Forum Update

[Senex]

The upgrade seems to have gone incredibly smoothly, for which congrtatulations and thanks to all concerned. But why does everything now seem so huge? There's much more scrolling to be done, and lines do seem incredibly long across the screen.

 

[Starmill]

I notice timestamps have returned to 24 hour clock

 

[Crossover]

First time viewing the new site properly on a PC. Clicked on the link on the homepage to go to the thread and it has dropped me onto the last post (as someone mentioned yesterday) and clicking to go to first unread isn't doing much, so I have probably missed a few pages of the thread. On the mobile I noticed some inconsistencies on the pages too as bits that were there on one page banner was missing when on another page, for which I will do some more digging later

 

[fusionblue]

I really like the update. My only request is to hide avatars/signatures and to increase the amount of posts per page.

 

[Cletus]

I really like the update. My only request is to hide avatars/signatures and to increase the amount of posts per page.

Mine too. Perfect otherwise

 

[SamYeager]

I would like to add my vote to those requesting the ability to display more posts per page. I think I used to have 50 posts per page which I found a good balance between having to switch pages frequently, such as this current thread, and overly long pages.

Personally I think all the stuff down the right side of the main page should be shunted down to the bottom of the page although I suppose some might like to see the "New Posts" stay. Since it appears that "Likes" will not be implemented can you please remove the entry for them from my details as shown on the top right.

 

[A Challenge]

I noticed that the gallery, along with all the Photo of the Week entries, hasn't migrated over.

Also, the ad at the top of the page looks a bit odd being below the subforum name - I think it should be just above that, but that is a small issue and definitely not a priority,

 

[Skimble19]

For those complaining about font size, the icon pointed to by the arrow shows the option to customise the font size. https://prnt.sc/gtdpj5

The issue isn't Font sizes within posts, but in the forum sections where the threads are located (Thread Titles etc.) The font size on actual posts is perfectly fine.

 

[eastwestdivide]

Here's 1024 characters, just to prove the limit is over 1000:
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet. Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consetetur sadipscing elitr, sed diam nonumy eirmod tempor invidunt ut labore et dolore magna aliquyam erat, sed diam voluptua. At vero eos et accusam et justo duo dolores et ea rebum. Stet clita kasd gubergren, no sea takimata sanctus est Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet.

Duis autem vel eum iriure dolor in hendrerit in vulputate velit esse molestie consequat, vel illum dolore eu feugiat nulla facilisis at

 

[A Challenge]

I hadn't realised how little 1,000 characters actually is!

 

[ABB125]

The new update is certainly... different. I like the fact that there are more posts per page than before, but more would be better. Everything seems too spaced out to me, and the writing a bit large. The old "Forum Jump" button, which I used most of the time is now replaced with a "Quick Navigation Menu". This would be fine, except that, again, it is too spaced out, and the general links section is above the forum list section. This is very annoying.
However, the upgrade seems to have gone smoothly, and I will eventually get used to it.

And now I get adverts

 

[matt]

And now I get adverts

The forum has always had adverts...

 

[krus_aragon]

For the time being this is the only theme available but we are going to reintroduce a range of themes over time. I'll make sure that a lightweight theme is given a prod up the priority list!

On this note, can I add another use case:
On the old forum, I used the Lightweight theme on my mobile and the default theme on desktop devices. The software wasn't designed for that, but the lightweight theme had a "back to default theme" button in the upper right hand corner that reverted to the default theme, but without changing the User CP setting. (I presume this reversion was only set in a local cookie.) I'm not assuming the same kludge will work with the new forum, but I note the new theme uses CSS to hide/rearrange content based on screen width.

I've only had a brief play around with viewing the new forum on my devices so far. It certainly displays better than the old one, but it's not to my taste. (Like Blindtraveller, I find there's a bit too much shown on smaller screens, and my phone in landscape triggers the full display, whereas I'd prefer it to match portrait.) I'll look forward to trying other styles as they're added, and hope to find something that suits me.

 

[WatcherZero]

Chiming in on text a bit too large now, needs to drop 10/15%

 

[spark001uk]

Chiming in on text a bit too large now, needs to drop 10/15%

Liking the XenForo, MUCH better for sure. I'm not seeing any overly large fonts though? Could be device/browser dependent?
Perhaps if someone affected could post a shot of it, and I'll post the same shot(s) as comparison?

Anyway, like I say, great now. Particularly like the image viewer popup, which works way better on mobile too.
Also noticed now you can directly highlight a portion of someone's post and then hit the reply pop-under, to quote that exact bit of text. Nice touch.

 

[nw-sparks]

Have we lost the facility for a daily email digest of watched threads?

Well done for restoring the 24 hour clock.

 

[trainophile]

I'm learning stuff here that I never even knew we had on the old forum, and some of it I'm not sure I know what it is!

