Information

[MTCanuk]

I was out most of the day yesterday and didn’t check the message board until this morning! Wowzers, I was in shock! But, it looks great. Thanks a million for all you do!

[mjmarmo]

Wow! Love the new look!

[traveler]

Some feedback here, it does look nice and more modern. But the font is smaller  and there is more white space which means more scrolling and harder for some to read so overall probably a less user friendly design. I’m sure people know how to zoom in but that takes time and again makes it less friendly to read. I think the more compact design of before was more user  friendly. Also, it feels like signatures have gotten bigger. Can we addd more to them? Although larger signatures are annoying when you are scrolling down to the bottom. 

can you make font size a personal feature so that people can customize their own view?

[Matt Kent]

I feel the same. I think the font - when writing/replying - is “Courier New”, and its not as bold as say, Arial. Does that make sense? The font when reading, does not match the reply/write font. 

It does - are you replying on mobile, by chance? Try tapping the "Source" button in the post editor and see if that makes it go back to normal. For some reason it's defaulting to that mode on mobile. We're working on getting that fixed today.

Edit: this is fixed now, let us know if that looks a little better by default.

[Matt Kent]

Some feedback here, it does look nice and more modern. But the font is smaller  and there is more white space which means more scrolling and harder for some to read so overall probably a less user friendly design. I’m sure people know how to zoom in but that takes time and again makes it less friendly to read. I think the more compact design of before was more user  friendly. Also, it feels like signatures have gotten bigger. Can we addd more to them? Although larger signatures are annoying when you are scrolling down to the bottom. 

can you make font size a personal feature so that people can customize their own view?

Thanks for the feedback! We actually did look at adding the option to make font size adjustable for each user, but were having some trouble getting that working so it didn't make it in in time. We're looking again to see if it will be possible to add.

We didn't make any specific changes to signatures beyond how they're styled (different color background and likely a bit more padding than they had before). We can adjust that formatting if the consensus is that it's worse, but they'll still have the same 500 character limit as they did before.
 

[traveler]

Well I guess we were looking in the wrong place before, because it ended up being easier than expected. There's now an option to adjust your font size when you visit your User Control Panel and select the Board preferences tab. At the bottom, you can select any value from 105% to 400% of normal (make sure to also select "yes"). You can also choose to only increase the font size on mobile, and there's an option to make all text bold. I hope that helps!

[traveler]

this is what I mean about the blank space. I use a small laptop most frequently, but also other devices to access the message board. On the laptop, when I click recent topics, I used to be able to see many of them on the screen and now I see much less and need to scroll down.  Likewise, if I hit reply like I just did on this post, I have to scroll to get to the reply box which I didn't have to do before. 

Obviously we all use different screens, but there is is a lot more useless space on the top than their used to be so there is more scrolling. 

Obviously I no longer have the old one here to compare. If I made the font bigger, there would be even more scrolling. I will engage with the board less if I have to scroll more. When I click on something, it is best if several things that I might be looking for show up on my screen before I start scrolling. Think about google and how you get so many options on one screen.

I hope I'm explaining this better this time. 

[Kelly R.]

Does topics and posts from years ago need to stay  on the board?  Info from 2022 and later just seems like clutter.  

[lisn2cats]

Nice clean, crisp, look! But..

I've figured out how to bookmark topics but how do I find my bookmarks? (It's how I keep track of which challenges I still need to finish.)


FOUND IT! (Clicked on my photo next to the bell) Not sure why it wasn't intuitive because it was so simple!

[Flasher]

Well I guess we were looking in the wrong place before, because it ended up being easier than expected. There's now an option to adjust your font size when you visit your User Control Panel and select the Board preferences tab. At the bottom, you can select any value from 105% to 400% of normal (make sure to also select "yes"). You can also choose to only increase the font size on mobile, and there's an option to make all text bold. I hope that helps!

Thank you, Matt!

[wazzu94]

This is amazing!!  Thanks for the refresh and changes are great!  All your work is appreciated!

[blbabe1234]

I'm really digging this new layout. Looks so fresh and modern!

[lisn2cats]

A few more updates - the mark all read button is visible in the notification popup now. It's a double check mark icon that only shows if you have unread notifications.

Also, we made it so the big "Message Board" header image only shows on the home page, and we set it so message board pages scroll down slightly past the shop menu by default (you can still scroll back up if you want). Those should both save a fair amount of space at the top and make it easier for anyone with a smaller screen to see more content.

[pawprints]

I totally LOVE the new look!

[traveler]

A few more updates - the mark all read button is visible in the notification popup now. It's a double check mark icon that only shows if you have unread notifications.

Also, we made it so the big "Message Board" header image only shows on the home page, and we set it so message board pages scroll down slightly past the shop menu by default (you can still scroll back up if you want). Those should both save a fair amount of space at the top and make it easier for anyone with a smaller screen to see more content.

That improves it. The one inch big pink block around the poster’s name also takes a lot of unnecessary vertical space 

[GinniG]

I love the changes! But I especially love the like button!!! Thanks for all your hard work!!!

[Art_Teacher]

Might just be me, but I love everything, except for our avatar photos being a circle.   Mine does not center very well, and I liked it because of my little red, Christmas dress, which won't show if I center on my face...

[Art_Teacher]

Does topics and posts from years ago need to stay  on the board?  Info from 2022 and later just seems like clutter.  

I would say yes!  I go back and "find" things such as project inspiration, and it's sort of like a time capsule, if you know what I mean?  Only problem is that people can still comment on them and "bring them back to the top."  Perhaps they could be there and be set not to come back to the top after a certain period of time?
 

[Flasher]

Might just be me, but I love everything, except for our avatar photos being a circle.   Mine does not center very well, and I liked it because of my little red, Christmas dress, which won't show if I center on my face...

I'm with you!  I'm going to have to have Mike work on my Flasher dude to get him a little better situated in that circle!

[Flasher]

Does topics and posts from years ago need to stay  on the board?  Info from 2022 and later just seems like clutter.  

I would say yes!  I go back and "find" things such as project inspiration, and it's sort of like a time capsule, if you know what I mean?  Only problem is that people can still comment on them and "bring them back to the top."  Perhaps they could be there and be set not to come back to the top after a certain period of time?
  

I agree!  I go back all the time!  Maybe they can be locked to keep them from being commented on and brought back up!