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New look for forum

Printed From: Yachts and Yachting Online
Category: Your ideas for this website
Forum Name: Your thoughts for YachtsandYachting.com
Forum Discription: What do you think we should be featuring on YachtsandYachting.com
URL: http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/forum/forum_posts.asp?TID=12460
Printed Date: 28 Mar 24 at 9:33am
Software Version: Web Wiz Forums 9.665y - http://www.webwizforums.com


Topic: New look for forum
Posted By: MerlinMags
Subject: New look for forum
Date Posted: 22 Jul 16 at 3:48pm
The recent changes to the look of the main website have been carried over into the forum too. I don't think anything has been disrupted, but...

If you notice that the forum fails to function correctly, please send an email to mags (at) YachtsandYachting.com as I do not check the forum often.



Replies:
Posted By: MerlinMags
Date Posted: 22 Jul 16 at 3:52pm
I had better test the image upload is still working...



(That's me testing the buoyancy bags on an ancient 12ft keelboat).


Posted By: blueboy
Date Posted: 22 Jul 16 at 4:20pm
Oh goody, now with adverts that blink,blink, blink at you. 


Posted By: Jack Sparrow
Date Posted: 22 Jul 16 at 5:03pm
Hope the image upload works better than it used to. Every time I upload it errors, I then have to find the image on the data base, and post it again.

El Cap - v10.11.5 / Safari v9.1.1


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Posted By: andymck
Date Posted: 22 Jul 16 at 8:49pm
Where has the linky thing that just brought up all the recent forum posts on the mobile site.
Looks like we have to go to forum and then look down the whole list. Or has it just become less intuitive?



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Andy Mck


Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 23 Jul 16 at 6:32am
Might have been a good idea to cull or combine all the unused sections at the same time?

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Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686


Posted By: ventus
Date Posted: 23 Jul 16 at 8:55am
Just love the increased size of the adds, not :(


Posted By: Time Lord
Date Posted: 23 Jul 16 at 9:17am
Generally looks a lot more cluttered.

Where has the shortcut to all the recent forum posts gone. Bring it back now before the forum dies.


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Merlin Rocket 3609


Posted By: Wiclif
Date Posted: 23 Jul 16 at 8:44pm
Another plea for the shortcut to the recent forum posts to be reinstated

If it isn't broken, please don't fix it


Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 24 Jul 16 at 8:23am
The new look for the forum just about works when my 8" tablet is vertical, giving me a tiny keyboard to type with. Horizontal, the actual posts are shoved over hard left, with ads dominating the page and a general sense of it being unreadable. Not an improvement. Dunno what it looks like on a larger screen yet.

This thread about it is also lost in the long, long list of sticky threads above it, some of which are also about (previous) new looks.

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Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686


Posted By: 423zero
Date Posted: 24 Jul 16 at 10:09am
The only issue I have found is size, I have had to reduce to 75%.
The new post shortcut works.


Posted By: Time Lord
Date Posted: 24 Jul 16 at 12:27pm
On my android tablet running 6.0.1 on the home page, the main picture has the following underneath.
1(in blue)               1.(black)
2 2 (in blue)
3 3 (in blue)
Continues to 5

Weird but bring back the new posts listing and button


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Merlin Rocket 3609


Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 24 Jul 16 at 12:34pm
I have the new posts button. Never really used it before, but will have to with the new layout, as it seems designed to confuse the eyes.

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Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686


Posted By: Time Lord
Date Posted: 25 Jul 16 at 9:32am
Unlike the old recent posts button which showed all the recent posts whether or not you had read them, the new posts button only shows the posts made since you last accessed the button. If you want to mull things over before posting a reply, you have to find the actual topic it was posted under on the forum among the multitude. The old recent posts page brought up all the topics which had had a post in the last x days and made it easier to find a particular thread.

Also I seem to recall that the old recent posts button took you to the last post made on that thread. The new posts takes you to the beginning of a thread and not the new post. Makes for tedious flipping through pages of posts on some threads.

