Haven’t had a chance to check out the forum from a desktop, but on a mobile or tablet, there IS an obvious difference between what you wrote & your screenshot.
It looks like this… your text/font is larger than the screenshot text/font.
Also, many times there is a line in between the OP’s text & the screenshot, also seen below.
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…so all of them? 
I think every single upgrade has been met with much wailing and gnashing of teeth. I actually went back and read a thread from the last change over and OMG. I’m honestly surprised we’re all still here because pulling the plug would have been a very reasonable response to all the negativity there.
This upgrade has been tame and well accepted in comparison!
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I have also been here for a long time, and been through many changes. To me, this one seems to be the most jarring visually. Some people might find some of the new features to be improvements, but obviously there are quite a few others who are not impressed for various reasons.
And I do not remember a previous glitch where multiple people found themselves signed into someone else’s account. That seems like a pretty major whopper to me.
It’s nice if there are new people using the board. Are they also subscribing to the Chronicle magazine? And buying things from the advertisers? I’ve been doing both of those things for years. Probably since before many of the new users were born, to use a line from my grandmother. I was a magazine subscriber long before the BB existed. So if it’s more important to get new BB users than it is to keep the previous ones, I guess that’s good to know.
And yes, I had to sign in to post this reply after the site kicked me off yet again. No smiley face from me by this time.
On the desktop platform or the mobile platform from your phone?
I have faith that they’ll figure this out for you and any others experiencing this issue!
LOL yep, every single one!
I agree, and IMHO that’s what’s making people have a harder time, and it’s easier to not just take a breath, sit down, and just approach it objectively, instead of getting frazzled over things being more different functionally than they really are.
And for anyone thinking I took to this new platform like a duck to water - NO. Not even close. The first 2 days I bounced in and out of the beta site thinking “this is nuts”. It gets better but only if you use it, and only if you don’t allow it to frustrate you. Basic functionality of searching, changing Categories/forums, replies, just aren’t hard at all.
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Mobile. And yes, I also had to sign in again for this post after I got booted again after the last one.
It might not happen on the desktop version, or maybe it will, who knows? But it’s just one more thing dragging down the ease of use for me.
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Oh wow! I’d be totally ok with that. I use my chromebook or PC and if there is a difference, it’s so subtle I can’t see it at all. Here’s that same post from my end.
Oof.
Me!
This is 100% me.
I would have liked your whole post more than once if I was allowed.
I am one of those people that hates change. New software makes me freak out. I get confused and my brain shuts down and I almost panic about not knowing what to do. It is very frustrating.
On the first few days, that is where I was here.
I decided that I like COTH and I need to learn this, so I stuck with it. Since it is now fast to respond, a few wrong clicks does not cause a problem. I just let myself learn from them. I know there are great instructions in the FAQ thread if I get totally lost and even better, quick answers here in this thread. Kind of like all good things in life, sometimes they take a little extra work to keep moving forward.
But why would you screen shot just text instead of quoting it?
This is good information for the people in charge to have. Now they can see if there are things they can change to make the forum more user friendly in those situations.
I do believe everyone in charge agrees that this is a pretty big deal, that is why this is at the top of the list of things being worked on and things like people wanting different colors is having to wait.
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Back with a few things, after a week of trying to get used to the new format.
Will the automatic QUICK REPLY box be reinstated? I know, you can hit the REPLY Button to reply, but having the QUICK REPLY box there and present was easy.
Now that everyone has been using this for a week, are the devs still convinced that the endless scroll is a good idea? The scroll wheel they have still takes forever to get to the bottom of this page. I had to scroll endlessly, and click plus drag, and it still would teleport me mid-thread because the page was loading. This isn’t a connection issue, it’s a functionality issue. I have to load every single comment in order to get to the bottom of the page. That’s unnecessary.
