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General discussion

Forum redesign will be deployed today 4/22

Apr 21, 2005 8:24AM PDT

It's actually going to happen today!

Please let me know if you find any bugs that we may have over looked. I hope you guys like it!

Thanks everyone!
-Lee

Discussion is locked

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(NT) its gone
Apr 21, 2005 11:19AM PDT
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Forum Tip
Apr 21, 2005 11:19AM PDT

Hi Rod
The forum tip appears only when you create a new discussion.

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Thanks Stan, I see that now but they've got to
Apr 21, 2005 11:36AM PDT

put it back on the replies too IMO. Half of the people don't even start a new discussions, they add a reply to an existing one for their own problem. I had not created a discussion to see that. Unfortunately many others won't either. LOL Regular posters like you already know to do that but not the new people. Thanks though, I had missed that comletely LOL

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Agreed
Apr 21, 2005 11:45AM PDT

There appears to be enough room on the page to squeeze it in, especially since it now so small.

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(NT) (NT) Will add it to the reply page also... Thanks!
Apr 22, 2005 3:32AM PDT
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I don't see any diffeerence
Apr 21, 2005 11:19AM PDT

that matters at al.

Why not provide a list????????

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Difficult to please everyone!
Apr 21, 2005 11:43AM PDT

Clear, concise, I like the format, easy on the eyes, what more does every one want, or is that a no brainer?

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Looks a lot cleaner...
Apr 21, 2005 1:07PM PDT

The font is too small for me, but I have Ctrl and a mouse wheel. Over all not bad
Larry

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Oh My...hard time finding highlighted black subjects titles.
Apr 21, 2005 1:29PM PDT

Remember Lee, this was one of the problems on the forum change before and you fixed the highlight to red. Now I see the red "NEW" stuck up front instead of the rear.

(X-plain for those that don't read me;-))
You go to a long thread, read a post then scroll down to see where in the 50 posts the thread is....gads there are 39 posts having a yeller button with post in blue. Ah, found it highlighted in black amoung the blue. If in red highlight it will stand out from the blue (or black) like in the past, if in black..hard to find amoung the blue.

How about a bright LAVENDER highlight to go with the decor. Grin

Everything else looks great Lee & like the colors.

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Ah...temporarily back to the old forum SW where
Apr 22, 2005 7:57AM PDT

the highlighted post are back to Red. Phew!

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JR on the new design the post that you are reading
Apr 22, 2005 8:22AM PDT

in the tree the entire line is highlighted with a shade of gray. Did you notice that?

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Gray?
Apr 22, 2005 8:57AM PDT

Gee Lee, that is even worst, trying to distinguish the gray snuggled among all the light blue posts. Can't a purple or red be reinstated like the current forum? It is amazing to me how long it took me to find a place with that 'Gray' (I had wrongly thought black).

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(NT) (NT) Having same problem... gray is hard to find!
Apr 22, 2005 9:57AM PDT
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NEW FORMAT
Apr 21, 2005 3:39PM PDT

Font size is an issue. Liked the size before. Colors: washed out light yellow, no dymamics.
Following the post that I am responding to: why out of sight? Lousy! Should be like before: You are responding to this post instead os scrolling to the bottom and finding it.
Why are all the font sizes so small?
No reason for it. Really bad I think and poor design from a major website.
I am a graphic designer and I think that CNET should have come up with a major breakthrough in web design other than a complete dissapointment.
Kevin

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Agreed...
Apr 21, 2005 11:52PM PDT

What a mess. Been on here 30 min. and got a headache already. CNet crapped the bed on this change. If they can't design something readable they should get out of the business. Pretty Ads though. Confused

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Agreed and Not
Apr 22, 2005 1:29PM PDT

Rolway, have you seen any slowdown that I have noticed tonight switching between the forums? Also that obnoxious header taking longer than usual to display?
Their yellow mustard screen hanging for about 5 seconds before going to the next screen?
Before this new lousy design, it used to switch instantly. I wonder what the hang up is?
Kevin

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No "Mark As Read" SUCKS, Lee
Apr 21, 2005 8:17PM PDT

We stopped being able to mark individual threads as read when the software changed long ago, and now we can't mark the whole forum itself as read anymore. Do we have to read a whole thread now, even if we aren't interested in the topic, in order to get the whole thread marked as read so we can then tell which ones have new posts in them?

It seems to me that each software change is taking away more and more features that we used to have than giving us anything decent to work with anymore.

By the way....did you manage to get the filter fixed for URL's that include the word 'free' in it? I know we can't use html code in the messages (very limited use), but having an actual URL filtered is a little over the top, doncha think?

I don't know if you were around back then, but Chris Faust brought in a software for us to test once that actually had freaking blocks of ice as icons for the threads......please talk to your designers about giving us back some of the things that made the forum more enjoyable to use rather than making it harder each time a change goes through. Maybe if they actually spent some time in the forums themselves they would understand how things SHOULD work instead of how they THINK it should when they don't have to USE the limited tools they've given us.....and then start taking even THOSE away.

It just seems that they are more interested in making sure your advertising loads and shows up faster than being interested in the audience that is here every day trying to figure out the work-arounds for something that shouldn't have to be worked around at all.

TONI

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Mark as read position changed
Apr 21, 2005 10:29PM PDT

It's at the bottom but must mark all discussions and cannot just mark an individual thread. I am having problems when reading one post in a thread. It stays red until all are read but this does not happen with all posts????

