Forum Update

[MSE Forum Manager]

Important: This thread is to discuss and feedback on the new masthead please see the Report Forum Update Glitches thread for problem solving


Hi Folks,

As you've seen we've just launched a sexy new masthead at the top of the forum (catching up the homepage where we launched it on Friday - thanks for all the positive feedback).

The aim's quite simple - to make it easier to move around the MSE site. As you'll also see within the masthead, there's a new forum button, which has an added 'arrow' feature which allows you to navigate around the forum from the main navigation (disabled for mobile browsing).

To get it looking as beautiful in the forum as the main site isn't an easy task, but we think it's a lot better than the previous masthead. We may still have a few minor glitches, which have delayed it's launch slightly, but we're almost there.

Please do report any other glitches and we will work hard to get them fixed. As with all technical issues, if you could also let us know your Operating System, Browser client and version (for example Internet Explorer 8) and any other helpful information you can, this will help speed things up immensely.

The forum has gone fixed width.

As part of the change, to aid future development, the forum will now be a fixed width, rather than stretchy as it was. This will be the default for all site visitors (i.e. non logged in users), including registered users using the new style.

We have a lot of plans for the Forum this year, to give it more functions and make it much easier to use, and better looking - the stretchiness has always been a barrier to that - so this change is the first step in that.

We know that change isn't always easy in the forums, and expect there to be some concerns, but we hope you'll stick with it. We realise that the readable space is small at the moment.

In the planned redesign we plan to unclutter the posts so there's more width and work on improving the Right hand side bar (possibly moving it on the periphery). Yet those are major changes and will take time.

If you hate fixed width, you have an option to change it

We would ask you to try it for a week. Yet if you really can't stomach it you can revert it - the option can be found under your User CP option > Edit Options > Scroll down to the "Miscellaneous Options" area and look for the option labelled "Forum Skin" > Change it to "New masthead, stretchy".

However it's important to be clear the future will see us developing new features and tools based on a fixed width, so no guarantees can be made for compatibility (although we try our best to make it work).

We are open to suggestions

If you have any suggestions of small tweaks (eg if you think the grey on the outside of the site should be darker or lighter, then please put them in the note below).

Our plan is to monitor the new look for a month and see how it works - as well working on a big upgrade to the whole look of the forum body.

Update Wed: Read Martin's response to those who don't like the new fixed width setting.

[jem16]

Absolutely hate the fixed width as do most of the posters on the other thread.

[MSE Martin]

Originally Posted by jem16

Absolutely hate the fixed width as do most of the posters on the other thread.

As noted above. Please give it time. Anything we ever change on here is always met by 'I dont like it' though in the end, most people prefer the result. It takes time to get used to.

Having said that, if you really don't like it, as explained above you can choose to make it stretchy again. I hope you appreciate we've provided that option to give the choice - though this will now be the default setting.

If the stretchy has any glitches if you use it please report those here too

[vicx]

I am the only one who thinks it looks better (on a 15" laptop).

[FATBALLZ]

Can't see how fixed with aids future development if it hacks off all the users so they don't use the forum anymore (or puts off new people using the forum, who don't stick around long enough to work out how to change it so it looks half decent).

[comping cat]

Sorry, cant last a week with all the posts squished into the middle with loads of white around the outside - hope i can work out how to revert it (im not very techie!)

[InsertWittyName]

Ditto on the hate for the fixed width.

I do appreciate you've added a 'readable' option, thanks for that.

Fixed width is often used when there's a lack of (web) development skills, according to our web guys at work!

Just saying

[broadpaws]

hi there, do you know where teh green tick button has gone from teh competition forum, the one that shows you've entered without having to go into the actual comp?

[prog324]

Well then change it to strechy then? Facebook is fixed and narrow?

It's quite clearly explained how to change it to strechy.. perhaps read posts first?

[im-lost]

I like it, but feel there's too much of a light colour down the
sides of the site, very hard on the eyes, when you are looking
and reading the page, as most forum users will be doing.

[espresso]

Originally Posted by MSE Forum Manager

Yet if you really can't stomach it you can revert it - the option can be found under your User CP option > Edit Options > Scroll down to the "Miscellaneous Options" area and look for the option labelled "Forum Skin" > Change it to "New masthead, stretchy".

The forum is virtually unusable when set to fixed width - definitely not an improvement, recommended or not!

[spicyprawn]

sorted my width, thank you. It made me feel ill when it is fixed, sorry!

[jem16]

Originally Posted by MSE Martin

As noted above. Please give it time. Anything we ever change on here is always met by 'I dont like it' though in the end, most people prefer the result. It takes time to get used to.

Having said that, if you really don't like it, as explained above you can choose to make it stretchy again.

Sorry Martin but in this case time won't help.

Being one of those "aged" people who now need reading glasses, it's absolutely awful. I have a 19" widescreen monitor and don't need glasses to use the PC but do for reading. With this new look I have half my width wasted and everything squashed into the middle meaning I either have to struggle to read or put on reading glasses.

Judging by the comments on the other thread I'm not alone and I doubt they are all in my age group.

[victor2]

Put mine back to stretchy, thanks for the instructions.
Like most others I can't be doing with it all squashed up.

[comping cat]

Managed to change it - the 'stretchy' option is 100% better!

[mintymoneysaver]

What a waste of space at the sides. I'm pretty sure I'll be reverting to stretchy!

[Quasar]

I've just posted the following elsewhere but I see this is the appropriate place:

The forum doesn't display properly for me. At the top of the post, where there should that little "paper" or "book" icon, there's instead a little window saying "Default", and the actual mast is not displaying. My browser is Opera and no, I ain't going back to that horrid IE.

[Fifer]

Sorry Martin, but it's not change people are complaining about, it's deteriorating function and usability. I can understand the move to fixed width. I can't understand why the fixed width only uses less than 40% of most people's screen width.

[freyasmum]

Originally Posted by MSE Forum Manager

"I hate fixed width"

We would ask you to try it for a week. Yet if you really can't stomach it you can revert it - the option can be found under your User CP option > Edit Options > Scroll down to the "Miscellaneous Options" area and look for the option labelled "Forum Skin" > Change it to "New masthead, stretchy".

However it's important to be clear the future will see us developing new features and tools based on a fixed width, so no guarantees can be made for compatibility (although we try our best to make it work).

Ideal, thank you!

The width is perfect on my phone. It will be perfect on smaller screens too, but - and sorry, because I really do like the change to the masthead itself! - it really is a bit of an eyesore on a bigger screen Seems like half the page hasn't loaded! I see you kept this secret when you were asking left week

It also seems a bit slower, but that could be my imagination!



The only other thing - and it's purely an aesthetic, so not at all important and I understand you've got much more work to do than cater to my whims is that I might consider changing the green slightly to match one of the darker greens above. It jars ever so slightly with the brighter green of the forum.

[auto-man]

I think the logo looks a little cocky, pompous maybe.

A man smirking with arms crossed doesnt do it for me.