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New Forum Look

Ahhh Everything has changed!

I love change, but everything is so large now, i liked the compactness of the old forum pages.
Can only see a few posts or comments at a time, i feel like i've got my monitor set up to preschool!

If you're new please join in and if you have questions pop them below and the forum regulars will answer as best we can.

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52 comments

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VeloPeo | 10 years ago
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Would be interested to hear if the traffic to the site has increased as a result. I find myself visiting a lot more often and commenting a lot more than I used to do with the old design. Big thumbs up from me.

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enrique replied to VeloPeo | 10 years ago
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VeloPeo wrote:

Would be interested to hear if the traffic to the site has increased as a result. I find myself visiting a lot more often and commenting a lot more than I used to do with the old design. Big thumbs up from me.

Me he reido un monton al ver tu nombre de usuario. Muy ingenioso! La verdad es que la curiosidad me mata. Sabes lo que quiere decir 'peo' en America Latina? Que gracioso! Asi que te tengo preguntar, lo hiciste a proposito? Muy ingenioso! Me hiciste reir!  1

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James Warrener | 10 years ago
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All good on my Nexus... just the kindle to check  39

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backflipbedlem | 10 years ago
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Good job Dave its all looking good, and im liking all the new little features as well, like buttons, amount of new comments on a post, new colours etc

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drheaton | 10 years ago
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Just had another play on my tablet, the full width mode vastly improves things and makes the site much easier to use and, size wise, much more like the old version which I like.

Now that it works and is easier to use I do like the new style, its clean, simple and modern, I like the minimal colours and while I liked the old style it probably was looking dated. All in all, probably a change for the best. Can't wait to see how it looks for the fantasy game next year.

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dave atkinson | 10 years ago
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the title is source sans pro (600) and the comments are source sans pro (400)

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drheaton | 10 years ago
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Excellent, many thanks.

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dave atkinson | 10 years ago
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thanks. in any case you should be able to go full width now, and that should fix it  1

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drheaton | 10 years ago
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That was on Chrome using a Nexus 7, will check later (out of work) to see whether it's still the case.

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dave atkinson | 10 years ago
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if you're logged in you now have the option of viewing the site full screen on any device. just hop to the top and hit 'full width'

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drheaton | 10 years ago
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A new problem for you  1

Only being able to see half a comment as the rest appears to be outside the box.

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dave atkinson replied to drheaton | 10 years ago
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drheaton wrote:

A new problem for you  1

Only being able to see half a comment as the rest appears to be outside the box.

what device/os/browser is that on?

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simon F | 10 years ago
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I find it hard to differentiate between the pale blue and the white in the comments with the effect (for me) that I don't immediately link the poster's name with the post. I have to look twice to see if the name goes with the post above or below.

Is there any chance of separating them with a border? A "border-bottom: 2px solid;" in the comment-base class (possibly with a few pixels of bottom margin) works well for me. For some strange reason, this helps me see the blue box and arrow to the name better as well.

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dave atkinson | 10 years ago
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most of the "argh it's too big" comments seem to be from people viewing on a tablet that's defaulting to mobile view. so a 'full site' option would fix that

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drheaton replied to dave atkinson | 10 years ago
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Dave Atkinson wrote:

most of the "argh it's too big" comments seem to be from people viewing on a tablet that's defaulting to mobile view. so a 'full site' option would fix that

Agreed, although viewing it using IE at work I still think the text/page width ratio is a bit off, I've tried reducing text size but it reduces everything so I end up with a narrow website with normal text or a normal website with large text.

Is the text thing for readability/usability issues? Is it possible to add a button/link that allows users to change text size, like a Large/Medium/Small selection?

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dave atkinson | 10 years ago
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So far I've learned:

The bigger text is good (less)
The bigger text is bad (more)
The new design is good
The new design is bad (about equal)
The post ordering is good
The next/previous should be restricted to the current forum
Strava charts don't seem to work (but veloviewer ones do)
Some people are seeing variable width comments (not me though, on any platform)
Probably need an option for non-mobile view on mid-sized devices

anything else?

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enrique replied to dave atkinson | 10 years ago
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Dave Atkinson wrote:

... anything else?

Can you add an option to add polls to the forum, like the cyclingnews.com forum does? Then you can tabulate results, like how many visitors like the new look, without relying on people having to comment. I think only die hards comment, but maybe you'd get more opinions from a simple poll...

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dave atkinson replied to enrique | 10 years ago
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enrique wrote:
Dave Atkinson wrote:

... anything else?

Can you add an option to add polls to the forum, like the cyclingnews.com forum does? Then you can tabulate results, like how many visitors like the new look, without relying on people having to comment. I think only die hards comment, but maybe you'd get more opinions from a simple poll...

that poll would be kind of pointless, since we're not going back to the old look. but forum polls might be possible

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lakeland bimbler | 10 years ago
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I've left this a few days to see if my initial impressions changed after some use but alas...I still hate it!  2

I generally view the site on a tablet (galaxy note 10) - on the old version I could see pretty much the whole main page on a single screen and zoom to my hearts content. The layout was pretty logical and easy to use and the "scrolling" latest news section at the top gave a good overview of any updates without taking up too much space.

