Redesigned post composer

Community Website and Forum
1

Discourse is redesigning the forum post composer:

This feature is currently in a "preview" phase where the change is only applied on an "opt-in" basis. However, once it is considered to be in a stable state, Discourse will do a "hard rollout" of the feature to Arduino Forum, which can not be opted out of.

I would like to get out ahead of this fairly significant change to make sure we have the opportunity to evaluate it and provide feedback to the Discourse developers, hopefully avoiding any negative user experiences that might otherwise occur if we wait until the changes take effect for the forum community as a whole. The Discourse team were very receptive to the feedback I provided and quickly resolved the issues I raised.

UPDATE: The new design is now in effect for all users. See post #14

I have created a special forum user group for testing the new design. The members of this group will have new post composer design. Everyone else will continue to have the previous composer design.

I'll provide instructions for joining the tester group if you would like to try out the new design:

  1. Click the following link to open the "Post Composer Redesign Testers" user group page in your web browser:
    https://forum.arduino.cc/g/composer_redesign_testers
  2. Click the "Join" button on the page.

You are free to leave the group whenever you like:

  1. Click the following link to open the "Post Composer Redesign Testers" user group page in your web browser:
    https://forum.arduino.cc/g/composer_redesign_testers
  2. Click the "Leave" button on the page.

You can rejoin the group after leaving it. This can be useful if you want to be able to perform comparisons between the old and new designs.

It will be most efficient to submit feedback and bug reports to the Discourse team directly via the topic on the Discourse Meta forum:

https://meta.discourse.org/t/help-us-test-the-composer-redesign/407849

Please check the existing posts in the topic to make sure there isn't already a report. Please also be polite to the Discourse Team. They are really nice people, and regardless it is always worth keeping in mind the old "you catch more flies with honey" cliche (except in this case the "flies" are important bug fixes).

Discussion is of course welcome here. Additionally, if you don't want to escalate directly to the Discourse Team, you can make your reports here and I'll escalate on your behalf if possible (contingent on me being able to personally reproduce the fault/deficiency).

2

Using a PC

  1. The contrast seems to be a little bit of a problem; no clear separation between input textbox and preview as well as no clear separation between the input fields (when composing a new message).

Old

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New

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image1417×413 16 KB

It's worse with the light theme (new topic to show all input fields).

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  1. I've never seen the option to directly create a PM in the old version which now is possible. Just start a new topic and click the Create topic drop-down.

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  1. The position of the Discard and Reply buttons is not optimal in my opinion; definitely needs "have to get used to".

That's it for now.

3

Believe it or not, the faint line we have now is actually an improvement. Previously, there was none at all:

e3067000f297a4e3ea8f9384c4bd6c360269daea
e3067000f297a4e3ea8f9384c4bd6c360269daea936×443 21.3 KB

They added the current line after I reported that I felt users would be confused by the lack of any visual separation between the text editor and preview panels:

There has been some feedback about this in the Discourse Meta thread.

I think it works better with the "rich text editor" mode. Not so well in the Markdown editor mode, since the buttons are under the preview panel instead of the editor panel where we are working.

4

I'm not to convinced that it's an improvement when creating a new topic.
It takes quite a bit of vertical real estate and one has to adjust the size of the composer to be able to see a bit more of the message that one is typing.

I don't have complaints when using the new composer design for replies.

5

Thanks @sterretje, and everyone else who is helping with testing!

I found the changes jarring when I first enabled it for my account. However, I did quickly become accustomed to the new design. I have been using the new design for a week now.

When the new design is rolled out to the entire forum member base I suspect there will be some shock to established users who are very familiar with the previous design and now must overcome muscle memory to find things in the new locations. I hope that will pass quickly. Fortunately those who join the forum after that point in time will not have to go through the same adjustment.

We may have to check any instructions we use to direct people to the <CODE/> button to make sure they don't incorrectly specify the composer toolbar as being at the top of the panel.

The good news is that we haven't encountered any serious defects so far. Hopefully that is a sign that the hard rollout will go smoothly for us.

