MKSnMKS

The Bottom of the page has the checkbox marked something like “this is not a support question”.
The “Status” box, displays “not a support question”, after the above checkbox has been set.

Two matters;
1) The “Status box” is “one” reporter of “two” (independent) parameter settings.
This is very seldom a good idea to do.
2) So after a resolve, or unresolved, how is it ever evident again on the topic page, that the topic was either a support question or not. The database may keep record of the information. But the ability to show it is prevented, as soon as the second parameter gets set.

Solution
There is abundant space on the right hand side.
So report the question/not a question separately to the resolved/unresolved settings.

Additional Advantage
The above conflict also precludes the display of obvious initial situation of any first posting is “Unresolved”, until any such time as somebody does something about it.

This is also another example of how two regions of the page are used to handle the same matters, but do not use very good visual cues to imply the association between them.
So the sense that the “business end” is at the top right hand side “only”, is not universally accurate.
Both may be used, as other locations could be too, but there needs to be a clear association. Its like putting the same widget or form of widget in more than one location on a page – the user should be able to see that they have seen this information (or a link to it) elsewhere on the page, and that this instance of it is just a reminder, or yet another convenient place to make adjustments.

There is also the possible cause for confusion, in that if a user fills in the form, then reviews their topic after the topic has been submitted (something I do immediately afterwards), then they may see “Status” associated with “this is not a support question”, in which case they will think “Oh that’s not going to change, so I never need to look at that again”.

====================================================
To make an parallel example (funny and not funny).
(But included here for a humorous interlude – only if you want to read it)
Imagine a car, that the dashboard (display of parameters), uses exactly the same location to display the “warning that the safety belt has not been fastened”, and the “speedometer”.
The driver who is not familiar with the car, gets in the car, the safety belt warning goes off as soon as the door opens (as a reminder that the safety belt will need to be fastened before use). The driver gets in, looks over the dashboard, because they are a responsible driver and even before they contemplate starting the motor, they want to know where the speedometer is. They don’t see the speedometer.
Thinking Process;
“Where is it?” “Can’t see it!” “Maybe this car has automatic speed limiting, so we don’t need it?” “maybe it will ‘tell’ me the speed seeing as it has audio”
Clips in the belt, and all the noise stops (as it does in other cars).
Not a single noise, or visual flash alerts the driver that the safety belt warning flashing parameter, has changed to a silent unobtrusive speed parameter.
If the driver sets off on the trip,
This may have consequences!

Funny example.
Maybe.
Thinking –
“Software in Cars”
“Engine management software”
“Driverless Cars”
“lots of them.”

The “Update” button could be called “set”,”confirm”,”ok”,”enter”.
This reduces the ambiguity, and uses terms that are more commonly used in similar situations.

Thanks

Hi Samuel Wood (Otto) (@otto42),

In summary

Thank you very much for your assistance, and please accept my apologies for not avoiding the inconvenience that I have caused.

In Depth

Thank you so much for your reply.
This is a crucial message, for the following reasons;

1) you have “help”ed with “how to” “use” this “function”.
No one has yet told me where I can find (this sort of) help, for the topic of “resolving”, and I still haven’t managed to find it yet.
but you have told me now, so I know.
You have told me the location, layout of the appearance, and the method of use.

Location;

On the right hand side of this page, or of any other topic you create, there’s a line that reads “Status:”

Layout of the appearance;

there’s a line that reads “Status:” and a dropdown next to it with “Not resolved”, “Resolved”, or “Not a support question”. Next to that is a button labeled “Update”.

Method of Use;

You change the dropdown, you click the update button. This functionality is visible to topic authors, moderators, and plugin/theme authors when in their own forum.

These instructions are very clear, easy to understand, and easy to follow.
I have yet to test it.

2) I am not sure how long it has been there. And it may have been there all the time, as I recall making decisions as I scanned the page for possible locations.
You also make the statement;

I’m not sure how we could make that dropdown any more obvious of visible since it’s the main place on the page where “Resolved” is displayed or not. The update button is very clear as is the dropdown.

