Forum changes: preview and your feedback wanted

Hi all,

We have a slightly newer version of the forum that’s nearly ready to roll out, and we’d love you to have a play around with it first.

It’s not meant as a big functionality upgrade; we have mainly just moved to a more up-to-date programming language (.NET) and taken the opportunity to address a few easy wins for now, such as better Chrome and mobile compatibility, tidier layouts, and some better moderation functionality.

But it will also make it much easier for us to make changes in the future, eg a full mobile version and heavy-duty spam filtering.

You can try the new forum here: http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/forum/default.aspx. It’s running alongside the existing forum, so any posts you make on the new preview will be seen on the old forum. You can revert back to the old forum at any time by clicking the main Forum tab.

We’d love to know what you think. Please leave your feedback in this thread and we’ll make sure all of it gets passed on to our tech team.

Many thanks for your help,

Best,

Dominique RW

M.r Zuvai wrote (see)

just to let you know dominque - it doesnt appear to be working with opera

Hello, pls could you let me know which version of Opera you're using, and what it is (or isn't...) doing? (It's fine at this end in version 11.60). If it's looking wonky, you might clear your cache, though that shouldn't be needed.

i found the same FB........

but i like that i can quote and do smilies now.......but not sure of the forum page where the different catergories tend to blend a bit into each other

just about to say that FF...........i skipped into christmas dinner 2008 on the thread i went on......i was a bit confused for a moment

In Firefox, when you're looking at a set of threads, e.g. in 'General running', the individual threads are no longer seperated in grey boxes. The whole page (apart from text) looks white to me, which is much less easy on the eye.

Once you go into an individual thread, it's working fine.

Dissenting voice - I hate it!

Thanks all, I've added your points - esp the 'latest posts' link and the reduced contrast between rows on the main channel page and topic page - to our roundup of jobs

Jeepers - can you be more specific?

Sean Fishpool wrote (see)

Jeepers - can you be more specific?

Yes.

Sean Fishpool wrote (see)

M.r Zuvai wrote (see)

just to let you know dominque - it doesnt appear to be working with opera

Hello, pls could you let me know which version of Opera you're using, and what it is (or isn't...) doing? (It's fine at this end in version 11.60). If it's looking wonky, you might clear your cache, though that shouldn't be needed.

Dominique RW wrote (see)

Hi all,

We have a slightly newer version of the forum that’s nearly ready to roll out, and we’d love you to have a play around with it first.

It’s not meant as a big functionality upgrade; we have mainly just moved to a more up-to-date programming language (.NET) and taken the opportunity to address a few easy wins for now, such as better Chrome and mobile compatibility, tidier layouts, and some better moderation functionality.

But it will also make it much easier for us to make changes in the future, eg a full mobile version and heavy-duty spam filtering.

You can try the new forum here: http://www.runnersworld.co.uk/forum/default.aspx. It’s running alongside the existing forum, so any posts you make on the new preview will be seen on the old forum. You can revert back to the old forum at any time by clicking the main Forum tab.

We’d love to know what you think. Please leave your feedback in this thread and we’ll make sure all of it gets passed on to our tech team.

Many thanks for your help,

Best,

Dominique RW

When I click the "go to last post" link on a forum, it actually takes me to a page half-way through the thread (e.g. the Middle Ground thread - on the old forums if I click the "last post" link it goes to end, which is page 826; if I click the same link on the new forum it goes to page 413).

More general feedback - individual posts in a thread are easier to distinguish now which is good, but the fact the avatars sit to the left of the post means the post itself has shrunk in width which isn't good.  I know the overall width of the main column and the ad-bar on the right are identical to the old version, but it *appears* that the ad bar is wider in the new layout because the main content - the posts themselves - are much narrower.  It also leads to more scrolling, which is a PITA on mobile devices...

Kip Keino's Knobbly Knees wrote (see)

More general feedback - individual posts in a thread are easier to distinguish now which is good,