Would something like this be possible (see screenshot)?

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/927778/facebook%20su...

Maybe a better implementation of the bits I put at the top would be required.

BnC

Yeh, I just took a few screen shots of un-modified facebook and moved stuff around.

Glad you like it, look forward to seeing what you come up with :D

BnC

@BnC - love the screenshot! This is exciting stuff.

A similar thought occurred to me when fb first rolled out the latest changes. I liked how it was before with Highlights and feed all on one screen with no clicking around. Looks like you're headed back that way, and I'm with you on that. But what immediately jumps out from your screenshot is how much duplication there is between the two feeds. At times they become virtually identical. So I would like to see this combined with heavily filtering the News Feed so it only shows stuff that's not also in the Live Feed. (Actually, I already created a topic for this: http://userscripts.org/topics/38472 .)

And I have another idea for the layout that might be easier to implement: instead of moving everything to the top of the screen, leave it all in the right hand column but have it slide in and out with a mouse click like the panel in Google Maps. Then you have the whole screen to work with for the feeds.

Finally, if you can do the side-by-side, please allow a percentage split to be specified so I can allocate more space to Live feed.

@jsb

Those are some good ideas, I like!

I myself don't really display all of the things I have at the top (just pokes and requests) so hiding them in a slidy menu on the right could be pretty cool. I might knock up a screenshot of my interpretation of your idea later (if I get time). The feeds do duplicate, which I find rather annoying but if you could filter the live feed to lets say status updates and photo additions and then filter the news feed to anything else then all should be fine.

BnC

I guess everyone is going to have their own preferences. How about this for the ultimate solution: provide the full set of filter options on both feeds, and allow any two feeds (including all the ones in the left panel) to be selected to show side by side.

I thought something more along the lines of:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/927778/facebook%20su... (tab closed)
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/927778/facebook%20su... (tab open)

Since the side bar stuff isn't used much (I know I don't use it much!) it could just pop over the top like I have mocked up.

Tell me what you think!

BnC

Earlier in this thread I suggested this:

Any chance you can add an option that will automatically load "older posts" on the news feed when you scroll to the bottom? Sometimes if I haven't checked in awhile what they show doesn't go back far enough.

However I have been thinking about it and I was wondering instead of doing that if it would be possible to add a button which would take you to the first new item on the feed. This would be similar to the "first unread post" button on many web forums. It would be great to pick up where I left off on the live feed instead of having to try to remember what the last post I saw was and clicking the more posts button etc...

@Balki - This is similar to my suggestion in another thread: http://userscripts.org/topics/38473. Only I assumed there's no automatic way to know what I've already read. Just because I was online doesn't necessarily mean I was paying attention. Hence the "mark read" button that tells facebook I'm done looking at everything. The other thing to keep in mind is that often a friend comments on a post you've already seen, and in that case you'd want to read it again. So it's not as simple as scrolling down to a certain point and reading forward. This is why I think it's better for the script to hide everything I've already read, leaving visible only new posts and old posts with new comments. What do you think?

I think that you would remember when you was on facebook last and would not scroll to comments past that date or timestamp. And you get notifications if you commented on a post and someone else comments also. I don't know if such a feature like the one you guys are describing would be possible. It sounds pretty difficult to implement in real time without having to refresh the page all the time. Such a feature might be better if used in CSS or Stylish.

@Dink - Nope, I don't remember when I was last on facebook - I guess my memory is not as good as yours. Also people sometimes post similar things to what they've posted before, so it's not obvious. And often one friend posts something and then a few days later other friends see it and post it to their walls, so it reappears over and over in my feed. So if I just scroll down until I see something I recognize I will probably be wrong.

As for the notifications, they are very inefficient because there is a delay before the notification is sent out. So by the time I see a notification and launch facebook, there will be other new things since that one which I might as well read while I'm there - facebook starts up so damn slow I don't want to open and close it more than I have to. So I prefer to use the notification as a trigger to go into facebook, but instead of following the link, I go straight to the feed and read everything that's new.

I guess the thing is we are all different so that's why this script is cool because it has options and we can all choose the options we like.

As far as implementation goes, we should let Vaughan tell us if it's hard or not. But I think processing the feed and hiding specific posts based on timestamp is straightforward enough.

I agree entirely with jsb. Maybe I am dumb but I find it hard sometimes to pick up where I left off with the live feed. There is so much going on that I would rather just see what is new. As I know nothing about programming (past basic and pascal and barely some c++) I will leave it to the professionals to decide if it can easily be implemented. If this feature were present this script would be perfect in my eyes (it is still pretty damn good as is!)

Vaughan - Since I use Adblock Plus, I've added the lines

'#feedwall_with_composer{ width:720px; }'+
'#info_tab{ width:720px; }'

Thanks again, BnC

How about we all let Vaughan get the next stable release out before we throw too much more out at him. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of new features, But I know with Facebook changing up the code so often and every idea we come up with that he has alot on his plate!!! Sorry if i sound rude. I didn't mean to come across that way!

@ Vaughan no i dont care about the cleanliness of the link, i just find that it doesnt work properly...like ill try load a page, and it loads the outline of the page, but none of the data...so to fix that i have to click on my shortcut to facebook.com to get a clean start page, and go from there
its just a pain haha

Could you also make it automatically switch to the live feed when FB loads. I hate having to click the live feed button myself EVERY DAMN TIME!

Thanks for responding to our requests! I look forward to the next version.

Number of notifications in the page title bar is working great, but I noticed a spelling error in the settings option for this feature.

Vaughan, I have a fairly simple idea, Add url links in the config screen to direct to the main page for Fixer here at Userscripts.org and to the script homepage at codepoet.net

That way there is always a very simple link to get users to the discussion pages and such...

Nice scr-shots, @BnC, but really dude, not everybody on the world has a 16:9 monitor, and for this Live Feed / News Feed stuff, I think it would be necessary... :/ (Actually I don't like this look, own opinion.)

@dnbace - I know not everyone has widescreen monitors, I'm running a regular myself alongside my widescreen and my facebook page spends as much time on that screen as it does the other. If it doesn't work for you, you don't have to use it ;-)