New Forum

New Forum format

Charliem said:
Hi everyone,

This new forum is really Great! I like the new look.Good Job!
Click to expand...

I'll second that! There is a lot of great new functions now. The member list aqnd who's online is great. Private messages and IM links too. Definitely check out the tabs at the top of the page. Don't forget to update your profile.

Myc Holmes
 
This is awesome but now I have to learn how to use it

The upgrade seems much easier to use and its got emotion icons so we can tell when the tongue is in the cheek.

This looks much more up to date,

But does that mean that the "fine art" of ascii faces will no longer be used? Thats probably a good thing, Excuse me while I try out all the new buttons
 
Unfortunately not impressed

I guess it was expected I'd find something wrong with the new forums, so may as well get it off my chest early on ...

Far too much screen real-estate wasted. It's no longer easy to see new posts in forums without having to scroll down the page. About 50% of the top of the screen is just logo and info. Why doesn't the forum stretch across the whole screen; that wastes around 20%.

Quick reply is ridiculous if you cannot just type something into the box and hit send. Not sure what the "Quick Reply Icons" are I'm meant to click on, couldn't see them.

And what's with all the boxes around everything ?

This may be perceived prettier and offer more features than the previous but I think we've sacrificed content and compactness for faux snaziness. I really prefer forums with one-liner, topic / author links. You can see many or all the recent posts at a glance. With this "my first forum" approach, I suspect there's going to be stuff I miss where my input could be useful.

I suppose we'll just have to see how it goes.
 
Quick reply is the triangle - just hover for a tip.

"About 50% of the top of the screen is just logo and info" - not on my browser it ain't. Sorry, can't agree there. Are you using some old browser on a small display?
 
The new forum style is the way most modern forums work, and of course is not going to be to everyones immediate taste! vBulletin is a world leading forum technology.

Hippy
- if you want to read all the posts in a compact way simply click the archive link at the bottom of any page. Posts can then be read exactly as you have described!
- Quick reply icon is a down pointing arrow, bottom right of each post. Clicking this icon will take you straight down to the text entry point at the bottom of the screen, no matter which post in the thread you are reading.
 
Much much much better. No more ASCII art unless some old 'un decides to be a stick-in-the-mud.
Quick links etc. excellent. VBulletin is the bee's knees.

Image insertion is going to make life so much easier.
I might even insert/attach my passport photo...
I think the auto-capitalisation is going to upset dpg though.

Well done the lads!
Let me insert an eroticon.

Is there a spell checker that can discriminate between lose and loose?
Only thing I miss is Bold and Italic and colour as a simple select and click.
 
And scrolled sub-windows for code insertion. So you don't fall off your mouse mat (or wear out your wheel) scrolling 5 miles down the page through code...

Come on hippy, old chap, celebrate the positives :) - there are many of them.
 
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Dippy said:
Quick reply is the triangle - just hover for a tip.

"About 50% of the top of the screen is just logo and info" - not on my browser it ain't. Sorry, can't agree there. Are you using some old browser on a small display?
Click to expand...

Quote make for an easy reply option too.... I like what we got :)

The format doesn't look too bad on the small screen of my palm top.

regards,
colin
 
@ Technical : That "Archive View" would be what I call a near perfect Forum index if only it had new post icons.

@ Dippy : Not an unreasonably small display; 600 x 800.

@ Slurp : I suspect it looks better on a smaller device than a monitor. My feeling is it suffers from 'much too bigness' similar to the default WinXP theming.

I suppose this is the problem, I'm in borderline country between not needing a big presentation to see it on a small device and do not have a high enough reolution to shrink it down to an acceptable size.
 
On a 1024 x 768 screen, about top half of the first screen is logo and links.

And there's probably too much white space elsewhere.

My web design experience tells me that there are potentially better arrangements for the page elements, although that may not be possible with a "packaged" product.

John
 
i think it's best viewed on a 1024X768 and higher
most people these days have a 17" or bigger moniter and run even slightly higher resolutions

Hippy, you'll get used to it pretty quick especially with the new customisation thats allowed like being able to choose to see the newer posts in a thread on the first page and not the last
 
On reflection I think there's far too much white space.

Looking the top of this thread on a 1280x1024 screen the only actual content I can see is:
<<
Hi everyone,
This new forum is really Great! I like the new look.Good Job!
Just beat me to first post. Long overdue for the overhaul - finally we can post pics.
Originally Posted by Charliem
>>

:(

Genuine suggestion - change the posters details (name, join date etc) from a row above the post to a column beside the post - there are plenty of other vBulletin forums that do this...
 
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End of ASCII art?

Now that images can be posted, is this the end of ASCII art schematics?. There are some real artists here. :)

Oldbit
 
I have now viewed the new forum on a 17" LCD (home) and a 21" CRT (work) - both 1280x1024. The bigger screen certainly is an advantange.

ASCII art: If I'm posting a circuit from my work PC, you'll still be able to enjoy ASCII art! No drawing package :(
 
lost...

so far I'm lost in the myriad of odd stuff on the screen - this is just a trial post - I'm a fan of ASCI and no HTML - becoming obsolete with my collection of vacuum tubes and thru hole electronics parts... :-)
 
lost...

so far I'm lost in the myriad of odd stuff on the screen - this is just a trial post - I'm a fan of ASCI and no HTML - becoming obsolete with my collection of vacuum tubes and thru hole electronics parts... :-) I notice the "You last visited 01-01-1970 at 01:00" at the top of the page - they got my number as an old timer - even before MICROCHIP was in business and I was trying to make a 1 bit Motorola MC15000 work!
 
