Welcome to the new Forum look – give us your feedback

Blulu

MSE_Stephen said:

Hi again

Just to answer some of the above comments -

We have looked at many options and continue to investigate. There are several suggestions made that seem obvious, but have already been considered and usually have some consequences you might not expect.

I have 1 or 2 ideas to look at over the coming weeks and will also continue to advocate with our provider for more options.

It wouldn't necessarily need to even go that far, just change the coding from a mouseover/hover action to a clickable one - so you had to click the 'Quick Links' and 'Categories' links to engage the drop down options.

I'm afraid as I went into a little here, there is not a single instance of code that just effects MSE. We are part of a system that hosts hundreds of forums. We have the ability to change minor configuration options, and on some pages add basic fixes on top, but not change the underlying code.

So MSE_Stephen does MSE have any idea of how many regular users are walking away from MSE, or thinking of doing so, because of the recent changes? I'm not asking for you to provide numbers, I'm just wondering if MSE knows and/or cares? I would appreciate it if you would tag me in on your answer to this question. You may not think this, but I'm droning on about these issues to try to help, not for the pleasure of moaning. Users are telling you stuff that is important. MSE can choose to let what we are trying to tell you affect its priorities, or not. Remember the old adage: "A complaining customer is a customer who is giving you another chance."

Blu XXX

One-Eye

Hovering Menus

It is now over a month since I disabled these. There have been no further consequences of doing this (such as with the RH side menus) and the forum is so much more friendly and easy to use without them. I used Adblock Plus and from other posts in this thread it seems that most adblockers can do this if the user is confident enough. It seems a shame that other users can't benefit from this.

If changing these menus is too problematic, perhaps MSE could provide an "official" option to switch them off so users could choose to get rid of them if they wanted. If adblockers can do this so successfully then surely MSE/Vanilla can do the same.

One-Eye

Second Line in Forum View

These partial screenshots are from Competitions Time, but the same idea applies across the whole forum.

When logged out:



When logged in:



What we would like when logged in:



ie. Please can we have views and comments and Started by and Most recent and date/time on the second line instead of just 4 out of these 5. The only other normal thing that appears on this line is the "new" indication and surely there is plenty of room for everything, especially when compared to the length of the first line.

Even on those rare threads that have the "Closed" and/or "Announcement" indications there might be enough room for everything.

J_B

Just dragging up the 'quick links' drop down annoyance again, sorry.

I've just opened up my tunnel vision' a little and seen that there is a 'quick links' on the right of my laptop screen (only just noticed sorry!) so why the need for another at the top when all the links are the same?

MSE_Stephen

Hi @J_B

As mentioned here, the menu doesn't exist in isolation. It is designed as a navigation system - the drop-menu is automatically replicated in the side-menu for mobile users.

To remove Quick Links from the drop-menu is also to remove them from the mobile side-menu where they are really important navigation. 

In fact - on some newer versions of forum pages, such as the homepage, the Quick Links box automatically hides completely, because it expects users to use the side-menu. So mobile users would find some pages with no Quick Links at all. 

hoc

Really poor. Lots of wasted space yet difficult to read. The previous version was better and the one before that better yet.

Humdinger1

Are all thanks being tallied in responses? I know some people view them as irrelevant, but for me (and I guess others as why would this feature even be included) it's important.   I've had lots of thanks in recent posts and would expect to have moved up to 5k in the count by now.   If this is an issue, it might link to other things? Thanks Humdinger 

MSE_Stephen

Hi everyone

For those of you who would like the ability to disable the white drop-menu, we've added a little option here:

Hide the Drop Menu

Please note that this is very much a small fix that hides the menu where possible and may not be foolproof.
We hope that our provider will at some point be able to provide more official options so that the menu works in a way our members are more satisfied with.

We've tested this fix as much as we can on several devices, but please let us know in this thread if it works for you.

J_B

MSE_Stephen said:

For those of you who would like the ability to disable the white drop-menu, we've added a little option here:
Hide the Drop Menu

Brilliant - fantastic - wonderful - thank you so much!!! 🍾

And, it seems to work!

Blulu

MSE_Stephen said:

Hi everyone

For those of you who would like the ability to disable the white drop-menu, we've added a little option here:

Hide the Drop Menu

Please note that this is very much a small fix that hides the menu where possible and may not be foolproof.
We hope that our provider will at some point be able to provide more official options so that the menu works in a way our members are more satisfied with.

We've tested this fix as much as we can on several devices, but please let us know in this thread if it works for you.

It works - makes a HUGE difference to using the site. What can I say, other than...




Blu XXX