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Merlin Rocket 3609


Posted By: Phil_1193
Date Posted: 25 Jul 16 at 1:11pm
Originally posted by Time Lord

Unlike the old recent posts button which showed all the recent posts whether or not you had read them, the new posts button only shows the posts made since you last accessed the button. If you want to mull things over before posting a reply, you have to find the actual topic it was posted under on the forum among the multitude. The old recent posts page brought up all the topics which had had a post in the last x days and made it easier to find a particular thread.

Also I seem to recall that the old recent posts button took you to the last post made on that thread. The new posts takes you to the beginning of a thread and not the new post. Makes for tedious flipping through pages of posts on some threads.


Its still there,click on new posts, theres a drop down menu to show posts since last visit, a number of hours, days, weeks etc, top left above the list

Hopefully image below works


 


Posted By: Time Lord
Date Posted: 25 Jul 16 at 3:24pm
Agreed you can get it that way. Just thought that it would be easier if we still had the recent posts button which automatically showed these up.

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Merlin Rocket 3609


Posted By: MerlinMags
Date Posted: 26 Jul 16 at 10:27am
I have been listening to your thoughts, everyone. I will be having a chat with Mark and looking at what changes we need to make, though I have got a week's holiday first, so please bear with me.

My apologies if you feel things are more difficult; we certainly did not want to make life harder with the new look.


Posted By: dogslife
Date Posted: 26 Jul 16 at 10:00pm
Sorry, but the new site is a serious step backwards IMHO.

Without question it's harder to navigate, the layout is far too busy & confusing and you can't just look at dinghy (or keel boat) articles in the way you could before. Plus in places it reads like it's been edited/created by someone who can't read, write or speak english or is simply dyslexic.

Other than that it's great...........NOT!!! Please sort it out a.s.a.p.


Posted By: JimC
Date Posted: 26 Jul 16 at 10:58pm
I dunno, it doesn't seem *that* different to me. If you can't remember quite what the old one looked like go to %20http://web.archive.org/web/20160308170030/http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/" rel="nofollow - http://web.archive.org/web/20160308170030/http://www.yachtsandyachting.com/

Most of what I did I do in the same way now. I don't think I'd go so far as to say I prefer the new look though.

Its very interesting to me the difference between having two narrow columns of advertisements, one each side and one wide one. It certainly makes the animation of the ads more in your face, and of course they are paying the bills and we aren't.

Worth looking at the Sail-World site. If you figure that's the house style the boys have to conform to then they don't have too many choices.

In their place I might be tempted to looking at putting a bare left margin on the forum pages once they get to a reasonable width, which I think would make it a bit more readable on larger devices.




Posted By: MerlinMags
Date Posted: 27 Jul 16 at 10:26am
The previous version of the website continues to operate at http://old.yachtsandyachting.com/" rel="nofollow - old.yachtsandyachting.com if you wish to use that version.

Just to clarify: YachtsandYachting.com owns Sail-World.com (not the other way around).


Posted By: jaydub
Date Posted: 27 Jul 16 at 3:47pm
The sail-world.com looks much cleaner without the middle column with the highlighted news stories.  just saying!


Posted By: Rupert
Date Posted: 27 Jul 16 at 10:23pm
Trouble with paid ads is while they provide the money, if fewer people look at the site, they won't want to advertise, so if the ads dominate the forum, we end up with a declining spiral of death. Or something.

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Firefly 2324, Puffin 229, Minisail 3446 Mirror 70686


Posted By: andymck
Date Posted: 27 Jul 16 at 11:55pm
I have to say the old site is superior in appearance, less clinical, easier to read. I am happy with advertising, but the overall layout of toe old version is just more easy on the eye, and easier to navigate. I usually can see the benefits when things get updated, bit not this time.
I hope we can have some of the old features back, and something that does not look like the white clinical wall I stare at all day in the hospital.