MartinM57 said:
Genuine suggestion - change the posters details (name, join date etc) from a row above the post to a column beside the post - there are plenty of other vBulletin forums that do this...
Click to expand...

Looking at other vBulletin-powered sites and the style does appear to be highly customisable, and there are some very compact page designs which I've found preferable. Many use full screen width, little or no framing / bordering and smaller intro page icons.

The other thing I've noticed is that most other forums are down a point or two in font size.

I also think that the 'new posts' icons need to be beefed up a bit to make them more identifiable. The old bright colours were much more distinctive and immediately obvious.
 
Hippy.

I agree with some of your sentiments. Have you tried selecting 'printable version' from the thread tools? Something between that and what we have now would suit my personal tastes better. The webmaster may be able to tweak some settings and find a happy medium.

EDIT:
Example of a forum format that I personaly like.
 
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yes way too much useless stuff on screen - at least there isn't any dancing baloney - yet... skinny it down!
 
DOB

For those who are security conscious, some members DOB have appeared in the calendar and member profile. If you do not want this information out there adjust your member profile.
 
Forum Wishlist

Is it possible to get a new Webpage/Newtab to open when clicking on thumbnails? (Yes, I know the right-click).
It's just that out of habit I left click, view the image, and close... and ooops I've lost the Forum. I wasn't sure whether it was an option when setting up and as you'll be introducing some more goodies soon... well.... whilst you're at it (so to speak) ...
 
Kiwi corner here ( briefly!): I'm pretty familiar with this style of forum from other groups, but although new features are appealing,a nagging feel that things are not yet right exists. The old forum's fluency seems absent,with too much screen dead space. I guess the acid test may well be comparative measures of the posting rates... Stan
 
Thanks for all the comments. We will try tweaking the format over next few days, but we will never please everyone! However we have now found the 'details on left' setting which we certainly think helps make the thread easier to follow.

Remember also that you can set your options (User CP, top right after logging in) to hide signatures etc.
 
boriz said:
Example of a forum format that I personaly like.
Click to expand...

I agree its definitely in the right direction, smaller icons, much more compact, although viewed at 800x600 it stretches too far to the right, goes off screen - Shows just how difficult it is to get a forum that everyone is happy with.

The user names on the left here is a good improvement, it's allowed a lot more content per vertical inch. now if we could stretch to full-width screen I expect I would say I am happy with what we have now got ( after more distinctive New Post icons are added ). Other vBulletin forums manage that so I expect it's just a case of Technical finding the right switch to throw, and I can appreciate they are new to this as well !
 
oldbitcollector said:
Now that images can be posted, is this the end of ASCII art schematics?. There are some real artists here. :)
Click to expand...
No way, some of us find it easier and quicker to draw ASCII Art circuits than use a Schematic Editor, and they are entirely portable into source code, which is where they usually come from anyway - why do everything twice.

Like any other 'art form' it's not going to be easy to kill off or replace. Rumours of its demise are greatly premature :-)

Using [code]..[/code] tags isn't perfect as that gives only a limited viewport but I haven't investigated all tag options yet. The narrow text area also means what used to fit in the old forum ( viewed 600x800 ) stretches the page width, but only for that section which is quite nice ...
Code: 
                                       ____     ____
                    .-----------------|____|---|____|-------------< P9
                    |                  150R     180R
                    |                                        .----< 3V3
                    |                                       _|_
           .---.    |                                       /_\
TX to PC   | O |<---'    |\ |          ____     ____         |
RX from PC | O |---------| >|----.----|____|---|____|----.---^----> P8
0V         | O |----.    |/ |    |     270K     270K     |
           `---'    |   1N4148  .|.                     _|_
                    |           | | 10K                 /_\
                    |           |_|                      |
                0V _|_          _|_                     _|_
 
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Join Date 1970???

I like the new look and all the bells and all.but I noticed that a lot if not all have a join date of 1970..including me. Its not a problem.Just thought I would point it out.:)
 
We can finally see how much hippy has helped everyone over the years - 5,459 posts, probably 5,000 of those helping others.
 
Top posters - thanks!

We all appreciate the great input Hippy has given, far more than anyone else, but many others also help a lot, so we would like to extend the thanks to all the regular posters.

For interest, here are the top 10 from the last forum:

hippy -5,459
BeanieBots -2,719
Technical -2,584
Jeremy Leach -1,614
Dippy -1,545
Rickharris -1,215
Michael 2727 -1,137
Stan. SWAN -1,118
ylp88 -811
manuka -756
premelec -697

(Note we have listed 11 - because two of the top ten are the same person... well done Stan/manuka!)
 
File Attachments too limited in size?

A pdf containing circuit diagrams can easily be larger than the current 19KB limit . If the diagram can be squeezed into this limit it will be illegible.

A reasonably "busy" diagram produced in sPlan and converted to pdf will be circa 120Kb in size.

Could this limit be raised to a suitable size for pdf circuit diagrams?

(A diagram of 13KB is attached which shows the "problem")
 

Attachments

administrator said:
hippy -5,459
BeanieBots -2,719
Technical -2,584 ...
Click to expand...
One day I'm going to have to get a real life !

Either that or start demanding a salary :)

Of course it's quality not just quantity which counts and less prolific posters have given excellent replies and often far better than I could have. Hopefully I've helped people along the way, and that's all the satisfaction I've needed.

I've also had the advantage of having discovered Rev-Ed and the PICAXE quite early on so I've a fairly long posting history. I knew it was going to be a success then; I think I've been proven right and it is still growing in popularity. The big round of applause must go to Rev-Ed for giving us the 'best toy' most of us have ever had the opportunity to play with.
 
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