Welcome to the new Forum look – give us your feedback

MSE_Stephen

Hi everyone

We have a small update.

Our provider has added the ability to change the amount of threads listed on the Recent Discussions page.

We know this is one of the top changes that has been requested, so we have changed the amount listed on that page from 10 to 40. 

We hope this helps you find the threads you're interested in much more easily

Blulu

MSE_Stephen said:

Hi everyone

We have a small update.

Our provider has added the ability to change the amount of threads listed on the Recent Discussions page.

We know this is one of the top changes that has been requested, so we have changed the amount listed on that page from 10 to 40. 

We hope this helps you find the threads you're interested in much more easily

@MSE_Stephen I feel mean, but I have to be honest. I just don't get it. We have been asking for this on the Competitions Board for years; ever since the awful changes first happened. I had a session with MSE Towers, where I shared my desktop, to show, in real time, why this (and other issues) mattered. I just can't see why this matters more to the Recent Discussions page than for the competitions board - or are you trialling it there, before giving the option to increase number of threads shown elsewhere on the site?

As lots of us have tried to explain, when working through competitions posted, changing from one page to the next is a PITA. A popular system of comping is to work through the board to the newest post. When we get to the top of the page, before we start at the bottom of the next page, we have to refresh the page to account for new comps posted. Then we work through new comps to get to the top of the page, refresh again, and so on - until refreshing the page shows that nothing has changed.

I can't even remember what the max number of posts shown on one page used to be - can anyone remind me? I think it was over 100. The irony is that I do remember that I used to mostly work through 3 pages of comps. That's mostly what I work through now, but with only 20 comps per page. I'm not saying that the reduced number of comps posted is entirely due to MSE, but I am certain that it's a big part of it. There are fewer comps because we have fewer people posting comps (alongside of other factors).

Anyway, as you have changed the number of comps shown on the recent discussions page, can we hope that this might be rolled out to the competitions board at some point?

I also genuinely appreciate what you are trying to do to help.

Blu XXX

cymruchris

MSE_Stephen said:

Hi everyone

We have a small update.

Our provider has added the ability to change the amount of threads listed on the Recent Discussions page.

We know this is one of the top changes that has been requested, so we have changed the amount listed on that page from 10 to 40. 

We hope this helps you find the threads you're interested in much more easily

Another small welcome step forwards. Still finding the boards very quiet in terms of new content being posted. Has anyone compared the 'before' with the 'after yet in terms of daily new threads/posts? (Allowing for a blip while improvements are made and people get used to change).

robatwork

Surely one of the "top changes requested" is the ability to choose the number of posts on each page (when viewing a thread, like this one)?   Whilst I realise if we can choose our own, it makes "see page 23 of this thread" invalid, it does mean that threads like this don't have to be 116+ pages long, which makes navigating it very click-heavy.

MSE_Stephen

Hi @Blulu @robatwork

So, just as a brief synopsis of a very complicated situation.

Our previous forum theme was a fixed format that couldn't be changed.
We know how frustrating our recent change has been (voiced by many posts in this very thread), but the change was needed to put us into a theme that was flexible and specifically designed for all the great new updates and features our provider is planning to release in the coming months and years. 

The Recent Discussion page is showing some of the new features, such as filters at the top, easier ability to skip to a page number, and now the ability to set the number of threads per page - and even more features to come.

As these new features become available for other pages, we'll roll them out as soon as we can. However, Competitions Time is actually a reason why we have to move slowly and carefully. There are many custom modifications on the Competiton Time board that we have to make sure are compatible with new features so that our Compers don't lose any of the tools they need to find the Comps that they want.

Blulu

Thanks @MSE_Stephen

Thanks for the explanation. I do get that it's a lot easier for me (and others) to ask for a solution than it is for you guys to provide that solution. I'm also sure you get why it felt a bit frustrating to see an improvement on one part of the site, that is so needed elsewhere. I will hang on to the glimmer of hope you offered that we might get to choose number of threads displayed on the comps board, at some point.

Best wishes

Blu XXX

HillStreetBlues

Not been on the boards for a few weeks, but have noticed a few changes for the better. I like how the OP  is now highlighted in further posts in the thread, well done.

Okell

Is it just me (or my browser) or are the board screens where different threads are listed not updating properly?

It used to be the case that I'd go to a particular board and new threads or any threads I was following and which had had new posts would be highlighted in bold.

I'd then read those and when I returned to the main screen the threads I'd just read would no longer be in bold.

But now they remain in bold - or sometimes they don't!

Sometimes even if I've just added a post myself to a thread it doesn't seem to be reflected on the main screen.

It's very annoying if I read a thread I've been following because it's had new comments posted on it, but after I come out of the thread it's still showing as having new comments even though I've just read them all.

I use that bold type feature to identify new posts on threads I've been following.

Spoonie_Turtle

Okell said:

Is it just me (or my browser) or are the board screens where different threads are listed not updating properly?

It used to be the case that I'd go to a particular board and new threads or any threads I was following and which had had new posts would be highlighted in bold.

I'd then read those and when I returned to the main screen the threads I'd just read would no longer be in bold.

But now they remain in bold - or sometimes they don't!

Same here, it's intermittent.  (I'm using Chrome on Android.)

Newcad

Usually a page refresh will display things properly again, but you have to refresh whenever it looks 'wrong'.

Most browsers automatically refresh pages for you, but most also have a setting to turn that off.
However they usually only refresh the active tab and not all tabs.

Some 'Make my PC/Browser faster' type apps or browser extensions will turn the automatic refreshing off without you knowing.

You can also get extensions that will automatically refresh pages at whatever interval you set, this is one for Firefox but you'll find the same/similar for Chrome and other browsers: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/auto-refresh-page/