Now one headline takes up nearly the whole screen. I have to scroll endlessly to find anything and I cant zoom in or out. The text is stupidly big.

The layout seems clumsy and not particularly logical (lots of repetition).

Road.cc replaced bike*****r and cycling***S as my site of choice about 8 months ago but since the change I seem to find myself back there much more.

Sorry to be a luddite as I'm sure tons of work has gone into this but I really don't think the change is for the better.

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lakeland bimbler replied to lakeland bimbler | 10 years ago
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lakeland bimbler wrote:

I've left this a few days to see if my initial impressions changed after some use but alas...I still hate it!  2

I generally view the site on a tablet (galaxy note 10) - on the old version I could see pretty much the whole main page on a single screen and zoom to my hearts content. The layout was pretty logical and easy to use and the "scrolling" latest news section at the top gave a good overview of any updates without taking up too much space.

Now one headline takes up nearly the whole screen. I have to scroll endlessly to find anything and I cant zoom in or out. The text is stupidly big.

The layout seems clumsy and not particularly logical (lots of repetition).

Road.cc replaced bike*****r and cycling***S as my site of choice about 8 months ago but since the change I seem to find myself back there much more.

Sorry to be a luddite as I'm sure tons of work has gone into this but I really don't think the change is for the better.

Apologies for reviving a dead thread but a couple of months on and after a few tweaks I thought it'd be worth saying that the site as a whole is much much better now both on tablet and laptop.

Top job!  1

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drheaton | 10 years ago
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One thing I feel should be changed is the variable width of comment boxes in the forums.

This is particular prevalent in the Binche-Chimay-Binche thread where the comment box only appears to be as wide as the text in the comment leading to all sorts of differnt width boxes as people list their teams. Just don't like the look of it and think a consistent box width would look better.

Also, I was kind of hoping for something to stop people from editing posts hours/days after they'd been submitted in order to show it as unread again and try and prompt a response to something that had otherwise been ignored... *cough* *enrique* *cough*.

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monica | 10 years ago
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Here's a little bit of blue, a more modern font and a cool use of white space that reminded me of maybe what this might strive for:

http://www.ozy.com/presidential-daily-brief/pdb-3034

I actually got there by folllwoing a link from cyclingnews.com.

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netclectic replied to monica | 10 years ago
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monica wrote:

Here's a little bit of blue, a more modern font and a cool use of white space that reminded me of maybe what this might strive for:

http://www.ozy.com/presidential-daily-brief/pdb-3034

I actually got there by folllwoing a link from cyclingnews.com.

Sorry. but that right there is my worst nightmare. If road.cc ends up there then I for one will not be back.

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Tony Farrelly replied to netclectic | 10 years ago
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netclectic wrote:
monica wrote:

Here's a little bit of blue, a more modern font and a cool use of white space that reminded me of maybe what this might strive for:

http://www.ozy.com/presidential-daily-brief/pdb-3034

I actually got there by folllwoing a link from cyclingnews.com.

Sorry. but that right there is my worst nightmare. If road.cc ends up there then I for one will not be back.

That blue IS nice though  3

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monica replied to netclectic | 10 years ago
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tony_farrelly wrote:

That blue IS nice though  3

Yeah, I like it. Pretty!  1

netclectic wrote:

If road.cc ends up there then I for one will not be back.

I actually like it a lot, but I think the layout should be made much more compact and the fonts small like the Road.cc site was until recently.

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monica replied to monica | 10 years ago
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monica wrote:

Here's a little bit of blue, a more modern font ...

The more I look at this page, the more I think you should use a 'sans serif' font for the comments. I think it gives the page a more modern look and it's easier to read. Look at the difference between the title of the thread "Forum New Look" and its font and the font used in the comment boxes.
.

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dave atkinson replied to monica | 10 years ago
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monica wrote:
monica wrote:

Here's a little bit of blue, a more modern font ...

The more I look at this page, the more I think you should use a 'sans serif' font for the comments. I think it gives the page a more modern look and it's easier to read. Look at the difference between the title of the thread "Forum New Look" and its font and the font used in the comment boxes.
.

i think i'll ignore that sage advice, since they're the same font.

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monica replied to dave atkinson | 10 years ago
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Dave Atkinson wrote:

i think i'll ignore that sage advice, since they're the same font.

I'm using IE 10 and the title New Look Forum definitely seems like a different font from the font in the comment boxes. The New Look Forum font looks more like a Futura or Arial or a bolded Century Gothic (sans serif) while the text in the comment boxes looks like Calibri.

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dave atkinson replied to monica | 10 years ago
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do you mean the title font, or the thread font? the thread font is different from the comment font. anyway, fonts are a very personal thing and both are plenty legible. change it and i'll someone else piping up tomorrow saying they liked it better the way it was  3

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netclectic replied to dave atkinson | 10 years ago
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Dave Atkinson wrote:

do you mean the title font, or the thread font? the thread font is different from the comment font. anyway, fonts are a very personal thing and both are plenty legible. change it and i'll someone else piping up tomorrow saying they liked it better the way it was  3

Why is the thread font different? It doesn't look right to me.
Same goes for the comment author details, why is that font different?

Although I just noticed when I quote you, the page it goes to shows the comment author details in the 'correct' font. Odd.

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