Forum new look?
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@holatuwol Honestly I'm seeing about the same number of problems now as before the upgrade, so it really doesn't seem to have done much on my end.
The removal of the ability to do custom overrides to specific visual things is a bit annoying for me though since I had taken out a few things that the forums were displaying and boosted the width of the reply box
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I'm seeing somewhat fewer glitches, but they haven't been eliminated.
The thing that really bugs me about the new skins, more than anything, is the terrible lack of structure in the post listings. Here's an example from another forum I'm on:
Things I would point out:
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A strong header to anchor the top of the page. The old forum had that, with the dark blue color; as far as I can tell, all of the non-dark themes have a light grey header that is hard to pick out from the browser chrome and the body text.
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A second dark header to separate the forum navigation chrome from the list of posts.
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The post list includes horizontal separators, creating clear separations between posts and a visual link between the post title and the metadata on the right side of the screen.
The old forum look wasn't perfect, but it covered these points better than the current one does.
Here's another example:
A fair number of differences in the forum navigation chrome, but the post list is much like the first example. And both of them are lightyears ahead of the current JNC forum presentation.
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In addition to the missing immediate access to notifications, I’m wondering where to find the search function.
I make my home base in the forums here on the “unread” page, and things only stay there (or at least used to with the older version of the page) for two days. Once the threads disappear from there, I’d use the search function to find the discussion threads for pre-pubs that I’d read a bit late…
I’m quite underwhelmed so far, and it feels like what little I used is broken or absent…
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@Ingraman I see the search icon next to my "user" icon to the left.
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@wanderer_1204 said in Forum new look?:
@Ingraman I see the search icon next to my "user" icon to the left.
I guess that this is one of those “If it were a bear, it would bite me” situations. I’m not still seeing a forum thread search icon/box, and I’ve tried a couple of forum skins in case one hides it more than others.
We need a image hosting service to post pictures, right?
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Top right, there are three icons near my user icon, a magnifying glass for search, a bell for notifications and a speech bubble for chats.
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@kingpendragon said in Forum new look?:
Top right, there are three icons near my user icon, a magnifying glass for search, a bell for notifications and a speech bubble for chats.
Thank you!
Interesting… On my screen, there’s nothing visible between the J-Novel banner and my placeholder image/initial. No biting bear for me, unless it’s hiding in the color scheme… I’m using Safari on an 11” iPad, instead of a proper computer. I’ll go play with font sizes too, since when I increased the size a long time ago, some things shifted a bit on the screen.
Edit: Okay… When I hit (command-minus) to drop the font size one step, those missing icons showed up. That took care of my initial problems then, except that my eyes might be less happy. :p There was so much blank space up there before the font decrease, why couldn’t the icons fit in there then?! <sigh>
Thanks again!
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So basically in order to see the icons next to the Reply button I have to select a different skin frkm the default. In order to see the icons next to my profile icon I have to select on Chrome 80% zoom or lower, this on a 12 inches Samsung Android tablet in portrait. The icons appear in landscape orientation, butvI never browse the web that way and even in portrait there is more than enough room to show them. Tue notifications was one of the feature I used the most so having to do extra steps to access them is incredibly annoying.
Improvements so far are the new reply box that shows the thread so I don't have to keep two tabs open and the lack of the previews in the unread posts page, so I don't have to add padding to my replies in order to not spoil things for oeople who still haven't read the latest parts. -
@Ingraman said in Forum new look?:
Edit: Okay… When I hit (command-minus) to drop the font size one step, those missing icons showed up. That took care of my initial problems then, except that my eyes might be less happy. :p There was so much blank space up there before the font decrease, why couldn’t the icons fit in there then?! <sigh>
I think the logic about how much is shown on different screen widths is screwed up, with a range of intermediate screen widths (like my inner screen or your tablet at default size) getting shown less than thinner or wider screens do...
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@Ingraman In the top right corner of the header bar at the top of the page there should be the user icon, it shows your profile picture, or a circle of a random color with the first letter of your username. Yours shows up as an I in a red circle for me but I'm not sure that the color will always be the same. There are 3 buttons to the left of it, the first is a speech bubble used for a chat functionality, left of that is the notification bell, and left of that is the search magnifying glass. With some skins those buttons are exactly the same color as the background text, but you can still select them with tab selection or see the url they link to if you hover your mouse over them (mobile leaves you with less options). I know they are visible with the superhero skin if you want a dark skin where everything is readable.
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@Valanduin As I noted in the edit to my previous post, those buttons disappear when the font size is increased above a certain level in the browser, and I had passed that level for this current incarnation of the JNC forums. When I dropped the font size a notch, they reappeared. It wasn’t a problem with the earlier version.
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@Ingraman said in Forum new look?:
@Valanduin As I noted in the edit to my previous post, those buttons disappear when the font size is increased above a certain level in the browser, and I had passed that level for this current incarnation of the JNC forums. When I dropped the font size a notch, they reappeared. It wasn’t a problem with the earlier version.
I’ll also note that the default font sizes on all the skins I tried would not show the buttons in Portrait mode on an 11” iPad running iPadOS 26.6.2.
If the default size won’t show it, @kuali is probably right about the font size calculations being messed up.
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@Travis-Butler said in Forum new look?:
@Ingraman said in Forum new look?:
@Valanduin As I noted in the edit to my previous post, those buttons disappear when the font size is increased above a certain level in the browser, and I had passed that level for this current incarnation of the JNC forums. When I dropped the font size a notch, they reappeared. It wasn’t a problem with the earlier version.
I’ll also note that the default font sizes on all the skins I tried would not show the buttons in Portrait mode on an 11” iPad running iPadOS 26.6.2.
If the default size won’t show it, @kuali is probably right about the font size calculations being messed up.
I can eventually decrease the font size to see the buttons show up in portrait mode, but that leaves the text way too small. :) I generally use the iPad (running 26.7.1) in landscape mode, but that’s usually because I have Logitech’s keyboard/case combo attached to it. I don’t even remember what the default font size is, although I see that when I put the font size back to where I have usually been using it (the first step up that causes the buttons to disappear) the post composition window is now full-screen and the posts are no longer kinda visible behind it. At least the composition window’s “submit” button is visible, unlike when the font size allowed me to see the notification/etc buttons are visible and I have to turn the iPad to portrait in order to see the submit button.
For now, I guess that I’ll have to bounce back and forth between font sizes, depending on whether I see a notification marker next to my place-holder image/initial, writing a post, or I’m just reading. I should actually get my desktop computer back up and running, and use it for most of my forum interactions and such…
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All the high contrast elements that clash with dark mode are very ugly and the UI is generally much worse now. My notifications don't even pop up anymore. I have to go to the actual notification page instead of the side menu to see them now.
Please let us revert this horrid UI.
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I doubt this thread anything other than for us to air our grievances and help each other out if possible. Based on the recent JNC responses or lack thereof for user feedback, i am not holding my breath.