At this point, I’ll make a few comments about thinking;
a) Now that I see it, it conjures a sense of low intelligence in the author of this topic (me).
b) As a PC and Internet user, I am conditioned to follow “visual cues”, to be able to “intuitively” “find” my way around “Graphical” “User Interfaces”.
So as far as thinking, I have failed the complete process of finding and carrying out this function. But I also think there are some comments to be made regarding;
i) intuitiveness
ii) find
iii) graphical
iv) User Interface
c) I like your statement above, and I do appreciate it.
i) Firstly, it is preceded by “help” (this could literally be copied and pasted into a popup box, or help file).
ii) Secondly it begins with

“I’m not sure how we could”

.
I learn a lesson from that myself, the lesson being that “just because I can’t see a way, doesn’t mean it can’t be done”.
iii) Then, like me, there is the situation as experienced by the person (in your case a very great many – possibly unlike myself)

“make that dropdown any more obvious or visible since it’s the main place on the page where “Resolved” is displayed or not. The update button is very clear as is the dropdown”

iv) there is implied exploration in your statement, even though you are describing what appears to be a limited situation.
So
I do thank you, because now I am able to use this function.

Now to match up our thinking and words, with some explanation;
Please note the implications of “intuitive”,”find”,”graphical”, and “user interface”.

I expected to (find) some continuity in the function and design, of the page (for plugins, ideas, and forums).
The only place I had previously come across the ability to set “resolve”, was at the bottom of the page in some topic, below or above where it had a check box for “Notify me … email”, that was a check box with a label something like “Mark as resolved”.
At that location, there was no indication of how to remove a “resolve”.
Being “a” location where “resolve” could be set, meant that this was “a” or “the” location where it “is” set.
A test of other “clear” “obvious” locations, such as the distinctly coloured (Green) tick “icon” tab, showed no related functionality.

So I looked for help, and found none.
Not something that even alluded to the topic. Just none at all.
Maybe I should have looked more in depth, but maybe I should need to have to go to such an effort.

So I went back to the page to look for a cue for something I may have missed.
All the stuff on the right hand side can be seen – It is not like I couldn’t see that.
Here’s the intuitive approach I took;
i) scan vertically down the items
ii) oh, they have icons, and icons mean visual cues, which indicate relevance to their topics. the items are separated by dim grey lines so maybe they are independent topics.
iii) following down, the first five, although not labelled or boxed as such, appear to be some performance parameters for the topic posting.
For each of these, they used icons which are not in this users lexicon of icons for anywhere else, so had no immediate implication. So the text to the right of each was read.
So the dim grey separators are just spacers rather than topic separators.
iv) oh the version of WP of the topic author (at the time of posting [now is 4.8.1]). This was an icon and a number – no text needed. This implied “the end of topic performance parameters, because now the parameters have more to do with the “system” that was used by the author.
So maybe the ones following are to do with the system.
So maybe the dim grey lines are topic separators.
v) icon = paperclip. gotcha! paper clip = attachment. No I don’t have any attachments I need to add. Oh, in case this is a performance parameter of the posting, it’s not showing that I or any other have submitted any attachments to this posting.
vi) Next one is “+”, another icon. In my lexicon = another, or expand. In this it jumped me back down to the “business end” of the page.
Oh, I guess that’s what the paper clip does; it allows me add an attachment by sending me to the bottom of the page to do it, or sends me somewhere less to do it. Yeah, obvious enough, sort of, I guess.
vii) The next (last) two had an email icon and love heart. I neither wanted to send an email, or register a “like” on some social media or this forum.

That was the first pass.

More search for help.

Second look over the page.
Right hand side, attempting to “read” more carefully.
steps (i) to (iii) as before.
iv) WP version. Oh, so now we are looking at the system of the topic author.
v) “Status”. very formal word. This seems to follow on with information about my system. I don’t know how they took those measurements. But anyway, they are reporting the “Status” (of? – my system). Maybe when I tell them my WP version, they somehow assess the status of my system to make sure it meets some criteria to help diagnose the problem. Maybe I shouldn’t concern myself with this. Jump to end of line where the “important looking” box is, and it says “update”. Oh so maybe I can update my system from here, I don’t know how they can do that, but that’s amazing – they are clever. But I don’t need to worry about that because I can update it using the standard methods.
At this point, I don not remember reading “Resolved” which may have been a “textual” cue. But the information surrounding it, seemed to be about my system, which was way off the topic I was looking for.
vii) The next two were obvious by the text, which is more accurate than the icon, but didn’t relate to what I was looking for, just the same.

So that is the user experience of the flow of thinking, as guided by the layout and functions.

Now working with;

“make that dropdown any more obvious or visible since it’s the main place on the page where “Resolved” is displayed or not. The update button is very clear as is the dropdown”

1) re “make that dropdown any more obvious or visible”
The drop down, “is” clearly a “drop down”.
But its function is not so “obvious”.
The word “Status” has no contextual meaning as to “what” it is the status of. And it placement in relation to other information, lead this user to believe it was related to the status of his wordpress installation (at the time he raised the topic) because of preceding items and surrounding text.
May I also note that in dealing with “Resolved” and “Not Resolved” settings, it was not apparent that these were to be regarded as “Status”. They appeared to be a measure of a parameter called “Resolution”.