Andy


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Andy Mck


Posted By: patj
Date Posted: 30 Jul 16 at 7:06am
How do we look at just Dinghy News rather than wading through the keelboat dross?


Posted By: craiggo
Date Posted: 01 Aug 16 at 3:23pm
The new format is pants.

It looks messy and unfinished when I view on my laptop, and even worse on either my tablet or my phone (both running Android and using chrome browser).

I get loads of numbers, then ads and finally if I'm lucky I can find the actual article.

The forum also is harder to view. At least the old version although small could be zoomed on to press the new posts button.

Mags and Mark, I like change but this is not a good one. The articles have to be the focus.


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OK 2129
RS200 411


Posted By: iGRF
Date Posted: 02 Aug 16 at 8:59am
Personally I don't mind it being freshened up, but graphically it is unfinished, it needs a 1 or 2 pt keyline separating the ad column and the main title bar from the forum content bit, I'd also put a tone 20 or 30% block over the Forum Home member posts to Newposts log out group.

The Eye is confused at the minute with the blue heading block centred then the forum header bars being ranged left, plus they have a predominace of blue tone in tone which is nice, but the along come ads in all manner of conflcting colours so you really do need to keyline separate them, and there endeth the lesson in Graphic design.


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Posted By: Jack Sparrow
Date Posted: 02 Aug 16 at 1:12pm
Originally posted by iGRF

Personally I don't mind it being freshened up, but graphically it is unfinished, it needs a 1 or 2 pt keyline separating the ad column and the main title bar from the forum content bit, I'd also put a tone 20 or 30% block over the Forum Home member posts to Newposts log out group.

The Eye is confused at the minute with the blue heading block centred then the forum header bars being ranged left, plus they have a predominace of blue tone in tone which is nice, but the along come ads in all manner of conflcting colours so you really do need to keyline separate them, and there endeth the lesson in Graphic design.

LOL... 

Merlin Mags, if you actually want some professional advice. Pop over to my Design Consultancy Website and drop me a line.
You won't see a lot of digital on there because that's not what we aim at. But SONY and others have been very happy with the digital creative I produced for them.

www.clearthinkingcreative.co.uk


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Posted By: Do Different
Date Posted: 12 Aug 16 at 5:32pm
"Bad news travels fast, good news travels slow" seems to hold true.

How many days has this last remodelling been in place? Looks much better to me, somehow meatier with more visual weight about. I can't say about tricks and features as I can find all I want without difficulty.

One question, photo uploads? I haven't tried recently but in the past it has been a tortuous and sometimes impossible process. 



Posted By: MerlinMags
Date Posted: 15 Aug 16 at 2:55pm
The forum is unchanged as the new look is mostly around the edges of the forum. Thus photo uploads work in the same way.

I know uploading isn't perfect, but I thought it was satisfactory at present. We are planning to upgrade the forum after other critical projects have finished. Sorry I cannot promise anything any sooner.


Posted By: Do Different
Date Posted: 15 Aug 16 at 8:06pm
Thumbs Up



Posted By: Mark Jardine
Date Posted: 16 Aug 16 at 1:45pm
Hi all

Some good comments on here - we had to change the design as the old one, especially with skyscraper banners, just couldn't work on mobile devices.

We are also looking very closely at the middle column on the homepage - the aim was to highlight our features and advertorial more, but it's quite possible we've got this wrong. With a few things on the design we went a little 'out on a limb' to see if it would work.

Also taking on board the comment about the keyline separator - I think that's a good idea.

Getting the forum to match up fixed width to the header on wide displays is a pain, but something I should be able to work out how to do.

Many thanks for the feedback - we do listen and react, but it might take a bit longer due to some event going on in Rio at the moment.

As it is, we have seen a big boost in mobile and tablet traffic as the site does now work in a much better way on a small screen, but I fully acknowledge that we do need to tidy up and tweak a few bits.

Thanks for your patience!

Cheers, Mark



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