Oh sweet, thank you! I’m going to go check that out now because there were several threads I’ve been looking for 
Don’t be speaking for everyone else…
I have absolutely ZERO issues with the new platform.
I actually REALLY like it & all the features, compared to the old one.
It’ll just get better & better as the team has a chance to fidget with the settings & all the little changes still being worked out.
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Right, I should have said, “why no one has had other than complaints over the change up to now”.
Hope that sounds better? 
I am sure the format had to be changed, but gosh, i feel so lost. And i have not been able to feel comfortable on the new format. If i spent an hour or so on here and got to learn more, maybe i would. but i come here for a quick few minutes each day, and now i can’t really enjoy it as i did. I am sure at some point i will be able to figure it out. It’s not the directions that have me confused, it is the layout.
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I don’t disagree at all, adding “chronicle of the horse” to the end of search engine terms is fantastic! But that isn’t browsing the forum, that’s not how the forum is browsed, this platform is how you browse the forum. The broken links will hopefully get resolved
I agree, and the search feature works well.
You reading the same topics I am??? I have seen many, many compliments about the new format, navigational features, etc (and not just mine).
Maybe in one topic titled “Change is hard” leading one to feel the negativity… but in many of the posts in the Tech Forum, many compliments!
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I think there is going to be a learning ‘hump’ for everyone. You are right… coming here for just 15 minutes/day it will be hard to learn how to use it effectively for how you browse topics… Unread, New, by Category (aka Forum). Many choices now instead of the more, IMO, structured style of vB.
Once familiarity and routine start to settle in, easier to spend just the 15 minutes looking at what interests you… (as noted above).
I do like that at the end of topics, it will suggest other topics you may be interested in.
I used to read vB by scanning the list of Forums looking for the ones that I was interested in reading and then seeing if there were any unread posts.
Now, I can go directly to a list of all Unread posts across the Categories/Forums for topics I’ve ‘read’.
Once I’ve worked through Unread, then I’ll check out New and there, yes, I do miss the ‘hover’ for more info feature but I know it’s coming. I can see all new posts on topics that I haven’t necessarily read before.
It took me a bit to figure out how to use the new format to read the type of information I was used to reading in old vB.
I do use the ‘hamburger’ (as I learned it was called 
although I am still not sure if it is a Big Mac or Quarter Pounder) to the left of my ‘circle’ that, for me, has my avatar to quickly go from Unread to New…
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Yes! And bonus that they are timely posts. Not posts that have not been touched in years like vB used to suggest.
As much as I hate new things, I am finding lots of great features here that once I get used to everything will make the learning time worth it.
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I LOVE that the suggested topics at the end are actually topped with the threads I’m Watching/Tracking! I used to have to go back to my Notifications to more easily get to Subscribed threads in a different forum, and if I wanted to see what else I had new replies to in the current Forum, I had to scroll to see what had a new unread marker. This is so much easier.
I love that within a forum, there’s a clear delineation between my last visit and the current one.
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I don’t think that’s a good solution to this problem, because:
- those threads are sticky because Admins want them to be read and readily accessible. I don’t mind having them at the top of my regular forum viewing.
- casual users won’t have done that. My point is that someone comes to the forum for the first time and what they see for their first time is that apparently the most recent threads are 2-5 years old in several categories.
- A better solution is to have those lists be the threads with the most recent posts and not stuck to the order that the larger forum display has. The purpose of this UI element on the forum front page is to show recent activity and to entice a click through, and the way this is implemented it doesn’t serve that purpose. It might actually work better to not have the threads at all if the choice of what is there can’t be changed.
In my group we spend a lot of time thinking about how we design our interface not just for our most active and proficient users, but also how we make it easy to convert a casual first-time visitor into someone who will enjoy their first visit and be able to figure out how to use it successfully and come back. It’s a tricky balance but I think an important one. The interface always needs to be viewed from the perspective of both.
To be clear, JB’s screenshot is what I have too. I find it unreadable and unusable. It feels like a jumble of text. I had to really think about it to realize that each line is a different thread, because it doesn’t feel that way. I think some small changes would improve it and make it readable and usable.
If I were to measure it, for example, I would bet that I could get more clicks on those links by having just one thread in each one rather than by having this jumble of three. (I do think it’s possible to improve the layout to make the three clearer and more click-attractive though.)
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When I log out, and see (presumably) the stock “I am a new user and this is the view” view, there is only one forum with 3+ pinned threads–Off Course. Every other single forum has fewer, so there’s at least one actually new thread showing on the categories page, barring one forum.
If you’re concerned about losing pinned thread by unpinning them, the bookmark option is great for that.
I’ve also seen that when a pinned/unpinned thread is updated–with either a new post OR with an edit to the first post–it refreshes and is shown at least on the latest tab. The edit behavior is new to this board, thought that was very cool to see.
