New visual anomaly on slide out menu

[#1]

Seen this a few times today, when using the slide out menu.

The Bell symbol has a non zero notification count but the menu option "My Notifications" does not. So the code to build the slide menu seems to be retrieving the notification count multiple times and then building the menu using 2 sources for the same item.

Not a biggy but a visual annoyance.

[#2]

Classy coding technique?

[#3]

The user menu will update the numbers for notifications and private messages whenever it is opened. It can sometimes stick and not render properly if you have a slow/unreliable connection or if the community is under a heavy load (today has been extremely busy with a lot of guests and almost 150 logged in members). Not much I can do about this one I'm afraid.

[#4]

@jaread83

I know the forum is busy today (120+ logged on , 200+ guest). Amazing what a collapse of peering does to the traffic, indeed I couldn't get here during the collapse .

But I think this anomaly is just symptomatic of how Lithium wrote the product. You retrieve once, use many so that the counters cannot be displayed as different values. It is common coding practice and something I have beaten into dozens of programmers over the years.

So we will not agree on this matter

[#5]

Fair enough.

If it happens to you again, can you grab me a screenshot of exactly what you are talking about? It hasn't happened in a while to me but I am curious to see what you guys see so we can pass the feedback over to lithium about it.

[#6]

So one notification identified to the right of the Bell symbol but the menu item does not have a number against it. I would have expected it to read "My Notifications (1)" as I have seen it say  "My Notifications (3)" today when the top line value was 3 which implies that the number should be added to the menu item for any non zero value.

[#7]

Ah right, okay.. so what you are seeing is a customisation of my own here. The 'my notifications' and 'private messages' parts are actually my own custom modules I created and crow barred into the user menu that was built by lithium. They do not have access to the ajax request that happens when the menu is clicked and the top row is updated. The number on the 'my notifications' and 'private messages' are driven by requesting the API on page load and do not update.

I might be able to write some javascript that would update those numbers on the user menu being clicked but I have a feeling it would be more complicated than simply taking the number (that updates after the click) and placing it in those items. You will see that the useful links bar at the bottom does the same as they also do not have access to the ajax request.

So this is actually working as expected. Those two items are my own customisation to the existing system (that I do not have full access to). I am not entirely sure if I can change this tbh.

[#8]

@SpendLessTime - I think that this issue is related to this one, as I assume they are a common component, so we can assume that this has not been changed so it implies that whatever this references has the issue.

[#9]

@Anonymous - this is a seperate issue.

This is my custom components for 'my notifications' and 'private messages' not updating the numbers via ajax when the user menu is clicked. My components use the API to get those numbers and not the same code that is used to update the numbers on the top row.

Edit: I have posted on the Lithium developer network to see if I am able to access the ajax request in a similar way for my customisation of the menu. Fingers crossed I get an answer soon otherwise I am going to have to do a little bit of tinkering.

[#10]

Yes I spotted the Useful Links didn't update when the menu is slide out as is as shown but wasn't worried as I can happily see that clicking the menu doesn't need to necessarily force an update elsewhere on the page.

At least now you know the issue, I had thought it might just be another Lithium arithmetic issue like unread counts etc. I'm willing to leave as is, just thought it should be flagged up. Doesn't happen all the time, just randomly.

[#11]

It can happen if you clear your notifications and open the user menu on another tab. When you open the usermenu again the number will still be there on my custom sections if you haven't refreshed the page.

This was functionality that was requested by some of the forum members that have access to the stage site and I met them halfway with what you see now as I couldn't get that ajax request to work on my menu items I created.

I will put a pin in it for now. I have posted on the developer network about it. If they have a solution I will see if I can implement at some point but I have a feeling there isn't a way to do this so it might need a bit of javascript cloning to happen.

[#12]

@jaread83 - Fair enough, I obviously misunderstood a previous post of yours, I thought that the blue area to the left of this post was your (only) component. I was unaware you had custom additions to the slide out menu but I'm a wiser man now.

[#13]

You wouldn't recognise this site when I first got my hands on it. We thought it would be a simple case of skinning it up and away you go. Looking into it more closely, I could create new stuff using the community api and the standard installation was pretty bare bones.

The test users came along when I had got it around half way to what we have now, they really helped shape things around here and I am thankful for their suggestions and comments - I am hoping to keep making more stuff here that would really help you guys use the community and make it easier to use.

[#14]

All we need now @jaread83 is to encourage lithium to show the same enthusiasm in fixing the 'bugs' identified in the core product.  Not an encouraging professional approach to code maintenance so far. 

Limited point in applying polish to the edges until the base is stable.

[#15]

@MauriceC