The Upgrade

[Sasq]

General comments welcome here, bugs to site feedback please

[schmosef]

I have to admit that although it's nice, and obviously the result of a lot of work, I don't really like it. But that's probably because I was so used to the old look. It was like stepping into a warm and fuzzy pair of slipper before. Now it feels like I've got these fancy new keds and have to work them in before I can take them on a long hike.

I'm sure I'll get used to it.

[Sasq]

actually the functions etc, are stock vb3.
putting it simply, it would probably be harder to try to get the old style back.

I think the pro's outway the con's, and there is more tweaking yet to do. I need to see how some functions go.

[Brian R.]

I think it is only different. If I had to make a choice, it would be a coin toss. Both are very functional and I like them both.

If there is one facet different about the new style is it is more busy and might less user friendly for a new person who joins. I don't have an issue with the busier nature of the new style. Maybe it is just the larger font for some display items that make it seem that way. Needing to click the "quick reply" button to do that and having pull-down menus for functions and appearance are examples of greater complexity.

[agallag]

It'll take some getting used to, but I think I'm probably gonna like it. Too soon to tell right now...

[Wombat]

I know the thing I immediately missed is how compact a forum page could be. It's like the threat topics are double-spaced now.

[Brian Ellis]

Full marks for functionality. :)

1/10 for appearance because of the ENORMOUS font size and the resultant waste of desktop space, requiring much more scrolling. :(

IMHO, this needs serious attention.

[Sasq]

Specifically which fonts Brian? locations...
I am tweaking as we go, and I will look at getting some replacement icons for the main forum page, the wasted space will stay regardless of the font size with those huge forum icons.

[lecter]

Looks great, but the font for the user names seems too big to me...or at least it should be bold or smthn.

[gt40]

Looks great - does need a bit of getting used to, but I'm happy with it :)

[KeiFront]

Looks good so far but most things just take to much space now, much more scrolling :( like Brian said.

[Brian Ellis]

Specifically which fonts Brian? locations...
I am tweaking as we go, and I will look at getting some replacement icons for the main forum page, the wasted space will stay regardless of the font size with those huge forum icons.

OK, I attach two jpgs (readability poor becoz highly compressed) with annotations describing the problems.

[Sasq]

as you may have noticed, I have been working on font size since you grabbed those images.

the posts themselves will need to wait on Jesse, my html is not good enough - I am more back end...
I seem to be lacking the ability to do alt colors in posts, so we need to rework the whole postbit to make some sort of border - please be patient, the people who wrote the system are SE's not Visual designers, so its logical, but not in a visual way.

Working on Icon size for front page and forums now. - Not overly happy with it myself.

[Admiral]

just bold the user names now ;)

[GNEP]

Generally happy, but a couple of quick moans (well, it is monday morning :))

1) Extra click required for a quick reply :p
2) All the icons seem a little too colourful for my liking
3) Everything is a bit too big and spaced out as per Brian's comments
4) I always base my reading of MURC off the "new posts" page - I suppose it will take a little getting used to, but the icons denoting read/unread threads and threads which I have posted in don't seem as clear and compact in getting their meaning across :)

Otherwise, will have to spend a bit of time exploring to see what's available and what's new...

And Dan and Jesse are my heroes for doing all of this work anyway :)

George

[Sasq]

to answer your extra click for quick reply, go to the top of this thread, and play with display modes...
icons are colourful yes. maybe replace them later.. step at a time.
size we are working on.
new posts... Jesse replaced them this morning with slightly updated vb2 icons, so they are the same now.

Danke

[GNEP]

Cool - will carry on experimenting... :)

Back to the "show new posts" page though, I have noticed that when refreshing the page, threads with new posts no longer come to the top of the page of results like they used to - they are still sorted by the times of the latest posts at the time of the original search - I guess the db query is not being re-run on a refresh?

[Sasq]

that would be a correct assumption, not quite sure why it changed. I want to look into it myself.

The old system stored the search query in the db.. but would rerun it, I suspect it has more to do with searching for strings, and reducing db load, then the newpost function.

[chaoliang]

The icons in the colum before Title/User name/date of Latest Forum Topics are missing on my system, execpt the "i" icon for Upgrades.
I have a rather standard installation of XP.

[Kurt]

I have to admit that although it's nice, and obviously the result of a lot of work, I don't really like it. But that's probably because I was so used to the old look. It was like stepping into a warm and fuzzy pair of slipper before. Now it feels like I've got these fancy new keds and have to work them in before I can take them on a long hike.

I'm sure I'll get used to it.

++

I also miss the forum links on the left. With so much empty space, they'd be nice (re)addition.

[SpiralDragon]

love the changes...

one Q.. is there a way to make the scroling news feeds stick to the same source that i select so that we dont have to manualy select them everytime we go to murc front page?

[SpiralDragon]

also.. is there a way to make the quick post active instead of having to click on something first?.... havent checked any of the settings in the CP so forgive me if its already there.. will check them later...

but i realy love the new upgrades.. well done sasq

[Sasq]

as you have been busy, I will forgive you :p that has been asked quite a few times so far, go to the top of the page, have a play with display modes - try threaded and hybrid.
thats why it is set to click the reply button first.

I can turn that function off, but it renderes threaded mode useless, so I am giving a month or so, so we have threads that actually use threaded mode, and let people have a play.
Then I will do a vote on keeping it or not.

*atm its site wide, I will look for a hack to maybe make it forum specific - the temp anyone...

[chaoliang]

I'm missing a bit the possiblity of accessing all the forums directly from the homepage. A drop down menu or a list is most welcome.

And, the new server is somewhat slower than the old one, is it true?

[Umfriend]

It's ok.

[Nowhere]

So...time for another one?

[Adis]

So...time for another one?
Portal has been removed I think.