I don't know if anyone has mentioned this, and if so then this is a pointless thread, but what if we could have toolbar like MySpace? MySpace's toolbar automatically signs you in and notifies you if you have any new mail messages, friend requests, and comments. I find MySpace's toolbar useful.

So I was wondering: What if RPoL had a toolbar too - letting us know if we had new rMail, or any PMs, or general messages? It saves the hassle of logging in and out.

It's just an idea, or suggestion is more the cause, but I think I'd find it useful in a way at least, but other's may not, but just being open minded for once.

♥Zoey♥

So kinda like RSS feeds but more advanced?

Yes, just like that.

/Me like!

I doubt I'd use it. I stay logged on all the time with my sticky list open, which works pretty well to keep me notified of updates. I'm also not a big fan of toolbars in general -- they take up valuable real estate on my screen.

My suspicion is that it would be a lot of work for what at least I consider to be not much benefit.

Still it is an interesting idea. Could something like a Firefox add-on be developed by an interested volunteer using the RSS feed?

Personally, I have RPoL set  as one of my home pages and leave that browser window logged into RPoL all the time I am online.  Whenever I have a few moments spare, I open up the tab and hit refresh.  No need to log in or out at all.

Actually, if I am doing something complex with a game post, I might well have  two or three tabs showing different RPoL pages and another two or three showing other external pages I find relevant.  Sometimes, if I am working on something particularly complex,  they will stay open in the browser for hours at a time.

I've never been on Myspace so do not know what you mean by a tool bar, but if you mean something that will attach itself to a browser like those silly Yahoo! type things, then count this a -1 vote for it.

I don't know that a browser toolbar would be especially easy to make. It would be for Firefox, but I'd worry about IE. I don't know Jase's background for such things. I'd also be worried about it creating additional security vulnerabilities.

I doubt this could be integrated in a way that would actually provide accurate information, what with new tabs and refreshing and all that. The current system is fine enough.

Add to which that you'd actually need to come to RPoL to read/reply to any messages anyway.  -1 here.

In reply to DecoderZoey (msg #1):


*points to jump menu*

I have to admit - I do not want a tool bar.  I agree my real estate on my own computers is too in demand and on other machines - not mine to mess with.

However, that being said, I don't know how easily this can be done given all OS, but a toggle that could lock the jump to be always ontop would be nice.

Unfortunately the Jump Menu / Sticky List doesn't work on  my hand held.  Which is a real pity as the clean interface loads much faster than the standard RPoL front page.  For me, 'Jump Menu' with ordinary HTML links rather than embedded Java links would be brilliant  :)

+1 The jump menu gets in the way (or hides behind other windows)... I'd rather have a toolbar, if it could be made to work properly.

I honestly find little use in the jump/sticky list. I just put RPOL on a tab and when I want to look at it I click on the tab and refresh. Done.

A toolbar would be interesting but as Alhaja said, the real estate on my page is limited. I can't see putting it on and all it does is tell me I have a post/PM.

All in all I'd have to say I'd never use it, but I don't find anything objectionable about it and I could see how it could be useful to some people.

+0

Some of us are very resistant to more toolbars.  We like ours the way we've painstakingly got it set up, and 'RPoL' already has its niche of honor.

If it could be a subscription 'feature' that would help support the site, I would be okay with it so long as I didn't have to use it as part of the subscription.

As a feature available to all, there are far too many things that I think would be more useful to more people.

-1 as a general feature
+1 as a subscription feature

Idea;

What about the current exisiting toolbar on the machine in question (for example Google toolbar) Could there be a way to create a icon that informs a user they have a new post in a game? then when they hover over the NMI the game name itself is shown?

for example i'm browsing antoher site and then the ticker goes off showing i have a new post in a game, I hover over the NMI and it would say "<gamename> has 1 new post since your last visit" (of if there are more then one game with posts it would list maybe up to three of the most recent games, and the number of posts in each since last vist?)

All just thoughts

Someone else would need to program this, I have absolutely zero skill in this area.

-1

I dont like browser tool bars.

If I want to know whats up I do one click on my "favorites" menu, let alone setting it up as a homepage whenever the browser is started.

Not much benefit, rather code time went elsewhere.

-1 to any toolbar ideas as well.  I never use them myself, and I don't think RPoL would benefit from the coding time spent on it.  I'd suspect, too, that like the pop-up sticky list, it would be fresh only once every fifteen minutes anyway (due to concern for the server), so with an option for this already there (the pop-up sticky list), there's no need to duplicate it in a fancier, easier-to-break method that worms itself into people's browsers.

-1 from me - I too dislike toolbars and I don't think there's a need when one can simply keep a tab open and refresh the page every so often.