on the list on the left side in order to find out whether or not someone has filled out their preferences, and if they have, that's another click to reach that page. It would be great if it could just be rolled into the About Me tab or something.

I agree, that's why I make mine visible on both my signature and my About Me page... which isn't something we can make people do. Another way you can see if someone has done a preference sheet is to go to the forum in question and search the Dreamer name.

2 hours ago, Alexander Bodide said:

It would be nice if the blurb that appears when hovering over user's names would include their gender and sexuality, and maybe the first few sentences of their About Me page. Currently the blurb really tells you nothing about the person.

This isn't possible within the engine of the forum software. Even if it was, it's not something we would do. It will make it far too big, which is incompatible with our mobile users. @Temaelrin can explain the more technical side to this.

2 hours ago, Alexander Bodide said:

I'd love a real friend list or address book easily accessible in the dashboard or home page. It would be great to have a readily accessible list of members who you like to RP with, maybe with the option of adding little notes to yourself about them (for example: "likes X" "prefers Y" "ask before trying Z").

The friend system was replaced by the follow system. If you wished to see a Dreamer's content, then you follow them. As for the notes, there isn't a way of doing that on Dreamer's profile, but you could make use of the Sandbox forum. Only you, and staff obviously, can see the content that you post in there. But staff don't actively moderate it, unless a report is filed which isn't really possible xD

2 hours ago, Alexander Bodide said:

Finally, I visit this site in a private browsing window. My cookies are wiped when I leave, so my color choice for the site theme is not saved. I've given up on selecting a color that I like and have resigned myself to the default purple. It would be awesome if this could be remembered by your profile instead of your browser

That's something I think @Temaelrin should address. That's not my field xD But I agree with you; you shouldn't have to do that every single time. It's a bit of a pain so I can understand your frustration.

[Novaer]

3 hours ago, Neptune said:

6 hours ago, Alexander Bodide said:

It would be nice if the blurb that appears when hovering over user's names would include their gender and sexuality, and maybe the first few sentences of their About Me page. Currently the blurb really tells you nothing about the person.

This isn't possible within the engine of the forum software. Even if it was, it's not something we would do. It will make it far too big, which is incompatible with our mobile users. @Temaelrin can explain the more technical side to this.

6 hours ago, Alexander Bodide said:

I'd love a real friend list or address book easily accessible in the dashboard or home page. It would be great to have a readily accessible list of members who you like to RP with, maybe with the option of adding little notes to yourself about them (for example: "likes X" "prefers Y" "ask before trying Z").

That's something I think @Temaelrin should address. That's not my field xD But I agree with you; you shouldn't have to do that every single time. It's a bit of a pain so I can understand your frustration.

For the first point, yes. We need to keep mobile users in mind which make up for half of the people who come to the site. So the hovercard is intentionally kept as concise as possible, in fact we're looking at removing things from it-not adding more to it. Because as I said, mobile users don't have the screen room to display it properly. This is how it currently looks on my S8+:

And you have to mess around with the zoom settings just to get it in frame. This also affects laptop users, with lower resolution monitors. Our extensive modifications have kind of bitten us in the arse there and the fact we only really test it with the S7 Edge and S8+, at different screen resolutions, 1080p and 4K, plus whatever ancient resolution @SMFoxy is rocking. The goal is to try and make it as readable from any device there, and as you can see we've had to make compromises like this in certain features. The hovercard isn't intended to be a blurb persae, but more of this is their standing on EcchiDreams, and if you wanted to go look into their profiles you can.

Unrelated, but kind of not... We were looking at losing the chatbar at the bottom of the screen and instead ask that people open a separate tab to https://ecchidreams.com/ecchichat/ instead and have it open in another window, because of it's incompatibilities with mobile browsers, although I am trying to work out how to have my cake and eat it on that score. I think it's theoretically possible to add the gender/sexuality thing but I can't see us doing it, as that information is easily accessible in the profile. Certainly can't put any potion of information from the about me page though. Just not enough space.

