link "profile" section in friends page to profile

[msilverstar]

Title:
link "profile" section in friends page to profile

Area:
friends page / customization / styles?

Summary:
Make the Profile section of the sidebar navigation an HTML link to the person or community profile.

Description:
In most layouts, there's a Profile box of some kind, with the word "profile". I always want to click it, but it's not a link. The icon is a link to the userpics but there's only one little graphic link to the profile.

I don't know if it might mess with styles or if there's already a way to do it in styles or layers or something?

Poll #2335 link "profile" section in friends page to profile

Open to: Registered Users, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 35

View Respondents

This suggestion:

View Answers

Should be implemented as-is.
26 (74.3%)

Should be implemented with changes. (please comment)
1 (2.9%)

Shouldn't be implemented.
3 (8.6%)

(I have no opinion)
5 (14.3%)

(Other: please comment)
0 (0.0%)

Comments

[branchandroot]

I answered 'as is' with the understanding that it's the title of that module ("Profile") that would become a link to the profile, like the title of the Tag module links to tags. This is correct?

[matgb]

I thought there was a link as one of the icons, seems I was wrong, so yes, I thought it was there already and it should be there already.

[mskala]

I remember complaining about this way back in beta days and being told to click the "Profile" link at the top of the page - which I hadn't even known existed, because at my usual window width, that link wraps around to the start of the line.

I'd be in favour of having the user icon link to the user's profile (that's the change for which I'm voting "adopt with changes"); seeing all of someone's user-pics is something I want to do much less often than seeing their profile, and in fact I think "look at all their user pics" is such a rare thing to want that it should be relegated to a link on the profile page. However, at the very least I think it'd be nice if the user's name, where it appears below the icon, could be a link to the profile.

[cesy]

I find I want to look at all someone's icons far more often than I want to look at their profile.

[ratcreature]

Like the commenter above I also want to look at icons quite often. I frequently see an icon I find pretty and don't know where the art is from, so I click on the userpic page in hope that there are full credits there and I can find the art. I would not want the user icon link to the profile.

[triadruid]

I think a LOT of people are used to the hover-icon going to allpics, and changing that will be Bad Juju. I'm one of them.

[mskala]

I'm not sure what you mean by "the hover-icon"; I'm talking about the icon that appears in the upper right, in a box labelled "profile", on the user's journal. It may depend on the style, but I don't think it's specific to just one style - several seem to have it. On my own journal, nothing in that box actually links to my profile.

[msilverstar]

The hover-icon is an option set in the Account section / Display panel

http://www.dreamwidth.org/manage/settings/?cat=display

Hover Menu - Show menu when you hover over userhead images or icons


I do think it's important not to break that.

[triadruid]

When I go to your journal, the 'box' above that line (the one that starts 'Recent Entries, Archive, Reading...' has a very clear 'Profile' link at the end. In addition, if one has the navbar OR the hover menu turned on, there are direct links there to your profile.

I'm merely pointing out that this is style-specific (possibly more than one style) and thus not a DW-wide problem. On the plus side, that probably means it's easier to implement than most suggestions. What style are you using, anyway? (it'll say at http://www.dreamwidth.org/customize/ )

[mskala]

As I said at the outset, that link wraps around to the start of the line at my usual window width. It's a basic rule of typographic design that short lines are more readable, and especially in this era of wide-screen displays, I think we should expect that people will often read in windows narrower than the full width of the screen. Then the link in the top bar wraps around to the left, in an area where the viewer's eye doesn't fall.

However, even if that link really were "very clear", you seem to be saying that it's okay to have a prominent icon labelled "profile" and linking somewhere other than the profile, just because there's another link somewhere else that really does go to the profile. I disagree. I think links should go where they say they go.

My current layout is "Negatives Black." At the time I chose it, there were very few options offered; I see that there are more available now.

I think the hover menu is irrelevant to this discussion and I hope we won't hear more about that. Neither I nor the original poster were ever suggesting changes to it.

[triadruid]

Okay, forget the hover menu; I'll try to reword what I'm saying.

Only ONE header in that right sidebar is a link; the aforementioned "Most Popular Tags" header. "Profile" doesn't go anywhere, you're right, but neither does "Active Entries", "Syndicate", "Links", "Page Summary", or "Layout Credit". That combined with the existing link just above it makes me confused as to why you describe it as a 'link that doesn't work'. I also don't understand why you combine wide monitor widths with less-than-full window widths in your usability argument, but that's really getting into nitpickery. It doesn't work for you or the OP, and that's sufficient.

If anything though, I think the logical place to put another link to your profile is on your username above the buttons (left of the icon, where it just says mskala in bare text). Actually I guess if your browser width is narrow it may be beneath the icon, but in either case it's directly above your website link, Ansuz. That's the text that, to me, I would expect to go somewhere, because it's grouped with a bunch of other navigation links/buttons for access, notifications, etc.

[mskala]

My suggestion wasn't to link the header, but to link the icon. Notwithstanding that some people (above) say they often want to look at all user pictures, I think linking the icon to the profile would be a good idea, in the one place we're talking about which is the "Profile" box on the style I'm using and on other styles like it. I'm not necessarily suggesting this change for any other places that icons might appear. I also think that changing the username text, below that icon, to be a link to the profile, would be an improvement on the current state of affairs; I think that's the original poster's suggestion but it is not my suggestion.

Now:

* The fact that no other headers are currently links doesn't seem to me to be a good reason for why this one shouldn't be a link. Some of those other headers could easily become links. However, making the "Profile" header, or any header, into a link was not my suggestion.

* The link that doesn't work is the link from the icon. The icon is prominently labelled in a way that makes it look like a link to the profile. It is under a header saying "Profile", it is clickable (so browsers will switch to their "link" mouse cursor when the use mouses over it), it makes up the large majority of the clickable screen area under the label that says "Profile", and it is the only clickable thing under the "Profile" label without a more specific text and/or icon label specifying a non-profile function. But it isn't a link to the profile; it goes somewhere else. That is confusing.

* Furthermore, there is a box (the box containing the icon) labelled "Profile" but not actually containing any way of getting to the profile. That is also confusing.

* The fact that there are other links to the profile on the page, doesn't have any bearing on the fact that this link, the link from the icon labelled "Profile", looks like a link to the profile and isn't.

* It is also true that the other links to the profile are much less visible than this link, so that someone looking for a link to the profile will probably click this one, being as how it's the most prominent one of the at least two clickable things labelled "Profile."

* The narrow-screen point is part of why the other links to the profile are much less visible. You described one of those (the one in the page header) as "very clear". I think it is not very clear, because it is wrapped into a non-prominent part of the page when I view the page; and I think my window width, which causes that wrapping, is typical of many readers' because many other people will, like me, read the site in a narrow window to make text easier to read. HOWEVER: even if it were true that the link in the upper left of the page were "very clear", that would not negate my main point. My main point is that having a link labelled "Profile" which leads somewhere other than the profile, is a problem in itself regardless of what other links may exist.

* I agree that making the username, under the icon, into a link to the profile would be an improvement on the current situation.