Making WordPress.org

Opened 7 years ago

Closed 7 years ago

#2633 closed enhancement (fixed)

Make full description 'read more' link larger or remove

Reported by: brianhogg's profile brianhogg Owned by:
Milestone: Plugin Directory v3.0 Priority: normal
Component: Plugin Directory Keywords:
Cc:

Description

The 'read more' link is quite small and difficult to click to expand the full description. Perhaps a full width button style read-more link, or even remove it to allow the full description to be shown in full?

Without a section for installation instructions, the full description will now need to include them (ie. under a markdown heading "Install Instructions") and is even more important to be shown in its entirety by default.

Attachments (1)

Read More Section Toggle CSS.png​ (60.1 KB) - added by lukecavanagh 7 years ago.
Increase font size on .section-toggle

Download all attachments as: .zip

Change History (22)

#1 @obenland
7 years ago

  • Milestone Plugin Directory v3.0 deleted
  • Priority changed from high to normal

#2 @obenland
7 years ago

Even though it's probably not the highest priority right now, it's definitely something that should be discussed

#3 @lukecavanagh
7 years ago

  • Milestone set to Plugin Directory v3 - Future

Still not a big fan of 'read more' on load. But having Read More to be more visible at least will help.

#4 @samuelsidler
7 years ago

  • Milestone Plugin Directory v3 - Future deleted

Please don't change milestones on tickets unless you're actively working on fixing said ticket.

#5 @lukecavanagh
7 years ago

@samuelsidler

I would gladly work on this meta ticket, I still think it is a valid change for a future version.

@lukecavanagh
7 years ago

Increase font size on .section-toggle

#6 @lukecavanagh
7 years ago

Also the color used in .section-toggle is currently #0073aa, any reason why #dc3232 could not be used, since it is used in .plugin-favorite-heart.favorited?

#0073aa
​http://www.colorhexa.com/0073aa

#dc3232
​http://www.color-hex.com/color/dc3232

Version 0, edited 7 years ago by lukecavanagh (next)

#7 @lukecavanagh
7 years ago

  • Milestone set to Plugin Directory v3 - Future

#8 @samuelsidler
7 years ago

  • Milestone Plugin Directory v3 - Future deleted

#9 @kevinwhoffman
7 years ago

I agree Read more could be more obvious, but as long as Screenshots remain below Description, I am not in favor of removing the Read more altogether. Doing so would push the Screenshots section even farther down the page than it already is.

#10 follow-ups: @brianhogg
7 years ago

I think if the plugin author wants to have the screenshots further down in favour of a longer description, it should be there choice. Could have it expanded by default, and provide a <!--more--> type mechanism to put a read more button if the plugin author wishes?

For many plugins the screenshots really aren't more important than the full description, or even necessary.

#11 in reply to: ↑ 10 @anonymized_11892634
7 years ago

Replying to brianhogg:

Having the ability to control the position of the more tag would be awesome.

#12 in reply to: ↑ 10 @kevinwhoffman
7 years ago

Replying to brianhogg:

I think if the plugin author wants to have the screenshots further down in favour of a longer description, it should be there choice. Could have it expanded by default, and provide a <!--more--> type mechanism to put a read more button if the plugin author wishes?

I may be on board with that. One challenge would be properly setting the height of the Description so as to end at the correct line of content just before the <!--more--> tag in the Readme. The current max-height is set to 400px.

If we could detect the <!--more--> tag and wrap everything before it in a container, that would allow us to position the "Read more" link without any tricky JS height-detection based on content.

Everything after the <!--more--> tag could be wrapped in .screen-reader-text and that class could be removed upon clicking the "Read more" link, thus revealing the entire Description.

With this approach, the full Description would be accessible on page load and the challenge of dynamically positioning the "Read more" link would be mitigated.

This ticket was mentioned in ​Slack in #meta by kevinwhoffman. ​View the logs.


7 years ago

#14 @dd32
7 years ago

I think if the plugin author wants to have the screenshots further down in favour of a longer description, it should be there choice. Could have it expanded by default, and provide a <!--more--> type mechanism to put a read more button if the plugin author wishes?

I dislike this option, and wouldn't support it's implementation.
The reason is that it provides too much control to the plugin author over the page, resulting in a worse UI as every page acts differently.
Although I'm not a fan of the read more links, I feel a consistent user experience between plugins is far more important than plugin authors deciding they want a wall of text.
If the description needs to be slightly longer for all plugins, we can do that, but we should only do that if it's the majority which require it.

#15 @kevinwhoffman
7 years ago

I'm in a place right now where I'm not sure what assumptions to make. My suggestions above were based on the assumption that we would work with the read more links, but I still don't feel that the one-page layout with read more links is the best approach in the first place.

Many of these decisions depend on the overall page layout, which I attempted to call out nine months ago in ticket:1828#comment:4. But instead of addressing design decisions in a hierarchy, we went right back to debating low-level details.

My point is, if we go a different direction in regards to Read more links, then the whole ball game changes and maybe this isn't even a decision that we need to debate.

Last edited 7 years ago by kevinwhoffman (previous) (diff)

#16 @Otto42
7 years ago

I don't like the read more links. Putting that right up front.

However, ideally, the goal to me is that plugins stop making such insanely long readme files. There is no sane reason that a description is 30 paragraphs. If you can't elevator describe your code for a WordPress plugin, then your code is way too dang complicated.

That's just my opinion, and realistically, people are going to continue trying to game the search engine. No doubt. I'm jaded in that respect, and I wish people would lean towards simplicity and maintainability instead.

#17 @pigeonhut
7 years ago

How about moving screenshots to a lightbox and putting them in the sidebar just below ratings, removes the screenshot issue above and gives a lot more visible area before read more becomes an issue.

also, making the tags flow naturally across instead of forcing right alignment and a new line for each one

#18 @chrisbadgett
7 years ago

My vote would be to bring back the full length of the description or allow authors to add a read more tag wherever they like if they wanted it partially hidden.

#20 @nico23
7 years ago

I coded a userscript that brings back tabs in #2679 it at the same time keeps the initial read more crap alive. So you have the "best" of both worlds.

Really most people hate the read more thing. I really like the new look, if only header specs would be updated. I don't get why its released without doing that first and what it keeping them from releasing new.

I would love to see that live on wp.org and see the stats of people who would click the buttons (they may be looking more like tabs soon) rather then scroll down and click read more. One of the things I do a lot when checking out new plugins is actually looking at the code first. I That the most annoying thing now. I need to scroll all the way down, then click read more because even a tiny tiny section like developers is not expanded by default. And its the last one, it makes no fucking sense, it expands just another tiny 400px in hight or something. I mean sorry but who made this shit?

The initial height of the sections should be made higher right now. That would make it at least a bit more tolerable.

Oh great I am so glad I decided to rant about it here, I just got another idea for my script I will make that initial height bigger now.

I think its a bit ridiculous to claim the goal is to reduced readme lengths, then make is so super short the petty much nobody can describe a plugin in that space, and if you know people need/will click more anyway then you won't reduce your readme at all. That makes no sense at all. Also if you have a video there you not have any space for text.

Last edited 7 years ago by nico23 (previous) (diff)

#21 @ocean90
7 years ago

  • Milestone set to Plugin Directory v3.0
  • Resolution set to fixed
  • Status changed from new to closed
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