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[on:]

Well, like others, I was a bit skeptical when this transformation started. The delay didn't help. But now, seeing the new forum, it's worth it. I also highly appreciate that the old posts have been migrated! (WOOT) This is a great improvement over the original plan, and it will be helping people in the community MUCH easier. Yet again the Arduino team has made a good decision.

Also, props to the epic account integration. It's great that the forum account works for everything.

[Reply #1 on:]

Thanks,

I have to say that the old forum didn't make me proud in the sense that it was slow, hard to navigate, and a long list of etceteras that you know about.

However it represents the commitment of a huge amount of people willing to share their knowledge with others. It contains so much data that it was hard for us to imagine how to move away from it.

This new forum, which is just starting, needed something extra than just a forum, and therefore we needed some extra time to be able of integrating everything together in a single piece. There will be for sure some issues to solve in the incoming weeks, some tweaks to make and so on, but I am pretty sure that you guys will get to like it even more.

And ... for sure we can improve it so much more. 

/d

[Reply #2 on:]

Ehm...
Now I know YABB isn't the best of forum software... and that SMF has plenty of followers (of which I'm not one, I have to admit.. probably ranks just above YABB =X ).

But the style this forum is given is absolutely horrendous!
There is a semi-transparant site-bar at the top, which I have no idea what its purpose is? it looks like it has some forum bits and site bits? I can't find the close button of it in anycase.
As for the rest, the blue and pure white give a rather unhealthy (high) contrast, the giant icons in front of each forum section are far too distracting... lack of login form on the front page of the forum (apparently you need to click the 'login' text near the search box), unwelcome pop-ups that made me wonder if firefox stopped blocking advertisements (I still don't know what they were, they were gone a couple of seconds later).
PS: medium/light grey small font text on a white background isn't too readable.

In anycase, I checked the control panel.. and there is no default SMF skin installed. For now, I pray this will happen soon...

[Reply #3 on:]

Well you can't please all the people all the time. And for those times there are plug-ins...

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/search/?q=css&cat=all&x=0&y=0

Make it look however you want.

[Reply #4 on:]

Imahilus:

first things first, the horrible bar on top is to make sure you can navigate through the whole website. My plan is that you will be able of styling it and store it in the profile server at some point. Thing is, first we are checking that the issues regarding security and data protection are working, then we will move into much more fun stuff.

SMF allows for multiple styles, and for the users to use their own styles. However, the menu bar would not show up in the other styles and then you would be loosing all the information in there. This is the reason the default themes are not active. I was thinking about having a version of the forum for people to try new layouts, it should require no work from my side but putting them on the server. I don't really have the time to handle this right now, but as soon as I get two days in a row I will make sure you get a chance to tweak your own forum theme, don't worry.

The unwelcome popups are part of the ENotify mod for SMF that flashes you with the latest updates to the boards you follow, personal messages, etc. At this point it is theme related, therefore, if you design your own theme, you can just remove it.

I am looking forward seeing how themes will look like when designed by other people, I think we will be able of having a discussion about how to distribute information at a completely different level :-) Gimme a couple of weeks to set this up.

[Reply #5 on:]

Hi David,

Quick note. Overall I like the new forums. I know there will be some tweaks such as font/size, color, background. All forums go through that.

In reference to the pop-up notifications you mentioned. I'm not sure how usable they are. For me they appear, but go away too quickly for me to even read them. This may just be me but it happened on my computer, iPad and iPhone so it may be happening to everyone. If this is they way they are supposed to work I'd rather not have them either. They are not usable in he current implementation.

Thanks for all your work on this.

[Reply #6 on:]

I like it. I had only just joined before the migration but this is a very nice upgrade. I would like to echo Biocow with reference to the pop ups. I like the idea but they do vanish very quickly. Can this be addressed?

regards

Fenrisulfr

[Reply #7 on:]

Will check back in a couple of weeks then, as it is right now.. I find the forum unusable (too much information in too whacky places with too many 'spiffy' features that imo just obscure content).
If you want to bounce the ball in regards to themes, I have done some minor style integration and forum design.. I definitly don't see myself as an expert (or even a proffessional) in this field, you can have my opinion regarding theme styles if you so wish. I'm sure my account has my e-mail data feel free to use it to contact me regarding this matter.



As for the pop-ups disappearing too fast: had that aswell, though now they linger... but having to manually close 20 pop-ups per page gets tedious before you even finish =\
I don't want to see it at all, but for those who do, it needs to be tweaked to only generate a pop-up once, and probably only for topics you want notifications of.. or they become unmanageable in numbers (too many to read in the timespan, too many to close manually.. no good compromise possible because the time it takes for someone to read it depends on so many things).