Forum Update

Tixy

freefan01 wrote: »

Totally agree far too much white, not good for migraine sufferers or people with eye problems, is there any way of changing it?

Yep you can choose the less bright option under the user cp options.

Sandhy

I've switched to stretchy and the less bright option too.
I normally only lurk and only do a sign-in to post though ~ so I will see what happens when I sign out...

ETA (Obviously) one has to stay signed in to view in preferred choice, darn

Tixy

Not a glitch but a bit of a pain

The masthead boxes pop up menus keep obscuring the blue crumbline (or crumb trail or whatever its called). I'm not sure there is anything that can really be changed but I'm finding it a bit of a pain as I use the crumbline all the time.

freyasmum

torbrex wrote: »

I am not seeing any of the problems that you guys are complaining about but can I ask?

Am I the only person that has this problem with the new header?

Would stretchy help?

No, that particular bit is fine.

My laptop screen is only 18 inches and this is my view:


Again, losing the info box on the side of posts at least would help - a LOT.


And re the colours, if it was my post you were referencing, I know the forum itself hasn't changed but the masthead has and whereas before the bit underneath where it says 'moneysavingexpert.com' with all the links was silvery/grey with coloured writing, it's now coloured and all the green in there jars slightly with all the other green of the forum. It's completely minor, but it must be the designy bit in me coming through

elsiepac

Tixy wrote: »

When I 'go advanced' on a reply the options/selections are all over the place - most of the buttons are written in text not the usual symbol, the smilies are so far to the right on the new narrow page that they are mergin into the green latest mse news and cannot be selected. not sure if this is just me or common to everyone. Using Windows 7 and firefox. Firefox 6 I think. PS could the white be less white - very glare-y

Hi Tixy

I'm on Win7 with Firefox and mine was fine on "go advanced". However I'm on Firefox 3.6 for programming reasons... hopefully you'll be sorted soon!

LC

wnoktnwbr

For anyone who (like me) finds the sidebar to be an annoyance but likes the fixed width, here's a user script that will remove the side bar from any thread pages but no others:

http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/124005

It should work in google chrome, firefox, opera and safari.

Install for Chrome, Opera and Safari:

click: http://userscripts.org/scripts/source/124005.user.js

Install for Firefox:

wnoktnwbr wrote: »

1. go to https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/greasemonkey/
2. click the green "add to firefox" button
3. Add on will start downloading, wait for it to finish
4. Restart firefox
5. go to http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/124005
6. click "install" in the top right
7. A window will show up, wait 3 seconds and click "install"
8. Done!

The source code can be found here (it's just 3 lines): http://userscripts.org/scripts/review/124005

Threads now look like this:



The full benefits of fixed width without the side bar imposing! :-D

Let me know if you have any problems.

One-Eye

A Little suggestion - With fixed width, if you look at the bottom of post #1, the line "The Following 4 Users Say Thank You to MSE Forum Manager For This Useful Post:" stretches onto a second line (to allow space for "Remove your thanks"). This happens for anyone with a long username. Change the wording to "These 4 Users Say Thank You to MSE Forum Manager For This Useful Post:" to save 8 characters and prevent as many second lines.

grumbler

vicx wrote: »

I am the only one who thinks it looks better (on a 15" laptop).

No, you are not alone. It fits almost perfectly into a half of my 24" 1920x1200.

heathcote123

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Unless there's some error - its not ridiculously narrow its set at standard 1024 type width. Go and check the time or telegraph or guardian and you'll see they're the same size. Its just the fact its not what people are used to here.

I know I can say until Im blue in the face - try it, wait and see, its far better for readability.

1024? Are your devs wearing flares as well?

22 and 24" screens are pretty standard nowadays - and pretty much every screen released on the market for the last few years are WIDESCREEN - even the laptop I'm on has a 1600 horizontal width. The old standard VGA resolutions are just that ... old, for old hardware.

Sorry, but it's horrendous. Yes facebook etc may be slim as well, but at least they use the borders for stuff, and it's generally only very short posts on there anyway.

I'm going stretchy.

bagand96

Sorry MSE, but your fixed width is horrible.

I'm not opposed to fixed width altogether. Many users here have pointed out that other sites, and indeed forums using VBulliten, also employ fixed width. However, it just doesnt work here.

I think the problem is your forum design. Can't lay my finger on it exactly, whether its the fonts, the size of the fonts, icons, graphics, colours but it all just seems so cluttered and squashed with your current design going fixed width.

Compare the fixed width MSE forums, to, for example AVForums (http://www.avforums.com/forums/tvs/) This looks infinitely better, even though it is also a fixed width VBulliten forum. I think the AVForums looks better because of its simple, clean design.