I’m going to post preview videos and screenshot of TroopTrack 4 here for you to review and give us feedback on. TroopTrack 4 will go live on December 27!
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I’ve thought a lot about what I should do about customers who complained that the initial look and feel of TT4 was hard on the eyes. I decided to introduce theming to help with this. When TT4 is live, you will be able to choose from a number of themes. Here’s a preview of what that will look like. It’s not all available themes, and I need to make some adjustments to a few of them, but you get the idea.
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Themes are a great idea, you will never please everyone with a single setup, this allows for flexibility. Hopefully the available themes will cover the majority of users likes. I can see it now, discussions/arguments within units as to which theme to use. Get ready for the “Can each user have their own theme?” question too.
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This looks like a great way to appease a lot of people!
haha @AaronStorey Don’t even speak such things!! 
I can tell you a LOT of people in my troop will ask that question!
I will definitely miss the icons. Icons are a great way of making navigation much easier and more intuitive. The all text driven menus look like a step back.
I think losing the icons will be the biggest problem. Here is a shot from linkedin. Having the icons as well as the notification numbers are a big help in ease of navigation,
I’m not opposed to the icons returning. Let me think about it.
Again you will never please everyone, I personally like the simpler streamlined view. There are just as many companies with simple menus and no icons on their websites. In the end it’s all subjective to the individuals taste.
As far as the icons go, I don’t think we’ll get to it by Dec. 27. If we do add icons, it will probably be an opt-in. I also prefer the streamlined look.
One thing that was a bit jarring when I saw the TT4 design, was the lack of sections. In the older version, there were borders or even a simple drop shadow around sections that were of similar or related content. Without that, it truly just looked like small text on a blank field of white.
Another thing that was odd was the manage crews page (we are a sea scout unit). We don’t like how the photos for each person take up so much space. In the older version we just turned that off so you had smaller blocks with just the member’s name and position. We hope we have the option to do that again and not be forced to see photos, even the default one.
I think you had mentioned that the tabs in the management sections were coming back instead of the dropdown menu. YES! Please do that. It’s so much easier to tab between things that way.
The biggest problem we faced was when the new version was launched, online payments completely broke. Nobody was able to make any payments. This is more of a backend coding issue but the issue is still important.
Those are my thoughts at the present moment. I’m sure there will be more as I see the new TT4 version.
@AaronStorey, we are planning on making themes available to each individual user. Currently we made themes troop-wide just to prove out the concept.
@JustinWeaver We are currently working on all of the concerns you brought up about TT4. Your feedback is super valuable. You can see an example of the manage crews/dens/patrols/unit page in the screenshot Dave added above. The profile tabs are already added back into TT4:
@JustinWeaver When you talk about sections, what are you referring to? Which page did you notice something different in that regard? Would you be interested in continuing to test TT4 and provide feedback? If so click here: About the TT4 Beta Users category
Hi Tyler,
I’ve attached an example screenshot of what I was referring to. As you can see, even a slight color gradient from the website at large encapsulates the content. You know they are all linked as relevant. This may not work in every location that content is displayed, however, in places where different types of content are displayed on a single screen, it does help the user focus in on the related content that they care about at that moment. When the screen is all one color and the text just floats there with no definition of boundary, it all just feels mushed together.
That is awesome, I was joking that it would come up, you guys are doing a great job.
Hi Justin,
I definitely understand. Thank you for bringing this up. That is awesome feedback. We will be sure to make sure that sections, groupings, and other related features are clearly defined and marked in TT4. It looks like you specifically mentioned the manage units page. Is there any other specific area that you would like to be grouped or sections such as this?
Tyler
TroopTrack
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Can the icons be an optional thing, like a theme or part of a theme? (Sooooo not a programmer here so don’t even know if that is possible) I know my troop is technologically challenged. Those badges saved me some serious time b/c I could say, “Look at the top of your page with the badges” and they could always find them.
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Places where I could see this being helpful would certainly be on the dashboard page as shown on the current version of TroopTrack …
A second would be on the main profile page. I could see those groupings around the medical section, the driver section, contact info, etc …
On to something completely different …
One feature that would so so helpful as an admin is a “view as” feature. Where I as an admin can view the site as my scouts would under the “self” permissions or as my parents with “household” permissions. It would be helpful because I know I see features on the site that my members can not. In order to see what they see, this sort of “view as” feature would be HUGE.
Thanks for all you guys do!
TroopTrack is a lifesaver for us so we are just as invested as you guys are in seeing this system flourish.
Justin,
We completely agree with what you are saying about defining sections better. This is awesome feedback, and because of this we have already began working on it in the TT4 update. What do you think about the below pictures as an example of the dashboard and profile pages?
Dashboard
Profile Tab on Profile Page
Thanks,
Tyler
TroopTrack
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Oh heck yea!!
That’s awesome.
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This looks great. I support this view.