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Little Assorted Suggestions
Started By
There have been a few little things about Ala that I have found to be inconvenient. I thought it might be more economical to group them together, rather than making a seperate thread for each. I think these minor changes would overall make the site easier and more pleasant to use.

1. Login-in pop up. I remember back before this was added, there was just a normal log in form on the page itself like most sites have. I find the popup to actually be pretty annoying and inconvenient. It doesn\'t come up the first time I click it sometimes, and often I will accidentally click outside the box and have to bring it up all over again. Adding an extra click for users to navigate through always seemed counterintuitive to me. I think it would be better to revert to the more simple having the log in form on the page itself.

2. Option to mute flash games. This could be a check box in your profile settings like other such preferences are. Muting in the games themselves is troublesome and doesn\'t work for the sound effects, only the music. Not to mention you have to re-mute every time mahjong or agile trial reverts to the main screen.

3. Mass handling items.
a. While the mass handle item stock is a nice feature, it would be a lot more useful if the items were listed in alphabetical order. Being able to seperate them by type (food, BGs, accessories, etc.) would be handy too, but just not having them listed in random order would really help a lot.

b. Having an option to sell multiple items at once to the junkyard would be great too.

4. Inventory views.
a. Having to wait for all of your item images to load every time you go to your inventory is really inconvenient, especially when you have a ton of items. Setting one of the subcategories (food, companions, etc) to show up by default when you go to your inventory would make things a lot easier, and there could be a View All category added.

b. This might be a little more difficult to achieve, but it would be really great if there was a way to get rid of the extra page that one encounters when in one of the subcategories. Even when you have only 1 of a single use item, or an unlimited use item, the \"Which one would you like to use?\" page appears. While this is handy for multi-use items, it\'s completely useless and only serves as an inconvenience for most other items which have only one or unlimited uses. Another case of having more clicks for the users to go through than necessary. It may sound inconsequential, but when you\'re trying to feed your dogs it really nullifies any of the convenience the subcategories might have afforded.


These are just the things I have noticed, some of which have been bugging me for a very long time. If anyone has any other simple, non-controversial suggestions I would be happy to add them to the list. :)

02-13-2012 at 3:24 PM
I like #3 about the junkyard and mass handle :3

02-7-2012 at 2:09 PM
Oh yes, these are both good suggestions. Though the TP search thing might be obvious and necessary enough to warrant its own thread, since that's a really quick fix.<br /> <br /> Taking rare items out of the quick feeding I will definitely add. Are there any other incidences on the site that make it a little too easy to make a irreversible/expensive mistake? I haven't made use of the buttons in a while so I'm not sure, but do the spay/retire/pound buttons at the bottom of a dog's page ask for confirmation when you click them? It seems like it would be all too easy to make a really terrible/costly mistake if not.<br /> <br /> "Are you sure?" confirmation pop-ups might be a good feature to add for the above, as well as buying items from the monthly shop (maybe other shops too, and dog sales?) and when one is using a non-reusable rare item like a Water Bowl. Laggy dropdown menus make it so that I'm often worried and super careful about giving a dog a rare item.<br /> <br /> One more idea I had was making it so timestopped dogs can have items added while frozen. It's already possible to take an item off without unfreezing the dog, but if I want to redecorate the scene, I have to take off the timestop then wait til rollover to put it back on. This is inconvenient and annoying, and I'm not aware of any reason why it can't be changed.<br /> <br /> Thoughts on these things?
edit history
2012-02-07 15:57:45 by #6889

02-7-2012 at 5:48 AM
Oooh I have another suggestion. TP-sorting like we have for sales.. but for auctioned dogs too :D

02-3-2012 at 7:24 PM
I have a suggestion that's food-related. Take the chocolate bunnies, creme eggs and peeps out of the food dropdown menu. I was in a rush feeding dogs yesterday and ran out of Agility Affair and didn't notice, almost fed my dogs chocolate bunnies.<br /> Kind of hazardous putting rare foods there that are so easily clickable :T
edit history
2012-02-03 19:25:10 by #5484

01-27-2012 at 11:03 AM
Bumping. ^^<br /> <br /> Also had a thought about people who may use the "Which item would you like to use?" page in the same way Clayton does. Doing the feeding in this order - Click food to open in new tab > Choose dog from dropdown > Feed, close tab, repeat - would allow one to feed their dogs pretty efficiently without the "choose individual item" page. If that page was eliminated it would be less clicks than the other method.<br /> <br /> Heh, just a thought, since these suggestions were meant to make things more convenient for everyone. I'd hope not to inconvenience anyone if possible, even if it's just a small percentage of people.