2) re “since it’s the main place on the page where “Resolved” is displayed or not.”
This may be what “is considered” to be “the” place where “Resolved” is displayed, by the developers, and users in the know.
However, the visual cues say “big green iconed label” that says “Resolved” (note capital “R””.
This is a Big visual cue.
The word “resolved” (note small “r”), in standard font on “white” background, apearing to be some optional setting for the wordpress installation, does not compare in importance.
re “the place” – as previous posts on this topic by me have stated, the “places where things could be (based on where other things are) is not where this function is found.
In particular, it is not found at the bottom of the page, where the ability to set a “Resolve” is located with a check box, nor is near or embedded in the green “Resolved” icon at the top of the page.
Added to that, the fact that clicking on the “+ Reply to Topic” link, sends you to the bottom of the page, adds to the intuitive conclusion that the bottom of the page is the business end of the latest events and procedures of the page (and its not there).
Associated visual cues based on colour, for obviousness’s sake;
The submit button is in peacock blue (standard colour for the site, but different to black), and it performs its function.
The submit button is an important function of the making an adjustment to the topic.
The only coloured item that is totally a different colour is the “Green” coloured “resolved” label. This is a main item of importance, and it would be expected to have relevant functionality. It has two rounded edges so this may be taken to imply that it has “button” functions, or other function, such as possibly “toggle” or “drop down”. But it did not.

So it is not at the bottom “business end”, and it is not at the top where the brightly coloured highly relevant word is.

Now I would agree with anybody who says I am not too clever (to put it lightly).
But if anyone considers themself to be clever, may I suggest the following;

1) (General Approach Concept) Provide functionality at the location of high visual cueing, or provide high visual cueing at the point of functionality.
Avoid separating the two, both by graphical style and physical location.
2) Very near the word “Status”, have some information or visual cue about “what” the status pertains to. e.g. “Topic Status”, or more obviously “Topic Resolution Status”.
3) Location of “Status” report.
As a topic parameter, place it up amongst the other topic parameters so that is more obvious what it is related to.
Possibly, visually place a box around it.
4) Avoid confusion, and improve the implied topic flow of the right hand side by placing the WP version either at the bottom (or top) of the list.
5) Visually cue the contents of the drop down box by using the same colour as that same topic is indicated in the Green coloured label.
As a note, a different colour might be used for other statuses. But probably a good idea to avoid “red” as that would imply “stopped”, so other “happy” colours would do.

That is a group of suggestions relating to the clear and visible location of the business end of the page.

Some suggestions for other non-business locations on the page, that are highly implicated by visual cues;
1) Have a resolve drop down menu or button at the bottom of the page.
or
2) Have a check box for mark this topic as unresolved.
3) Have a resolve drop down menu or button functionality associated with the green “Resolved” label.
or
4) Moved the green “Resolved” label to the location of the topic parameters on the right hand side, and visually associate it with the method of adjustment that is there. And place it in very close physical proximity. Possibly box it together.

Further Comments
1) There are three locations that have some association with “Resolve”, and all locations are suitable, but the functionality needs to be unified.
2) There is still “No help” information, about the page, on the page.
nor about the topic, near the topic.
3) The methods of resolution for any disagreement on resolution that have been suggested, still are worth considering. Otherwise people can just keep flicking the switch one way or the other.
4) which leads to another suggestion until such time as a resolution procedure is begun to be prototyped; the “resolution” could be independently set for the “Topic Author’s Resolution”, and “Plugin developer’s Resolution”, and possibly if wanted – each “Replier’s Resolution”.
That way, everybody can say how they feel (just like social media likes), and nobody is made to look like they are over-ruling other peoples assessments.
and so …
5) The normal sense of “resolution” is that of a “mutual agreement on a solution”.
This necessarily means the measure of satisfaction of at least two people.
Therefore, the reporting of this requires at least two pieces of data, one from each.
Not one piece of data that shows the data of the last person to adjust it.
So along with the two or more data entry functions as in (4), there can be an additional one that reports the nett sense of “Resolved”.
This way we can see at a glance which topics are properly resolved or not, and where the lack of resolution is.

So I hope that this shows the steps involved in this exploration of the user experience of this page.If some of the suggested adjustments (or similar) are made, then it would be interesting to see if there are more instances of the same setting being adjusted more than once, or how many times they are adjusted.
This would be another measure of the level of interaction in the forums, and interaction is important for the development to advance.

In summary

Thank you very much for your assistance, and please accept my apologies for not avoiding the inconvenience that I have caused.

