Potential Forum Home Changes



The second column should be for all the strikers only forums.

And a third vote for casting the politics forum into the void where it belongs.
 
Roger said:
I am considering making some changes to the forums home page to clean it up a bit and also to remove some of the white space on desktop browsers.

In my opinion, the number of Threads and Messages under each forum title is unnecessary - it might make sense on quieter forums than RTG - but here it is just two large numbers that we really don't need to brag about and ultimately is just superfluous information and clutter.

On desktop browsers there is a huge amount of white space on the home page, and I think it is better making this a 2 column list of the forums and a shorter page that needs less scrolling up and down (no changes to this on mobile/tablet devices as they aren't wide enough).

Only the forums home page is affected, not any of the threads/posts or forums themselves.

There isn't a dark version of the style or a Large Font version available for testing, but if I do roll this out it will apply to all of the light and dark styles.

I know people hate change, but if you would like to give me any genuine feedback you can test this layout by picking the "RTG Light 2021" Style from the style chooser at the foot of the forums or from here
Click to expand...
If it ain't broke don't fix it is an old saying...
 
I don't see any problem with the current layout or the new suggestions.
People will get used to change.

A far more annoying problem for me is the way the page loads. (all pages, not just the home page).
There is a banner advert towards the top of the page, immediately below the red menu bar.
When the page loads, is loads without the advert.
Then the parts of the page below the advert shift down to make room for the advert. (this is the problem)
Then the advert loads.

This sometimes takes a few seconds.

Frequently, the page loads and I go to click on the item of interest only for the page to shift down to make room for the advert and the click happens on something a few lines above the item I clicked.

I used to hand code websites and HTML includes the option to pre-define the size of an image before the image is loaded.
If that's done then the page loads correctly formatted and spaced with a correctly sized blank gap for the image, and the image (advert) then appears in the pre-defined space without the need to move anything else on the page.

Is it not possible to predefine the size of the advert so the forum pages load that way?
 
Fcomp said:
I don't see any problem with the current layout or the new suggestions.
People will get used to change.

A far more annoying problem for me is the way the page loads. (all pages, not just the home page).
There is a banner advert towards the top of the page, immediately below the red menu bar.
When the page loads, is loads without the advert.
Then the parts of the page below the advert shift down to make room for the advert. (this is the problem)
Then the advert loads.

This sometimes takes a few seconds.

Frequently, the page loads and I go to click on the item of interest only for the page to shift down to make room for the advert and the click happens on something a few lines above the item I clicked.

I used to hand code websites and HTML includes the option to pre-define the size of an image before the image is loaded.
If that's done then the page loads correctly formatted and spaced with a correctly sized blank gap for the image, and the image (advert) then appears in the pre-defined space without the need to move anything else on the page.

Is it not possible to predefine the size of the advert so the forum pages load that way?
Click to expand...

It is something that needs addressed.

With the layout being responsive, the ad sizes are not fixed - so it's not as straightforward as it might initially seem. Essentially we have at least 3 different size ads, plus the div is also always collapsed for people who are in ad free/contributor groups.

The div sizing used to be a lot faster, but with the latest GDPR TCF2.0 rules, we can't even load that element until we have received a TCF consent string back from the users browser (ie. your acceptance or otherwise of privacy/cookie rules) - hence the extra delay. It should theoretically be possible to create the ad div within a new (empty) div and use CSS to presize that based upon your screen size which should be almost instant and I will look at that. But right now my main focus is on getting the next version of the forum software tested and installed so we are up to date, and that has run into a few issues.
wisemensaysteve said:
Only thing I notice is it doesn't show the latest post on each section and I am seeing more white space, using a desktop
Click to expand...

It should do. It does for me and that hasn't changed.
Son of Stan said:
So will there still be a dark option? All of the white hurts my eyes.
Click to expand...

Yes, as stated in the initial post. If I do this it will be for all variants. There is just the one theme for testing purposes and to gauge opinion
Some Random Guy said:
Would look better if the second column was the same colour as the first imo.

Really minor nitpick though.
Click to expand...

I agree with that, but when it combines into a single column on smaller devices the alternating colour is better and as things stand I don't see a way of having both options available. I will discuss this with Pixel Exit who created the theme as they are wizards when it comes to coding things!
 
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