Updated look for the site.

28064212

Boards.ie: Tony wrote: »

As for Social Sharing, we just need to make sure it's done right. It's up there on the to do list as well. If you've seen anything on your travels round the internet that you think might work, please feel free to share, we're open to any / all suggestions.

Something like this (hey, thirteen people have liked this thread on FB):



(info here)

Boards.ie: Danny

28064212 wrote: »

Something like this (hey, thirteen people have liked this thread on FB):

(info here)

28064212

:P

solarith

Really dislike. It looks like a version of vBulletin from about 4 years ago. Some of the buttons and other additions are nice, but as a whole it looks blocky and placeholder. I don't understand why a desktop version of a forum needs to be this stripped down.

Backfire

looks nice, and simple, cheers mate

SweetCaliber

Boards.ie: Tony wrote: »

lee3155 wrote: »

Do you mean something like this:



I agree, it would look awesome

While I'll admit thats a good suggestion, what isn't being considered here, and is something that was discovered during testing is that at the minium width that the site shrinks to (960px), if this 3rd option was to be added, any one with a long-ish user name (can't remember the exact characters tbh) ended up breaking the site.
There was a 3rd option there in earlier designs (don't specifically remember what it was, but it wasn't 'My Threads'), but it was removed because of the problems it was causing.

We are still investigating options here and we'll definitely be keeping your suggestion in the idea bank.

Just wanted you to know the thought process about what is up there and why somethings aren't there!

Keep the ideas coming, there's already been several things that we hadn't considered for one reason or another, that we now are because of the ideas and feedback given here!

Yeah I suppose your right, however you could give the users the option to switch between "My Threads" and "My Forums" on the header in their user CP, just another suggestion :P

jasonb

I've been using this new format for a few days now and I'm very happy with it.

However, I've noticed today that my 'Followed Threads' notification isn't clearing. In other words, I'm following about 4 or 5 threads, and when I log in each morning I get a red number in the top right hand corner that shows me my notifications ( including any new posts in my followed threads ). Normally once I've caught up with the threads, this number disappears, as there's nothing new.

But, since today, it keeps telling me I've 1 'Followed Threads' notification, even though I've read up on all of my followed threads. It just doesn't seem to be clearing.

I'm using IE9, thanks...

J.

Boards.ie: Tony

jasonb wrote: »

I've been using this new format for a few days now and I'm very happy with it.

However, I've noticed today that my 'Followed Threads' notification isn't clearing. In other words, I'm following about 4 or 5 threads, and when I log in each morning I get a red number in the top right hand corner that shows me my notifications ( including any new posts in my followed threads ). Normally once I've caught up with the threads, this number disappears, as there's nothing new.

But, since today, it keeps telling me I've 1 'Followed Threads' notification, even though I've read up on all of my followed threads. It just doesn't seem to be clearing.

I'm using IE9, thanks...

J.

As far as I'm aware this is an issue we're trying to squash at the moment.
We're also adding the ability for you to select what the Tag notifies you of (see the update in the First Post for details on this).

If it's still happening later in the week, please let us know in case there's another issue at work here causing the problem.

mathepac

Remember when I could click on that "New Posts" Button and all the new posts since my last login were listed followed by the "not new but unread" list? Where has it gone, it's disappearance is ruining my life, I'm in bits.

BTW the "Followed Threads" link and the "Control Panel" link still show different thread lists / results. Did you provide me with feedback on that one yet?

wnolan1992

Can't remember if this was brought up before, but when you use the OmniBox to search, you no longer have the breadcrumbs. It's probably not a major concern since you can click the boards logo to go back to home, but it'd be nice if you could go back to the thread you were on.

Example of what I mean: http://www.boards.ie/search2/submit/?query=random+search

Zascar

Oh one thing I just remembered. I thought the boards.ie logo was too big - for many of us we read boards in work when we really should be working. people walking by can easily see what we are doing. I got around this though by using Adblock to remove the logo so now its a little bit less obvious

Morbert

Hey I'm noticing a bug. I can't edit posts. When I click the Edit button, nothing happens.

I'm using Chromium 17.0.963.79 (Developer Build 0 Linux) Built from source for Fedora release 15 (Lovelock)

Doylers

Im not finding it as nice to use as the old style. I cant look at the screen and check though loads at once its more effort. If that at all makes sense

zynaps

Boards.ie: Tony wrote: »

While I'll admit thats a good suggestion, what isn't being considered here, and is something that was discovered during testing is that at the minium width that the site shrinks to (960px), [...]

