Forum Update

poppasmurf_bewdley

Don't like the fixed width. I've gone to stretchy too.

Is it possible to make the 'Tool Tips' feature an option? Whilst appreciating that most people find it useful, I for one find it a distraction and annoying. It can be turned off manually in Firefox but not in IE.

Owain_Moneysaver

MSE_Martin wrote: »

we think fixed is the right course for the site's future,

'Fixed' is fundamentally wrong as you cannot predict the user's browser, screen resolution, zoom factor or user side style sheet.

You can use min-width and max-width if you want to keep the content width within certain limits whilst still respecting the preferences of the user.

gazza975526570

Had to opt to stretchy - too difficult to read otherwise - too much white either side.

AM i right in thinking though when i log out (or use something to clear cookies) its going to revert back everytime? I dont often log on when browsing the site.

fermi

gazza975526570 wrote: »

AM i right in thinking though when i log out (or use something to clear cookies) its going to revert back everytime? I dont often log on when browsing the site.

The forum will only remember your preference while you are logged in. Log out and it will revert back to the silly narrow style.

It's an account setting, so clearing cookies doesn't effect it.

If you want to view the forum at maximum width while logged out and are using Firefox, something like this may work --> moneysavingexpert.com forums - max width

backinbusiness

Gone stretchy too - for some reason the fixed width was making me feel sick! All fine now tho'.

On the plus side, really like the new mast.

BiB

jeanmd

Chris_M wrote: »

Just switched back to old look and every time I click on a new page, my browser, Chrome, opens up a new tab. This never happened before nor does it happen on any other forum. :mad:

Reported in glitch thread.

You need to go for stretched not old look. x

Eco_Miser

First thankyou for providing the option to revert to stretchy, I found the fixed width so bad I tried turning off CSS altogether.

MSE_Martin wrote: »

It's worth remembering the primary change here is actually the masthead that works across the whole site, not just the forum.

You may think that, the majority of posters on this thread clearly disagree. To me the masthead is something that is off-screen most of the time, the width of the content area is something of fundamental importance.

MSE_Martin wrote: »

As for the forum, we've been testing and getting feedback from people who find the forum too complex, and don't know how to use it - and this is reflected by our high bounce rate in here.

One of the things said is that the difficulty of reading across a stretchy page, so you have huge long lines, both in posts and menus is very offputting.

That's a spurious argument, a stretchy page is also a squashy page, and the width is under the control of the user, as they can make the window narrower if the lines are too long.

I don't find the lines to long, but then I have larger text so that I can actually read at a sensible distance from the screen, even with my poor eyesight.

MSE_Martin wrote: »

The overall layout and design is also a problem - and going fixed allows us to put design in, so everyone can see it as intended in a clear way - designing stretchy can cause all types of problems.

So can designing fixed. A computer screen is not a piece of paper. For one thing it glows, for another there are a wide range of sizes in use, which the same design has to fit on.

MSE_Martin wrote: »

And the forum is one part of the site - we want to try and integrate the best bits of each across all parts.

Again, I don't like the fixed width on the main site, I have to reduce my browser window to about 1060 pixels to get rid of the bright grey background, which admittedly gives me some space for another application, but if I'm reading MSE do I want another application in vision? I'd rather have more space to have big legible text in.

seven-day-weekend

I like the new heading, far less cluttered but have changed to stretchy width

meher

this is what I meant about reducing the panel size, or something like that



as opposed to this



or actually reverting the colours to white with a thin silver grey border for the side panel or (without any at all) as in



Why does it need a color at all? The rest of the forum and site is colorful enough. Just the quotes need color and could taken the (background) skin color.

also one side having an outline and the other, having none, isn't helping



and some of the posts that have been thanked look like ^ this

I quite like the compact look, actually I'm used to it that I don't want to revert, but it does seem like the wider effect of it on the board, hasn't been thought through a lot.

I think partly the problem is because the forum shares the header of the main site which is why the forum cannot be adjusted a lot. Is it not possible to have different headers for both and a homepage button connecting us to the mainsite?

fermi

meher wrote: »

Why does it need a color at all? The rest of the forum and site is colorful enough. Just the quotes need color and could taken the (background) skin color.

If I remember correctly, the colour of the border and the colour of the quotes are set by the same css code. i.e. if you change that colour value then both change together.

Tweaking that one colour is a very easy thing to do.

Hacking the vBulletin forum code so that you could change them independently is not going to be as simple, and could I suppose cause other (unintended) problems?