You have to remember that often reading a forum is exactly like reading a newspaper.
The reader is ‘browsing’, so his line of thought has to be easy - (columns).
The more technical the line becomes the quicker the browser loses interest.
A designer must forget his own knowledge, for him it seems so easy, instead he must step into the reader’s shoes, lose all technical knowledge and just follow line of sight.
So no I didn’t try those things, I went the simple route, that’s what browsers do.
Apparently a site has a given number of seconds to capture attention of a new user, those seconds are vital.
It’s in those seconds that if navigation appears simple, the layout equally simple - a new reader wants to go straight to the last page for example.
The worst thing that any site can do is direct readers to old content, readers need to feel they are up to date, bad idea to force any type of action to make the reader move from old to new, ok to do the opposite.
Anyways, not being critical, just causing some thought.
Edit: click and drag takes you back up about 1/3 from the bottom - equal to around 6 months ago
Sorry bro, wish it was, but it’s not. But I get the feeling from some other posts that your intentions are clear. This is a website for newbies. As such, there comes a point in time when it’s just a waste of time and even damaging to ones trading career to take the place seriously.
So even though I personally like the ease of use with the new site look, it’s still the same old same old. A place to sell forex to the masses and want-to-be’s. Don’t like marketers much. H8 want-to-be’s more. My tolerance to spam posters has just about gone.
Well first I thought I was starting a new thread discussion , but now I find my post kind of in the middle of a thread I have never seen before, finding my way around is very difficult, It is like being blindfolded and dropped in the middle of a unfamiliar city. I do like that when I post Youtube videos on my thread the video can be seen in the thread, that is a positive
Not keen on having no pages for the threads seems a bit backward and not at all efficient,something you might have got from the early days of message boards.
Not bothered about the member status thing at all it never seemed to have much bearing on whether the contributor knew what they were talking about or not. Though it is fun sometimes reading old threads where people are asking things like what is a pip whats a moving average and before you know it they are selling systems
Can you provide some more detail on this feedback? So from the Forums homepage, each category is still a thread listing, just like on the old system. So you can click on the primary category name in black or the sub category in green to get your desire thread listing.
Yes what I am talking about is on the old forum if you had a long thread like 3 Ducks it might have 300 pages, so maybe if you wanted to read through from the beginning you could do it at 10 pages a day and know exactly where you are. It seems now everything is on one long page which you can use the little side bar to scroll down, but this makes it much harder to navigate any thread which is more than a couple of pages.
Possibly I am doing something wrong or missing something obvious here though.
I agree that it would be comfortable to have some pages in threads. I feel confused when scrolling that bar on the left as I haven’t use such an interface before… Every forum has threads divided to pages. It’s common and understandable for me. Don’t know what others think, but I’d vote for adding pages if there was such a poll
By old content, do you mean the topic/first post in a thread? If so, that’s a result of being on the new system. Once you’ve started reading a thread, the system will remember where you left off. So when you come back by clicking on a thread title, you’ll be sent to the last read post, not the last post. Also, each topic/first post in a thread has a summary area at the bottom of that first post. There is a section that shows you the avatar (it’s clickable too) of who last posted in the thread and when. If you click on the time element (for example, “2d”, that will take you directly to the last post in the thread. Again, it’s part of letting the system get to know you and your reading behavior.
We completely agree that reducing barriers to doing some or getting to content is super important. And this new system throws a whole bunch of them in your face. But we really feel once you get to know the basics and then some of the cool odds and ends, you’ll be happier for it. And I can completely sympathize with the strangeness infinite scroll presents, but combined with additional features to aid in navigation, we still feel it offers a better experience overall. On its own, infinite scroll would be limiting in getting through a very long thread. But with the addition of the following features (some of which I’ve mentioned), navigating a thread should be just as easy as clicking page buttons. The features include:
The Timeline/scroll bar
It shows you what post you’re on and how many are left (much like what page you’re on),
It allows you to scroll up and down by dragging the green slider, making it super easy to go from first to last post
It shows you the date when posts were made, while you scroll, so you can go to a specific point in time (the date is located under the current post #/total post # indicator, besides the green bar)
A Back button appears in long threads, that takes you back to your last read post in the thread, while also indicating on the timeline your “I’ve read up to this point” position within the entire thread
Last Reply link in the he topic (first post) summary section
Takes you to the last post in the thread when you click on the last reply Date
Remember where you left off
When signed in, Discourse remembers where you left off, so no starting at the very beginning of a thread
On mobile, post #/total post # progress bar
Clicking the progress bar brings up the timeline/scroll bar and an option to jump to a specific post
Our staff was used to the structure and boundaries that the page buttons offered, and the slight feeling of accomplishment when you got to the bottom of a thread page, even if it was page 1 of 100. So that sense of getting to the end is definitely gone and could easily make it feel like a long thread will go on forever, with no end in sight. That was a by-product, I think, of using vBulletin-style forums for over 10 years. It definitely took time to get comfortable with the infinite scroll.