01-12-2012 at 12:09 AM
Ohh I see. I feed my dogs individually like that, but I\'d rather the page just reload than have that many tabs open. Though of course reloading is a pain with a ginormous inventory; this could theoretically be solved if viewing all wasn\'t the default - one could be redirected to the subcategory they were in, instead of back to all the items.

01-11-2012 at 11:48 PM
Noooo.<br /> Okay say I have 6 dogs<br /> I want to feed dogs 1, 3 and 5 Agility Affair Chow.<br /> The dogs are all in different kennels or are unkenneled. Anyways, I want to JUST feed those dogs.<br /> Instead of moving them all to 1 kennel for a second, I do the following.<br /> <br /> - Middle-click Earthly Goods > Inventory [I always middle-click because I find tabs convenient]<br /> - Click ``Food``<br /> - Middle-click Agility Affair three times because I only want to feed those three mixed-kennel dogs.<br /> - In the first tab, I click the top ``Select Item``, in the second tab, I click the second ``Select Item``, etc<br /> - I go back to the first tab and click Dog #1 from the list and click Use Item.<br /> - I go to the 2nd tab and click Dog #3 from the list and click Use Item.<br /> - I go to the 3rd tab and click Dog #5 from the list and click Use Item.<br /> <br /> All the specific dogs I wanted fed are fed without needing to put them in certain kennels. Very fast, very easy.<br /> Takes me less than 30 seconds.

01-11-2012 at 10:59 PM
Clayton, do you mean you open multiple tabs from the \"Which item would you like to choose\" page? I don\'t know if middle-click is different from right clicking to open a new tab, but I can\'t actually do that on that page. If you open multiple tabs from the food category page, then taking out the \"which item\" page would still just save time.

01-11-2012 at 10:32 PM
I support all of em but I\'m on the fence about \"Inventory Views B.\"<br /> I love the \"which item would you like to choose\" option on single-use items like food. When I want to feed multiple dogs that aren\'t in the same kennel [like one of the dogs in my Untrained Kennel and one of my Trial Dogs, etc etc]<br /> What I do is I go to \"Food\" and middle-click as many food cans as I want, click the ones I want to use going down the list in each tab and feeding the dogs I\'d like to feed.

01-11-2012 at 1:50 PM
I like the \"Are you sure you want to log out\" pop up - I tend to accidentally hit \"Log Out\" when I\'m on my phone, and I always hold my breath that the pop up is still there >.&lt;

01-11-2012 at 10:09 AM
Wow I never realized so many other people had problems with that login box. XD It is indeed pretty frustrating, especially having to log in and out between accounts. I also question the necessity of the popup asking if you\'re sure you want to log out, but I suppose some might find it helpful.<br /> <br /> Ehm, I had the same problem with the games blocking the menu a little while back. It went away when I upgraded Firefox (I had a pretty outdated version), so it\'s possible it could be some sort of browser issue.<br /> <br /> Thank you for the support everyone! :)

01-10-2012 at 3:01 PM
Support on everything.<br /> The login pop-up doesn\'t normally give me much trouble, but I can see how it would be an issue for a lot of other users. It\'s also part of what makes it impossible for me to access Alacrity from my phone.<br /> <br /> There\'s a couple problems with the flash games-- the sound/music thing can be really bothersome, and things like that are why I end up just leaving my entire computer muted most of the time.<br /> It would also be nice if the games wouldn\'t completely block the dropdown lists.<br /> <br /> An organisation system for the mass handle is really a must. Most of us that use it do so because we have massive inventories, and it\'d be a hassle to do everything individually. Unfortunately, just trying to find each item in the mass handle is nearly as difficult. I always end up going back two or three times because I miss things/couldn\'t find items during my first go through.<br /> <br /> <br /> The inventory subcategories.. ..are almost useful. In theory. What\'s suggested in the OP would be great ways to make them <i>actually</i> useful. Because you have to switch to them each time, and go through all the extra clicks/screens of choosing the individual item, it makes it twice the work as just using your main inventory.

01-9-2012 at 10:15 PM
oh, and with the game one i think it`d be useful to have a reset button on any that don`t have one.

01-9-2012 at 10:14 PM
support all!<br />

01-7-2012 at 11:19 AM
Completely support!

01-7-2012 at 9:47 AM
Total support on all accounts :/ The login thing is really annoying too. Sometimes Opera will load slow and I\'ll click a second time, just when the box shows up and it\'s gone and I miss it two or three more times because of it x-x

01-7-2012 at 8:50 AM
Support!<br /> <br /> My phone just doesn\'t like the log-in.... It\'s a struggle everyday.

01-7-2012 at 8:28 AM
support! great ideas:)

01-7-2012 at 8:00 AM
I agree with everything on here

01-7-2012 at 8:00 AM
I agree with everything on here

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