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Another board I frequented changed to Discourse a few months ago. I don’t like it at all. I have stopped visiting that board, and I’m finding I don’t come here often either. I’m not flouncing away. I just don’t like Discourse.
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Most people don’t need or want to see “Please keep the topics farm-related & avoid general dog/cat questions” at the top of Around the Farm every single time they go in there.
What would be interesting is if pins can be set to required, or optional, and the required ones would always stay, and the optional ones can be dismissed. @Moderator_1 ?
I guess I don’t see how my screen shot shows something unreadable or unusuable. It’s literally the forum name in bold, and the first 3 threads. I know the old forum just had the first thread. I also never went into some forums unless the first thread caught my eye. I don’t think the pinned threads should show up though!
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I went through and cleaned up a couple more pinned threads that were no longer really necessary (dressage tests and ATF’s Please keep the topics…). Now, with the exception of SHB and Off Course (I think), there’s only one pinned topic that will show in a new user’s three featured topics list on the homepage…and most of those have FAQ in the title, so it will be apparent why that thread has an older activity date associated with it.
All users can dismiss any pinned topics they like to by clicking on the pin icon next to the title, or clicking “unpin” at the end of the thread.
Admins can also do banner announcements (like the one posted about the new site being opened) instead of pins, which serve better for, uh, announcements. Also, we can now set expiration dates for pinned topics, so they’ll automatically poof in a timely fashion for shorter-term notices.
We’ve mostly used pins to help members of the community keep track of or become aware of ongoing reference threads or FAQ info, so it’s now up to you whether or not you want them to stay pinned. The bookmark capabilities are better here too, so you can now catalog posts and threads of personal interest that way.
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I haven’t been here anywhere near as often as I used to. It isn’t so much that change is hard, which it is. It’s the complexity, the clutter, the overall look. How do I create something simple that meets my needs? It doesn’t strike me as intuitive. Once I get going and use it more it will get easier. I’m not interested in spending hours trying to figure it out. It shouldn’t take practice to get good at it. The volume of bugs and errors being posted is still pretty significant considering how long it’s been out here.
The thing is about the pages. We won’t get them. Period. Unlikely. Discourse is selling a board that doesn’t use pages. It supports “conversations” encourages 'civilized discussion." Pages need page buttons that they claim are hard to find and keep track of. They get in the way of conversations. Scrolling is much better, along with loading chunks of content as you get father down the thread. In order to get pages they will have to build a new function and add it to the existing package. A tall order.
I’m disappointed. I wish I wasn’t. I took a break from COTH when my employer cut off access to most of the world. I couldn’t do it at lunchtime. When I started up again I realized how much I missed it. The right combination of fun, informative, educational, with a dash of disagreement. What to Do? What to Do?
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We get the frustrations, we really do
Your desire for scrolling is to use the topic slider to the right of the replies. Don’t use your browser slider. Shows you (at least on laptop/desktop) the number of the reply you’re on along with the date and not the ‘jumping around’ that can be seen when using the browser slider.
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I realize this won’t change your mind, but there have been very few bugs or errors posted at all. Nearly every question that’s been posted relates to questions on function or feedback on UI. Very little has gone wrong. And the few problems that have come up have sure gotten a lot of attention from the mod & dev team, and, a week in, are largely resolved.
As someone who likes the new format, I’m very sorry you are so very unhappy with it.
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Don’t really have a lot to contribute as I don’t feel completely lost …
First look at the new format was “completely lost”, but after a couple of days of occasional use, I like this new format. Once I was more comfortable with the navigation, the features are an improvement over the old format – although the old format was not broken.
I agree that the screens with lists of thread titles are a lot more cluttered than they need to be. I’m sure I’ll get used to the new look. If the modifications to customize those lists that were shown in another thread become available, I’ll be happy to use them.
The endless thread format was the hardest thing, as I had not encountered this feature before. It was less the scroll than that I was accustomed to looking at the discussion in 20-post sets, aka ‘pages’. That was how I navigated the discussion. I’m getting used to a new way to look at the discussion (but I’m still noticing what ‘page’ I’m on based on the post number 
).
The slider scroll is completely useless for me, as it seems to be for a few people, but that’s ok as the browser scrolls does well for me. As someone said, the slider jumps rather than slides, and there is no control over where it lands, or even which direction it moves. But the # sign jump to particular post numbers solved a lot of what was lost to the out-of-control slider. So now the slider is just a visual landmark as to where I am in the thread. That’s all I need it for so that’s fine.
Overall I am fine with the change. I hope other users find it more comprehensible and useful soonest, so that they are enjoying COTH forum again. 
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Interesting as your experience with the slider behavior vs the browser scroll are opposite of what I’d seen (not saying you’re not seeing what you’re seeing, I believe you). For me, the browser scroll was pretty worthless… I’d drag down to have it want to jump back up. The topic slider works better for me.
What browser and platform are you using?
I’m MacOS + Safari.
Wonder if the experiences that people are having are somehow related to their browser? Just thinking out loud.
