Thread Format Changed? Suggestion for Better Visibility

[Ben Niehoff]

The reason I switched them around was that white stuck out a lot more than the blue.

There is too much detail missing from this comment for me to tell what you're talking about.

But light-blue-on-medium-blue is too difficult to read (and I'm not even old yet!). If the usernames are white, then it will be easier to tell who said what. The point is I want the usernames to stick out. But I like that they now take up less space.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

Or, put another way: it should be easy to scan the page for usernames while scrolling down. I do this, and I assume so do others, as a way of filtering out people who we don't care to read.

And before you tell me I should use the "ignore" feature, that isn't really sufficient, because this happens on a per-thread basis. People will occasionally go off on a tangent or get into an argument, and I skim past their posts to find what's actually interesting.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

But light-blue-on-medium-blue is too difficult to read (and I'm not even old yet!). If the usernames are white, then it will be easier to tell who said what. The point is I want the usernames to stick out. But I like that they now take up less space.

I hear you. I guess I'm having trouble finding a color for admins then against a dark blue.

 

[Ben Niehoff]

I hear you. I guess I'm having trouble finding a color for admins then against a dark blue.

That's why I suggested using badges to mark admins and mods rather than color highlights. In fact, don't you already have badges?

As I have noted many times in the chatroom, finding a decent color to put over medium blue is difficult. (And it isn't dark blue, certainly not on my screen).

 

[krash661]

I hear you. I guess I'm having trouble finding a color for admins then against a dark blue.

try the green it used to be

all in all,
it's fine for me or on my end.
i have no problems with the way it is at all.

 

[reenmachine]

I preferred the old format.I think it was much clearer and much more standard for a messageboard.

Is there a way to leave the choice to users which format they want?

Just my 2 cents :)

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

try the green it used to be

Admins were blue :) Blue on blue won't work.

 

[WannabeNewton]

The box on the right that says who's online and stuff still looks screwy btw. The names are all big and blue and stuff.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

The box on the right that says who's online and stuff still looks screwy btw. The names are all big and blue and stuff.

Yes, I can only work on one thing at a time and there are a lot of things :)

 

[trollcast]

Why are you trying to fix what wasn't broke to start with?

 

[WannabeNewton]

Yes, I can only work on one thing at a time and there are a lot of things :)

yeah I understand, I just thought you'd like to know

 

[Monique]

The new format is awesome! I hate other forums that devote so much screen space to people's avatars and signatures that only 1-2 actual posts show up on the screen at the same time.

Yes, so let's go plain-text forum. Obviously the headers are taking up way too much space and are too cluttered: they disturb the readability of the thread.

Not to mention the extra 1/4 screen width empty space, what was wrong with the old layout?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Obviously the headers are taking up way too much space and are too cluttered: they disturb the readability of the thread.

I have an idea for this. It won't solve it, but might lessen it. Stay tuned.

 

[trollcast]

If you want to get rid of the side bit of the post could you make it like the bottom half of this image?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

trollcast, thanks for the suggestion, but I am trying to stay away from anything bulky like that.

 

[Crake2]

trollcast, thanks for the suggestion, but I am trying to stay away from anything bulky like that.

Honestly, I kind of like how it is right now, with the number of posts hidden.

However, I don't like the width of the window and the indicator of the online status. I think it should be by the name, as it was before.

EDIT:

Now that I think about it, I don't like where the 4 buttons (Thanks, Report, Edit, Quote) are. They kind of look like they're part of the message. I think there should be some kind of line separating the message from those buttons.

 

[trollcast]

Ok maybe that example was a bit big and cluttered but 1 line looks a bit silly imo something more like this is better:

The red box is where an avatar would go. Also I had to make the top box solid blue as I cba faffing about with the texture but the texture is actually quite good.

 

[phinds]

The whole effort strikes me as trying to fix something that was not in any way broken.

 

[robphy]

Honestly, I kind of like how it is right now, with the number of posts hidden.

I actually would prefer to see at a glance
the number of posts (or at least some indication of how active the poster has been).

I think that the Thanks, Report, Quote buttons could be in a column on the right-hand side (instead of the bottom row) of each post.
(The thanks and report buttons are too close to the name of the next poster, rather than the intended poster.)

My $0.02.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I actually would prefer to see at a glance
the number of posts (or at least some indication of how active the poster has been).

