Forum Changes Poll

[TerranC]

A poll for forumgoers (and others) about the Forum Changes: please be honest.

Edit: If you've chosen Other, could you post why?

[TerranC]

Huh, I guess the new software doesn't like quote marks:

The missing choice should be: "Forums without borders"

[Slynky]

Now that I've seen the poll results, I think I also like the older one better (graphic view and such).

The poll results are pretty ugly, but it's nice that they are at the top of the thread after you've already answered the poll. So you don't have to click on other buttons and mini-pop windows.

What is up with the spacing on the poll as well? It could do with a few more characters per-line and maybe a space between the poll options/results.

Edit: And why are the poll results all staggered? Answer, they have little graph lines? But I can't see them?

[Richard]

Okay I was a little peeved earlier, but I talked to Terran and I think we're cool.

Just keep in mind guys that some serious thought went into this process, and in the end it was done to help all of us in the long run.

I plann on starting work on a mod to allow the reverse post control tomorrow, but I won't be doing much else mod wise until I finish that.

[Roanon]

"Who is Online" is not a new feature. Was not only present but also working better (displayed without having to click) in the old forums.
Not even the poll results are displayed in a readable manner. *sigh*. Is there ANYTHING that works better than in the old forum? Sadly, every time I find some new change or feature I have to ask myself that question. Normally, when something is changed you resent it first but find more and more likeable features until you finally accept the new Version. In this case, the longer I use the new Version the more bad things I find.
I guess this forum is about to be killed, if this remains I will definitely not read it as often as the old one - it is just too cumbersome and user-unfriendly to be of any use.

[Mephisto]

Honestly, I think it is not such a big change and we all will get used to features we don't like and will appreciate features we missed (Upload anybody?). I'm absolutely positive that Richard will keep Moding the forums until he and all the rest is satisfied with it (reverse order...). Just be a little patient, they have just transferred to this board and many things will be done later when more time is at hand.

[Roanon]

It is a big change not a little, and as I already posted, the more I get used to this new forum the more features I find that do not work or are just missing. And I even could live with the reversed order. And I really did miss the attach file to a message functionality - about once a millenium. Not worth to make such a fuss about it with such a big loss of other features.

Most things hint to a very basic design flaw and I doubt it can be fixed without immense effort - which makes me fear they will not be fixed. Cluttered fonts showing that the basic programming was done in non-standard, IE-only oriented HTML. Many little details like forced preview, quoting without the author of the quote shown, not displayed where new Posts are in threads, large empty spaces reducing readablility showing basic design sloppyness as also seen in these unreadable poll results and in the unboxed but wide spaced thread list - this underdeveloped 1.0 software sure needs A LOT of fixing.

Why not take something working and proven, like PHPBB? An even short glimpse at any PHPBB forum and it is easy to see that the readability is MUCH better. If you are used to standards like that, this forum is just plain depressing.

I'm sorry, I am sure it has been a lot or work, I appreciate the effort but not the result. If there is really the intention to make it better, it would be great. But even more work. In this case, maybe a bug/missing thread should be started. There are so many (valid) complaints in so many threads, I think it is difficult to even keep a list.

[Gandalf Parker]

You might also notice that this is a commercial package.

[Slynky]

Well, having seen a few more votes in the poll, I see that it DOES give a kind of graphic representation (by where the value is placed on the line), so, it's not such a bad change (although, I am partial to bars on my graphs... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif).

[Ragnarok]

The format needs to be edited to look better. When I choose the SEIV forums the page that comes up is cluttered and messy looking and frankly looks horrible. The old forums format was much better and looked really nice. This one is just plain ugly. I appreciate the work that went into all of this but my biggest complaints is the format and the reverse order of the threads. The format inside a thread is fine just one level from that when you select a thread is what I do not like.

The format in the thread itself is too wide as well. I use 1024x768 resolution and quite a bit of each Posts go wider then the screen thus making me scroll both down and over to read all the Posts, which then makes it hard to see who made the post. /threads/images/Graemlins/mad.gif

[Suicide Junkie]

The theme definitely needs some work, after the reverse threads are done...

Some specific things I've seen so far to add to the "To-Do" list:
1) Some sort of separator line between or border around the threads would be useful (as the Posts have). Rather than just going from light to dark background it also needs a border.
2) The new smileys are blurry and don't match with each other... Lack of outlines again, I think... too much "photo" and not enough "cartoon".
3) Text is squished right up against the background colour changes. For example, in the "Reply to..." golden background at the top of the replay page, you've only got a pixel or two. The forum view is like this too. More border space, please!
4) Font Size. I don't know why it needed to change.
If its too small, click View->TextSize->larger or 150% or whatever you prefer. Every page will be zoomed up by the amount you ask.
As is, it looks like I'll have to click it down to 75% whenever I come here, and then change it back to normal again when I leave, so that I can read the font at google or any other website.
The goal with font size should be to make it match the typical page, and let the user set their font scale multiplier to match their hardware and wetware.
5) Long lines in a post will stretch the window beyond 100% of the browser width. This used to only occur when Code tags were used, but URLs in people sigs (which broke under the new UBB) are blowing up some of the threads.
Having to scroll sideways is almost as horrible as having to read threads in the wrong order http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

(new - edit 1)
6) Extend sig character limit so we can include URLs. Especially since the new forum format has so many extra parameters.

----

SJ - Looking forward to the return of the reverse threads, and an "old school" theme to choose. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif

PS:
Looks like its time to go do damage control on my sig...

[Roanon]

Generally, no table data (be it Posts or thread titles) should have the same background color as the webpage background. Having no table borders makes this even worse. An even slight change of color would make this much better.

[Katchoo]

4) Font Size. I don't know why it needed to change.
If its too small, click View->TextSize->larger or 150% or whatever you prefer. Every page will be zoomed up by the amount you ask.
As is, it looks like I'll have to click it down to 75% whenever I come here, and then change it back to normal again when I leave, so that I can read the font at google or any other website.
The goal with font size should be to make it match the typical page, and let the user set their font scale multiplier to match their hardware and wetware.



I fired up IE6 earlier and noticed that when viewing this Forum, the Font Size in IE6 is smaller than the Font Size is when viewing through Mozilla (v1.6); and that's without any global changes to the Font Size in both browsers (both are set to medium/100%). So unless Richard can write some code to allow for each user to adjust the Font Size individually, those of us not using the Beast known as IE will likely have to live with the quirks comming from this upgrade.

Bigger Font isn't going to kill my enjoyment of this Forum http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/icons/icon10.gif

PS... SJ, the best feature of using Mozilla (for me, at least), is being able to save a group of Tabbed Pages as one Favorite, and being able to bring them up in one shot when loading Mozilla. I'm sure I'm not the only one who likes doing this, so changing the Text Size globally (as you suggest above) would be a pain in the keester for me...but I'm sure it's a fine workaround for those who only view one page at a time.

http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif

[Roanon]

I fired up IE6 earlier and noticed that when viewing this Forum, the Font Size in IE6 is smaller than the Font Size is when viewing through Mozilla (v1.6)



Known issue. At least known to professionals... Usage of style sheets with px sizes instead of pt sizes, as already mentioned, is the usual way to avoid this problem.

[Caduceus]

(although, I am partial to bars on my graphs... http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif).



Hey, who ISN'T partial to bars?

Wildcard