bit-tech 2017 refresh feedback: General site and forum feedback

Trophy List:
https://forums.bit-tech.net/index.php?help/trophies

 

Hover over your username at the top right of the page and 'signature' is the second link down on the left.

 

Same for me - no signature link there. Can do it through the admin panel but not through the main site

 

Mock The Week: "Front page titles least likely to appear in the Daily Mail"...

(I'll get my coat)

But yeah: Web page building rule no 1 for legibility: Avoid pure whites and pure blacks. So very dark gray font on very light gray background or vice-versa...

 

IDK if this is a bug but it looks like some of the URLs in peoples signatures haven't been migrated to the new forum, I.E GeorgeK's R.I.P KidMod-Southpaw link and Nexxo's Metaversa 02 Ada links go to 404 unknown pages, it also seems the migration hasn't updated any embedded media links.

 

What mine looks like:


Maybe mods dont get that option...

 

...

 

First off, thanks for all the work you guys have put in to refresh the forums.

But, that said, I'm really sorry but I really dislike the new look. Black on white is just too stark, the font choice and size is horrid, and there's just not enough separation between posts and even elements within each post: everything is just white white white and a lot of the elements are far too small to be comfortably legible (for example the "latest post" details on the top level view - they are absolutely tiny!)

It's also a bit of a pain in the arse that the "last unread post" appears to be a bit out of date - it's taking me to posts that I read about a week before the forums migrated, which is irritating.

Sorry to be negative, but I'm not enjoying this at all.

 

Can we bring back colours (another unlikely Daily Mail headline) for the different thread categories?

Also, is there any way to force the forums to fit within a certain width (i.e. force padding left and right)?

 

Oh good...

 

Previous links not working is something that has been brought to my attention a few times now. Anyone with bookmarks is getting 404. If people fix their own links, it obviously solves this issue but some people are struggling to find their threads.

For those looking for something in particular, use the search bar at the top right or click here: https://forums.bit-tech.net/index.php?search/

 

Noticed our username is cut short

 

...

 

Clicking Home, takes you away from the forum but without a direct link back visible anywhere. In fact checking, there is no link to the forums from the main site when viewing on a mobile device.

 

Yeah, there's no link to the forums from the homepage on the desktop site either. A bit annoying but I assume that it's a holdover from the new site coming online before the new forums did!

 

A few little *very little things*

"More Options..." -this only gets you the ability to preview and the options to watch the thread and receive email notes if desired. Unless you plan on adding something extra in there I think it's a bit of wasted effort and could just have a "Preview" button instead of the more options one, and the check-boxes on every thread. No?

Also when you do preview your text, the preview header is black on a very dark grey - almost illegible definitely needs tweaking.

Choice of font isn't the greatest - the plain text is okay, but the bold text (particularly on the main site) is much less readable; the size may just need picking up a point or two to compensate for the increased thickness of the bold text, but my reading of the bold is definitely much slower than the plain.

More colour delineation - where's the dark blue gone‽ The purple and white is cool and all, but some blue would help with some of the starkness I'm feeling - for example the run-on when browsing threads, instead of having a single pixel grey line as a thread break, a three to five pixel blue line would stop it feeling so smushed together.
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Conversely, I like the run-on within the threads themselves it makes it feel much more like a conversation - so much so I'm tempted to go and turn off other peoples signatures just to make it run-on even more!

Moderators and super moderators need a colour other than grey to mark out their special (and super special) sauce-ness. I don't really care what colour, just not grey... and on the topic...

Quotes - again, grey and grey...I understand grey is the new black... there are just so may usable shades well technically there are - even if you only give us three to play with But seriously something like the pale blue with purple border that the tags get would surely work better.

Again - weirdly I don't mind the page number quick access button thingies (technical term) being grey and grey - maybe a slightly darker grey and grey? Or maybe making the text blue/purple but keeping the border and background grey&grey? need to try it and see - we don't want to over-purple after all.

 

Just to echo what everyone else is saying - good job on the website & forums, but my retinas are hurting from all this whiteness. A darker theme with alternating shading would be much gentler.

I like the layout of the main page, but as has been said before, I find the coloured bars and the two-column layout a bit confusing. I'm also not a great fan of the repetition of articles on the main page - IMHO if an article is in the main section at the top, it doesn't need to appear again in the 2-column section: