What about this solution, which makes things completely consistent.
Topics that are closed show the lock icon for people that can not post in it, like regular users, and show the lock open icon for people that can post in it, admins, moderators etc. So it shows that it is open for you, but locked for other people.
So for categories, you have the same thing, show the lock open icon if the category is unlocked for you, but locked for other people. In this way, things would be consistent, and quite intuitive, I would say.
There is a general âghostbusters no / slashâ they call ban â I think we should change Close to use that, if anything. As in âtopic is closed, replies prohibited here!â
You could interpret it as âthis topic is prohibited hereâ which⌠well actually now that I think about it might not be wrong in many cases, either.
I canât believe how long this discussion has been going on. Are we bikeshedding?
Personally Iâm also not especially inspired by any of the icons discussed here as a default, but I do know that my users have been confused by the sudden appearance of the lock. If it had always been there I think they probably would not have said anything about it.
Honestly, Iâm with thump and think the nicest solution would be to have no icon at all by default, and to allow custom icons for all categories, similar to badges. Within each category the âabout this categoryâ topic can be used to explain the details of who has access along with what itâs for.
That way those who want a lock or a group or whatever icon can have it and we can also add some personality to our forums.
Bikeshedding the ui is a pastime at Meta. Intentions are well but probably delves too deep to where the points discussed becomes a varied, splitting array of contentions and then @sam makes it a configurable option in the admin CP. So youâre on the right track to a solution in this specific case.
It can be done using CSS. It doesnât require a whole lot. My thought on the whole thing: If people arenât customizing it on their instances, then obviously they donât care enough that it needs to be changed. Yes, we changed ours. We cared enough to do so. We also added a watermark in the background on topics that are in private categories, because we cared enough to do so.
Having it be configurable allows us to put custom icons for categories, not just for private ones. Just because it can be done with CSS, though in a less clean way than changing a config, doesnât mean it is the best solution now.
I am guessing he meant something hard-coded. Eg, an image and text together, instead of using CSS. That is in case the CSS sheet isnât included but the icon still shows regardless.
That makes the icon more than just a âstyle tweakâ but instead an integral identifying aspect of the ui that sticks regardless of what stylesheet is put in.
You can do all that with CSS too It may be ~4 lines but definitely do able. Plus since you can enable multiple styles now, you can simply have one for category alterations and keep it enabled
My point was, no one is really customizing this icon today. So weâre bikeshedding here. âIt would be great if we use X or Y or Zâ without actually seeing people using it.
I simply showed how easy it is to customize the icon. The background image is a bit harder, but by a smudge (I havenât tested this, but it should be relatively close).
Thatâs what I mean, itâs CSS. Unless if there is never a case where a stylesheet may not come into question (or may not temporarily be available due to it being hosted on a CDN thatâs having server problems)
But I agree itâs bikeshedding. My point of contention is having some options customizable from the admin CP that has staying power without a stylesheet.
If there were an option Iâm sure more people would use that option.
Keep inind thee is no way to have different icons for different categories with just CSS. Well its technically possible but very janky and brittle.
I would use custom icons, and in fact had done so but had to override the template and it wasnât very clean. Ended up removing it at the time because there were multiple areas where category templates werenât the same.
Yes but I feel that is hacky. Honestly Iâm not hell bent on anything here. Just speaking my piece. I think its wrong to dismiss the various opinions here since they arenât really wrong all around.
Huh, I just mentioned that same sentiment to someone else on another project. [05:14 AM] Tarakâha (ooc): For me, when people complain, it means they would rather stay instead of skedaddle.
It may be ~4 lines but definitely do able. Plus since you can enable multiple styles now, you can simply have one for category alterations and keep it enabled 