Are you saying that the new skin will (by choice) be unsuitable for screens or browser windows less than 960px wide? What's the reasoning behind this?

SweetCaliber

zynaps wrote: »

Are you saying that the new skin will (by choice) be unsuitable for screens or browser windows less than 960px wide? What's the reasoning behind this?

It will, the body has overflow so you would get scroll bars.

Boards.ie: Tony

zynaps wrote: »

Are you saying that the new skin will (by choice) be unsuitable for screens or browser windows less than 960px wide? What's the reasoning behind this?

It won't be unsuitable by any means, but scroll bars will be introduced if the window is resized below this threshold. This min width was decided long before I joined, but even if it wasn't, I probably, based on usability standards and browser information, would have made the same decision.

Sites, not just Boards.ie, can't be developed to accommodate all the random window sizes that the servers detect and report back. Just recently, the most common browser window size world wide went up from 1024x768 to 1366x768. There is still a huge % of people out there on the 1024x768 resolutions and research (not just our own, but global stats show this - http://gs.statcounter.com/#resolution-ww-monthly-201101-201207 ). Between those 2 resolutions, theres 40% of all browsers. Bringing that information down to an regional level, shows even less support for the lower resolution, with 1280x800 and 1366x768 making up nearly 50% of all browser resolutions detected and 1024x768 only accounting for about 10% - http://gs.statcounter.com/#resolution-IE-monthly-201101-201207

There is no real reported browser sizes below this resolution, so developing to support below the 960 px (it's also a usability / web design standard known as the 960 Grid) just couldn't be justified in terms of additional cost and development time.

That is really the main reason behind the min width.

Hope that clears things up / helps.

T.

zynaps

Boards.ie: Tony wrote: »

Sites, not just Boards.ie, can't be developed to accommodate all the random window sizes that the servers detect and report back. Just recently, the most common browser window size world wide went up from 1024x768 to 1366x768.

Thanks Tony. I think you're confusing screen resolution with browser size, though.
While many people are viewing boards.ie on screens over 1024 pixels wide, not everybody has their browser maximised all the time.
I tend to keep mine thinner because reading a very wide column of text is a bit uncomfortable and slower. Then we have people using tablets etc with a lower screen resolution, and you know yourself how irritating it is to have to scroll left and right repeatedly to read a single column of text.

A quick search for stats on actual browser dimensions rather than screen resolution was unenlightening, but I'll keep looking.

Boards.ie: Tony wrote: »

There is no real reported browser sizes below this resolution, so developing to support below the 960 px (it's also a usability / web design standard known as the 960 Grid) just couldn't be justified in terms of additional cost and development time.

Fair enough - I wouldn't expect you to spend a lot of development time supporting what might be a very small proportion of users.
However, I have to wonder why it would take so much extra development time to support smaller browser dimensions, when the old skin already does it?
Is the 960 min width not an arbitrary restriction that's been added as part of the new skin?

Boards.ie: Tony

zynaps wrote: »

Thanks Tony. I think you're confusing screen resolution with browser size, though.
While many people are viewing boards.ie on screens over 1024 pixels wide, not everybody has their browser maximised all the time.
I tend to keep mine thinner because reading a very wide column of text is a bit uncomfortable and slower. Then we have people using tablets etc with a lower screen resolution, and you know yourself how irritating it is to have to scroll left and right repeatedly to read a single column of text.

A quick search for stats on actual browser dimensions rather than screen resolution was unenlightening, but I'll keep looking.

Fair enough - I wouldn't expect you to spend a lot of development time supporting what might be a very small proportion of users.
However, I have to wonder why it would take so much extra development time to support smaller browser dimensions, when the old skin already does it?
Is the 960 min width not an arbitrary restriction that's been added as part of the new skin?

Hey zynaps,

I wasn't confusing that browser dimensions are different to screen resolutions, but web development isn't done based on browser resolutions (at least not in my experience anyway). We can only really go on the screen resolution stats that we have access to. In my previous position we did a lot of research in this area and found that the vast majority of people surfed with the browser maximized as opposed to an arbitrary resolution.

