sologuy369 Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 Meh. Personally I feel that the board is now harder to navigate, and it's harder to notice things on first glance. For example, names aren't seperated by underlines, and I keep thinking that a member's name is 'offline'. The line between posts is very faint, and it's harder to tell where one ends and another begins. The faded writing is also a pain. I agree. I like how it was before, its harder to navigate. Oh well, I'll gat used to it.
Ricecracker Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 (edited) I can't say I like the majority of the changes. Much of the styling is so similar that it seems to blend together for me. Clearer lines between posts, and under usernames on the frontpage and at the bottom of topics would be nice to have back. As Big Cam mentioned, many tags are not showing up. I also feel that now signatures seem to be overpowering the actual posts, so I'm going to be turning them off. I do like the new features in the settings and profile areas, though, so that's good. I was reading through the new help topics, and noticed the rating thing. Is that for Staff or Fellows only? I can't seem to see where it is. EDIT: Two more things. 1) Having the member number directly above the post count is a bit confusing. Maybe try moving it back down below the date joined? 2) What happened to the quick editor tool? I know I found it useful. Edited June 15, 2010 by Ricecracker
Big Cam Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 First I like to say that the board looks great with the new update. One major problem I came across was this. click for screenshot the black part covers the top of every post a view seconds after I open a page on the forum or mainpage. When I scroll down, the black goes up with the top of the post. I am using Firefox 3.6.3 There are no problems when I use IE Hope you can find out what the problem is. Jan Sounds like the problem is Firefox As I also don't see that on IE or on my android phone. ALSO,. I know space is always an issue but 150x150 avatars would really help fill in that giant space that is now our posts. There is so much un-used spaec to the left of your post.
Eurobricks Emperor Bonaparte Posted June 15, 2010 Author Eurobricks Emperor Posted June 15, 2010 Shadows will be looking into the skin related remarks, trying to improve things. We are for sure going to look into each remark posted in this thread. Give us some days to get things tuned and keep posting your thoughts in this thread. For those who like the previous board better, it was end of life so this upgrade was not to be avoided.
Holodoc Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 Wow... this is a major upgrade. And like so many others I will have to get used to it. Nothing to chear out loud for now. Where are the smileys? Ah, here they are. So many piratey ones! All mixed up with the normal ones... Mmmmmmh. Let's see what the time brings. EDIT: I lost a tag!
Joey Lock Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 The colors are nice, but otherwise, I'm not liking it that much. The formatting throws me off, especially not having the pinned topics separated. I also think that the subtitles to topics are too small. I'm sure I'll get used to it, but currently, I really don't feel like spending that much time on the site. Yeah I agree. Yes, I appreciate the long time spent upgrading, But its more of a downgrade, just joking. I was really just only getting used to the way threads work, Usually I'd be in Classic Pirate forum, Now I began to ventue outwards, Its all changed, I'm scared! The main problems is I don't know where the PM system is at first glance, The pinned threads don't show up bold or anything, The buttons have moved slighty to the left when posting, Quite confusing. Its just my opinion but not liking it too much. But I'll just have to get used to it.
brickzone Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 It seems to all work, so good job on a transition and all the work that went on. As regards the look of the new software, I have to say that it seems pretty poor to me. Giving specifics, it seems that everything is too subdued and there isn't enough distinction between posts or on the buttons by each post. I think some space is also wasted and some things seem too spaced out. In general, first impressions are that idling browsing new topics or reading down through a thread takes more concentration and is a lot less leisurely.
Minxter Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 (edited) Well to be honest I found it harder to find what you wanted and I felt confused by time to time but time will fix that! Wow that smiley was hard to find Please seperate the pinned topics with the regular Its easier to find that way. And please move the member number back to where it was as Riceckracker said. But on the bright side I like the new Profile pages! Minxter Edited June 16, 2010 by Minxter
General Redwater Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 Everything, so far, looks good. I just have a few problems. The colors are nice, but otherwise, I'm not liking it that much. The formatting throws me off, especially not having the pinned topics separated. I agree, the format will take time to get used to, but I would really like pinned topics seperated. I have other ones, but they are nothing major. Thank you for reading my complant, General Redwater
Izzy Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 On the Front Page under Site Navigation, if I click the Contact Staff link, it just refreshes the front page and doesn't take me to the list of staff and mods etc.
Fugazi Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 Well maybe I'm the only one, but I find the look and feel of the new board very slick, airy, clean, definitely an improvement! Yeah there are a few minor annoyances like the pinned topics merged with normal topics, but I'm sure those things can be tweaked a bit. Oh and where is that 'note' box in my profile, I kind of liked having that feature and actually used it! And I also LOVE the new look of the Classic Pirate forum, it's 200% better than before! Kudos to the team!
