Forum Update

oldagetraveller

Why is the compressed version "recommended"? Why is it "sexy"? Reverted back to a more sensible full screen. Are the large, waste of space, margins for more adverts?
The "HOME" etc. at the top of the page are virtually unreadable!
Sorry, don't like the "new" layout.

PDC

The fixed width doesn't work well at all on the main forum pages as the title area is squashed so much that titles end up in two or three lines making them very dificult to read.

PDC

I should add, thank you for giving us the option of a choice.

Al1x

I quite like the new look

tell_it_how_it_is

I can understand going down the fixed width route, but the problem with doing that on forums, and VB especially with its design, is that you only get a couple of posts on a screen - so you have to scroll endlessly to read a page full of them.

So because of the reduction, I'd personally like to see the font sizes used on VB for the post contents and the left user info panel reduced a notch, although I appreciate that that in itself wouldn't be liked by some.

As for Martin, you should know that loads of people do just like to whinge when it changes away from what they have been used to. We had it when we changed our sites and forums, but you can bet your bottom dollar if we were to experiment to "put them back" in a year or two, the same people would whinge once again, even though in theory it had been what they wanted!

So my advice to you is that your message to try it for a while was fine, but leave it at that and respond far less, because all you do is end up inadvertently starting to show yourself in a bad light.

spike7451

One suggestion,move the

Main site > MoneySavingExpert.com Forums > MoneySaving & The Site > Site Feedback

banner away from the multi coloured masthead.
I often go to click on the above

Main site > MoneySavingExpert.com Forums > MoneySaving & The Site > Site Feedback

banner but get the drop down menu which is quite annoying when using a laptop.
Maybe drop it below the thick tools banner below?

jamesd

I'm viewing this in old forum view and with no settings changes from me at the moment the masthead and forum are working nicely at variable width, adjusting smoothly to anything I do to the browser window width, a nice implementation job on the horizontal flexing.

MSE_Martin wrote: »

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.

It's hard to see the logic in this. I control how wide my browser window is and it's trivial for me to set it to a width that I find comfortable unless the site takes that ability to choose the most comfortable setting away from me.

Not sure how you're going to find a fixed size that'll work well for a 2560x1600 main monitor, usually a window somewhere in the region of 1160x1550 pixels for each browser window, usually multiple windows open. Not many people will have a monitor with this resolution but the horizontal width is in the common range unless I'm deliberately choosing to use a wider or narrower version for something like a table. Yet widths of 800 are also a pretty significant proportion of web users, so fixing above that is going to produce scrolling for a significant number of people unless you switch to different fixed widths based on window size. It's hard to win in this particular game.

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Every time we have changed things on the forum we've faced opposition, but each time once people get used to it they would go ballistic if we changed it back.

Still using the old forum view here and while I've tried the new one from time to time I'd use it only by seriously hacking the styles with !important directives, extensive image blocking and maybe more serious content filtering and rewriting.

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Of course the opposition may stay and we may find new users turning away in droves too. In which case we switch it back. We may find that actually people get used to it and love it. Or more likely somewhere between the two.

One nice thing is lots of different CSS tags for page elements so it'd be possible to explain how to use local !important directives to override site styles at a fairly fine level of detail. That sort of capability has the potential to be very friendly for those who do find something particularly unpleasant. Once things have settled down a bit it might be worth explaining how to do this sort of thing so that anyone still unhappy can do some more tweaking.

MSE_Martin wrote: »

We know the new width current look isn't perfect, and can be improved (we aim to get more writing space in it, and look at where the Right Hand side goes amongst other things).

More writing width in a variable width page would be nice, this window is using about 2/3 of the available space in my window width. Right side looks fine to me, it's floating properly and staying nicely aligned.

Not a lot of chance of me leaving over it, I'm happy enough with what I'm seeing at the moment that I'm not even going to hack it, except for the glitch with thanks mentioned in another thread. If I did find something obnoxious I'd hack until it worked for me - since I control the client and can filter and rewrite anything that gets to it I can ultimately control everything.

MSE_Martin wrote: »

Unless there's some error - its not ridiculously narrow its set at standard 1024 type width. ... I know I can say until Im blue in the face - try it, wait and see, its far better for readability.

How many pixels per character in my font sizes? How many DPI on my displays? You're probably right enough for some assumed font size and DPI but since you don't know mine or the state of my eyesight the chances are that I'm going to be making a better decision for me on both font size and width than you are.

You're right that 1024 is the old web standard width, following 800 from even more years ago. Neither is particularly well adapted to modern screen resolutions that tend to be wider than in the past. 1280x1024 monitor resolution left some years back but 1280 still tends to be a good width for browsing the range of variable and fixed width sites. For designers who like control over placement a central flexible width column tends to work well, letting users have the choice for the main content while fixed elements at top and sides provide design placement control.

Good luck with the redisign work, strife is a fact of life with such things.

smallblueplanet

Stretchy for me. Fixed width makes the forum difficult to read on 17" 1440x900 laptop screen.

Meadows

Gone to stretchy, prefer the old look. Fills my page and easier on the eye.

Slinky

Ditto gone back to stretchy, all that white space looked silly on my 22" monitor.