Thank you.

One of the reasons why this was suggested, was that ;
when the user is reviewing all of their plugins (which ones they’ll keep or dump, or why do they still want them), they will need to cover the entire list.
They need to know that they have looked at each plugin and decided to keep (and possibly adjust which group[s] they want to have it included in.)
The the full list acts as a complete check list.
But in looking at the whole list, they need to go up and down to see what the other plugins in the same group are.
So if the plugins are displayed in order of groups (with duplicates being shown in each group – possibly some sort of visual note that it already is in a group higher up the list), then all plugins related to a group can be seen at once.

It would also be handy to attach notes to plugins, and to attach flags to plugins. The user could assign the purpose of the flags, such as mark to keep/dump/yet to review/seems troublesome/checks out well-send approval message to plugin site/etc.

Hi powerhoster (@powerhoster)

I have seen that a .htaccess file may be created when a user selects non-default permalinks in the settings. But the user is not informed by the WP system that a .htaccess file will be created, nor does the WP system make it obvious how to go about managing .htaccess files in various locations of the site.

What do method do you recommend to use to “create your .htaccess file by wordpress website admin” ?

Thank you

Hi powerhoster (@powerhoster),
Just wanting some clarification on what you are saying;

1) re

“You can check your .htaccess file in your root folder or wp-includes folder.”

Do you mean
a) the root folder of the webspace, or
b) the root folder of the wordpress site (e.g. \public_html), or
c) the wp_includes folder of the wordpress site (e.g. \public_html\wp_includes\)
?

2) Note the contents of the various .htaccess files ;
a) \public_html\ .htaccess has many settings that are controlled by the “WpFastestCache” Plugin, that appear to control the PHP modules.
b) \public_html\wp_includes\ .htaccess mentions TinyMCE

3) re

“Enable them in your website admin area.”

By “admin area”, do you mean ;
a) \
b) \public_html\wp_admin\

4) Your answer seems to imply that at least one of the following is true
a) TinyMCE related information is placed in and .htaccess file in the wrong location.
b) At least one wp cache plugin is placing the .htaccess in the wrong location.
In either/both cases, should we inform the developers of this problem?

Thank you

Hi,
Thanks for that.
It doesn’t look like it’s a big problem.
But it does raise a flag, that (hopefully) could be avoided.
PHP7 improves the speed of WordPress site, and when this becomes more widely known and appreciated, then many more sites will be keen to convert to the PHP upgrade.
They will want to check compatibility, so any plugins that do not get flagged as having issues, will have a greater chance of being carried through their upgrade to their new site.
With very little extra effort, this plugin, would appear faultless on this compatibility test (something to be very happy about).

Thank you

Hi Andrew Nevins (@anevins),

Thank you for your prompt help, in attempting to obtain functionality.

Please also note that I am reporting the lack of “help” information about “resolve”, anywhere.
(It also looks like there is no directly relevant help system for the “support” section submenu, anyway. e.g. clicking on “Documentation” goes to general WordPress help, rather than documentation for the support forum area – re “about”/”how to” type topics directly related to support).

So if there are any links to some information about how I should (as indicated) be able to resolve, or unresolve a topic, would be very useful for me to read.

But those links would also be useful to put on the pages where editing takes place so topic authors are made aware of what they are able to do, and how to do it.

Thank you
I hope to get these matters resolved soon.
And with your help I think that will be possible.

May I also repeat;

Nobody has yet explained where the option(s) are actually accessible for the topic author to un-resolve the topic. It might be expectable that it be in menu on the right hand side of the topic display, and/or next to the submit button, and/or able to be activated by the green “resolved” rectangle, or other (multiple) methods. So far there has been no illumination.

Thank you

Just a thought;
If the ability to resolve/unresolve, is contained in a function or module or some sort of component, then perhaps its display is dependent on permissions based on the login, and authorship/control.
So perhaps the topic author is not being given the correct permission to have this feature displayed to them.
It could just be a matter of flicking the settings switch for that module/component.
Just a guess though – probably wrong.

Hi Andrew Nevins (@anevins),

With respect to your comment,
Could you please “unresolve” this topic?

This may be a bug.
What ever the situation is, it is (a lack of) something that is being “experienced”.

a concept;
The systems’ problems have no appreciation of the knowledge and expertise of the people that create them; they are just software and hardware, they are incapable of respect.
They are not capable of “disobedience”, but they are capable of being out of “control”. This is because they strictly follow instructions, but sometimes the instructions are not definitive, and not all circumstances have been anticipated beforehand.

As a user of such systems, I have good regard for those that create them.
Never the less, the systems are still to be experienced.

