# New formatting of forum menu



## LouieSherwin (Mar 9, 2018)

Hi,

This morning I noticed that the forum menus are now formatted to match the LRQ website style instead of the forum style. At first I thought that the menus were missing until I took a closer look. My preference would to be keep the forum menus with the same style as the forum itself if for no other reason to maintain visual continuity. IMHO of course.

-louie


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## Replytoken (Mar 9, 2018)

Had the same initial reaction, but I am not minding the changes that much.  I think that over time I'll get used to the new look and it will become second hand.

--Ken


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 10, 2018)

As you can tell, I'm playing with bits and pieces. We've got a forum software upgrade due that will change/modernize the look of the forum a bit, and I'm trying to make sure that change is as gradual and familiar as possible. I've clearly still got work to do! 

Which menu wasn't obvious enough Louie?


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## Linwood Ferguson (Mar 10, 2018)

If you want input, there's now way too much white space at the top of the page.  It's easy to scroll down, and maybe it makes it easier for people to find things, but it is pretty.... inefficient maybe is the word.


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 10, 2018)

What resolution screen Ferguson? I'm mainly working on the skin for Xenforo 2, so this is just temporary.


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## Linwood Ferguson (Mar 10, 2018)

2560 x 1400.  Here's an example.  I don't remember the old layout really, just my reaction prior to reading this thread is somehow the heading grew and/or the fonts got smaller (there's just a lot of white relative to the text size). 

One thing that likely isn't possible to fix is on a relatively wide display, if the floating add could be in the middle not in a separate row it saves a lot of real estate, but that won't work no narrow screens.






Speaking of narrow screens: I also use a second monitor in portrait mode (1880 x 1200), and it looks reasonably nice there as the menus extend across most of the space over the add and don't make it look quite so empty.

It's never easy to make a web page look good in all aspects.


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 10, 2018)

Ah yeah, I think it's just because it's so widescreen. I went back and checked the previous style and it's even worse as the menu font was really small, but the borders were thicker, which might be why you're noticing the white more. That's useful feedback, as I'll see if it's possible to make things shuffle around more for widescreens in the XF2 version.


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 10, 2018)

When you're running it widescreen, do you like that the threads stretch right across the screen, or would you prefer a maximum width (like the blog)? Anyone?


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## Linwood Ferguson (Mar 10, 2018)

It was more surprise than any real functional difference, scrolling is easy.


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## Denis Pagé (Mar 10, 2018)

I do not like looong wide sentences. Also 2560 x 1600 here. So I make it half screen width... for now.


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## Jim Wilde (Mar 10, 2018)

I like that you've changed the font back to sans-serif, I much prefer that.


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## LouieSherwin (Mar 11, 2018)

Victoria Bampton said:


> What resolution screen Ferguson? I'm mainly working on the skin for Xenforo 2, so this is just temporary.





Victoria Bampton said:


> As you can tell, I'm playing with bits and pieces. We've got a forum software upgrade due that will change/modernize the look of the forum a bit, and I'm trying to make sure that change is as gradual and familiar as possible. I've clearly still got work to do!
> 
> Which menu wasn't obvious enough Louie?



It was the row of buttons starting with "NEW POSTS".  When I started this thread I think it was a rather light serif font face  and I briefly thought that it was missing until I rescanned the page and saw that they were still there. Since then it looks like you have changed it to a san-serif font face. This is easier to see.

I think part of my problem was also that this row of buttons had a blue background and when you changed the background to white I initially thought that the whole row was missing. 

-louie


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 11, 2018)

Jim Wilde said:


> I like that you've changed the font back to sans-serif, I much prefer that.


LOL It was meant to be sans-serif in the first place, but I forgot to load the google font.  It was already on my computer, so I didn't spot it until I checked on my phone.


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 11, 2018)

Denis Pagé said:


> I do not like looong wide sentences. Also 2560 x 1600 here. So I make it half screen width... for now.


I may look at limiting the width if no one loves the ultra-wide sentences. I always use a half screen browser for the same reason.


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## PhilBurton (Mar 11, 2018)

Victoria,

Can you add a "New Posts" link on the top right of the screen, next to the "Mark All Theads Read" link.  That new link would speed up my navigation a bit.

Phil Burton


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 12, 2018)

Where are you looking Phil? You know it's already in the top left of the screen?


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## Linwood Ferguson (Mar 12, 2018)

Victoria Bampton said:


> I may look at limiting the width if no one loves the ultra-wide sentences. I always use a half screen browser for the same reason.


I get the desire, but I really wonder if limiting it at the source is a good idea.  People who want narrow text can just use a half-page-wide browser, or scroll to enlarge the text. On the other hand, if one's monitor is large or further away they may LIKE wide text, and if you limit it they cannot get it.

It's so very hard today, with scaled text on high res monitors to know how people's screens actually look.  I'd offer the observation that artificial limitations imposed look more dated than helpful, e.g. right now I have these really wide white bars surrounding this text.  If I only wanted to use half my screen I could just use a smaller browser window. 

Now that said... since a huge percentage of photographers have no idea how to use computers... helping them by truncating the width is probably more user friendly, frankly.  But I just felt like offering a minor word for in favor of "trust the user".


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## LouieSherwin (Mar 12, 2018)

Hi Victoria,

If it were me I would move these buttons down below the ad banner and change the style back to default background, blue in my case. For me any way this would make it visually clearer that these actions belong to the forum content. 

-louie


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 12, 2018)

Thanks for all the suggestions guys. 

Trying to move buttons around in this kind of software is an almighty nightmare, so that may not be doable. I'll bear it in mind though.

I'm not going to spend too much time on the UI for the current software, as the skin for XF2 is coming on quite quickly, so the upgrade won't be too far off. I'm sticking largely with the defaults for XF2 so they don't get broken every time there's an update.


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## PhilBurton (Mar 12, 2018)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Where are you looking Phil? You know it's already in the top left of the screen?
> View attachment 10725


I do, but then I need to scroll to the top of the screen.
Phil


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 12, 2018)

PhilBurton said:


> I do, but then I need to scroll to the top of the screen.
> Phil


I'm clearly being blind, but I'm struggling to spot the Mark All Theads Read link!


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## Jim Wilde (Mar 12, 2018)

PhilBurton said:


> I do, but then I need to scroll to the top of the screen.
> Phil


But it's also at the bottom (right) of every page, Phil!


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## Jim Wilde (Mar 12, 2018)

Victoria Bampton said:


> I'm clearly being blind, but I'm struggling to spot the Mark All Theads Read link!


It only seems to appear at the top of the New Posts list (the other side of the screen from yet another of the existing New Posts links ).


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## tspear (Mar 12, 2018)

I prefer full width, I can make the browser window smaller if needed. 

Tim


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 12, 2018)

Full width should be back. I'm not sure it'll stay in the upgrade though, as Xenforo seem to have made some changes.

You guys aren't seeing any references to staging, are you? I've just duplicated the forum ready to test to upgrade but I'm seeing some weirdness!!


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## tspear (Mar 12, 2018)

Victoria Bampton said:


> Full width should be back. I'm not sure it'll stay in the upgrade though, as Xenforo seem to have made some changes.
> 
> You guys aren't seeing any references to staging, are you? I've just duplicated the forum ready to test to upgrade but I'm seeing some weirdness!!



I do not see any reference to staging.

Tim


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## Victoria Bampton (Mar 12, 2018)

tspear said:


> I do not see any reference to staging.


Thanks Tim. I think stuff was getting cached by the server, but I’ve hopefully got that disabled for the staging site now.


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