The endless scroll may be the hill I die on as a COTH user. It is so difficult to navigate the big threads where there’s hundreds of replies or, previously were hundreds of pages. In the past I could just easily click the last page to catch up on what I missed. The new format does not always bring me to the “last read reply” and I have to scroll forever. Navigating hot topics is a nightmare with this.
Also, the navigation ribbon at the top is inconsistent. It appears, or it doesn’t. If I am in thread, I have no way to easily jump back to the main categories - besides the Hamburger, which is two unnecessary clicks and some unwieldy design.
Still think the navigation tree should return, not this cumbersome hamburger format. It’s really unnecessarily complicated.
Also wondering the Threadstarter/Author plugin has been removed when you are browsing topics.
I know much of it is out of your control Moderator, but wish these devs had taken the time to familiarize themselves with the old forum’s format and layout, because so far it seems like they’ve either never worked with forums before, or have no idea what kind of things are important in forums for accessibility and ease of use.
Are you on desktop or mobile, @halt? What browser?
There are several ways to reach the bottom of a thread without endlessly scrolling or moving the thread slider tool. From the forum page (where all the threads are listed) you can click the “latest activity” time stamp, and that brings you to the end. You can click the “replies” number, and then the bottom date/time stamp, and that will bring you to the end. From the first post on a thread, in the first post footer, you can click “last reply” and that will bring you to the end. In the thread slider tool, you can click the the time stamp at the bottom, and that will bring you to the end.
Your issues with the thread slider tool are perplexing, but we’ve seen a few people report the same. I’d really encourage you to work with @Moderator_1 so the devs can figure out what’s going wrong and fix it for you and everyone. What you’re seeing isn’t the way it’s supposed to work, and it’s not what most people are seeing. But if you can provide details about what software/hardware you’re using, and maybe some screenshots or quick video grabs of the behavior, you could help fix it for you and others.
Same with your missing navigation tree. Doing some troubleshooting will help both you and others. Can you post some screenshots of when you see it being inconsistent?
The original poster designation has been on the list of known issues since day one. Yes, it’s coming back, once the bigger things are ironed out.
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I’m using Mozilla, on desktop.
I know there is a way to view the last reply, from the forum category. But it’s nice to be able to click the thread, read a handful of replies, and then reply/comment where I can. Currently I have to go to the bottom of the thread to reply. This means I need to go back to the forum page and click the last poster, or I need to scroll in-thread.
The scroll functionality is really cumbersome. Even when I drag the slider. Example: if I am at 450/674 replies in this thread, if I try to drag the slider to the bottom, it brings me back up to where I was before (450), except about ~15 replies down (465). It happened last week too and I figured it was just me getting used to the forum, but it’s happening in all the big threads (Plantation, browsing old trainwreck threads, etc). 90% of my time on COTH is spent browsing “legacy threads”, so I’m running into this issue often.
You do not have to do either of those. If you want to go the end just hit that time stamp (circled in red). That will take you to the end of the thread.
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To get to the last reply of a thread, you have several options:
-
If the thread is open and you’re looking at the OP, you can click the “last reply” date listed below the OP.
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If you’re in the middle of a thread somewhere, click the timestamp at the bottom of the green timeline slider on the right side of the thread. That takes you to the last post (the date at the top takes you to the first post, and clicking anywhere on the timeline will jump you to the post at the point in the timeline of the thread.
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Before you even open a thread, you can choose to go to the last post in the thread in a couple different ways: click the time under the Activity column -or- click the number under the Replies column and then click either the first or last post to go to.
Original poster designation is on the list of items to return, since before we went live. That was custom built for the last site, and they have to implement some customization for it to return here. We’re aware it’s important to our users, but it’s not a default option on either platform.
I understand that Reply works a little differently here, and your opinion may ultimately be different from mine, but I’d encourage you to continue working with the reply options here. They are really flexible and user-friendly IMO once you get used to them being a little different than the old site.
I think we’ll be doing a lot fewer screenshots once we’re back to just using the site, but I did ask the developers to add some differentiation around the border to help with this issue.
