New Look Forums!

Teesie · Post by **Teesie** » 08 Oct 2011, 20:34

Overall I like it. The new look is great. I like the colors. I have mixed emotions about the Quick Reply button. It's great for word association, but as I love to post in purple, I have to click the Full Editor Button. I love the new color selections though. Much better than trial and error to find the right shade of purple. If only I could remember the code # for this shade I could just type out the codes in the quick reply box and save time. It took a little exploring to find my profile and the edit avitar and all that, but know that I know where that's at it's all good. I did notice there's a new Friends feature that's kinda cool. Is anybody using that yet?

Bighuey · Post by **Bighuey** » 15 Oct 2011, 22:09

does anyone know where the new thread button is? I cant find it on here anywhere.

Teesie · Post by **Teesie** » 15 Oct 2011, 22:19

Bighuey wrote:does anyone know where the new thread button is? I cant find it on here anywhere.

I see it at the top left corner of the page. Under the name of the category right beside the search box.

StephenKingman · Post by **StephenKingman** » 16 Oct 2011, 05:15

Bighuey wrote:does anyone know where the new thread button is? I cant find it on here anywhere.

Yep, its on the top left corner of the screen, if you still cant find it let me know and ill inform Scott.

Also, anyone have a problem with static post counts? I posted about 20 posts yesterday and my number stayed the same! Seems to be ok this morning but keep an eye out if this happens.

Bighuey · Post by **Bighuey** » 16 Oct 2011, 11:20

StephenKingman wrote:
Bighuey wrote:does anyone know where the new thread button is? I cant find it on here anywhere.
Yep, its on the top left corner of the screen, if you still cant find it let me know and ill inform Scott.

Also, anyone have a problem with static post counts? I posted about 20 posts yesterday and my number stayed the same! Seems to be ok this morning but keep an eye out if this happens.

I sure dont see it. I see post reply and the search topic box and thats it. Also I dont see the edit button anymore.

Fran · Post by **Fran** » 16 Oct 2011, 11:55

Bighuey wrote:
StephenKingman wrote:
Bighuey wrote:does anyone know where the new thread button is? I cant find it on here anywhere.
Yep, its on the top left corner of the screen, if you still cant find it let me know and ill inform Scott.

Also, anyone have a problem with static post counts? I posted about 20 posts yesterday and my number stayed the same! Seems to be ok this morning but keep an eye out if this happens.
I sure dont see it. I see post reply and the search topic box and thats it. Also I dont see the edit button anymore.

@Bighuey
You won't see it here because you're already in a topic. You only see the New Topic button when you're in one of the forums e.g General Book & Reading Discussion ... Go to Forum Home & click on any of the Forum Titles & it should be there on the top left hand side (under an advertising banner!)

I was a bit confused about the edit button too but as far as I can figure it's only there until someone else responds to your post then it disappears. At least that's how it seems to me but I could be wrong.

Bighuey · Post by **Bighuey** » 16 Oct 2011, 12:20

@ Fran. Got it. I see it now. The edit button isnt that big of a deal. Sometimes I want to go back to something I posted and add something to it, but its no biggie. I can live with it. Ill just make sure I say everything I want to say in one shot.

Thanks for the help.

El_greco · Post by **El_greco** » 16 Oct 2011, 14:12

Back here after a while, and i must say i love what you've done with the boards. Looks great!

Fran · Post by **Fran** » 16 Oct 2011, 14:16

El_greco wrote:Back here after a while, and i must say i love what you've done with the boards. Looks great!

Welcome back El_greco .... we are looking particularly well right enough

StephenKingman · Post by **StephenKingman** » 17 Oct 2011, 13:47

El_greco wrote:Back here after a while, and i must say i love what you've done with the boards. Looks great!

Welcome back nice to see you again.

Eckhart Aurelius Hughes · Post by **Scott** » 17 Oct 2011, 16:13

Thanks everyone for the feedback! And thanks to StephenKingman for always being such a great leader of the community.

