That's a positive step in my book - the site tracks which post you've read up to across multiple devices, which is really useful as sometimes I'm reading at my PC and sometimes on a tablet or phone.
There are some definite improvements (like the notifications for example, but you have to bookmark a thread), but possibly outweighed by some of the issues. One niggle I'm finding is that even if you preview your reply, it no longer shows any posts that have been added whilst you've been typing - which can lead to duplicating a reply content - made worse by then not being able to delete your post. Even after posting, your reply doesn't get immediately added to the end of the thread, it initially appears where you were when you started your reply, also leading to missing intervening posts, unless you then refresh the page to reorder it properly.
They say they're working on things busily, but I've not seen anything change recently. I also notice how many fewer posts there are.
I'd agree with all the comments, there's a lot of the useful functionality that's been lost, I can find nothing that has made it better or easier to use, and I don't really care about Emoji's. Those who've been using the forum made use of the functionality, newcomers will just accept it how it is and not realise how much better it was.
Threads you've posted on are flagged as "new". The old forum was clever enough to realise that you don't need to catch up with a post you've just written!
The people who run the forum said the change in platform was down to the old one getting increasingly hard to manage as the site grew, it goes a lot deeper than the surface appearance. I don't know how true that is, but having never managed a forum (on any scale much less one the size of MSE) before I've no reason not to believe them.
Having had a look around, the new 'vanilla' platform does seem quite modular, so once any snagging to basic functionality is sorted its reasonable to expect they'll start adding additional features (such as themes) back in. The site feedback board is the place you can get your voice heard by the people who can do something about it.
3.6 kW PV in the Midlands - 9x Sharp 400W black panels - 6x facing SE and 3x facing SW, Solaredge Optimisers and Inverter. 400W Derril Water (one day). Octopus Flux
The people who run the forum said the change in platform was down to the old one getting increasingly hard to manage as the site grew, it goes a lot deeper than the surface appearance. I don't know how true that is, but having never managed a forum (on any scale much less one the size of MSE) before I've no reason not to believe them.
Having had a look around, the new 'vanilla' platform does seem quite modular, so once any snagging to basic functionality is sorted its reasonable to expect they'll start adding additional features (such as themes) back in. The site feedback board is the place you can get your voice heard by the people who can do something about it.
Replies
That's a positive step in my book - the site tracks which post you've read up to across multiple devices, which is really useful as sometimes I'm reading at my PC and sometimes on a tablet or phone.
They say they're working on things busily, but I've not seen anything change recently. I also notice how many fewer posts there are.
Those who've been using the forum made use of the functionality, newcomers will just accept it how it is and not realise how much better it was.