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It needs to be put back on top
Apr 21, 2005 11:16PM PDT

since most people I know read the forum pages from the bottom up and then have to go all the way back to the bottom of the page (not many know to not use the scroll bar to do it and use the End key on the keyboard instead) just to find that link to mark them.

I REALLY miss having the 'mark this thread read' that we used to have that would mark individual threads only.

I personally have been getting more and more unhappy with these 'changes' that take away rather than add anything that we can actually use efficiently or even on a practical level that most internet forums already have in place.......and we used to have.

TONI

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Yep and icon legend is on the bottom too
Apr 21, 2005 11:23PM PDT

which I noted in an earlier post. Regular users know the icons but new users might not.

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Sucks
Apr 22, 2005 1:39PM PDT

Toni H
The advertising at the headers are taking longer to image since this so-called improvement began.
I agree with you on what you have posted.
Kevin

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Reply buttons...
Apr 21, 2005 10:51PM PDT

Hi, Lee.

In the old design, you could click anywhere on the buttons and it would activate. Here you have to click exactly on the words in the middle -- could you go back to the "active button" style, not make us click exactly on the words?

And for us Mods, would you remind the designer about his promise on next redesign to actually quote the "offensive" message in an offensive message report, not merely link to it. That saves us time visiting a message we don't need to remove...

Thanks -- Dave K.

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(NT) (NT) Definitely Dave, I have brought it up with the engineer
Apr 22, 2005 3:34AM PDT
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Gads! Dave...........
Apr 22, 2005 7:32AM PDT

Reference:
"And for us Mods, would you remind the designer about his promise on next redesign to actually quote the "offensive" message in an offensive message report, not merely link to it. That saves us time visiting a message we don't need to remove..."

If you Moderators (or is it only you) are not considering looking at the other posts that caused a person to post a questionable comment that caused a 'offensive message report' by someone, you ARE NOT DOING A GOOD moderators job IMO. Heavens forbid!!!!!

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Hi, John.
Apr 22, 2005 12:17PM PDT

You miss my point -- sometimes the post objected to is benign, so there's no need to visit the forum and put it in context. More of a problem for those suffering with slow dialup (as I had to for the last couple of weeks Sad ) To do a deletion, you'd still have to use the link...
-- Dave K.

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Going blind...
Apr 22, 2005 1:14AM PDT

Words run together and fuzzy... fonts too small for most users to comfortably use. Don't know about this!

Glenn

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(NT) Reconsidering the font size on the tree... thanks!
Apr 22, 2005 3:34AM PDT
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NEXT MESSAGE in wrong place
Apr 22, 2005 3:53AM PDT

Have to do UNNECESSARY scrolling down to get to "NEXT MESSAGE" after every message.

How about putting "NEXT MESSAGE" where "REPORT OFFENSIVE POSTS" is located?

Also find "next UNREAD message" annoying, wish it was not there.

thanks

Ben

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Next Message
Apr 22, 2005 2:00PM PDT

Ben, Agree with you on those issues also.
Did you notice the font sizes are back to normal?
Keep posting until CNET comes up with a really worthwhile improvement or just go back the where it used to be and than taking their time to make a significant improvement.

Kevin

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Bad CSS in first posts & other misc things
Apr 22, 2005 4:16AM PDT

* Someone bolloxed the CSS code for Firefox (which happens to have the most complete and correct CSS implementation around), causing bunching of the first and second messages in the "mini-tree" list of the thread. Needs to be fixed. Looks ugly, unprofessional, and it's just plain annoying.

* As noted, the mark all as read being at the bottom is a real... How to put this reasonably diplomatic... Interesting. Whomever thought up the idea of putting the link to mark everything as read at the BOTTOM when all the new content is flushed to the TOP, should be summarilly dismissed. If you want to have one at the top AND the bottom, that's a whole other story.

* For my taste, the colors used are too bright. Makes me feel like I'm reading a children's book. I would think a darker shade of yellow and green might be in order. One needs to remember about contrast compared to the background. Bright pastel colors do not mix well with white.

* I DO like that you've put "back to <forum>" links at the top and bottom, but really the bottom one should be moved up to the bottom of the content of the post, not under the mini-tree (which can sometimes get quite long).

* Possibly another Firefox specific (is anyone actually testing this with anything other than IE?) bug in your code, but the top navbar doesn't seem to line up properly. It seems to stop a ways before the white border for the middle "content" portion of the page. I just noticed the bottom version does the same thing.

* While the larger links for preview and submit are a good idea, it's rather counter intuitive to make them look like a button, but only have the text be a link. Either make them a full blown image so the whole thing can be a link, or do something else with the design.

* On lower resolutions (like the 1024x768 of my laptop), the much hated side scroll bar appears as a result of your right ad "pane". If you're going to use absolute values in tables (bad idea to begin with) and what not, it is important to design it to look well in a very low resolution. Things scale upwards much more than they do down. A better solution of course would be to use relative values such as say 70% of the window for the content pan, and then maybe 10% each for the flanking panes, leaving about 5% on either side as a buffer.

* Consider offsetting the message a person is replying to. Having it indented by a single tab character gives more of an impression that it's seperate from the other material.

That's all I've got for now, but I may pop back in if I think up any more later.