Yes, the edit button disappears after someone else has replied to the topic. I do this to maintain the integrity and chronology of topics and posts.

The biggest complaint seems to be the ads. I will slightly decrease the size of the ads on the bottom of the page. I am also trying to decide on some other solution to provide a reduced ad-viewing experience for logged in users by automatically rotating the ads with something more useful/interesting to members. One thing, I was thinking of rotating the ad block with a small members' bulletin board for rotating in their own approved free link ads. For instance, if anyone has written their own book or has their own blog or wants to advertise something they could do it their for free. Even if you do not have anything of your own worth promoting online, maybe you could claim the space to advertise a personal charity or such. What do you all think of such an idea? Would it be of any use to most of you or is it useless for most? I have no idea because writers usually have something to promote but readers probably don't... ?

Teesie wrote:I have mixed emotions about the Quick Reply button. It's great for word association, but as I love to post in purple, I have to click the Full Editor Button.

Incidentally, the quick reply button and form is not a substitution for the old buttons but an addition. In other words, the old 'post reply' buttons which bring you to the full editor are still there, one at the top of the view topic page and one below. What I would like to add someday is a feature where you can edit your default font in your user control panel so that for instance you could set it to your shade of purple and that would be the default all your posts display unless marked otherwise in the post.

DavidB52 wrote:The layout is very nice, but one feature I find that I am missing are the links at the top and bottom of the forums for navigating back to the sub-forum index or the forum index.

Previously, there was a menu at the top of the forums such as

"Board index", ->"Community & Off-Topic"

That way, if I am many pages into a thread, I can quickly go back to either the "Community & Off-Topic" index page or the main "Board index".

Now there is a link at the bottom of some forums ("Board index"), but not the top. I suppose the "Forum Home" menu item works fine, but having the options for navigating among several links was very nice.

There should be a link at the top of the page that says "Return to [Forum Name]" at the top of the view-topic page just under the header. Is this satisfactory?

Melaniep wrote:The only thing I'm not a fan of is the flashing symbols next to some of the threads, I find them bit distracting.

I agree. I have disabled this feature. It was there as a way to identify popular topics, i.e. topics with more than 20 posts, but there are so many long-living topics that because they keep getting posts stay bumped near the top meaning like half the topics on the index of a forum are flashing. Moreover, the popular topics are obvious enough to pick out anyway because they have multiple pages and thus can be identified by having the multi-page links. If I ever bring back this feature I will isolate it to topics that are not only 'popular' but also 'new' so that only 1 or 2 at most are flashing on an entire page.

Thanks!
Scott

StephenKingman · Post by **StephenKingman** » 18 Oct 2011, 13:16

Hi Scott and thanks for the replies and changes. On the ads issue, the box was quite large and distracting but i like the idea of keeping the links in it forum or book-related, that way it keeps popular topics to the fore and lets any new browsers know the overall vibe of the forum. May i make a suggestion though, i wouldn't open up the ad box for links to new authors or their blogs etc as in my view this will just open the floodgates for spam posters who may view the forum as an easy target for flogging their products or websites, i delete at least 3 spammers like that every day so maybe keeping any ads forum related may be better?

The only issue i have at moment is my post count doesn't seem to increase every day! This past week i could post 20 replies and it stays at, say, 7000. Only the day after will it move forward and then freeze the following day, can you look into this if you get a chance, maybe some small setting is off?

I would like to thank anyone who has reported spam posts and encourage everyone to do likewise as its now easier than ever to delete spam since the report function is highlighed in any thread where it has been used, leading to swift action. All other suspect posts I will forward to Scott for final decision.

Fran · Post by **Fran** » 18 Oct 2011, 14:48

@Scott
I'm in agreement with Mike .... the ads don't bother me but I do think you should keep them book or reading related otherwise the forums will just end up full of rubbish like so many other sites, and that would be a terrible shame.
You've done a really terrific job on it, congratulations on a job well done & thanks