Ricecracker Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 A few more things. 1) When you're looking at someone's profile, it adds 1 to their actual post count. 2) When viewing a profile, posting or in your settings, the 'View Active Content' button is not present.
just2good Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 I'm not a big fan of this update. Most of the problems I see have already been discussed, except: -It's impossible to title a post (not a topic) -I liked how on the bottom navigation thingy, ( ) when you press another forum, it will not change automatically (I liked that little feature that no-one else cared about! ) Okay I'm done with the nip-picking.
Siegfried Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 First off, please note that we had similar complaints last upgrade! Also note that while we can change formatting somewhat, major changes are not possible. The formatting throws me off, especially not having the pinned topics separated. This we'd like to test more. I tend to think it'll make pinned topics more effective.... I do like the new features in the settings and profile areas, though, so that's good. I was reading through the new help topics, and noticed the rating thing. Is that for Staff or Fellows only? I can't seem to see where it is. Disabled. 1) Having the member number directly above the post count is a bit confusing. Maybe try moving it back down below the date joined? I put that there so I can change this. (By default it wasn't shown; this new board has removed a lot of features.) I'll give it some thought. 2) What happened to the quick editor tool? I know I found it useful. Gone for now. Annoyingly the new board had it set that it always went to quick edit, and you needed to press again to go to normal. I found that rather annoying so I killed the quick edit all together. I'll look into this. Where are the smileys? Ah, here they are. So many piratey ones! All mixed up with the normal ones... Yes, they are a mess. That's a priority job of mine to fix. EDIT: I lost a tag! What one? On the Front Page under Site Navigation, if I click the Contact Staff link, it just refreshes the front page and doesn't take me to the list of staff and mods etc. Fixed ten minutes ago! 2) When viewing a profile, posting or in your settings, the 'View Active Content' button is not present. Yes, I was going to add that to every banned but I didn't as I noticed a new option in the profile... Search SettingsView New Content Method Show me all new content since my last visit Show me all content that I have not read ...and I wanted to test on an active board how well the latter works. With that we may not need the "Active Topics" view as much. Give me a few days testing on that, but feel free to share your opinions.
Brickthus Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 Great upgrade - thanks guys! I found that it takes more clicks to log in when you first decide to reply to a thread. Would be nice to be 2 clicks as before. I would also like the "forums > theme > topic" links to appear at the bottom of the page as well as where they are at the top, because it would save scrolling all the way up in order to go back to the theme topic list. (Maybe I should select the same theme in the box on the right but that's not so intuitive). Some of the font boldness or not has changed. Dunno if it's possible to have this as before? Things like I remember who posted last but it's more difficult to find the name to see if anyone else has replied when the name isn't bold. I'll probably get used to it. Some things take a bit longer to load - perhaps logging in in particular. Pleased to say no problems running with Firefox. Mark
DLuders Posted June 15, 2010 Posted June 15, 2010 The text font in the TECHNIC Forum is a light grey compared to the BLACK text in the LDD Forum http://www.eurobricks.com/forum/index.php?showforum=128 . The TECHNIC posts are hard to read as a result, because there is insufficient contrast.
ILikePi Posted June 16, 2010 Posted June 16, 2010 (edited) This upgrade is interesting...there's both pros and cons to it. It does look much nicer and more contemporary than the old one, and I do like the profile pages - especially the feature that allows you to comment on someone's page. One cool thing I also found is that you can enable a "rich text editor" that works similar to Microsoft Word in that it doesn't show stuff like "{b} {/b}" but instead applies the change to the words themselves. Here are some things that I don't like: A whole bunch of buttons are moved around, like the numbered list and bulleted list ones The quick list of emoticons is gone when making a post! Most parts of the forum are pretty bright in terms of color, and it hurts my eyes in this forum (Website & Forums). It might just be my screen, though. Acronyms don't work on links (including signature ones, as you can see in Big Cam's and my signatures) anymore! All links have been replaced with the acronym "External Link" when hovered over. I'll poke around to see if there's any other problems... EDIT: Siegfried, you might want to resize your profile picture; it's huge! Edited June 16, 2010 by ILikePi
XimenaPaulina Posted June 16, 2010 Posted June 16, 2010 (edited) Great job on the major upgrade on the EB forum guys! Several things I want to point out: Pro - I love the new overall look of the forum, the aesthetics definitely improved and looks 'modern' now. Cons - (1) The box containing the avatar and member info is justified/aligned in the middle. For me, I prefer the previous one wherein the box is justified/aligned in the left, looks much better IMO. (2) The avatar box showing in the upper right corner of the screen blocks part of the banner, just doesn't look right, maybe you could fix that. (3) There is no dividing line between the pinned topics and the regular topics unlike before, so the pinned topics look like they are bunched together with the regular ones. I think it would look better if there was a separate box for the pinned topics. Nevertheless, I still commend all of you guys for a job well done. You all deserve a pat on the back. Edited June 16, 2010 by KielDaMan
samurai-turtle Posted June 16, 2010 Posted June 16, 2010 I notice on the History section, when you look at a topic the blue color print is hard to see on the greenish background. Example of what I'm talking about "Previous Topic | LEGO History Theme | Next Topic" that is hard to notice. I think it is similar with the "Star Wars" and Sci-Fi sections also. Thanks for your time.
