If Vanilla could only have five menu items what would they be?

Unknown
Unknown
in Product

Lets say we have a theme that has a five global menu items that don't change. You only have those menu items. No side panel. No me box.

  1. What would those menu items be?
  2. How would you access additional functionality?

Comments

  • Alex Powell
    Alex Powell

    If you are looking to pair it down, I would divide it with the by public/private concerns. So for example, send people more to the profile pages for things directly associated to them: Bookmarks, Drafts, Personal Conversations, ect. Maybe even let them decided what they see first, recent discussions vs categories. This gives the user a way to experience the community as they want.

    Then for menus maybe focus on the collective shared experience: Discussions, Categories, Best of, Social Groups.

    A couple of tweaks following:

    • I'd love to see "Recent Discussions" menu item when I am on "Categories" and vice versa. Right now I do those with three conditionals in the template.
    • In the new format, I need a way to easily see notification of new messages, and a way I could jump to them quickly.
    • Admin would need to have a Dashboard/Settings Link in this global menu.
  • Vanilla Forums
    Vanilla Forums

    Home
    Username (profile/notifications indicator)
    Inbox
    Search
    Dashboard

    The home page would tell me how to find content.

  • Unknown
    Unknown

    @linc how do people switch between recent discussions and categories? How do they create a new discussion?

  • Vanilla Forums
    Vanilla Forums

    Things like Recent Discussions vs. Categories, Bookmarks, Groups, Activity, Participated, Drafts, Best Of - it's all just ways to filtering & sorting forum content. Adding content is also context-sensitive. So I feel like all of that is the job of the forum home page to convey. The idea that those contexts are highly configurable depending on your community reinforces that it should be part of the template / layout.

    To me, an unchanging top-level nav must serve all contexts & cases. "Home" is how we get to this community's content, and from there it's context-specific.

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