Site redesign - 2016 Update #1

[ecobot]

Would be nice if The Mod Manager gets a face lift as well!

[makutamon]

You know What I would like to see? The Website using your download history to create a "recommended for you" page, which selects mods that you might like based on your download history.

[llihP]

In response to post #34788035.

Creos_X wrote: I'm sorry, but I absolutely DO NOT like the block view so I hope you're also implementing the flat view, too into the new design.

For search result pages, yes, you can toggle between both block and flat views

[fifo249]

In response to post #34794445.

monetstargazer wrote: Would be nice if The Mod Manager gets a face lift as well!

Please no. Keep the mod manager as is. More than once have I accidentaly screwed something up because of changes in the MM.

[Forzane]

In response to post #34794445. #34796485 is also a reply to the same post.

monetstargazer wrote: Would be nice if The Mod Manager gets a face lift as well!

fifo249 wrote: Please no. Keep the mod manager as is. More than once have I accidentaly screwed something up because of changes in the MM.

NMM is going for a facelift right before it comes out of Beta...they will be skinning NMM as well

[Numbnumb]

It just really struck me at what a fabulous job Nexus folks and all the mod makers out there do with all of the things that help to make games like Fallout 4 and many to numerous to name such a greater experience playing all the vanilla games. I have been using Nexus Mods for years on a number of games and it has enhanced my experience a thousand fold. Fifty years ago (yes I am old) I could never have conceived of such wow factor!

I have been playing computer games since the first Alien? The one where you moved the cursor from side to side and shot down the invaders as they came down the screen.

The games today are so far ahead and so much more enjoyable because of the people on this site and the folks who run this site and the good folks who design these games.

What a wonderful partnership! THANK YOU ALL!!!!!

[Xander9009]

In response to post #34757035.

Raum777 wrote: Hi Paul; Welcome aboard the Nexus. I'm not sure how I should address this problem so I will try to let you know what others are having a problem with as well as myself. So; I will just jump in and hope I don't drown. I brought this problem up with Robin Scott once; but he just told me to put it in the forum. I did and got one person to finally help me after two years of waiting. Now to the point.

Paul; why is it that every time I sign out of Nexus Mod Manager and then later sign back in to down load a new mod all the mods already in NMM are pulled out of the Manager and dumped? I have to down load them all over again? I purchased all kinds of note books so I would know what mods were lost. I have been doing this at least four of five years now. Ever since Skyrim came out in !!/!!/!!. My friends helped me set up a game folder on my PC and it helped with some mods; but most of the mods made by Authors use the NMM even with the so called Manual download they are not loaded into the game folder properly with out being pulled out later from opening up NMM again. I may be redundant several times in this text, and I ask that you forgive me. Only with NMM will some mods activate in the game. If I'm speaking a different language here please let me know and I will reword this for you.

Mr. Scott did not get what I was trying to tell him. Obviously he did not understand the problem. Every time my PC reboots I lose the NMM Icon from my desk-top. I have to try to bring it up again from Nexus, and when doing so I lose twenty or more mods. This has been going on ever since I joined Nexus. Why does this happen and why can't I load these mods into my Skyrim Game folder manually and they work like they should? I have followed all the steps and only some mods work. When they are loaded into my Game folder they just sit there and take up space. Others will work and are in the game. When I check to see if they are in my loot or Wrye folders they are either there or not there.

It makes me crazy when I hear others having this same problem. You're a programmer; please help me and my friends on Nexus with this crazy problem. And as a follower of Nexus why do you not teach us how to set up for Nexus to begin with? Trying to teach some of us without proper guide lines is like having the dumb teach the dumb. Why does NMM have to dump any mods at all when closing or opening it up? Thank you; Paul and I look forward to your helping us.
Sincerely,
James Roby (raum777)

Well, the easiest solution for such a persistent problem that you're apparently not getting sufficient help with is to abandon it and use something that works for you. Mod Organizer is a fantastic program that you should definitely check out. It's a bit slow to learn how it works, but don't be intimidated. If you have problems or questions, ask its users how to do something and you're likely to get a response. If you don't get a decent response here on its mod page, it has its own forums you can ask on, where you'll get responses from very knowledgeable users, and occasionally even its creator and maintainer. Good luck with getting your mods to cooperate.

