UI Community Updates

Tweaks on the new menu:

• Alphabetic or logical order to side menu
• What's the difference between help & connect?  Seems there are connect things in the help & help things under connect.

Others:

• Image upload UI (likely a Lithium thing, out of your scope).
• Why aren't private messages threaded?

Fix the main page so that Creo points to Creo and not Creo Parametric:

https://community.ptc.com/t5/Creo-Modeling-Questions/Community-Menu-Problem/m-p/543247#M116404

How about some work on the email notifications?  They are pretty lacking except that they do notify you.

Some suggested improvements:

• Include the same formatting as the post.  They are sent in HTML format, but it seems all formatting (bold, italics, bullets, blockquote, etc.) is lost.  Makes it hard to read, especially when there's a quote.
• Include images, or at least an indication that an image was in the post.
• Include something in the subject indicating what board it came from to make mail sorting easier. 
• Eliminate notifications for edits. I routinely get 3-5 emails for the same post as users add additional info, correct spelling, etc.

The last one isn't strictly a UI problem, and I guess this isn't a site UI problem, but it does affect user experience so I think it counts.

This was covered here somewhere before you took over, you may be able to find the discussions with other improvements requested here as well.

When someone attaches an image (not embeds one in a post, but attaches it) I have to download it in order to view it.  Is there any way that the system can recognize it as a JPG or PNG and allow it to be viewed in the browser?

OK, lets put in my 2 cents, too.

I guess that when you ask for UI updates done in just a few hours, you are not talking about the menus and their titles or the far to flat hierarchy in the new menu which forces me to scroll too much to select the lower items. Thats something which PTC staff can change on their own, I guess and as I understand remapping is in process here and there.

Also you are not talking about the severe bug hat we can't attach Mathcad files directly (get an inappropriate error message) and have to zip them to be able to attach.

And also you are not thinking the missing comfort of being able to cut and paste pictures without having to save them first. I understand that this is now on the radar of Lithium and may be fixed later this year (hope they will learn from Jive which they bought how to do it).

So we are talking about "minor" changes, right?

.) Generally I would say that the design should not waste too much space. Is it mandatory that the top bar has to be of that height or might it be possible to make it narrower? Height space is critical to users of a widescreen laptop screen. Wasting that space means we have to scroll more and thats an ergonomic sin.

.) In the new menu at the left the entries are far to big in height. Half of this height or even less would do the job as well an would make for a clearer view.

.) Is it really mandatory to have that rightmost column "Top tags" in every thread. Its sure not needed and in no way informative. Scrolling down it simply means wasted space - especially in longer thread with indentation. Full width for the thread would be my suggestion.

.) Even with indentation (is it only me who has the feeling that its much more unclear than it used to be in Jive?) its often hard to follow a discussion and its very often completely unclear which post a reply is to. A better layout sure may help here. Furthermore it would help a lot it at the top of a reply we could read (in small letters!) whom the reply is to (it was the case in Jive).

.) Also when referencing a post we used to be able to reference a  post by providing a link to that specific post. I see no way to do this in this forum. We would have to link to the thread and then tell the people to look at the eighth post there - thats very uncomfortable. Would be beneficial to be able to reference a specific post in an easy way.

.) The problem with the new popup when embedding pictures or videos that the insert button is not accessible is sure out of the scope of a minor UI change, but why not change back to the old popup we had before?
Also its a pita that we cannot see, delete, resize an embedded picture when we (re)edit a post. We would have to switch to HTML mode to be at least be able to delete a picture. We can only "resize" by deleting it and reinsert it.

Again - why not switch back to the former way of doing it until Lithium fixes all those bugs.

Another ...

Can we get more than 2 levels of indenting?  Once you get past those two, it can be hard to tell who is replying to whom.  If you cut the indent in half I think it would still be clear and you could get 4 or 5 levels without making the post too narrow.  It seems that there is a lot of white space, especially to the right after you scroll past the announcements and tags that could possibly be used as well.  The white space makes for a comfortable layout, but I'm guessing you could still lose some and still have that feel.

Maybe not directly related, but..............

Windchill used with Arbortext and other PTC products, except Creo, seems to be a lost location?

There is a question in the Windchill group about exporting files and maintaining file links from Arbortext. With the OP not specifying Arbortext, the question is in limbo under Windchill.

Should we have Windchill sub-categories for these other products or the other products have a Windchill category so the relationship is established?

Why is Arbortext and Servigistics combined under a Service category? Can't figure out that relationship.