topic Re: "a fresh new look" in Community Site Feedback

"a fresh new look"

PeeGee — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 10:05:35 GMT

What is the purpose of the "fresh new look" - apart from "we did it because we could"?

- increased wasted space, requiring additional scrolling (the opposite to what is needed)

- additional board links that give you 200 links to individual posts in the 10 or 15 threads with new posts

- additional section links that give the previous item for every board in the section

Phil

Re: "a fresh new look"

jaread83 — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 10:10:30 GMT

The forum page was needing a refresh to be in line with the Plusnet brand. I made the best use of the space as I could by providing additional links to the 'unread' pages for specific boards and categories which was something that was highly requested due to the normal unread page being a bit of a catch all.

You can turn off a lot of the links to 'latest post' and 'latest thread' in your options here: https://community.plus.net/t5/user/myprofilepage/tab/user-preferences:portal

That will remove a lot of the links on each board and might be easier to look at if you prefer to do that.

Re: "a fresh new look"

MauriceC — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 10:33:06 GMT

Early days yet, but my initial reaction to many of the changes is not favourable. The major annoyance for me is the substantial increase in the amount of White Space paricularly on the Forum page. It 'shouts' at me and is not comforable to view.

I like a number of the new features but navigation now feels a lot more 'clunky'. Time will tell.

Re: "a fresh new look"

PeeGee — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 10:33:15 GMT

Nothing there that seems relevant - I have already made my selections.

I have reduced space wastage by personal filters in "ublock" to remove avatars (why is that not available?), but it requires an edit every time a new one appears.

I would also block the forum icon, if I could find a way to easily do so - that would reduce space wastage considerably - as it performs no useful function.

I suppress sigs because there is no sensible way to block the extremely irritating animated gifs etc that some people think are amusing/... Unfortunately, that also removes useful sigs with links.

Phil

Re: "a fresh new look"

PeeGee — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 12:18:59 GMT

Thinking over one of the new options, would it not be more useful to have a View threads with unread posts rather than the View unread posts that has been added? Whilst they do a largely similar task (and display posts in context when followed), the former would group the posts into thread links removing the redundancy of multiple links to a single thread.

Phil

Re: "a fresh new look"

jaread83 — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 12:46:02 GMT

When you click through to view the unread posts there is a tab at the top of the list to switch between topics and posts.

Re: "a fresh new look"

PeeGee — Tue, 29 Nov 2016 13:30:44 GMT

Missed that , but it's only nearly there as it is not sticky, so not a Fix.

Phil

Re: "a fresh new look"

St3 — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 12:39:25 GMT

I must admit i dont like the new forum changes i think they looked much better before hand.

Re: "a fresh new look"

rongtw — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 14:23:29 GMT

I dont like it either it looks like all one piece , Not enough space between each board the dotted line is too indistinct .

But i do like the link on each board for unread posts

Re: "a fresh new look"

jaread83 — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 15:28:57 GMT

As a little side project for myself that may benefit others who wish for better use of space, I was thinking of creating a 'compact' version of the community that can be applied via a browser CSS override addon (like the others that were created in the User Themes thread).

Would this be something you guys would be interested in? If so, I can make a start on it and receive feedback on it if interested? it would be something I'd have to do in my own time but I think having the option to change things like that might help anyone who would prefer a compact version.

Re: "a fresh new look"

jab1 — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 16:18:47 GMT

@jaread83 - sounds a good idea, Jack. I'm not TOO bothered, but there does seem to be an aversion to how the forums 'look' from some people.

Personall, I'd like the SMF forums back, but I can just about put up with this modern rubbish.

Re: "a fresh new look"

jaread83 — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 16:20:38 GMT

Everyone has their own preferences and I respect that.

I will see what I can cobble together for a compact view for those who would be interested.

Re: "a fresh new look"

jab1 — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 16:25:12 GMT

@jaread83 - Thanks - and I was (half)-joking.

Re: "a fresh new look"

PeeGee — Thu, 01 Dec 2016 09:44:47 GMT

@jaread83 - that sounds a useful idea - anything that changes the layout to remove most of the 75% white space/wasted space must be an improvement