I'm in the camp that isn't noticing any text size increase. Please don't make it smaller, it's only just readable now. I'm on Safari.

It's good that we can now see which Forum officials are online... although perhaps that might go, as I bet some of them would rather be invisible!

 

[DaveB10780]

Sadly like so many sites it is mobile orientated so on a PC I end up with loads of white space, extra line spacing and extra scrolling. I reckon I see about 60% of what I saw before. Sigh...................................................

 

[Mojo]

Sadly like so many sites it is mobile orientated so on a PC I end up with loads of white space, extra line spacing and extra scrolling. Sigh...................................................

You shouldn't do, the forum is responsive to the size of your window, I don't have any extra blank unused space.

Have we lost the facility for a daily email digest of watched threads?

I will look at providing this feature, it's on the list.

I'm in the camp that isn't noticing any text size increase. Please don't make it smaller, it's only just readable now. I'm on Safari.

Could someone point out where exactly the text size is too big, as I am not sure.

 

[Lrd]

Could someone point out where exactly the text size is too big, as I am not sure.

It's not too big, it's a good size on both browser and mobile for me.

 

[A Challenge]

You shouldn't do, the forum is responsive to the size of your window, I don't have any extra blank unused space.

I will look at providing this feature, it's on the list.

Could someone point out where exactly the text size is too big, as I am not sure.

It's not too big, it's a good size on both browser and mobile for me.

i think what's being complained about is the username in the last post column, though I, like lrd, have no problem with it, it's not much larger.

 

[Mojo]

Someone asked about disabling signatures and avatars on other people's posts. You can disable signatures in your preferences screen. Avatars are quite a vital component of the new forum so this is not possible at the moment, but I agree as too few people have avatars it is a bit confusing, so I will look into that.

 

[spark001uk]

You shouldn't do, the forum is responsive to the size of your window, I don't have any extra blank unused space.

I will look at providing this feature, it's on the list.

Could someone point out where exactly the text size is too big, as I am not sure.

+1 here. Tried on PC with Chrome, and on my mobile with Stock browser and chrome, all fine. As I said if someone with the issues wants to post a screenie so we can see what's up.

 

[DaveB10780]

You shouldn't do, the forum is responsive to the size of your window, I don't have any extra blank unused space.

Well on my laptop running Chrome at 100% screen size 1920x1080 I see at most two topics on a forum, before I could see 8 or 9. On the front page I could see at least until Other Public Transport now I don't even see the Fares Ticketing and Routing header. The advert certainly takes more space as well. On the plus side it does look nice and clean and i am sure I will find a way around most issues. I have experience with other sites that consider mobile first but I would prefer not to scroll on the PC.

 

[g4mby]

Could someone point out where exactly the text size is too big, as I am not sure.

https://www.railforums.co.uk/forums/other-public-transport.49/ might show be what some users are referring to. Compare the size of the thread title font to that of the forum title font.

 

[Hadders]

The old forum used to have 'Previous Thread' and 'Next Thread' links at the bottom of each page. Can't see this on the new version.

 

[Starmill]

It's good that we can now see which Forum officials are online... although perhaps that might go, as I bet some of them would rather be invisible!

I can see whether or not you are online too

This can be changed in any case - click on your name in the top right, then Privacy and then you can check or uncheck the first box.

 

[spark001uk]

Well on my laptop running Chrome at 100% screen size 1920x1080 I see at most two topics on a forum, before I could see 8 or 9. On the front page I could see at least until Other Public Transport now I don't even see the Fares Ticketing and Routing header. The advert certainly takes more space as well. On the plus side it does look nice and clean and i am sure I will find a way around most issues. I have experience with other sites that consider mobile first but I would prefer not to scroll on the PC.

Strange, I'm also on Chrome at 1920x1080 and everything looks fine.

 

[Mojo]

Well on my laptop running Chrome at 100% screen size 1920x1080 I see at most two topics on a forum, before I could see 8 or 9. On the front page I could see at least until Other Public Transport now I don't even see the Fares Ticketing and Routing header. The advert certainly takes more space as well. On the plus side it does look nice and clean and i am sure I will find a way around most issues. I have experience with other sites that consider mobile first but I would prefer not to scroll on the PC.

Part of that might be because of the message box at the top, this is only a temporary thing in any case and can be dismissed at any time by clicking on the 'x.' My resolution is 1280 x 800 and I can see to the Railway jobs and careers forum. This is solely because the menu functions are bigger and also the breadcrumb trail which is visible on the homepage which I think is a bit useless, so I will remove it, if I can, but I don't think anything to do with mobile accessibility.

 

[trainophile]

Just noticed something a bit strange on the Virgin East Coast 1st Class thread - the more recent posts just say "Friday" and a time (of posting); "Monday" and a time... etc. etc., with no date shown. Have only noticed that on this one thread. Will investigate further.

Edit: Other threads similarly affected.