Changes to Recent Topics on Home Page

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
Hi All,

A couple of times now I've been asked:

'Quick suggestion for the forum
Is it possible, on the front page of recently commented posts, to show which board they?re in I.e. kit for sale/Mendips/sporting trips etc?'

So I had a look 'behind the scenes', yes that's right Luddite me  :sneaky: and found a way to show what board each post relates to.

Better??  Worse??  Not bothered??

Thanks, Pegasus  :)
 

Alex

Well-known member
I don't like it I am afraid, it's less concise. It's hard to tell where one topic finishes and the next one starts. This only seems to be an issue with the long titled topics being next to each other.
 

pwhole

Well-known member
It looks a bit weird to me - I hit 'refresh' a couple of times as I thought the styles weren't loading properly, and then I saw this thread. I always use that 'most recent' links panel first when I arrive, but I rarely care which department it's in.

The other site thing that puzzles me is that there's never a 'new posts' notification on the index page for the Peak District, when there clearly are new posts in there. It's been like that for ages, but I always forget to mention it ;)
 

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
pwhole said:
It looks a bit weird to me - I hit 'refresh' a couple of times as I thought the styles weren't loading properly, and then I saw this thread. I always use that 'most recent' links panel first when I arrive, but I rarely care which department it's in.

The other site thing that puzzles me is that there's never a 'new posts' notification on the index page for the Peak District, when there clearly are new posts in there. It's been like that for ages, but I always forget to mention it ;)

Will give it a bit longer to see what folks think and see if, with time, people prefer the new layout/or not....

....can't work out what you mean by index page for Peak - any chance you could post a screen shot?  I can see 'new' posts on Peak, thanks, Jane  :)
 

Tommy

Active member
It looks a bit cluttered to me too, but if you could add a horizontal break/line or some similar feature it would separate out the threads nicely.
 

Huge

Active member
Like seeing which boards new posts listed in Recent Topics are in. Don't like the way the panel now looks, it's  messy and confusing. Topics need separating from each other - a line?
 

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
Topimo said:
It looks a bit cluttered to me too, but if you could add a horizontal break/line or some similar feature it would separate out the threads nicely.

Ha, you do know this is me (Luddite) you are suggesting this to??  'Add a horizontal line', you'll have me writing code next - now where's Q's email address??  :LOL: :LOL:
 

Pitlamp

Well-known member
Thanks for trying this Pegasus - I don't find it distracting and it may be useful at times.
 

mudman

Member
Actually it doesn't bother me either way although maybe a very slight preference for including the board name.
 

The Old Ruminator

Well-known member
It only works if the new posting notifications are not reduced in number with the extra wording. If you miss the forum for a couple of days you may not see all of the new posts in the index.
 

Pegasus

Administrator
Staff member
The Old Ruminator said:
It only works if the new posting notifications are not reduced in number with the extra wording. If you miss the forum for a couple of days you may not see all of the new posts in the index.

The number of new posts shown hasn't altered - I can though....... :sneaky: :sneaky:
 

Inferus

New member
Bit of a shock when I visited today, thought something had gone wrong..
Early days but initial reaction was too much, slightly harder to spot thread/topic titles.
It's not that often where I need to know where something was posted but can see the benefit on the odd occasion. To provide a recent example: post by me enquiring about trips taking advantage of the dry spell, posted in Peak but not obvious on home page, how many people clicked to find it was an area they weren't familiar with..?
Make the topic bold, lines, italics, smaller font for board name, something to differentiate... :)

Edit: I generally view forum on phone, not using tapatalk, so maybe device used has an impact on how it looks....? :confused:
 

Boy Engineer

Active member
Firstly a word of thanks for the site. It's a great resource, especially when the topic is those man-made (ahem) 'caves' that we have around these parts.  :)
As an infrequent poster, but regular reader, I have to say that the 'old' version was easier to scan. There's something about the multi-line layout of the 'new' that makes this more difficult.
 

The Old Ruminator

Well-known member
No I dont really like it. Most forums have a " New Posts " link in the headline banner with the other links. This can be made to suit the individual reader who sees all the new posts he has not seen. With a sometimes busy forum like this on the present system you are barely getting a days worth.

Viz -


    What's New?
        Activity Stream
        New Posts
        New Group Messages
        New Events
        Mark Forums Read
    Forum
    Albums
    Bottle Clubs
    Bottle Websites

The link then operates as a search but only takes a millisecond .  You can still employ the other New Post agenda but by making it personal is a great help.

Putting " New Posts "in your own search link only takes you to correspondence with those words in.

The " Whats New Activity Stream " takes you to a full page list of all the recent new posts in chronological order. We have 39 entries of such per page though I have not seen how far back it goes.

Viz-


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Badlad

Administrator
Staff member
I find the new format a little confusing to the eye.  The bullet point square on the left locates to the middle level of the recent posting when it would be better sticking to the first line.

In the top left of the home page, directly under your name, is the 'show unread posts since the last visit'.  I find this very useful when I have been away from a device for more than a day or so.
 

Bob Mehew

Well-known member
Badlad said:
I find the new format a little confusing to the eye.  The bullet point square on the left locates to the middle level of the recent posting when it would be better sticking to the first line.
Agreed, though having a line between each item would also help.

Badlad said:
In the top left of the home page, directly under your name, is the 'show unread posts since the last visit'.  I find this very useful when I have been away from a device for more than a day or so.
It only shows if you have signed in.  I normally monitor the site as a guest a few times per day and sign in to respond.  So the guest view is key to my usage. 
 

AliRoll

Member
It appears that I may be in the minority here, as I prefer the new version. Perhaps less easy to scan but nice for information density. Perhaps a dotted line / something similar between the title and topics (title in bold?) could help. Thanks for maintaining the forum.
 
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