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-   Technical Support and Feedback (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/technical-support-feedback-386/)
-   -   Feedback on FT new style, March 2018 (https://www.flyertalk.com/forum/technical-support-feedback/1900802-feedback-ft-new-style-march-2018-a.html)

chermorg Mar 28, 2018 1:59 pm


Originally Posted by jackal (Post 29577804)
I guess the old adage that you can't please everybody is absolutely true.

Personally, I think the redesign is a big step in the right direction, and we're at least up to somewhere like 2012 rather than 2002 like we were before. ;) A few design ideas and elements could probably stand to be addressed, but it's like 80-90% there, IMO. For all the Luddites who hate Web 2.0 design...sorry, not sorry. :p

They could easily please both sides of the issue. Leave the old skin enabled and allow people to switch back to it - as does virtually every other vB site I have ever been a part of (or adminned, which I have done multiple).

EsherFlyer Mar 28, 2018 2:38 pm


Originally Posted by jackal (Post 29577804)
BTW, I'm finding it hysterical that people are screaming so loudly that OMG THIS IS THE WORST THING EVER AND MY HEAD HURTS!!!! when there are also so many people posting that they actually find the redesign an improvement and leading to more clarity. I guess the old adage that you can't please everybody is absolutely true.

Perhaps oddly I'm in both camps. There are parts of the new design that appeal to me, but as I noted above I found them tiring to actually use. Not sure if I'd have ended up with headache if I'd persisted, but wouldn't have been surprised.

I know that because of that I've avoided vising FT from my laptop today, and just used my phone which seems to be unaffected by the changes.

IBJoel Mar 28, 2018 2:44 pm


Originally Posted by WIRunner (Post 29577576)
Maybe a Wiki is in order.

I thought about that, but some people are saying they still aren't having them show up. :(

IBJoel Mar 28, 2018 2:47 pm


Originally Posted by jackal (Post 29577804)
[MENTION=790438]IBJoel[/MENTION], can I bring your attention to this issue again? I don't see that you've acknowledged it, and it's actually fairly important. Thanks.

My apologies. Must've gotten lost when people were debating alphabetizing. I will see if I can actually fix it myself, and if not will ask tech to fix that.

jackal Mar 28, 2018 2:51 pm


Originally Posted by IBJoel (Post 29577988)
My apologies. Must've gotten lost when people were debating alphabetizing. I will see if I can actually fix it myself, and if not will ask tech to fix that.

Thanks.

BTW, Likes are apparently working again for me. :D

cruisr Mar 28, 2018 3:10 pm


Originally Posted by anrkitec (Post 29577688)
Don’t know if this has been posted before but the mobile experience with the new look is even worse than before.

Why is the text of posts so large now? I can only see a single post on my screen at at time and the problem isn’t my phone or it’s settings.

Yet when I go to make a post, the text box and text is micro, I can barely read it as I type.

And for effs sake why haven’t you all solved the problem of the text disappearing up and under the formatting bar when making or editing a post? Can’t even see the text as I type. I have to pull the text down after typing to check my work. This is unbelievably annoying and ridiculous.

And the problem still remains of ads tearing away from the sidebar and blocking the screen when you pinch in to zoom.

FT is essentially unusable on mobile and there is no excuse for it.
I wanted to like your post but again my like button has a mind of its own and I can’t like it. Is my like button auditing me?








IBJoel Mar 28, 2018 3:26 pm

The Desktop Skin is not optimized for mobile devices and was not designed to be. That might be something we update, but it is on the back burner for now. Mobile Skin should work fine, however.

lo2e Mar 28, 2018 3:47 pm


Originally Posted by IBJoel (Post 29578145)
Mobile Skin should work fine, however.

Aren't there numerous reports of hijacking ads taking place in the mobile skin?

anrkitec Mar 28, 2018 3:53 pm


Originally Posted by IBJoel (Post 29578145)
The Desktop Skin is not optimized for mobile devices and was not designed to be. That might be something we update, but it is on the back burner for now. Mobile Skin should work fine, however.

OK, but the hijack ads plague aside, what's the solution?

I hit the green "view mobile version" button on the bottom of the page [flyertalk.com on my phone in iOS] and it still takes me right back to the desktop skin.

IBobi Mar 28, 2018 4:13 pm


Originally Posted by anrkitec (Post 29578219)
OK, but the hijack ads plague aside, what's the solution?

I hit the green "view mobile version" button on the bottom of the page [flyertalk.com on my phone in iOS] and it still takes me right back to the desktop skin.

Be sure your mobile browser is accepting and keeping cookies. It's cookie-based.

UKtravelbear Mar 28, 2018 5:15 pm

until the redo I hadn't any of those 'open app' things on my iphone for months and months but since they have re-appeared..

Coincidence? possibly but more like you've done something to let these things infect your site.

Are you trying to drive people away because you're making a good job of it if you are.

Duke787 Mar 28, 2018 6:29 pm

Still don't love it but appreciate that the white has been toned down somewhat. I've managed to stay on the desktop site longer than yesterday. That being said there is still some work to be done on getting the color balance right so that things are crisp and clear but aren't blinding.

The other big issue for me is the lack of definition between the "sticky" threads and the "normal" threads. The gray is not dark enough and the lines between each row don't have enough definition

SamirD Mar 28, 2018 6:45 pm


Originally Posted by jackal (Post 29577804)
The word I've heard is that vB4 and 5 are mostly about social integrations and the actual underlying software structure is much less scalable and stable. For a huge forum like FT (millions of posts and users), vB4/5 are really not the best solution, and unfortunately, the vB product development team seems uninterested in or unable to work to develop an industry-leading and appealing product that's also stable...

As a vb license holder I remember the whole thing up to the beta releases of vb5. The original thrust was that the vb platform needed more social media integration since many of us were using plugins and hacks to make that happen, but because of the codebase of vb3, it was going to need a rewrite, which was vb4. Unfortunately vb4 did a lot of what the FT new style did--upset users wholesale. So vb3 and vb4 were kept in development until vb5 was released, which was supposed to be the bomb.

Meanwhile, between vb4 and vb5, many of the original, long-time vb developers and staff left. Eventually, they started a new company and were going to release a new forum software to compete with their old product. The forum community was split on which was better--vb5 or xenforo, and that's when I stopped looking at it since critical features I need were not even on the map in either product.

Fast forward many years later and as a forum user myself, I've found that a lot of the forums I really like in terms of speed and navigation are xenforo-based and many that were on vb have switched. I myself will be revisiting moving my own forum to the xenforo platform if it can have all the same functionality as my current platform.

And I'm sure to a certain extent this is where FT is on the whole thing. I've actually met the VP of IB before and they look at forums in a really serious way, but also in a business way. Many forums were hobbies that grew into something--it takes a lot more than that hobby start to make them into a viable business. And IB has that challenge in front of them while trying to keep their user base happy as well. It's a hard balance to strike as I've learned even through my own forum, but if it can't survive as a business, it won't survive. I can't tell you how many forums I posted on in the last 15 years that simply don't exist today. (Makes me sad too because I posted a lot of good information in some of those forums that I didn't have anywhere else :()

lamphs Mar 28, 2018 7:37 pm

I wish, for IB's/FT's sake, that the ad issue could be resolved. Ads are a revenue source. I still use an ad blocker on my notebook and my Surface and can use FT without issue. But on my Windows 10 tablet, that I prefer to use, I have not installed the ad blocker; thus getting the 'running long script' message.

techie Mar 28, 2018 7:38 pm

Is the current FT Destkop NG skin the only one that can be used? It's rubbish, too much white and too much wasted space.


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