For the moment the number is in the username drop down menu

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

The whole effort strikes me as trying to fix something that was not in any way broken.

You can always make things better. Typical forum skins are not a holy grail of usability. If you guys want to keep damning me for trying, then go ahead, I'm going to keep trying.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Thanks for everyone's patience. I spend a lot of time just thinking so tweaks can take time. If in a couple weeks I don't get my changes to be positive I'll consider going back. In the mean time please give it a chance and remain patient as I fix problems and make tweaks.

 

[Evo]

I think that when Borek returns from vacation, this is going to turn his hair white!

Ok, I will be patient and am sure it will all be great when you're finished.

 

[Nugatory]

Has the multi-quote feature disappeared? I needed it a few minutes back and I couldn't find it.

 

[Borg]

The whole effort strikes me as trying to fix something that was not in any way broken.

You can always make things better. Typical forum skins are not a holy grail of usability. If you guys want to keep damning me for trying, then go ahead, I'm going to keep trying.

I'm with phinds on that. I'm not damning you for trying but I feel like I showed up to work to find that the office had been completely rearranged without any warning.

BTW, I had to manually assemble this one - what happened to the multi-post? I didn't read through all of the posts that have occurred in the last 24 hours to know if that's been discussed. Definitely a hot topic..

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I'm with phinds on that. I'm not damning you for trying but I feel like I showed up to work to find that the office had been completely rearranged without any warning.

Sounds exciting :)

Has the multi-quote feature disappeared? I needed it a few minutes back and I couldn't find it.

It's broken and should be back on sunday. Sorry about that :(

 

[Dembadon]

I like the move towards a more content-focused format. Finding the right look takes time; thanks for keepin' at it, Greg.

 

[Pythagorean]

I too like the focus on the content

 

[dlgoff]

... I feel like I showed up to work to find that the office had been completely rearranged without any warning.

Funny you should mention that. When reality finally sunk in earlier today (i.e. all's okay), I was wondering how the "resistance to change" that comes out here at PF might be used for some good. Then I though of an old Engineering Management book I have somewhere and wanted to see how that particular feeling was addressed in the chapter on "Conflict Resolution". Go figure.

 

[Simon Bridge]

While we are fiddling things - I'd like to have some indicator for the original poster.
In long threads, I can lose track.

I'm guessing that something indicating how many posts someone has made will reappear?
Mostly I use it as a check for newbies ... if the posts=1, then they get a "welcome to PF" at the start and a low post count gets more diplomacy since they may not know how things work here so much.

I've read through the other comments...

The colors stand out OK for me - but different machines can render the colors differently.
I cannot read the poster names in the mobile app for eg.
But here (on the desktop) I see the title-bars as 2-tone blue with a light-blue name for the regular members.
Most machines seem to handle lots of shades of blue quite well but maybe that's changing.

I'd have gone for the avatar first (before the username, where the "online light" is now - put the light last) which would be in line with trends in the mobile world ... but I see others don't like that. I'd be in favor of less bold badges too ... a set of letters without the colored background should be fine: it would look like academic qualifications.

A wider post-space is quite nice - especially for long equations or larger pics and diagrams ... but is nasty for actually reading text. LaTeX folk have a lot to say about this and their 80-character textwidth works well.

A lot of browsers will let the user override the websites display instructions ... but I've never tried to rework a forum before. I don't know how useful it would be to have more extensive display options in the user profiles.

My main interests are the top two:
... an "original poster" indicator
... a post-count.

 

[Evo]

Oh, this looks nice!

 

[dlgoff]

Oh, this looks nice!

Yes it does indeed.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Still making little adjustments

 

[Crake2]

I think the nicknames are not visible enough. I also think that this new layout is particularly bad for accounts without avatar (I much prefered, like 6hours ago or so).

The 3 buttons (Thanks, Report and Quote) should have some kind of separation, from the message.

 

[Mentallic]

The 3 buttons (Thanks, Report and Quote) should have some kind of separation, from the message.

Agreed.

I'm still not convinced that removing the post count from obvious display is a great idea. Post counts give us an insight into how our replies should be structured. I don't think some high post counters that I may not recognize would appreciate being lectured on their simple typos, simply because I may have confused them for being legitimate errors for example.