I look forward to your assistance.
Thank you

Still not experiencing any “resolve” or “un-resolve” functionality.
Can not easily find any help, either on the same topic page, or anywhere on forum site, and shouldn’t need to go off site to find out how to get this done.

Maybe my system is lacking compatibility.
But that should not effect the ability to at least read some help text.

The “submit” button still works well (thank goodness).

It is good that this plugin is tested compatibility with advanced WordPress and PHP versions.
It is also good that these tests are automatically done almost every day.
(are they automatically scheduled?)
(can you add criteria to the tests? and back check the criteria on earlier versions?)

Although your procedure is not public, the results of the procedure could be made public, and possibly could be automatically made available and updated.
Perhaps a “current compatibility status” message.
Perhaps more than one method of compatibility assessment, such as;
a) as tested by our systems
b) as experienced by users (no problems yet reported, and no problems currently outstanding)
c) reservations held pending confirmation of safe conditions (e.g. code in versions of WP and PHP may cause an interplay that between them could results in unreliable, uncertain performance).

Do you test a range of combinations of versions of WordPress and PHP?
The results could be presented as a table.
And this might include the information about versions of WP and PHP that are not yet main stream, so users know they will be able to remain up to date with the very latest developments.

Another important factor is ;
“in the event of incompatibility, this plugin will not behave destructively.”
type of assurance.

Note
much of the discussion here, though useful for this plugin, would also be beneficial for other plugins. So what ever gets done here, could be made available for other plugins.
i.e. auto test bed, and results reporting.

Possibly liaise with WP site to show the PHP compatibility with a PHP icon on the right hand side menu , just like the WP compatibility.

That sounds like it could be incorporated by ;

a) instruction on how the user goes about finding the edit points in the generated child theme.
b) The user then copies and pastes the “text string that would be edited” from the child theme, into a text entry box in MMM.
c) the controls in MMM can then be used to adjust the settings in the child theme.

An expansion of this approach, in to additional purposes ;
a) additional formatting commands could be added for the menu
b) any additional formatting could be added
c) realtime adjustments could be made and previewed live, to theme settings, far in excess of what the original theme or theme editor may have catered for.

Note
also the ability to have a top-top level called “Menu” (or can be relabeled as any other name). This looks more like a button. It is like other pop-out type menus, and can stick to a screen position during scroll.
This makes MMM also able to MMM (Min-the-menu).
A real advantage on small devices, but also gets clutter out of the way on very big screens where quality pictures can well appreciated.

Thanks for your thoughts.
(Thinking is good.)

(Explanatory Answer)

Hi Emre,

re: “should” – there is no imperative.

re: “I” . This text was written for anybody that wants to read it. It is keyworded so that anybody that is looking for the topic of caching in WordPress may find it. The text was written for this plugin because it is the plugin being used by us, though a number of points may apply to other caching plugins (in which case they can find the comments here).

re: “all the text” – I like to put bold or italics for important concepts or keywords in a text, so the main gist can be appreciated at a glance. But the editor for ideas and support seems to not always work consistently, and sometimes does not format properly. Please accept my apologies since I did not emphasise main points to provide this enhancement.
Unfortunately there is no way (on my screen at least), that I can go back and highlight pertinent main points.

It is difficult to know if you read any of the text at all, or if you read some, or all.
Nor is it clear whether you were motivated, interested, inspired by, or bored by the contents of the text.
The suggestions were made, in the hope of putting functionality at the fingertips of WordPress users, by supplying these functions within this plugin.

If you want to have further discussion about what is in the text, then I guess that it would probably require the text to be read. And when you write a reply, I hope I will take the time to read it, and also reply if needed, as we may.

Thank you for taking the time to respond.
Best regards.

Hi Tom,

Thanks for that.
Though I am prepared to work “against” the theme, the theme is actually providing more room (at least vertically) than needed by MMM.
But there is no way to control the accurate placement of MMM within the (surplus) space available.

I just imagined that whatever code this plugin inserts into the web page, could be preceded by ordinary code to control its placement within the location that it gets placed.

Horizontally, the top level also has space, spare. And similar adjustment methods could be used.
But the lower levels would benefit from being able to be full width.

A thought for handling the theme;
The methods you have described (including in another post), could be automated.
a) Make child of theme (named so as to refer to something like “modified for MMM”
b) use MMM to find and replace, or otherwise modify the child theme, as per your methods.
c) adjustments can be made from a dedicated tab in MMM and the preview will show the effect on the theme.
note uninstalling MMM plugin may ask whether the child theme should be removed or left intact.

Thanks