Ricecracker Posted June 16, 2010 Posted June 16, 2010 Disabled. Good call . I think it'd get out of hand otherwise.
Shadows Posted June 16, 2010 Posted June 16, 2010 NOTE: Sometimes it's hard to figure out what you're describing. Please take screenshots and cut them down to the effected area and post them. Thank you for helping us help you help us all. Now, let's see if I can cover some of your points without a lot of specific quoting. The box in the upper right corner is user navigation. It's a new and very integrated feature in IPB 3 that we'll all have to get used to. To be honest, I don't like it either. It's probably the single biggest thing I don't like about the upgrade, but it really isn't that bad. The vertical line between userinfo and post and the horizontal line between post and sig do need to be darker. This skin has been fixed, I'll look at the others later. The emoticons are formatted as the IPB 3 template came. I'd like to see them closer together, perhaps 4 to a row, and yes, they will be separated again or sorted in a better way. The spacing (padding) for the forum list is being checked on now. It is a lot to scroll through, but it may not be possible to reduce without making other areas too compact. We'll see what we can do. The old division between pinned and unpinned topics was removed by IPB in the upgrade. It can be restored with a great deal of effort, but the idea is that people never respond to pinned topics and often don't even read them. We've noticed that to some extent here, so they may have a point. Give it a few weeks and see if you adjust, and we'll take the same time to see how it's working out as well. The Technic post font is now considerably darker. It didn't seem that light to me, but this will certainly please everyone. "Previous Topic | LEGO History Theme | Next Topic" is a tricky problem. The new system defines certain links individually, then lumps others together in one setting. That set also controls the appearance of your username in posts, all active post links, all sig links, the topic title, the topic page # and a number of other small things. Some of those appear on light backgrounds and some on dark (in certain forums like History or Star Wars). As a result, a decision had to be made that created the best overall function. In this case, those buttons lost. The ultimate plan is to modify the templates to divide those into a new setting, but that is a very low priority compared to other issues since it's time consuming for little reward. Still, it'll be addressed eventually. Bold in places. The secondary navigation ("Eurobricks Forums > Website, Frontpage and LEGO General > Website & Forums" line) used to be bold. No clue why they decided to remove that, but it will be added back. Other instances will be found and considered on a case by case basis. Titling a post. Was that even possible before? Why? Missing tags? Post which ones, specifically, please.
RileyC Posted June 16, 2010 Posted June 16, 2010 (edited) For the most part it seems really nice. However I do agree with everyone about the pinned topics they seem kinda odd. The new Star Wars forum is really nice but I think the banner could use a few minifigs thrown on it cause it seems quite plain. All in all though guys it looks great and running smoothly! EDIT: The site looks great on my iPod Touch! Wonderful mobile site! Edited June 16, 2010 by Roncanator
JimBee Posted June 16, 2010 Posted June 16, 2010 Titling a post. Was that even possible before? Why? No, and it's not now, for me. Missing tags? Post which ones, specifically, please. It seems to be much better now, I have all mine now, but I just grabbed a URL out of a "broken image" picture from Cutlass Iz's profile: On another note, I really like how when you click "View Complete Topic (Launches New Window)" at the bottom of your posting screen, it doesn't actually open a whole new window, but a new tab. Now it's much easier to go view the topic while I'm posting.
Siegfried Posted June 16, 2010 Posted June 16, 2010 One cool thing I also found is that you can enable a "rich text editor" that works similar to Microsoft Word in that it doesn't show stuff like "{b} {/b}" but instead applies the change to the words themselves. Actually the old board had that! It never worked well, but it was there. The quick list of emoticons is gone when making a post! Press the smiley face button; it comes back. EDIT: Siegfried, you might want to resize your profile picture; it's huge! Fixed! The avatar box showing in the upper right corner of the screen blocks part of the banner, just doesn't look right, maybe you could fix that. Not going to change. I actually like this feature. Good call . I think it'd get out of hand otherwise. Yeah, Shadows persuaded me on that. I was more learning to giving it a chance, but he made this 234 page post of doom and gloom.... The box in the upper right corner is user navigation. It's a new and very integrated feature in IPB 3 that we'll all have to get used to. To be honest, I don't like it either. It's probably the single biggest thing I don't like about the upgrade, but it really isn't that bad. Boo! EDIT: The site looks great on my iPod Touch! Wonderful mobile site! Looks great on my HTC Desire too! The board does have a special "Lo-Fi" skin but I don't think it's needed. I will be looking into it though; it could be useful for quick checks!
smokebelch Posted June 16, 2010 Posted June 16, 2010 Is there any way to switch off the lo-fi theme when viewing on Ipod touch/Iphone? I do most of my forum browsing on my touch, and its really frustrating to not be able to access the full site. Had a good look round and can't see any option to switch between the two :(
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