My only problem now with the latest changes is the amount of unused white space on the sides in desktop mode. Mobile is just about perfect, and I like the light grey mode on both. The top and bottom parts of the page being black instead of blue is mildly annoying but obviously not the end of the world.
Open test of new board software
- Thread starter Ian the Admin
- Start date
Pkmatrix
Monthly Donor
Nice! Just noticed this post and have started playing with the Test Board. I like it so far! The new look will take some getting used to, but so did the look of the Third Board so that's fine. I'm definitely digging the Gray and Dark modes! 
The new features are very nice, especially the inline spoiler and the table feature. Kinda sad that we won't be able to see who is liking other people's posts anymore, I liked being able to see that.
Still gotta take a look at the mobile version, but I mostly use the side on laptops anyway so I'm happy with the desktop version.
Geez, what will I do with myself for that long?!
Maybe it's at last time to ask people to submit logo ideas? I know it's been discussed a few times over the years. Wasn't there a lot of talk about adding one back before the move to Xenforo?
The new features are very nice, especially the inline spoiler and the table feature. Kinda sad that we won't be able to see who is liking other people's posts anymore, I liked being able to see that.Still gotta take a look at the mobile version, but I mostly use the side on laptops anyway so I'm happy with the desktop version.
Geez, what will I do with myself for that long?!
Maybe it's at last time to ask people to submit logo ideas? I know it's been discussed a few times over the years. Wasn't there a lot of talk about adding one back before the move to Xenforo?
I concur ! Why should we get rid of those features ? I don't understand.
I think we shouldn't have the pretence of being some "super serious discussion board of experts", when we clearly are not.
This is a hobbyist board and always should remain as such. Honestly, if the latest software update will be mostly about taking away features than just adding a few new ones, that's something of a deal-breaker for me.
I can live with this perfectly well. Can we still see who is kicked/banned/a mod/gone fishing?
EDIT: Just surfed around a bit on the test board, and I like the new design (on a Windows 10 desktop PC) just as much as the "old" design. And yes, we can see who is kicked/banned/fishing etc.
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You've still got a signature, which allows more creative freedom. I'm not going to have 1-2 lines of screen space taken up so a minority of users can make one silly joke (yes, in mobile some people's user titles actually take up two lines).
This is also part of the reason I'm not displaying likes on other peoples' posts. They make the reading experience on mobile noticeably worse, often taking two lines per post.
Wouldn't it be a good idea then to enhance the character limit on signatures. Maybe just to 200-250, or 280 characters like a tweet?
I can understand your reasoning for eliminating user subtitles, despite having one. A location might sometimes be good, though, for knowing which time zone a user lives in.
What I recently missed was a possibility to save drafts when editing a post, just like you can when making a new post. Is that possible, @Ian the Admin ?
I hope we don’t have that. Seems to personalize discussion too much.
I use mobile for the most part when accessing the site, and to be honest, this reasoning seems so weird to me. User titles and likes barely take up any space on posts even on mobile and I don't notice them messing with post spacing at all.
I have to agree. I use the forum on mobile like 99% of the time (I only use the desktop version to put up maps and long posts for actual TLS) and I think the user titles give a sense of personality to the forum that more than compensates the minimal space they occupy which doesn't disturb at all.
Besides, the particular titles for "new/active user" help to quickly identify a new user that may be doing something contrary to forum etiquette or custom and have a more experienced user help out instead of complaining. So there is a practical use to them
It's up to you in the end, but that's my opinion on this particular issue
(btw I know it seems strange I'm defending the titles when I don't have one but I swear I'm thinking of something clever to write I just haven't found it Yet!)
I know people often use that as an abbreviation but it's actually the domain name for Aurora Health Care, so I don't want to put it in the logo.
I've tweaked the "white background" color scheme to be less blindingly white, and darkened the blue so it looks a bit more like the current board. I consider its appearance to be pretty much done now.
Still need to tweak the grey and black backgrounds.
Still need to tweak the grey and black backgrounds.
Only if it's a real location and not a joke one, which a lot of users (myself included) go for. Even if it mans activating a tracking feature (as scary as it sounds), since most of the time when you click on a location it tries to approximate it using Google Maps.
Here’s an idea- run some polls and see what your user base wants, and use the feedback to influence the design?
UI designers don't use polls because there's always a strong bias toward whatever people are already using (and a poll on the site itself would be useless since only a tiny fraction of people would respond, biased toward whoever has complaints about a new idea).
You’re coming across as knowing what we want/need better than we do ourselves, so I’ll bow out of this discussion now.