"You just flagged..." offends my design sensibilities

June 5, 2006 12:44 PM

I like the look of Metafilter. It is an attractive site. The only part of it that I hate with a passion is the "You just flagged something, good for you" page. It is an eyesore. I hate its whiteness and the lack of words on 90% of its surface. Let's make it a pretty color and spread the words out some. What do you say?
posted by ND¢ to Feature Requests at 12:44 PM (33 comments total)

This has been flagged.
posted by bigmusic at 12:45 PM on June 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

I realize that this is probably low priority, but I flag stuff a fair amount, and so I have to see that damn page all the time. Prettiness makes me happy, and ugliness makes me cry.
posted by ND¢ at 12:45 PM on June 5, 2006

Prettiness makes me happy, and ugliness makes me cry.

You might want to adjust your priorities,
you precious little flower you.
posted by docgonzo at 12:47 PM on June 5, 2006

I thought Matt was going to Ajax-ify flagging at some point, which would make the confirmation page unnecessary and flagging easier. I think there's also a GreaseMonkey script floating around somewhere which does this.
posted by matthewr at 12:50 PM on June 5, 2006

I bet someone could whip up a greasemonkey script for this in, like, 5 minutes man.
posted by kcm at 12:51 PM on June 5, 2006

http://youtube.com/watch?v=bLbUQGNL3Dw
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 12:57 PM on June 5, 2006

what
posted by loquacious at 12:57 PM on June 5, 2006

wgat
posted by boo_radley at 1:06 PM on June 5, 2006

I just watched that entire video, and I don't understand its relevance to the matter at hand. Is it that the video is ugly like I am claiming the "You just flagged something" page is? Is it that the name of the song is "Don't Answer Me?" and you do not think the question should be answered? Am I the guy in the Fedora, MetaTalk is the damsel in distress, and the ugly "You just flagged something" page is the large man that the guy in the fedora beats up? Because it is a video for the Alan Parson's project, are you saying that this should have been posted to projects? I don't understand. This is like the freaking Da Vinci code or something.
posted by ND¢ at 1:07 PM on June 5, 2006

Supposedly Plutor's Asynch Metafilter Flagging GreaseMonkey script should make it so you never have to see that page at all. I can't tell you whether or not it works, however -- looks like "userscripts.org" is down.

and yes, yes, i know. you don't want to install greasemonkey.
posted by fishfucker at 1:32 PM on June 5, 2006

oh, and for future reference, the mefi wiki contains a list of scripts available for Greasemonkey and a short summary of what they do.
posted by fishfucker at 1:33 PM on June 5, 2006

wget
posted by cortex at 1:35 PM on June 5, 2006

whet
posted by sonofsamiam at 1:37 PM on June 5, 2006

'Greasemonkey' is one of those terms like 'Web 2.0' and 'ajax' and 'Cory Doctorow' that I see written here all the time, but that I have only the most general idea what they mean, so I just kind of ignore.
posted by ND¢ at 1:37 PM on June 5, 2006 [1 favorite]

Well, it should be a popup window, but those don't work too well nowadays.
posted by smackfu at 1:48 PM on June 5, 2006

Agree with docgonzo.
posted by Rash at 1:48 PM on June 5, 2006

well, greasemonkey, web2.0, ajax and cory doctorow all mean the same thing. generally, it's what you say when you're inclined to incessantly discuss subway map remixes.
posted by shmegegge at 1:49 PM on June 5, 2006

wheat? wet? SPEAK UP LASSIE.

This is like the freaking Da Vinci code or something.

The answer to your multiple choice question is: Yes.
posted by loquacious at 2:08 PM on June 5, 2006

Just a nice xmlhttprequest call to the flagging cfm page and then on success a handy little Javascript alert saying you've flagged it.

Butta.
posted by xmutex at 2:55 PM on June 5, 2006

FAQ definition of greasemonkey script. And then there's Google, of course.
posted by desuetude at 3:23 PM on June 5, 2006

'Google' is one of those terms...
posted by ND¢ at 4:34 PM on June 5, 2006

Supposedly Plutor's Asynch Metafilter Flagging GreaseMonkey script should make it so you never have to see that page at all. I can't tell you whether or not it works, however -- looks like "userscripts.org" is down.

It doesn't work anymore. Or maybe it does, but it certainly gives a 'failure flagging' warning every time one flags. Which is a shame, because it was sodding brilliant when it did work.

Then again, as a plain theme man, I kind of wish the rest of the site looked more like the flagging page, not the other way around. (No slight intended - it looks cool and everything, I just have some sort of eyesight problem that makes reading stuff on dark backgrounds really hard.)
posted by jack_mo at 4:43 PM on June 5, 2006

I might be in the minority, but I think everything should be uglier. It would lessen the flow of new members and make ND¢ cry.
posted by TwelveTwo at 4:46 PM on June 5, 2006

I might be in the minority, but I think everything should be uglier. It would lessen the flow of new members and make ND¢ cry.

You obviously have been living in a dark, damp cave for the last few years and have never heard of the abominable success of a hideously ugly little startup called "MySpace".
posted by loquacious at 5:01 PM on June 5, 2006

The current implementation -- redirection, twice -- is a pretty clumsy hack, and presumably will go away at some point.

All bets are off about how soon, though. I think Matt takes loooong coffee breaks on his new day job.
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 5:42 PM on June 5, 2006

The script still works fine. Despite that it says "Flagging failed", the flagging in fact has not failed. The text of the "success" page has changed since the script was written. If you want to make it work again just edit line 177 from:

if (responseDetails.status == 200 && text.indexOf("Thanks, and your flag has been recorded.") >= 0) {

to

if (responseDetails.status == 200 && text.indexOf("Thanks for reporting the flag.") >= 0) {
posted by Rhomboid at 6:49 PM on June 5, 2006

And in case I wasn't clear, you can still use the script unchanged. It's just that it will say "Flagging Failed" when it has in fact succeeded.
posted by Rhomboid at 6:50 PM on June 5, 2006

Bellybutton.
posted by weretable and the undead chairs at 7:10 PM on June 5, 2006

*gazes*
posted by stavrosthewonderchicken at 1:41 AM on June 6, 2006

Thanks for the tip, Rhomboid.
posted by jack_mo at 4:27 AM on June 6, 2006

Yes, thank you Rhomboid.
posted by prostyle at 7:30 AM on June 6, 2006

Then again, as a plain theme man, I kind of wish the rest of the site looked more like the flagging page, not the other way around. (No slight intended - it looks cool and everything, I just have some sort of eyesight problem that makes reading stuff on dark backgrounds really hard.)

Jack Mo:

plain themes are available everywhere. Edit your profile and select the "Plain Text" theme. It's the oldschool mefi lofi style applied everywhere.

man, how long is it going to be until we see a "MeFi Hacks!"* book from O'Reilly.

* alas, they turned down my "SHOE HACKS!" book proposal. I have a pretty kick ass way of getting them dogs tied.
posted by fishfucker at 10:00 AM on June 6, 2006

Edit your profile and select the "Plain Text" theme

Yeah, I always have done - that's what I meant about being a plain theme man. (I was just facetiously suggesting that the plain theme be the default, possibly plainified even further!)
posted by jack_mo at 10:38 AM on June 6, 2006