Have you got 15 minutes to spare?

Who is God?

Dunno... I'm not running the alias checking or anything on the test site. Hell I'm not even IP logging posts.

In the General forum I need about 10 pages of threads.

I'm currently working on the page navigation.

So if anyone has enough time to create more junk in the general forum, please do.

At some point I'll also need 1 very long thread.

Can't you just copy some threads from this database? I imagine the "Last post wins" thread would be a good candidate for a very long thread.

i just started a last post wins on there!

Someone nicked my user name :(

OK.
I can't quite get into the constructive criticism bit yet because I think the whole thing is nasty at the moment. Really not a fan of dark colours, I know it saves energy and that..

This is not entirely true, depending on the monitor a white screen can use less power than a black screen (and by black I mean displaying black, rather than being switched off) - it all depends on the rest state of the pixel 'window' - you can design a monitor to be 'normally white' or 'normally black' - laptops were designed to be 'normally white' so they use less power as most websites and software put black text on large white areas - so it is better for battery consumption for the pixel to open up and display white when no power is applied and to close the 'window' and display black only under power.

The fact that the source of light (backlighting) is not coming from the pixels themselves might confuse some people.

I hope that makes sense !

It does indeed, thank you.

• I really never saw the point in knowing the last post per forum... I just care about whether there are new posts... so blue links are new, grey are old.
  
  

*

But that is exactly how I use the forum, how I see if something new has been posted in a thread I am interested in. Which I can do from the home page without having to go in to General or wherever. Half the time I forget where I have posted and then I notice a new post in that thread and have a look. I generally keep the home page on my screen and go to threads as and when new posts are made. Removing that is going to make it a lot more time consuming and bothersome.

So for something like the general forum that has 400 posts per day in over 80 threads, you just use the home page and the view of just the last post to inform you what's happening. And you don't use the new posts, and you don't use the subscribed threads, and you don't go into the forum itself.

I can see why losing it would therefore annoy you, but the click-through heatmaps and stats I have show that less than 1% of people navigate using that method. My assumption was that this navigation only occurred when people were pouncing on a single active thread (which subscribed threads would show if accessing it was easier), rather than as a navigation method for the forum as a whole.

The most significant way of navigating appears to be using the new posts button, closely followed by people going in to each forum one at a time (or perhaps just going in to one forum because they're not interested in anything else - polo, mechanics and classifieds I'm looking at you).

I'll definitely evaluate the impact to the user experience of the new design once it's finished, and I'll take onboard what you're saying now. But I really don't want the most vocal minority being such an influence that I make compromises too early and end up implementing something that across the board is a poor experience.

I've am testing the new design on various form factors, and so far it is dreamy for mobile and tablets and lacking on desktops (Android, iPhone, iPad all look fantastic in portrait - landscape will come later). I will therefore adjust the experience for desktops, but in what way I'll determine after I've done the base design that works everywhere.

As per yesterday: Only the home page is almost done, though I did a chunk of work around the forum listings so they aren't looking terrible. Thread pages look absolutely appalling and those will be worked on in a few days time.

Is the spy going to stay, Velocio? I need the spy.

Spy will have to be re-written. The original code was a hack posted on vbulletin.org and it's horrendous.

I want it too, but it will be a phase 3 requirement whereby:
Phase 1: Make the site work on all devices in the new branding and simplify everything by stripping out un-needed complexity (which includes Spy).
Phase 2: Add a light colour scheme and some features that were in hindsight proved to be a simplifaction too far.
Phase 3: Add back any features that are complex and in demand (should include Spy).

Spy also needs re-writing just to make sure it works with things like the ignore functionality which it currently doesn't. I suspect I'll need to use a push mechanism to make Spy scale too... if I get Spy right then it will be far more useful than it is now.

Oh, and live updates to threads falls into the complexity camp too.

(remember some of us have colour blindness and other eyesight issues)

beer goggles

I mainly use the UserCP to check previously-subscribed threads and check 'Today's Posts' a couple of times a day, as well as occasionally going into specific forums. I do like the addtional layer of information of the 'Last Post in Forum' being shown, but that's just me. One thing I like about the interface is that it's well-linked throughout, and perhaps I see that as an elegant part of it--or perhaps because it shows activity in each forum as opposed to a static list of links to them (which can appear impenetrable). I don't use it for navigation much, and I'm not specially attached to it, but I can see how Will's approach might work.

I dont see the need to change anything, except give the Forum a nice header

Should be "LFGSS - It's all about the bitching"

beer goggles

A feature perhaps, so people can't post drunk? It would also save on server costs, as it would probably remove half the posts on here! ;p

Sorry I've been away the last few days killing brain cells. Will have a look laterz

"The number of tags you tried to add to this thread exceeded the maximum number of tags by 2."

Do not want.

Should be "LFGSS - It's all about the Ditchling"

But we do other things than Brighton rides, too.

Should be "LFGSS - It's all about the merging"

Should be "LFGSS - It's all about using the fucking search"

Should be "LFGSS - It's all about the just fucking google it"

Should be "LFGSS - It's all about the beer"

Sorry I've been away the last few days killing brain cells.

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