I know resolving the log-in issues is their top priority right now, per our request, so heads up that some of the “wants” will be worked on after the “needs.”
Thanks!
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You can reply at each post by clicking the reply arrow in the bottom right hand corner of any post. You don’t have to go to the bottom to reply.
You can go directly to the bottom of a thread from anywhere in the thread by clicking on the date/timestamp that sits under the thread slider. (Not asking you to interact with the slider, I realize that’s not working for you–just click the timestamp that shows underneath it.)
It sounds like the board isn’t loading fast enough for you to make the thread slider tool work well. That’s definitely not how it’s supposed to go. Can you try another browser just to see if you get the same behavior, or something else?
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I’m trying to aggregate some information here. So, you’re having this issue on a desktop using Mozilla. Is anyone else having issues not seeing the dark green banner at the top of the page when you’re inside a thread?
For the people having issues with the green navigation slider not working smoothly, on what platform and on what browser are you using the site?
For your collection of data points: I use Firefox and do not see any of these issues. I’ll pull the version number and add it here next time I’m at my computer.
I am on v 82.0.2.
Not a frequent thing within the site to grab just text, but even within the FAQ screenshots of posts are kind of blending in with the text of the post they’re in. If it looked like the version people are seeing on mobile or tablet, that would have been fine, but I can see how people are confused on the desktop version.
Awesome. I suspect once we’re all up and running there will be little need for screenshotting posts, but you never know. Some kind of border will help to see what’s the post and what’s a screenie within the post for sure.
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I know it is exhausting hearing complaints. I didn’t complain about the last three or four different renditions we went through and I hope that speaks to my ability to adjust to change when it is necessary… And keep my mouth shut when things are not a big deal. 
I feel like the vocal minority right now since a lot of users have put up with the change silently, but maybe my kvetching will help improve forum functionality (like it did bolding/changing the weights of notifications).
I’m complaining about this one because it is a trainwreck from a developer standpoint. All of these “fixes” have deteriorated forum functionality to the point you need a FAQ to help users navigate it. I’m happy the devs are looking into some of the complaints housed here, but hope they seriously reconsider some of the key issues that have made this forum totally inaccessible:
- Devs have an unnecessary scroll slider that is not immediately apparent to new (or even returning) users of its function.
- Devs have a bunch of buttons in random areas (IE hamburger “navigation”)
- Devs made the Chronicle logo “Home” with no indication it is the only way to go back to forum home without ribbon present
- Devs put in links that are almost identical in color to the main text, with no hover color change/overlay, and expect users to be able to navigate this forum easily.
- Devs nuked the forum tree and the author of threads for god knows what reason
- Devs put in a navigation ribbon that’s attributed to scroll behavior
There should not need to be a lengthy FAQ for users to easily navigate the website. It should be easy and apparent what each function does without a guidebook. New users aren’t going to know they need to read a handbook to use this site easily.
COTH isn’t the only forum I frequent. Every single one has a different way of navigating and a different layout.
The scroll bar should be adjusted further if it is here to stay (and I really hope it isn’t). The colors should be flipped, with the tract being lighter and the scroll darker. This is universal for scroll bars across the web, and is not me being nitpicking. It will help new users if they know it is a scroll bar. Look at your scroll on any browser and you’ll see that the tract is lighter and the scroll bar darker. There should be an arrow or some sort of indicator that it is a scroll bar. Presently it looks like a line outside of the text area.
The “latest reply” marker (that is in minutes) should be made clearly into a link. It’s grey / grey on hover and is the same color (grey) as non-link items. Hover could include “Last reply made 12m ago” versus “12m”.
I appreciate all the help and time that you(Moderator) and Simkie and others are spending doing handstands to explain a piece of forum software that is not doing you guys (or new users) any favors. It can be frustrating when users complain and you’re just dealing with what was given to you.
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For me it is not there if I am at the top of the thread.
(I do not consider this an issue, just stating a fact.)
