Upgrade - 22/09

[Hawker]

10 hours ago, boatmate said:

Really don’t like the new look when on a mobile device. It is harder to navigate and each thread looks ugly. I don’t like how the profile picture is in the middle and it is harder to tell when the post was made.

Thank you for your feedback.  I'm sorry to read that you are not a fan of the change.

I have said further up the thread that I will keep an eye on the developments from Invision, and if there is something more suitable for us to upgrade to in the future, I will do so.

The design choices are not ours - they are Invision's, who have determined what they believe to be the optimal design for each layout.  The smaller your screen size, the less information is available visually.  Depending on the size of your device, rotating it so it is landscape may cause a different view to load (it does on my device, but I have a large phone) - and the next size up offers information on when the post was made.

There are also other changes to the board software - so returning to a thread will take you to the first unread post, and you can further modify these settings to suit your posting / reading style in your account:  https://www.neighboursfans.com/forum/settings/links/

In the past, I spent a lot of time (literally thousands of hours over the past 20 years) customising the site to ensure that people were content.  However, my life has changed considerably and I no longer have the time to do these things - these changes which may seem trivial on the surface take a massive investment of time.

I appreciate you might find this disappointing, but I wanted to advise you of what the current situation is so you didn't have false expectations.  

If you find that it's unusable, you could request that your mobile browser fetches the desktop site (which is usually a toggle in the menu of your browser) as an alternative.

[boatmate]

@Hawkeryou do a great job and we really appreciate all the time and effort you have put into the site, especially, as you say, there are so many more important things. 

[Hawker]

Cheers for understanding - I will keep my eye out for improvements.   

[boatmate]

2 minutes ago, Hawker said:

Cheers for understanding - I will keep my eye out for improvements.   

I’m sorry for criticising, but I know you’d prefer to know our real thoughts on the new layout rather than ‘it’s great.’ I’ll definitely try changing my phone to desktop mode in the meantime. 

[Hawker]

No, it's fine.

My problem is that my instinct is always to try to fix things for people - and I'll be honest, I did have a look earlier to see if it was something I could quickly fix on the fly.

Alas, the way the board is structured these days, it's really not simple to modify; if it had been, I'd have done it there and then.  

 

[wizardt™]

2 hours ago, Hawker said:

If you find that it's unusable, you could request that your mobile browser fetches the desktop site (which is usually a toggle in the menu of your browser) as an alternative.

2 minutes ago, boatmate said:

I’ll definitely try changing my phone to desktop mode in the meantime. 

  It's a good thing to get used to doing, I think. I find I do this with pretty much every website I look at on my phone (even YouTube etc), so I'm not even sure what Nfans looks like by default on there. I think it's because I'm mainly a PC user for browsing the web, and I just like things to be the same when I'm on another device - I find zooming in and out to read/click on things the easiest way of adjusting, rather than navigating a new layout.

[Hawker]

I've split a set of posts from Neighbours Chat into this topic.  @lozthyneighbours @emzynr @SydneyNeighboursFan @FootyKick - in future, please can you put feedback about the forum in this dedicated thread?

When it is posted in random topics across the forum, it is difficult to ensure that we've picked up all of the feedback - and it would be frustrating for you to feel that you've lodged a complaint without it being addressed.

As stated in this topic last night, it's not possible to address everything - but if I can make a minor change to improve things, then I am happy to do so.  If I can't, then I'm happy to save the points for future reference, as two things usually happen - either we adjust to the current set up and in 12 months, things that were deemed a problem are no longer relevant, or developments are made in the codebase and we can make adjustments further down the line.

It would also be useful if you could raise the specific problems you're experiencing so that they can be investigated, rather than saying that you hate it.  

To address the initial complaint:

On 01/10/2020 at 02:24, lozthyneighbours said:

Am I the only one who hates the board like this? Much prefer the comments to be fully on the page after all that’s why most of us come on here to read and enter into the conversation. I don’t think we need whatever is on the right of the comments, well I don’t really look at it anyway.  When comments are fully on the page you don’t need to hit expand or to scroll so far down. But anyways that’s imo. 

I've made an adjustment to how this displays in topic view.  It's now condensed into the topic, and can be clicked on optionally - which also returns the topic view back to being fullscreen on desktop.

Here's an example from the mobile view.

The menu bar is now folded into the topic, highlighted here in red.

Clicking on the arrow on the right hand side loads the content:

Please can you let me know if that is more suitable?

[boatmate]

@Hawker 

yes, I’m finding it much better.

On a larger screen (tablet or desktop) it shows how long ago the post was made (eg, you wrote the above 4 hours ago). This is easy to see when the post was made. It doesn’t show on mobile - is there any way to add it back in? 
 

 

 

 

[Hawker]

7 minutes ago, boatmate said:

@Hawker 

yes, I’m finding it much better.

On a larger screen (tablet or desktop) it shows how long ago the post was made (eg, you wrote the above 4 hours ago). This is easy to see when the post was made. It doesn’t show on mobile - is there any way to add it back in? 

That's good to hear. 

No, unfortunately not - that was what I was unsuccessfully hunting down for you last night (that, and moving the avatar).    That smallest view is definitely the least friendly, I agree - I'll keep an eye out.

[lozthyneighbours]

Thank you Sal. 

[ekane]

On 01/10/2020 at 22:43, Tracy C said:

That has been gone for a long time - it just shows how long ago someone made a post

 

 

It used to show with each individual post for me up until the change a couple of weeks ago ( I only view on mobile) .  So for example reading your comment I have no idea when you posted it,  but when I reply to it, it has the date and time so then I find out you posted it on Oct 1st. 

[Hawker]

Hi @ekane - yeah, the smallest view (which is what you'll generally see if you're on mobile) doesn't show any date/time details on the posts.  I realise this is irritating - it's definitely on the to-do list.  

[Hawker]

How's that now? @boatmate @ekane  @J Bar

[ekane]

2 minutes ago, Hawker said:

How's that now? @boatmate @ekane  @J Bar

Perfect,  Now I Love it

[Hawker]

It turns out I just needed to have a bit of a rest after work and the clouds parted in the code. 

I was definitely overtired earlier in the week!  

[Hawker]

Made a few other tweaks as well to the templates; I think it's looking better on desktop now too.  

[Tracy C]

Looks just like any other method now. Thanks Sal  

[daydreambeliever]

I definitely think it's easier to read on desktop - more clear and I think the background's lighter?

[boatmate]

Ahhhh @Hawker you’re the best!!!!!!

[Hawker]

I'm really pleased that I could get a resolution for you.    Thanks heaps for your patience whilst I had a look at it.