The new forums are here!

[SN]

The colour is one of the things I actually don't mind about the raspite theme.

Its the over abundance of white space and fixed width board is what I find hard work - compared to prosilver you get about half as many posts on the screen (though in this respect the rpf is not alone in this, anyone who is regular visitor to the BBC News Site will know they have fell in to this trap IMHO with their latest revamp)

So I don't want anyone, least of all eben who seems to have done all the leg work on the theme, to be annoyed or offended by my 'dissing' of the new theme - its my preference and for me I am definitely in the camp of "if it ain't broke don't fix it" - so my perfect option would be to apply the raspite colouring to the prosilver layout

[cross-keys]

Eben is nicer than I am - he's enabled ProSilver for you if you want it. You'll find it in your profile pages.

<like>

[cheery]

Could you provide "mark all posts read on this forum"?

[Robert_M]

Wild!

It seems my post was eaten by the Post Monster. (Or, more likely, I hit the wrong damn button...)

To summarize (a short post with a longer one): Welcome, New Forums! Also, I tried both versions and prefer the default because of the white space and short lines of text.

[Simon H]

On the iPad the news, forum, about etc links are all verticl on the top right rather than horizontal.....which makes the header massive.

Rob

Same on Android

[rmm200]

I am sorry - with all the work that went into it, I wanted to like the Raspi format.... For me, on Firefox, there was not Unread marker on topics at all... Could not tell what was unread. Prosilver, however works great for me on Firefox. I like the layout, I like the colors, and most of all I like the red mark on unread posts. New forum (with Prosilver) is great!

[jsidebottom]

Well, the default theme did one thing - force me to lower the contrast on my second screen
I have changed over to prosilver now though, thanks Eben.
It is still easier to read the forums after you click the reply button (so you lose the avatar section), but this is true of most forums.
Also: would you be able to enable us to change our username? I'm sure I'm not the only one who'd prefer we didn't use our login as our display name.

[Midnight Caller]

Can you enable us to link to our own avatar on our server? for example my avatar on my server is at:
http://www.dhea.org.uk/avatars/gary_p_80x80.jpg

My Avatar

[markb]

Could you provide "mark all posts read on this forum"?

+1 !

I either spend the rest of the day reading every post, or give up on this forum

[n3tw0rk5]

Really like the new forum, it's definitely a lot quicker!
I've even managed to find my original account, although I've got used to using my alternate nic now

Well done and keep up the good work.

[poing]

Thanks for the prosilver layout, works better for me.

I'd like to suggest placing the link to 'View new posts' next to 'View your posts' on top of the screen. Then you can always quickly go back to the list of new posts without first going to the board index page.

[Lakes]

Sorry, but the first thing I did was switch to ProSilver, the colours are much easier on the eye.

Thanks for making it available.

[ThomasPRoberts]

Looks really good. Two things I would say though, which are mostly mobile related.
The slight indent from the post body from peoples signature makes some posts look like quotes.
The header menu doesn't size well on mobile at all!

One more thing, where has the tree structure for the forum gone on the top of pages? This makes navigation really easy and it is a standard feature on most forums. Maybe I just can't see it...

[artesea]

I hate having negative feedback provided to me when launching new designs on websites, but on the pi theme I can't spot links with the text of a post. (Did you see it?)

[quitequick]

I know Eben must have spent some spare time putting together the new forum s/w - for which I appreciate.

However... I too much prefer the prosilver theme. Raspite is too 'white' and content too sparse. A bit of pi branding on prosilver would work for me.

[obarthelemy]

Ace. However, can I be the first to suggest allowing users to select the good old subsilver theme? Not that I don't like the new one, but - well, actually, I don't like the new one

Simon.

Get with the sophisticated users and use Opera You can force you own global CSS on all sites, or a specific CSS on a specific site, and switch from "user mode" (your CSS) to "author mode" (theirs) with a click a of button. No addons required. </advertisement>.

Very nice protection against devs who think they're designers, and designers who think more is better... and white backgrounds !

[oztrailrider]

Thanks for the great work getting the new forums running. A big improvement over Simple:Press.

[kirbyman62-2]

I think something must have happened to my old account because it kept rejecting my password (Firefox had it saved and it worked before, so it was defiantly right), and attempting a password reset came up with an error saying it could not find my e-mail address. No worries though, I just made this one.

I have to say, I quite like the new theme

[daveg]

Sorry to say I am one of the Raspite haters, most of the features which make phpBB a MASSIVE improvement over the old forums have been stripped out making it less functional than the old forum!.
Too much wasted screen space and a confusing layout of the posts in the threads.
Great job in moving the forums onto phpBB, but let down by the choice of theme. I've had to set ProSiver as my theme otherwise the forums are close to unusable.
Sorry, but that's my opinion

[AndrewS]

Compared to the prosilver theme, the "Options" and "Upload attachment" buttons don't seem to be styled properly in the raspite theme. I kept clicking on "Options" for ages, wondering why nothing was happening

[Dapa]

I've switched to the ProSilver for the moment and I'm very grateful for Eban for providing this option as I would had stopped visiting the forums without it.

I'm an interface designer by trade and try to be open-minded to new designs. In times gone by I've had parts of my work criticised by forum communities or even by client reps seemingly 'just because' they feel the need to provide criticism, without any constructive comments. "That's rubbish, *I* could do better than that"... without fully apprenticing what's involved with regards to client requests, time-scales and dependencies.

By all accounts, someone has volunteered their time at no cost for the new theme? So, yes - this needs to be considered. If (say) someone volunteered to manage a cake stall at a church fate, would it be reasonable to 'have a go at them' for not pushing sales hard enough? Of course not. If you had a caterer for your event at £75 a head and the quality was sub standard, would you complain? Naturally.

Personally speaking, as long as my clients remain respectful, they can say whatever they want about my work and I'll respond - they're paying me for that privilege.

In hindsight, perhaps it would have been best to introduce the new design as a work in progress. "This is our new design, please be kind about the changes and feel free to provide suggestions to how we could make it even better".

Here's my own advice :-

• 1. Swap the message area from the left to the right pane?
  2. Subtle use of blocks of colour (maybe alternate colours between posts)
  3. More visual metaphors - icons, etc.
  4. Balance the headings

I really hope the issues can be resolved in time as I think the foundation equally gets a lot of it's value from the folks who visit the forums and provide advice to other users at no charge.

[Montala]

A good post Dapa... I fully agree with your suggestions!

[obarthelemy]

I think the current layout with message on the left (where we start reading) and useless stuff (avatars, sigs...) on the right where we don't see them unless we really want to is very practical.

[naicheben]

Before the migration we had a test forum and I asked if subscribed topics and watched topics would be migrated as well. I got no answer, but now I can't find them so the answer would have been no?

[JamesA]

Just to echo what a lot of others have said:

Thanks for the new software, its much better.

Please tone the white down, its really hard on the eyes. How about expanding that background on the top menu bar to the whole page?

Please expand it so it uses all of my screen. This would also help with the above as at the moment I've got about 4 inches of pure white either side of my screen.

Please move (or give the option to move) the user info to the left of the post body. Its where its meant to be (in my opinion) and where it is on 99.999% of forums on the internet. It just looks odd to me.

PS. my Pi rock and everyone at work is jealous