I know that a focus of the redesign is to make the composer more mobile friendly. I almost never use the forum from a mobile device, so I don't have much insight in this regard.

If any PC users want to do some evaluation of the mobile experience, you can simply reduce the width of your browser window to the minimum. That will cause the forum to go into the "mobile" layout.

6

That threw me at first. I wondered where a) all the function icons had gone, and b) how to discard a started reply. Eventually realised that the function icons are now at the bottom of the editor window (why?) and the discard/reply links have been moved far right under the preview.

Definitely took a little getting used to initially.

Indeed, because there is no preview window. Hiding the preview window using the double chevron icon on the top right does something similar with the markdown editor.

I do like the quick fullsize window option. Its a little easier than dragging the editor top boundary upwards.

7

Test.

Ok. I agree with @sterretje about the faint border around the composer window. I'm typing this on my tablet, the border is almost invisible. I've noticed over the past few years a what seems to be a fashion for using faint, almost indistinguishable colours in software generally, I find it very annoying because I can't see where one thing ends and another starts. So plus 1 for feeding back that this is detrimental, not an improvement.

8

Screenshot_20260817_062620_Firefox
Screenshot_20260817_062620_Firefox1200×1920 321 KB

This is my attempt to edit an existing topic on my tablet. The edit window is about 2 lines high and unusable. In the screenshot the keyboard has dropped out but with the keyboard showing the edit window is just as useless. Once the keyboard has dropped I can't get it back except by cancelling editing and starting again. Note that the problem arises when editing an existing reply, creating a new one, as I am doing now, is okay.

Samsung tablet with Android.

@pert I'd prefer you to collect the reports and pass them on to Discourse.

Interesting. I've just opened this reply in order to add that I'm using FireFox and it's ok. I don't know what distinguishes this reply from the one I provided the screenshot of, other than in this case I am editing my own reply rather than editing someone else's reply.

9

Thanks for your report @PerryBebbington.

Does the fault still occur if you go back and try to edit the problematic post again now?

If yes, are you able to increase the composer size (by dragging the "sash" at the top border of the composer panel)? And does the forum then use that size each time you open the edit composer again later?

Does the fault occur if you try editing a post written by someone else other than the specific post where you encountered the fault?

I am happy to escalate bug reports on the behalf of Arduino Forum members. However, I have a policy of only escalating in the case where I am able to personally reproduce the reported fault. This is based on experiences in the past when I did escalate reports I didn't reproduce, then was unable to produce follow up information required by the developers in order to make the report actionable.

I just did some experimentation using my phone and didn't encounter anything that seems amiss. The post composer is small, but it is using all the available space on the small screen, so I don't see it as a problem. I do have a tablet, but it is ancient and so has a browser version incompatible with Arduino Forum.

As for the contrast, that is a subjective matter. I don't personally mind the color scheme as it is now, so I'm not in a position to argue for a change. If someone else has strong feelings on the subject, please do feel free to

10

Why should he edit my post?

11

The edit won't actually be committed. The experiment only consists of opening the post composer by initiating an edit. Once the behavior of the composer is observed it is simply closed by canceling the edit, resulting in no change to the post.

12

Hello Per,
I have tried again several times to reproduce the problem but can't. unless it happens again I guess this one can be ignored.

OK, I'll do that one myself.

Thanks.

13

I was looking for something to use for testing and happened to try your post, could have been anything, I was just looking at yours at the time. I have not actually changed anything.

14

Since we haven't discovered any critical regressions, I have now enabled the new design for all users. This should ensure we discover any more obscure problems during this window when I still have the option of switching back to the old design as needed.

Thanks so much to everyone who volunteered for the initial round of testing!

15

A request for higher contrast has now been submitted:

That post's focus on the impact for users with visual impairment impairment made me suspect the response would be that those users will be best served by using one of the WCAG-compliant color palettes specifically designed for accessibility. I was surprised to find that changing my "Color Palette" preference from "Theme default" to "WCAG Light" didn't have any effect on the post composer.

16

Sigh. It all reminds me of a song:

And the close box on the left,
Is now the close box on the right.