As an aside, how come you seem to sign out of NMM instead of just leaving it signed in? (Or does it sign you out when it's closed? I haven't used it in years since I discovered Mod Organizer, so I don't remember...)

[Xander9009]

This is partly a response to another comment, but more importantly, it brings up a different point, so it's being posted as a new comment rather than a reply. However, in response to the idea that the sides of the screen shouldn't be filled in with content is... strange to me. One of the arguments given was ad space, but I just checked with AdBlock disabled and that space is currently not taken up by ads, so there's no ad space being removed by allowing wider content. Another argument given was that the various displays would be difficult to handle while keeping responsive. While I can't say much about how difficult this would be since I'm not a web designer, I can say with relative certainty that it's possible. I've seen various websites that have multiple blocks and panes of data that remain responsive. FB is an incredibly easy, albeit not necessarily /good/ example. However, it doesn't need to be dynamic content, even. It just needs to be /used/ in a /useful/ way. A navigation panel for when you're no longer at the top of the screen to easily navigate would be a good choice. I find it ridiculous and dumb that /literally/ the /majority/ of my browser space is completely blank and devoid of any content. However, while I really dislike the unused space, I won't harp on it.

 

The reason I made this a new response, though, is related to something I brought up that. AdBlock. I mentioned that I use it because I wanted to explain /why/ I use it so hopefully it can be addressed. I've tried greenlighting the Nexus multiple times, but it always results in the same thing. The ads that the page loads, over time and with more than only a very small number of tabs (of the Nexus) open, begin eating ram like crazy until the Nexus tabs all crash or become unusable. I have a lot of ram. I have a very nice laptop easily capable of running Skyrim, handling lots of open programs and CPU intensive tasks, lots of ram heavy applications.

 

See, when I browse the Nexus, I see a mod I like in a list, but I'm not done browsing the list. In order to remember to look at the mod while not losing my place in the list or whatever I've currently doing, I'll open it in a new tab and continue down the list. This often results in many tabs, and that doesn't have good results regarding site usability, since all of those tabs take all my ram due to ads. It doesn't just make the site unusable, though. Since it's taking up the ram, it makes the entire laptop incredibly sluggish.

 

I know it's the ads, because when I enable AdBlock on the site, the problem vanishes immediately. I cannot afford to pay to have the ads removed the proper way (I literally do not have enough for that at the moment, because I live on /very/ little money, and I shouldn't need to pay to use the site in a reasonable manner I like). I cannot run the site effectively with ads, though. So, AdBlock is the only real solution for me. I can't imagine no one else has this issue.

 

I just compared the ram taken by the same page (homepage of Skyrim) with and without AdBlock. With AdBlock, it got up to about 37 MB and 44 MB (two tests). Without AdBlock, it got up to 157 MB and 132 MB. That's a ridiculous and unacceptable ratio. However, I can think of two different approaches to solving this.

1: Either limit the amount of memory the ads can use by making sure that when an ad loads, it's smaller than a given filesize, otherwise, request another ad and discard the first. (I think most webpages should do this to convince ad makers to be more reasonable with their ad's footprints to be more likely for them to be displayed.)

2: Create a tool for use on the site that lets you bookmark a mod for later viewing. See a mod you want to look at later? Queue it up. Mind you, this would need to be available also for text mod links, specifically on the New Today and New Recently pages). When you're ready to run through the mods, go to your queue. For best results, when you load a mod page from within your queue, add a button to remove it and another to go to the next mod.

 

The first would allow multiple tabs to be open without eating GBs of RAM. The second wouldn't affect the ads themelves at all, but would help reduce the need for multiple tabs in the first place, meaning only a much smaller number of Nexus tabs would be open at a given time, making the impact of the massive ad sizes much less strenuous.

 

I realize this would also be solved by paying $2. The problem is that it shouldn't be required to have the Nexus not slow my computer to a crawl. I'm willing to whitelist NexusMods (I have before, in fact).

 

BTW, as I was typing this, I went back to the tab to close it here at the end, and it had catapulted to 1.25 GB. The page itself was at about 225 MB, with shockwave taking up 1 GB (which disappeared when I closed that tab).

 

If you guys are currently redesigning the site, please address this.

[dspeare]

In response to post #34807265.