I agree with reading a very wide column is uncomfortable, that's one of the reasons we have a max width of 1400px (though we are enabling a full width mode for those who really want it). In terms of tablets, well, this new Beta isn't being designed for tablets, but if you navigate in landscape on the iPad for example, it should fit perfectly (though in saying that, tablets like the iPad do a much better job at zooming / scaling than desktop machines)

The current default skin doesn't have as many fixed elements that the new Beta has. (e.g. the category nav can only really shrink to that size before it gets buggy, and even at that, there's still bugs we're trying to iron out). The Omni Bar needs to be a certain size as does the logo and we need to accommodate long usernames in the header. If there wasn't a min width decided at design phase we wouldn't know what space we had to play with when designing the various elements.

Just for example, the likes of the Apple website has a min width of approx. 980px and Gmail is about 800px before it locks and horizontal scroll bars are shown (and gmail auto changes your 'display density' to make it go this low). We are playing with a 'compact' mode at the moment, that should allow the min width to go a bit lower (we're not sure how low just yet as it's in development), but it will in essence be an experimental feature to start with until we get an idea of usage. There's no time frame for it's release, but shouldn't be too long.

I'm not sure what else to say. Just know that any decisions were made for a reason (be it based on research, usability / design standards, resources available, etc..) and we're not trying to make the Boards.ie experience worse than it was, in fact, our goal is the opposite. We have / are taking on board all that's being said here (see the update last week on the OP for example) and I'm glad questions like these are being asked. I started here at the end of the development cycle so it's giving me a chance and a reason to ask these questions myself.

Sorry for the long winded answer!

zynaps

Boards.ie: Tony wrote: »

We are playing with a 'compact' mode at the moment, that should allow the min width to go a bit lower (we're not sure how low just yet as it's in development), but it will in essence be an experimental feature to start with until we get an idea of usage. There's no time frame for it's release, but shouldn't be too long.

Sounds promising. Thanks for the insightful responses Tony

josephsoap

Thank god I got it changed back

Did not like it at all.

RosieJoe

CTRL + Mouse click doesn't work when you select a forum from the top nav bar to open it in a new tab. Have to right click it and select Open in New Tab.

This is in Firefox, is this a known issue? Or onne that may be looked at?

sallywin

Hate it! sorry, I really don't like the drop down buttons under each subcategory. Prefer the old way where you can hover and see the options without having to click. Why did you change it? Looks as cheap as old one too, surely you can do better?

Boards.ie: Danny

RosieJoe wrote: »

CTRL + Mouse click doesn't work when you select a forum from the top nav bar to open it in a new tab. Have to right click it and select Open in New Tab.

This is in Firefox, is this a known issue? Or onne that may be looked at?

I've dealt with this one earlier in the thread. It's a Firefox issue. It isn't something we intend to fix, the blame lies with Mozilla.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=748740

sallywin

How do I change back? I only clicked to get a preview of the new look and now I'm stuck with it

Boards.ie: Danny

sallywin wrote: »

How do I change back? I only clicked to get a preview of the new look and now I'm stuck with it

Read all of the first post, right down to the very last line What style are you rushing back to, and why, if you don't mind me asking? Feel free to elaborate on the cheap comment, we won't take it personally

RosieJoe

Boards.ie: Danny wrote: »

I've dealt with this one earlier in the thread. It's a Firefox issue. It isn't something we intend to fix, the blame lies with Mozilla.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=748740

Thanks Danny. Was too lazy to look through the thread, sorry

Boards.ie: Danny

RosieJoe wrote: »

Thanks Danny. Was too lazy to look through the thread, sorry

Not a problem, I wasn't expecting you to read through this massive thread. If you're a curious type I gave more info on what's broken and why in my earlier post

hondasam

Change is as good as a rest. I have used it for the last few days and I'm used to it now.
As far as I'm concerned it still does all the same things but looks a little different. Well done everyone.

sallywin

Boards.ie: Danny wrote: »

Read all of the first post, right down to the very last line What style are you rushing back to, and why, if you don't mind me asking? Feel free to elaborate on the cheap comment, we won't take it personally

I am rushing back to the original format. This is not an improvement regardless of what you might yourselves believe

sallywin

Have it switched back. Thanks for the instructions on how to do that. I certainly had not read down to the very last line in the lengthy first post