Coming Soon: New Message Board Layout

In reply to SVreX: 

Things WERE changed from the initial version. White space was reduced, fonts were changed. There are a bunch of things that don't work now that worked in the testing version, I personally spent a bunch of time testing quotes and nested quotes and editing posts and replying and formatting, so I'm not sure why a lot of that is wonky right now. Yes, some of us saw this before and checked off on it, but a lot of that is because the people in charge DID listen and DID make changes to address issues and the version we're all looking at DOES look better. On the platforms I use I still think the new site looks better than the old and I had an opportunity to switch between the two for a while. It's not perfect and I think additional feedback is helpful. My experience visually isn't the same as others. I do 90% of my forum work on a tablet where the extra whitespace helps me not mash the wrong part of the screen, and when I do use a proper computer I don't have anyone looking over my shoulder. So please comment, let Ed and the crew know what your experience is like, but please understand that Ed and much of the staff is currently displaced by the storm. This is their job, they should be able to set it aside as easily as anyone else should when the real world pops up, and also understand that some of the things that you hate are things that actually make the experience BETTER for other users. 

Seems like the font keeps shrinking, now to the point where it's getting hard to read.  The problem isn't the font size, it's all the blessed empty, white space on the page.

My .02

It seems a little redundant to have the links at the top of the page for; all forums, latest comments, top rated, your posts and new posts. When all those options are available under the 'jump to' drop down menu. 

Is it just me or is the forum SLOW now?

Both on my laptop and my phone, its like most inputs lag, and scrolling to the bottom of a 22 post page invariably needs to load more about 3/4 of the way down.

Maybe this is already reported, I didn't read the whole thread.

One thing - check the "robo-ad" settings for the ads at the top and bottom of the right side column.  While most of the ads are car-related, occasionally I'll see some that may not match the magazine's editorial ethos. 

Robbie said:

Is it just me or is the forum SLOW now?

Both on my laptop and my phone, its like most inputs lag, and scrolling to the bottom of a 22 post page invariably needs to load more about 3/4 of the way down.

Maybe this is already reported, I didn't read the whole thread.

I'm having pretty bad input lag on my Nexus 5X and it's flaky on if it'll let me reply or quote. The laptop is mostly acceptable though when I quote there's a brief lag as it generates the text in here.

For those on Android chrome I found that my cache clearing defaulted to 1 hour. I cleared the other day but changed it to all time and it fixed the quote and reply buttons for me. 

To get there hit the ... top right, then settings, then privacy, and Clear Browsing Data.  Make sure all time is checked in the top right on this screen.

Thank you for fixing the font. 

Good luck with Irma. The path has shifted it away from me. That's the kind of thing where I feel bad for feeling good that it is going to miss me, because it means somebody else is going to get hit.

Maybe I missed it in 16 pages and the longest short-week ever this week, but did this really gain us anything besides the ability to upload images?

In reply to Jerry (since quote doesn't work): yes. You can now utyoue screen as a flashlight because of all the white space :)

Getting more used to the new layout, still miss how much I could see on a screen at once with the old and wish that the background weren't so stark.

One other thing that I'd like to see that I would hope would be easy- I'd like to see the navigation links at the bottom of the page as well as at the top. By that, I mean things like the 'Your Posts', 'Forums » Grassroots Motorsports » Topic', etc. It's nice having the drop-down 'Jump To...', but it would be nicer to just be able to read a page's worth of posts and click on the link to go back to the forum you're in, back to your posts, etc.

The light grey lines as shown are very hard to read.

Stampie said:

For those on Android chrome I found that my cache clearing defaulted to 1 hour. I cleared the other day but changed it to all time and it fixed the quote and reply buttons for me. 

To get there hit the ... top right, then settings, then privacy, and Clear Browsing Data.  Make sure all time is checked in the top right on this screen.

Woah! That worked for me!

One other thing I noticed- on the old forums, putting an asterisk around a work/phrase would convert to italics when you posted it. That doesn't appear to work any more, and I miss it. Granted the editor is easier to use now- and in theory you can CTL-I to get italics now- but (like hitting 'enter' twice for an actual new paragraph, I got used to the asterisks...

In reply to AWSX1686 :

Cool glad it helped you. 

I didn't read the all the comments but want to share my oppinion

Overall, the site looks nice and posts with lots of images are easier to read.

The sidebar with the articles looks like part of the forum, which is confusing

It would be nice to be able to upload a picture of the car in your build thread and have it displayed next to the title in the thread list. It would give readers an idea of what they are about to see before clicking

2_3 said

 

It would be nice to be able to upload a picture of the car in your build thread and have it displayed next to the title in the thread list. It would give readers an idea of what they are about to see before clicking

Great idea!

I still don't see any way to go to the first unread post in a thread. That's really the only thing I want. I hate having to scroll through pages of an active thread trying to find where I left off.

I'm officially used to the new forum layout so you can stop worrying now.

Man, gone all weekend rallying and was hoping when I got back here to see the "white space" reduced significantly. It is really not very enjoyable to scroll nonstop to read these threads (or to find threads) now. 

In reply to irish44j :

I think someone named Irma got in the way of working on the forum for a little while. Once she leaves and the damage she left in her wake is cleaned up I'm sure the team will get right back to work ignoring your requests.

In reply to irish44j :

Wow, one little hurricane, and it interferes with somebody's enjoyment of a free web resource.

Tone deaf much?

The user experience on phone is way better, but desktop is miles of scrolling. Really annoying. I can only see 4 topics at a time in each section and then it's more scrolling. No thanks.

freetors said:

I still don't see any way to go to the first unread post in a thread. That's really the only thing I want. I hate having to scroll through pages of an active thread trying to find where I left off.

In the same line, having a list of threads where you have posted and that have new replies would be nice