Xander9009 wrote: This is partly a response to another comment, but more importantly, it brings up a different point, so it's being posted as a new comment rather than a reply. However, in response to the idea that the sides of the screen shouldn't be filled in with content is... strange to me. One of the arguments given was ad space, but I just checked with AdBlock disabled and that space is currently not taken up by ads, so there's no ad space being removed by allowing wider content. Another argument given was that the various displays would be difficult to handle while keeping responsive. While I can't say much about how difficult this would be since I'm not a web designer, I can say with relative certainty that it's possible. I've seen various websites that have multiple blocks and panes of data that remain responsive. FB is an incredibly easy, albeit not necessarily /good/ example. However, it doesn't need to be dynamic content, even. It just needs to be /used/ in a /useful/ way. A navigation panel for when you're no longer at the top of the screen to easily navigate would be a good choice. I find it ridiculous and dumb that /literally/ the /majority/ of my browser space is completely blank and devoid of any content. However, while I really dislike the unused space, I won't harp on it.

The reason I made this a new response, though, is related to something I brought up that. AdBlock. I mentioned that I use it because I wanted to explain /why/ I use it so hopefully it can be addressed. I've tried greenlighting the Nexus multiple times, but it always results in the same thing. The ads that the page loads, over time and with more than only a very small number of tabs (of the Nexus) open, begin eating ram like crazy until the Nexus tabs all crash or become unusable. I have a lot of ram. I have a very nice laptop easily capable of running Skyrim, handling lots of open programs and CPU intensive tasks, lots of ram heavy applications.

See, when I browse the Nexus, I see a mod I like in a list, but I'm not done browsing the list. In order to remember to look at the mod while not losing my place in the list or whatever I've currently doing, I'll open it in a new tab and continue down the list. This often results in many tabs, and that doesn't have good results regarding site usability, since all of those tabs take all my ram due to ads. It doesn't just make the site unusable, though. Since it's taking up the ram, it makes the entire laptop incredibly sluggish.

I know it's the ads, because when I enable AdBlock on the site, the problem vanishes immediately. I cannot afford to pay to have the ads removed the proper way (I literally do not have enough for that at the moment, because I live on /very/ little money, and I shouldn't need to pay to use the site in a reasonable manner I like). I cannot run the site effectively with ads, though. So, AdBlock is the only real solution for me. I can't imagine no one else has this issue.

I just compared the ram taken by the same page (homepage of Skyrim) with and without AdBlock. With AdBlock, it got up to about 37 MB and 44 MB (two tests). Without AdBlock, it got up to 157 MB and 132 MB. That's a ridiculous and unacceptable ratio. However, I can think of two different approaches to solving this.
1: Either limit the amount of memory the ads can use by making sure that when an ad loads, it's smaller than a given filesize, otherwise, request another ad and discard the first. (I think most webpages should do this to convince ad makers to be more reasonable with their ad's footprints to be more likely for them to be displayed.)
2: Create a tool for use on the site that lets you bookmark a mod for later viewing. See a mod you want to look at later? Queue it up. Mind you, this would need to be available also for text mod links, specifically on the New Today and New Recently pages). When you're ready to run through the mods, go to your queue. For best results, when you load a mod page from within your queue, add a button to remove it and another to go to the next mod.

The first would allow multiple tabs to be open without eating GBs of RAM. The second wouldn't affect the ads themelves at all, but would help reduce the need for multiple tabs in the first place, meaning only a much smaller number of Nexus tabs would be open at a given time, making the impact of the massive ad sizes much less strenuous.

I realize this would also be solved by paying $2. The problem is that it shouldn't be required to have the Nexus not slow my computer to a crawl. I'm willing to whitelist NexusMods (I have before, in fact).

BTW, as I was typing this, I went back to the tab to close it here at the end, and it had catapulted to 1.25 GB. The page itself was at about 225 MB, with shockwave taking up 1 GB (which disappeared when I closed that tab).

If you guys are currently redesigning the site, please address this.

Xander9009, to create a queue for later viewing, have you considered the browser plugin "Pocket"? It does essentially what you described (except it works for ALL web pages, not just mod pages here). The queue is maintained between browser sessions and it will even synchronize your queue between multiple browsers or multiple machines. It's available (free) for most of the popular browsers. I have been using it since before they renamed it "Pocket" (it used to be Read It Later) and, so far, it seems to work as advertised. Edited February 21, 2016 by dspeare

[battleslut]

What would be great is if we could set it to give a randomized list of mods within x to y endorsements.