As for the second thing that Neptune has asked me to answer, I am deeply disappointed that you have to do that, because you shouldn't have to do that. I've raised this with the designer of the theme which we've heavily modified for our site, and he's basically told me that the Software Engine itself would have to have that feature built in, or that there would be a separate hook or plugin for it. However he's not looking at making one in the near future, and I'm not sure what to recommend to that. We are looking at possibly installing a Dark EcchiTheme at some point this year (Been requested by a few people) you'd be easily able to use that and it'd remember you using that EcchiTheme. If it will contain different backgrounds or colours or something that won't save - I don't know. I will try to keep it uniform though. Which is a challange in it's own right on a forum that has both light and dark themes. If this is something you're interested in, let me know.

[SMFoxy]

8 minutes ago, Temaelrin said:

...plus whatever ancient resolution @SMFoxy is rocking.

1280*800...

[Novaer]

9 minutes ago, SMFoxy said:

1280*800...

In seriousness though... So that would make it a 16:10 Aspect Ratio; we get a few strange aspect ratios too, that we have to also be mindful of.

[Alexander Bodide]

Well, thank you for hearing me out and the thorough responses.

Very glad to hear the Preferences will be seeing some expansion.

And I have thought of using the sandbox as an ad-hoc address book...I may start doing that if the feature isn't coming.

I didn't think of mobile users at all...this does seem like it could be a pretty cumbersome site for them. I personally wouldn't have a problem having the IM chat open in its own tab, but my only worry would be that its usage would decline or new members might not even discover it. I think it would need to be given more visibility if you went that route, maybe via a link in the header or something.

Oh, and a dark theme would be neat...the theme stuff isn't a super big deal to me though.

Thanks again!

[SMFoxy]

The EcchiChat does actually have it's own page: https://ecchidreams.com/ecchichat
It can be used just like the chat bar in the bottom, except in a full page.

[Novaer]

2 hours ago, Alexander Bodide said:

I didn't think of mobile users at all...this does seem like it could be a pretty cumbersome site for them.

I think as soon as you realise how things work, it's very easy to use on the mobile. In my opinion, but I realise that, that's subjective and won't apply to everyone.

2 hours ago, Alexander Bodide said:

I personally wouldn't have a problem having the IM chat open in its own tab, but my only worry would be that its usage would decline or new members might not even discover it. I think it would need to be given more visibility if you went that route, maybe via a link in the header or something.

You mean like how we've done it?

At the end of the day if people don't look for these things or don't read when it's stated numerous times in various reading materials, then that's not something I can help with. I can't force people to actually read.

Edited March 2, 2018 by Temaelrin

[Alexander Bodide]

Yes, except not in a drop down menu...I forgot it was even there. I'm not saying it's difficult to navigate to, just that I'm worried about other people finding it to be easily discoverable once you do away with the embedded chat bar. I'd like to see new members continuing to use it.

Sorry, I know I can be unbearably particular about UI stuff. It's a great site either way.

[Novaer]

49 minutes ago, Alexander Bodide said:

Yes, except not in a drop down menu...I forgot it was even there. I'm not saying it's difficult to navigate to, just that I'm worried about other people finding it to be easily discoverable once you do away with the embedded chat bar. I'd like to see new members continuing to use it.

Sorry, I know I can be unbearably particular about UI stuff. It's a great site either way.

The problem with that is, it's an EcchiApp, which means it belongs in the EcchiApp menu. But if I pulled everything else out because I arbitrarily decide that they need more exposure too, then it's going to turn into a mess very quickly. Not to mention the fact that it's literally one click away on the homepage too, how much more visible can it realistically be? As I said previously, it doesn't help if people can't be bothered/aren't inclined to read.

The UI is something we've struggled with in the past (Hence the Dashboards, which kind of patched over the problem and I'm not even sure they're used.) But I think it'd be a mistake to put EcchiChat in the header alongside EcchiApps. It makes the EcchiApps menu to be pointless, why don't we just pullout EcchiCash, the Sandbox, and everything else, - the thing is that isn't more visible then and it'd take up way too much room. I think it's perfect the way it is at the moment; the whole point of a UI is to keep things as small and simple as possible, to be easily read and so forth. But I will take your feedback on board and make tweaks in upcoming updates. I doubt EcchiChat will ever be in the header though. That makes no sense to me.

Edited March 2, 2018 by Temaelrin