Hi all,

Well - pretty much as expected there have been mixed reactions to the 'new' look forum - and some criticisms are indeed perfectly justified.. we feel the same.

Let me first explain why we 'upgraded' the Forum though - this is important..

Telligent, when we first started with them, gave us the option of two 'themes' (the way the forum is displayed basically). They were called 'Lean and Green' and 'Hawaii'. 

We decided 'Lean and Green' would best meet our needs in respect of the way it laid out the forum, so Keith and Van set to work completely redesigning the graphics to fall into line with the BeoWorld 'look and feel'. Keith added extra code that Telligent couldn't or wouldn't write (think stars, founder and lots of other little personalisations).  That gave us the forum in the old guise, and we happily added the Telligent updates as they happened.

Telligent, recently, decided that focusing on two different forum 'themes' was a waste of man hours and focus, so announced they were going to drop one of the themes.  We waited with baited breath, and were very disappointed when they announced the theme that would no longer be continued was 'Lean and Green'.

This basically meant an imminent end to all support, updates and improvements for us - not good, so the only option was to start the long process of migrating the whole forum to the 'Hawaii' theme.  Keith and Van have spent the last few months, in constant discussion with the moderating team basically building the new look forum so we could have a totally uninterrupted transition. This worked perfectly of course and the downtime was zero. Hats off to Keith on that one.

So, here we are with basically a new layout which has been given the 'look and feel' of BeoWorld, but isn't quite perfect for us. This is where we are asking for your help and thoughts.

Please, please don't just say things like 'i don't like it', 'i can't navigate it' or 'i don't like the tags' - we need constructive suggestions. Where would you like to see things, how would you change it and what would you prefer? Be specific.

As we are - it's all 'off the shelf' and any changes would involve Keith writing hundreds and hundreds of lines of new code. This is something Keith is prepared to do as he takes great pride in what he does and wants the BeoWorld Forum experience to be enjoyable and easy to use for absolutely everyone - as we all do.

So - your comments please.  Make them precise, give us suggestions, and let's not turn this into a ramble - it's important that we get as much quality feedback as possible in order to make things better for you - the user. 

We look forward to your thoughts..

Kindest Regards

The BeoWorld Team

Can I ask if the "Inbox" (1) notification is still impossible to do after this recent change?

The INBOX(1) notification has never been in the supplied Telligent code, it was added by us.

However, when Telligent replaced "PM's" with "Conversations" as is implemented in the current Beoworld site we are running at the moment they took away the SQL table which holds all the unread "PM's" count by user, so the code would always find zero and therefore the added code became useless.

I have been assured by Telligent that the future versions we plan to install will have the table back again. I don't understand why they removed it in the first place actually. Having said that, until I actually install the future release I will not know for sure.

So, in answer to your core question, the change of "Theme" does not allow the return of INBOX(1) notification, but when we go to the next release I am hoping it will allow it to return.

I find the colour scheme not contrasted enough... the text is too pale, on a lightly grey background. Find it quite tiring to read.

The 'sort by' options at the top is a big improvement,

I agree about the coulour scheme being a bit pale.

PhilLondon:

I find the colour scheme not contrasted enough... the text is too pale, on a lightly grey background. Find it quite tiring to read.

Yes, we agree and we will be changing that..

I agree the text is tiring - I keep thinking my eyes are on the way out.

I would also love to get rid of that MASSIVE tags frame. It dominates the whole page.

Hi

I have adjusted the tone of the main body copy and made it darker which should hopefully help with legibility. If the changes have not seemingly appeared I would suggest that you refresh your browser as the old styles will be kept in your browser cache.

V

Hi

I have reduced the size of the tags frame too so that is not so in your face.

Kind regards

Blimey, that was quick! Well done Van.

I do have a slight problem in that,at times, probably due to my broadband speed, the threads and indeed the forums do not load fully. I get the ads top and bottom but just the title of the thread with no body. It can need refreshing a few times. I take it that the server simply gets sick of me as it is sending faster than I can receive! I am also getting the gobble-de-gook at times below the tags box. 

I'm not sure I like the way you only get the latest threads listed and then have to find (slowly) your way around the different areas. Seems much much aslower to use than the old one! and I thought I was used to the various diffrenent forums I use.

:-(

The only thing I could suggest is putting the page numbers back at the top of the threads in addition to the bottom. (ex- 1 2 3 4 5... Last  Next>). This is very helpful in the very high post threads (Wed thread, prize draw and such like)

BTW - Great job with the transition!

Also, when clicking on the general forum page, the user should be directed to the expanded list of topics instead of just seeing the first ten or so and then having to click 'view more'.

General forum -> http://forum.beoworld.org/forums/TopicsActive.aspx?ForumID=&GroupID=9

evman140:

Also, when clicking on the general forum page, the user should be directed to the expanded list of topics instead of just seeing the first ten or so and then having to click 'view more'.

General forum -> http://forum.beoworld.org/forums/TopicsActive.aspx?ForumID=&GroupID=9

If you click on the smaller font version of "General Forum" you get there in one click and no need to "View more"

My very limited content management experience of websites taught me that too many clicks/layers to get to menus = bad. There are too many clicks to get into each forum so you can see all the posts listed. Can we have the old 'main' forum page back at www.beoworld.org/forums please???

The forum has become extremely slow. It takes a lot of time for all frames to load. I have just posted a question on the forum and it literally took it around 10 minutes to get saved and posted.

Hello,

I would appreciate that all sub-forums become again available from the first Forums page.

When our favorite brand added "more" in the Avant's channels menu, this was for secondary settings.

If I want to access to the french forum, I wave to navigate between several pages.

Have you noticed that the traffic decreased in this forum since a few days?

Thanks by advance,

Yann.

j0hnbarker:

My very limited content management experience of websites taught me that too many clicks/layers to get to menus = bad. There are too many clicks to get into each forum so you can see all the posts listed. Can we have the old 'main' forum page back at www.beoworld.org/forums please???

Exactly. I like the new graphics BTW and I experience no problems with speed.

As you are probably aware, my state of health is such that I spend most of the day sitting in front of my computer. I am online for much of the day and one of my permanent "Tabs" is BeoWorld.

The more I look at the "new" forum design, the more it is switching me off. What used to be a pleasure is fast becoming tiresome.

The blue coloured text against the blue/grey background is not enough contrast to make the words stand out and  therefore easy to spot the function that you require. In a similar vein, the post text colour is not dark enough to make the eye lock on. In short, it is too much effort to read and navigate.

The general forum page is positively hard work. Again, the mass of blue text on blue background is just an encouragement to turn off and those who stick with it will I am sure develop the strongest right index fingers in the world. Click, click, click, just what is all that about?

Hawaii huh?

Must be time for a Beoluau

I don't know if it is my ISP, but it just seems a little slower, otherwise I'm getting used to the changes as we all will.

I'd suspect there will be many more unanswered questions from members, as you have to click on 'unanswered' to see the questions.  Before, they were immediately visible.

The shortened form of Richard as a name is not allowed!

And what is it that every spam bot in the world promises to make bigger?

We have a list of key words that are filtered which seem to work well.  The amount of spam we have on here is minimal because of that.

That said, i will reasess the rating of that word and see if it can be changed.  Don't wish to offend or exclude Richard and/or his friends!

Lee

Way Hey! We seem to be back to what we have all become familiar with!!!!!!!