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New site dislikes


Phil McCavity
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After exploring the new site for a bit now, I have to say I am slightly less than whelmed but have not found it fully underwhelming.

- Ads are WAY too big and interrupt the flow of the forum threads.

- This reputation and post liking thing: I dislike it intensely. I've run into it on other forums, and it just leads to chasing votes by self appointed experts and wannabe ego maniacs. There are enough members here with an overinflated opinion of themselves already and it is not something that should be encouraged. Although, if it can be taken into -ve figures I am game for the challenge of first to -100! ;D

- Grey text, white background. I have good eyesight and it's hard on my peepers, so I wonder what it's like for others here. White or black text on a soft grey background is much easier for viewing onscreen.

- I was going to rant about the missing Latest Posts option, but setting up your own feed actually works quite well in clearing out a lot of what I don't care to read.

- Pretty certain the poster byline to the left could be smaller; it seems to be the main culprit for very deep post boxes and leads to a greater degree of scrolling, which I'm clearly not the only person to find irksome.

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I’ve been holding off commenting but this new site appears to be awful. 
as many say, far to much white space. I used to be able to dip in, look at the latest posts, comment if I wished and leave. Absolutely everything seems to be double spaced. Finding what’s happening is such a faff I just leave again. I hate to be so negative but that’s my first impression, sorry. 
I’ll pop back in a bit to see if things have improved.  

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14 minutes ago, EarlyBird said:

It's a work in progress and is getting better and easier to use.

It does take a bit of getting used to. Over the last two days I have changed my opinion and now think this is so much better.

No double posts for one!

I agree.  At first I thought end of an era but it gives so much more functionality, what we’ve all been asking for for years.  
 

Hats off to everyone involved behind the scenes. 

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The mods have spent most of their waking hours on the site all week without noticing any particular discomfort but we've been aware that opinions on the visual appearance have varied - usually either strong liking for the lighter and more modern look or the exact opposite.

It may depend on your viewing platform or personal visual characteristics.  What are you viewing it on Graham?

In terms of usability, yes it is different from the old site but it's encouraging that I've seen a number of posts where people who were very wary or even openly anti, have come back after a day or two's familiarity and told us that they are now enjoying using the enhancements and their reservations are either gone or greatly diminished.

In terms of navigation, try to forget the previous site which, to be fair, attracted constant criticism for its quirks and old fashioned capabilities (or rather lack of capabilities) and try some of the new methods of navigating.  Most people have found that after a short steep learning curve, the advantages have soon become apparent.

We are listening to all observations and several points have been rectified or improved.  The new forum is a work in progress and we welcome all reasonable opinions.

 

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I appreciate all the time and effort which must have gone into developing the new site, and all of the buttons and features work fine on my main PC computer. . However, the site is noticeably poorer on my mobile devices. 

On (modern) mobile devices, some features are absent and the performance is slow. . It is a bit like driving a car with a busted turbo charger, a fuel leak, and with very faulty steering...... plus the occasional puncture thrown in for good measure. 

Hopefully it is still a work in progress. . . and I really want it to work.

I shall keep looking in from time-to-time to see if there is an improvement. 

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I’m struggling with the typeface also. Larger thicker font wouldn’t go along way. Getting used to it.

this time next year we’ll all be dab hands at it, the font needs addressing. There’s no point being on the forum if it gives you a headache every time you read it

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It would be nice if we had the choice of displaying the 'activity' information on the right of the screen, or turning it off 

Grey font on desktops certainly needs addressing - quite surprised that was not found, and fixed, early in testing

It will be nice when images are sorted out, so we can either add to albums (or be able to choose to delete them and start again

But, the majority, including me, have no major issues. Having implemented thousands of IT changes in my career, I know it is impossible to please everyone.

Again, well done all

GG

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Martin, Thank you for your response. I view the pages using a MacBook Pro.

I know that I do have medical problems with my eyes - cateracts removal, laser surgery etc. What I feel would help greatly is a slight increase in font size, change of font colour and much less white space. This page for example - almost half the page is blank and causing glare. colour needs to be introduced back to the site.

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11 minutes ago, Graham R said:

Martin, Thank you for your response. I view the pages using a MacBook Pro.

I know that I do have medical problems with my eyes - cateracts removal, laser surgery etc. What I feel would help greatly is a slight increase in font size, change of font colour and much less white space. This page for example - almost half the page is blank and causing glare. colour needs to be introduced back to the site.

Agree 100%, font size appears grey and is very wearing to read. Everything else, getting/got used to it and I think is positive -its just the font, not distinct enough, can't get used to it although have spent quite some time on the forum, finishing up with headache. Please take some action.

You mods must be worn out..... 

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If it's any help to Firefox users who are struggling with the grey text, it is possible to override the web site's fonts and colours with your own choice. Go to the Firefox menu at the top right (looks like three bars), click and choose 'options'. Then scroll down until you find 'language and appearance'. Under 'fonts and colours' click on 'colours' and you can choose to have Firefox replace the site's colours with those of your choosing. If you click on 'advanced' you can also change the fonts and text size. The only drawback is that it will do this for all websites and although it works very well on this one, it doesn't always look so good on others. It is easy to leave the options open in a separate tab though and switch back and forth. I wouldn't be surprised if other browsers had this ability too.

By the way, this is my first post on the new site and I think it is huge improvement. Well done to all involved.

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I like the new appearance to a point but why so much wasted space down the sides compressing everything into a 50% band down the middle, then compounding it by huge post frames containing nothing but space. On my PC seeing just 3 one line posts per page is tedious scrolling through and then when one picture is included that takes up half the available viewing area. I Dred to think what a pain scrolling through a build blog will be like. 

Don't get me wrong change was required but on a forum with less topics I can live with the wasted space but here where there are so many to scroll through and navigate around, compact (to a point) content in one screen is very important and this format personally missies the sweet spot by a mile.

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Yes folks, it seems that the 'Top Posters' box appears after a certain number of posts - perhaps after one page worth? - and it results in a random appearance to the pages, depending on the thread you're viewing. We're working on it but, being the weekend, may not get it solved just yet.

Bear with us....

Pete

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