The New Forums

[alank2]

I have a question, and admittedly I am coming at this from standpoint that change is only good if it accomplishes something. To put this into perspective, I hated the ribbons MS put in Office because the pull down menu was completely clean and easily navigates by mouse or keyboard. A change like this is to me going from browsing on a desktop to the very limited experience of browsing on a phone. Why anyone would want to do that I do not know. Perhaps they have low expectation, but I find it utterly irritating when a so much superior interface exists. Why the constant need to break and change things unnecessarily and force everyone to relearn how to operate it? Where is the win there?

 

[kb2syd]

I'll say something positive. It works for me. I can get the information I need, I can reply to topics and I can ignore the facebook and twitter buttons.

Great job on the update.

 

[VERAULT]

Agree 100% with Alank2 on ribbons. They destroyed a long standing system that was reliable and worked... This is why I still use Office 2003, the ribbon killed my long standing productivity.


But going back to the new theme. The wasted space on either side is awful, seems each new persons comment takes up way too much space; so much more scrolling. The text is way to small and combines with the theme is really tough to see and look at. A more passive color scheme and much larger text.

This is a nit-pik but they are there so many editing buttons? It looks like a word processor!

Can't find "new posts" either.

What everyone is recommending still does not work for me either,. I cannot find new posts. For instance when I submit this thread I expect to see it on the top of the new posts! But its not even on the list! I cant view new posts.

And why do I need to go to the bottom of a page of threads to see all the pages in that thread? Why is that info not at the top as well when the page loads to the top?

 

[maxtherabbit]

I am alarmed. Change is bad

 

[vwestlife]

I also noticed that replying to a thread no longer automatically subscribes you to it.

And this is super-trivial, but I just reported a post as spam, and it initially rejected my report because I simply wrote "spam", and now the report text has to be at least 5 characters.

 

[AndyO]

One positive for me is that login was simple and worked effortlessly.

The rest... Well, style over substance is probably the polite way to describe it. The home page looks cluttered, threads have become harder to navigate, the inclusion of twitter and facebook buttons is a waste of space, the whole 'white space' thing is overdone to the point of absurdity, and text is so small that I can't really read anything.

So, well done. Perfect.

 

[NeXT]

blahblah epson printers blahblah I'm a spambot

It's not reinforcing the confidence in the upgrade at all when even the feedback thread is getting spammed in less than 24 hours.

The more time I spend navigating around the forums the more I agree that this update is really half-baked. There's active features nobody will ever use, the formatting and layout was clearly not tested. A number of features were nerfed and replaced with less functional components, some of which are doing some pretty jank thinks that doesn't work on older browsers and you spent all that effort making the rest of the Vintage Computer Federation's have that nice green-on-black theme and the forum at least on deploy is the most basic vBulletin style available.

 

[VERAULT]

"Change is good" You know I really dont like that saying. Because its blatantly false. For instance if a system is working, why change it? Do the changes make it better in very obvious real ways? If not its change for the sake of change, which has become the new normal. And change for the sake of change puts everything into a constant landslide of making things worse than they were previously. Hell this is true of most things, phones, the internet, cars, clothes,..... People...

I admire anyone or anything that wont change for no reason .. Ever been to a restaurant that you have visited many times over the years and really enjoy. Isn't it nice to know the menu is the same? Hell maybe even the prices barely changed.

Sometimes you want to go
Where everybody knows your name
And they're always glad you came
You want to be where you can see
Our troubles are all the same
You want to be where everybody knows your name

Pipe dreams....

 

[Erik]

I'd also like to see a return of the blue and white color scheme. This new (default?) monochromatic scheme is bland.

You can select from a bunch of styles on the bottom of the screen. There are tons of others out there that we could import for use, as well, if anyone runs across a favorite.

 

[Erik]

all the world lives on a phone

So true!

We'll be adding the mobile ad-on once we've settled in with the new host.

 

[Erik]

Flabbergasted that such a major topic as the forum "up"grade that literally affects all Forum users has been placed here under 'General Off Topic'

Yeah. Sorry 'bout that. I should have put this post in the right place.

I'm not sure if it's worth moving at this point.

I did post announcements and a pre-migration discussion.

 

[Erik]

It's not reinforcing the confidence in the upgrade at all when even the feedback thread is getting spammed in less than 24 hours.

Hopefully we don't get a major influx. I don't like CAPTCHA and the like, but if we have to...

As for styles, select something other than the Default vB5 Style on the bottom left of any page. Some of the included ones are ok.

If anyone wants to point us at a packaged style they like we'll consider including it in that list. They are easy to import.

 

[Erik]

if I were to offer my help in fixing the visual issues with this theme, will you accept it?

Absolutely.

See my post above for the easiest answer. We can add any vB5 compatible styles pretty easily.

Creating our own is a different matter. In order to do that here we'd have to hand out the keys to the kingdom. But I believe you can set up a trial version of vB5, if you have a host for it, and create and export styles there...

 

[vwestlife]

As for styles, select something other than the Default vB5 Style on the bottom left of any page. Some of the included ones are ok.

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but I don't see any such link to change the style.

Also, just as Trixter noted, my attempt to customize the fonts didn't stick the next time I came back to the forum.

 

[Chuck(G)]

Okay, I figured out how to get into my inbox: https://www.vcfed.org/forum/privatemessage/index
However, the index is woefully incomplete--there are many messages missing.

 

[VERAULT]

Maybe I'm missing something obvious, but I don't see any such link to change the style.

Also, just as Trixter noted, my attempt to customize the fonts didn't stick the next time I came back to the forum.

I see the same as vwestlife so, not sure as to what views I am missing.

 

[maxtherabbit]

I use my phone extensively for internet browsing. I still prefer desktop oriented websites and using pinch zoom vs. mobile friendly layouts with big Fischer price my first internet buttons

 

[VERAULT]

Mobile views for anything are just trash. If I had to use my phone to view a webpage I select the "desktop view" or not at all. ITs such a hassle and the mobile views are neutered and useless.

 

[VileR]

Absolutely.

See my post above for the easiest answer. We can add any vB5 compatible styles pretty easily.

Creating our own is a different matter. In order to do that here we'd have to hand out the keys to the kingdom. But I believe you can set up a trial version of vB5, if you have a host for it, and create and export styles there...

From a bit of searching, I see that vB5 supports stylesheet overrides (via "css_additional.css"), so it may not even be necessary to create a new style or to hand out any keys But I'll see what I can do. Thanks for considering that.

BTW, like others said, I can't see the style selector at the bottom of the screen either... maybe the default setup enables this control only for admins?

 

[Agent Orange]

A need to get the most recent thead to appear first.

Late edit:

For example the continuously running "Craigs List" now has 157 pages. Now you have to click though all of the pages to see the latest entry. This is a major phoopaw.