Forum Theme Evolution. NET Sept. 27, 2019

[dglow]

FWIW I find the new, responsive layout to be perfect on mobile, with fast and seamless relayout moving between portrait and landscape. Such an improvement over the previous desktop theme. Well done, all.

[Chris Bergin]

Ok, great feedback guys. Mark is in sleepy land until the morning his time, so don't think we're ignoring anything.

Fonts - will improve. Saturday.

Dark mode - was always on the list.

Lots of white....as noted, that's going to be reduced natually and we'll look at overall.

Mobile - we're really aiming to have a dedicated version for that. Remember to read the thread for tips on helping anyway.

Right border. Before it was just too small to be of any use to the site. I promise you most of you will get used to it (based on being on this theme myself - as the team has - for over a week). One note, I see a crap ad on one screenshot about car washes. We'll make sure we're refined enough or further as that was never the aim of that ad spot.

--

I have a few other ideas based on the feedback, but want to speak to Mark first before promising anything.

[launchwatcher]

Here's a quirky/distracting issue with the current font:  on Chrome on a linux desktop the S renders maybe a pixel taller than other capital letters:

[mlindner]

I'm sorry but this is bloody awful. The entire right side of the website is blank and isn't even centered. Additionally, instead of a good readable font, it's now horrible thin font that is hard to read.

Edit: I've found a fix for the huge empty right space. If you use any of the adblock variants you can add this rule to delete the section and make the forum full width on the screen and correctly centered.

! 9/27/2019 https://forum.nasaspaceflight.com
forum.nasaspaceflight.com##.nsfwrapper_tower

[Martin FL]

Looks great! Much better than the old theme which was very tired. Yeah, I'd beef up the font a bit, or go to what it was before, but really love the more useful right bar. The twitter feed in view is excellent.

[Martin FL]

Additionally, instead of a good readable font, it's now horrible thin font that is hard to read.

Read the thread! Chris already said they will work on the font.

[mlindner]

Right border. Before it was just too small to be of any use to the site. I promise you most of you will get used to it (based on being on this theme myself - as the team has - for over a week). One note, I see a crap ad on one screenshot about car washes. We'll make sure we're refined enough or further as that was never the aim of that ad spot.

Strongly disagree. Don't turn this into a mess of ads like every other modern site. It was a perfect size before.

Edit: Sidebar ads is a thing from legacy site designs of a decade ago. Nowadays they use in-line ads (for example fake forum posts) or banner ads or bottom bar ads. Especially if you're viewing on a cell phone, sidebar ads are horrendous because of the vertical orientation (people do not browse in landscape mode on a modern smartphone unless they're forced to by a broken site).

[dglow]

Chris, while you're looking into fixes I noticed the NSF logo in the upper-left is not displaying, for forum pages, in Safari 13 both mobile and desktop, fyi.

[Nomadd]

 Firefox isn't too happy yet, but the sizing of the pics when you click on them is definitely a major improvement.

[madebyhumans]

Nice job overall with the new theme!

A small stylistic nit on the subject list pages, where the text in the table rows is right up against the left side of the table (screenshot attached).

This does the trick 

td.subject > div {
  padding-left: 5px; //0.3em
}

[mlindner]

Firefox isn't too happy yet, but the sizing of the pics when you click on them is definitely a major improvement.

Just noticed that, yes that is definitely an improvement. Pretty much everything else is worse though, in terms of legibility, even if the UI is a bit more "modern".

[Chris Bergin]

Strongly disagree. Don't turn this into a mess of ads like every other modern site. It was a perfect size before.

It was not the perfect size before. The size now is one of the industry standards (actually, could have gone larger, but this 15 percent of so, which is still small, use of the border at least makes it viable for the site. After all, my job is the site's survival and growth. Now, as much as some people are going to do what they do on other threads and attempt to dominate this thread with "I don't like it!" (noting we've had thousands of people through the site since the update and this feedback thread is actually really encouraging as much as we're totally taking advice on things like the font and such), I have already said that I'm looking at some options - for example - L2 members on the ad options. Leave that with me.

However, and this was also stressed (and missed) the ads are not like every other site, far from it.  Our ad usage will be mostly for our team, very on topic, the twitter feed is not an ad, it's a very useful resource. All but two spaces will be very, very specific to this site. The other two make it viable for having EM Drive threads with millions of views and no one running around in there being a L2 member, and never leaving the New Physics section. That's just a free lunch for them, at least this way they get to enjoy the site and contribute a little via the way we use the border. That's not you, totally know that, but as noted we'll find additional balance and options for people like you who have already done their bit to help the site.

That's the balance. First, we had to do this. Next we fine tune (this weekend). Then we look to create those additional options.

[Keldor]

Pinch zooming doesn't seem to be functional on most of the forum pages.  This is annoying when you're trying to hit that tiny number to go to the most recent page of a thread.

Speaking of which, why doesn't the board overview page showing all the threads have a button for "Last" to bring you straight to the last page of a given thread?  The "Next" button just dumps you specifically on page 2, and who needs that?

[George CA]

Awesome in desktop. Mobile, as much as it's said that will be a work in progress, it's actually great in landscape/horizontal. Used to be Portrait for me, but now actually like typing on the bigger landscape keyboard, so that's all great. That's my feedback anyway. Sure, slightly better font would be a good idea.

[ThePonjaX]

Hi Guys, I have a problem in my mobile. Android, version 7. I can't zoom the forum pages anymore. I have tried restarting the mobile and cleaning the cache data but no luck.

[catdlr]

The page delivery is lightening fast now.  Good job.

[penguin44]

Page delivery is fast, however I will also echo earlier comments about the pinch zoom not functioning. This is a feature I like as it allows those of us with bad eyes to read pages. Increasing the font sizes doesn't always help.

[DatUser14]

lots of white space on the right margin. Don't know if its because my resolution is large (1660x1050) or not. I also don't like the font, I find it difficult to read. Is there a way to change it in my profile?

[catdlr]

lots of white space on the right margin. Don't know if its because my resolution is large (1660x1050) or not. I also don't like the font, I find it difficult to read. Is there a way to change it in my profile?

Thats because yo have an add blocker on.  Temporarily turn it off and you'll see why your getting that format.

[catdlr]

Page delivery is fast, however I will also echo earlier comments about the pinch zoom not functioning. This is a feature I like as it allows those of us with bad eyes to read pages. Increasing the font sizes doesn't always help.

I agree with your comment on about the pinch zoom not functioning.  I too had to get my glasses out to read the thread contents on the web site.