Thanks for the feedback, donovan5. Could the post # indicator in the timeline maybe provide you the same “position” information as the page number buttons? So instead of thinking “I have 10 pages to read”, it would translate to “I have 15 posts to read. I’ll stop at 15 today and read until 30 tomorrow”.
And remember, if you’re logged in, the system will remember where you left off, so no need really to remember where you left off.
Can you share why navigating has gotten harder for you? I imagine if you are coming to a new thread, you would start at the first post and work your way down (or maybe the last post and working backwards?). In the past, with the page buttons, would you hop around different pages of a thread, not reading the thread in order? As for moving down the posts in a thread, you can best accomplish this with the scroll wheel on your mouse, or by clicking the down arrow on your keyboard, or by using the timeline’s green scroll bar. This same action can be performed by your web browser windows scroll bar if you don’t want to use the timeline. Simply drag it all the way down, and if the thread is long enough, more posts will automatically load. However, that method will take a considerably longer amount of time to get to the last post in a thread.
I’m not so confident that the quick navigation is working as intended.
There seem to be two instances when I click on a thread on the right of the screen I am taken to the first post (old data) - happened just now.
If I am using a different computer or if I’m not logged in. Then it’s roll the mouse or just exit.
Wonder the stats for lurkers /browsers who after a time become a new member.
.
Pagination is so simple that a browser will just click the last page, and very likely move backwards if enjoying the thread - maybe I’m wrong about that but I know I do that frequently.
(quite a few people log out as a security measure)
I mostly visit the forums on phone or my ipad. Now it’s so much harder to browse through the long threads with the new pageless system that I’ve gave up visiting babypips on my phone and my ipad.
I was using a different PC so no log in, wanted to have a look at the last few posts on a thread ref Dux, found it thru google easily enough, not so easy to get to the end, just gave up.
Many guys say to use the scroll bar - bet they haven’t tried it.
Don’t forget, there is a summary section at the bottom of the first post in every topic (thread). Within that summary section, there is an option to see when the last post was made, under “Last Reply”. Click the time link (for example, 3h), and you get to the last reply in the thread, which was made 3 hours ago. This works regardless of whether you are logged in or not. Or drag the green scroll bar, found to the left of the post, all the way down. Or, like you mentioned, from the homepage, click the time link (for example, 3h) next to a topic title.
From the homepage, under the latest section, click the time link (in the red boxes) under the Total Replies counter to get to the last post. You can also mouse over that same time link with your cursor to see when the first and last posts were made.
Also, if you are watching or tracking a topic/thread, once you return as a logged in user, your homepage will show an updated counter next to Unread, indicating all of the unread topics/threads since your last visit. Your overall experience is greatly enhanced when you log in and let the system keep track of your reading.
I’m assuming my old booksmarks didn’t get moved over to the new Discourse program. I had a lot of old threads bookmarked and would go back and referrer and re-read them. Older Tech Templates threads etc.
Unfortunately, some of the data wasn’t transferrable to the new system. If you’re referring to Subscribed Threads, those were not able to come over to the new system. The mobile apps, which had bookmarking features, weren’t part of the old forum platform directly, but a 3rd party service. So anything from them wasn’t savable.
The new system however, both when accessed from your desktop (from your computer) and from your mobile devices coexist together. All data is saved between the two, and you can even start a topic or reply on one device and finish it on another.
Sorry for the inconvenience. We wanted to bring everything over to the new system, but we were technically limited on what could make it over.
