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New Forum Look

Cornfed
Cornfed Posts: 1,324
edited November -1 in EggHead Forum
OK, I'm definitely slow on the uptake, and am very bad at paying attention these days.

I'd been using a bookmark which for some reason had me looking at the forum in the old format (?? I did zero investigation, but that appears to be it). But now it appears I can go directly to eggheadforum.com and have the forum load as I want it (previously you had, what, 2 extra clicks to get to content. Now those appear to not be needed).

Anyway, I have to say that now that I have that straightened out I do like the new look a lot so far. I think it's a nice improvement. First, no need for extra clicks, and I can just go right to eggheadforum.com. Second, I love how I can hide the Update Central and Eggfest Central content when I want to. That's definitely my default view since, in general, it's the forum content I want to view when I visit the forum.

My only remaining gripes, and they're minor, are:
I wish I could hide the Who's Online and Poll options which currently straddle the forum content in my view. It's very possible that I can do this, but I haven't taken the time yet to know how. I think this is already much better than before and we're getting more content after the first click, but if I had things exactly my way, my default view would be almost all forum content plus just that top navigation bar (which I also like, by the way. Nice and unobtrusive).

I wish the Back button worked as I'd expect. The Return to Index is a nice mitigation, but I still forget pretty often and hit Back like I do on all other forums.

The forum *seems* a little faster than before, but that could just be me not paying attention. But it could still be a little more zippy.

Again, those are minor nits, and really after a couple quick looks this appears to me to be a very nice improvement. I even like the slightly darker color scheme.

I also really like the ability to subscribe to topics with email alerts. That's something I'm starting to use a bunch, and something I use on many other forums (it does get my inbox a little more out of control than it already was, but that's a great feature in general).

Great work, WMK and WPB (what does that stand for?). Thanks!
Cornfed

Comments

  • Cornfed
    Cornfed Posts: 1,324
    OK, 3 seconds of additional research has allowed me to learn how to hide the left and right panes.

    Beautiful!!! Now I go to eggheadforum.com and see just about ALL content! I LOVE IT!

    Great work, webmasters!
    Cornfed
  • Cornfed
    Cornfed Posts: 1,324
    Now this is even readable on the iPhone. I'm giddy.
  • FlaPoolman
    FlaPoolman Posts: 11,676
    Glad I could help. :laugh: :whistle:
  • drbbq
    drbbq Posts: 1,152
    I agree with all of that. It's come a long way and is very nice now.
    Ray Lampe Dr. BBQ
  • WMK
    WMK Posts: 1,747
    Cornfed,

    I'm glad that you like the new look.

    Regarding the "back" button: for me, though I confess this is an untended, though welcome, side effect of the new template, the "back" button, when returning to the index, no longer does an implied "refresh" as it did on the old template. This is more like the way it worked on the old forum; and, perhaps more like other forums as well.

    The "classic" view, however, simply does not lend itself very well to the use of the back button because it requires so many clicks to read a long thread; and, so requires just as many back button clicks to return to the index. This is why the "Return to index" link was added -- to provide a direct means "back" to the index no matter how many messages you've read since you last viewed it.

    Regarding speed: I think that perhaps the new template is a bit more friendly to browsers; so, it may indeed appear a bit faster owing to its being rendered quicker by the browser. This may also be why the back button behaves differently.

    Eventually, we'll find the time to add features like a view that shows only threads you've marked for "tracking"; and, to get the RSS feeds to work properly.
  • hayhonker
    hayhonker Posts: 576
    THIS could bring folks out of lurking. Great job!
  • WMK
    WMK Posts: 1,747
    hayhonker,

    Thanks to you and everyone for their positive comments.

    Unfortunately, no matter what we do, there still are those that find nothing positive to say. Again, and again, we are forced to accept, that it is indeed impossible to please everyone :(.

    It's odd how, given the significant majority of positive comments and votes, that so few negative comments, or "good", and worse, votes, can be so demoralizing.

    We are soon going to be putting up the "tip jar" as some have suggested, but we've typically deferred working on that in favor of making improvements that benefit everyone (not just us). We also intend to provide merchandise of some sort (e.g. t-shirts) as "thank you" gifts for contributions (i.e. like public broadcasting). It would be nice to think that there's enough appreciation out there for what we've done to make it worth our time to implement it.

    And there are those, and likely more that have not spoken out, that want VBullitin, or the like, instead of the forum we have. They invariably view our forum as "product support" for the BGE -- which it isn't -- unless I'm mistaken and you all think of yourselves as BGE support personnel.

    As I said in response to yet another such post in "Forum Feedback", perhaps, given their rapid growth, it's time for BGE to purchase VBullitin, or the like, and implement a true support forum for those expect that type of forum. Unlike our forum, such forums are typically moderated by full time support personnel who provide "authoritative" answers to customer issues; and, they are not "cluttered" with the social type posts that we have here. Perhaps it's time for BGE to consider having both.

    Anyway, back to work....