Forum Reorganisation 2015

Despite having almost 10 years of being used to the old setup, I kept being confused by it. This is much, much better, thanks for the reorganization ... :)
 
The not sticking no matter how wide the window is is weird, since it's sticking for me right now with my browser only on half the screen. I'll look into it. The rest I'll note down but I'm not immediately bothered by.

Appreciate the feedback!
After testing it again, it was actually the window's height that affect the top bar. The window needs to be a bit more than half the height of the screen (on a 1080p monitor) for the top bar to stick.
Btw, with the top bar sticking + narrow (width wise) window, the bar isn't excatly positioned at the top. Basically the blue bar (the bar where your name, notification) is gone and all the stuff stay at the dark grey bar (where the categories are), but the grey bar didn't move to the top, so now there is a transparent space that was used by the blue bar.

edit: also if you scale the window width wise, the left margin is compressed more than the right margin, thus the site isn't centered on the window. It is back to being centered if you refresh the site (F5).
 
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Site feedback over General discussion in the listing? I don't like it.
 
Would it be possible to make "Mark Forums Read" more accessible instead of hiding it away in the Forums menu?

And I don't know if this is the intended behavior, but when I clicked a category, it just shows the main page with the category i clicked being positioned (scrolled) on top. I'm expecting something like an own page when I clicked a category. Even when I click a category on the page itself (not on the top bar), it just scroll the page so that the category presented at the top.
At least on my PC (in Firefox) this behaviour causes some problems as it actually scrolls to a few pixels below where the category starts. And for some reason the subforum links are not clickable when they are just partially shown. :???:
 
When I collapsed the forum (the minus/plus thing at the end of category name), I can only see the sub categories if I click the plus sign. So after I collapse all the categories, when I click one of the categories at the top (like when I'm in this thread and I want to go to the console forum, thus clicking the console), I immediately brought into the main screen with the console category still in collapsed state. I don't think that's the intended behavior.
Also since clicking on a category only brings the category to the top, when a category is collapsed, you can't actually see the category unless you scroll up because it is hidden behind the sticky bar.
 
Would it be possible to make "Mark Forums Read" more accessible instead of hiding it away in the Forums menu?


At least on my PC (in Firefox) this behaviour causes some problems as it actually scrolls to a few pixels below where the category starts. And for some reason the subforum links are not clickable when they are just partially shown. :???:
I think it's also happening on Chrome like in my previous post suggested.
 
Again, I don't know if this is a design intention or not, but the Forum sub menu (the mark forums read, etc) behavior is different when you're on a thread vs outside. Outside, you have this white bar bellow the grey bar (where the forums, members, etc are), but on a thread it became like the members sub menu (pop down menu when your mouse is on top). Frankly, I'm not too bothered by it, but it lacks a bit of consistency.
 
I think I have workable solutions for the category linking, especially in the top bar, and the Mark As Read behaviour. It'll take me a couple of days or so to roll those out, though. I'm wary of making changes to the live site today, while people get used to the layout, so I'll work on them properly (dev site first to minimise breakage).

The feedback is very appreciated, hopefully I'll find solutions that lower the friction for the most commonly reported things.
 
Btw, the reason I ask for easier accessibility for new posts (and recent posts) is because I mainly use Tapatalk and I immediately go to unread or timeline. Because of that habit, I kinda expecting something similar when I browse the forum using a desktop browser.
 
Awesome to see this thing finally happen! The old forum org was a bit dated and untidy. :)

One thing tho, the purchasing help forum in the PC section seems a bit redundant; I'd fold that one into a single Hardware and Display Devices, and then break out software into its own section and call that PC and Mac Software and OS discussion forum...

Just a thought! Thanks for all your behind the scenes work, you and the rest of B3D staff!
 
I thought we were all in agreement that the console forum was a dark, sinful place that should be purified in holy fire.
That it's the most popular part of the board where most people hang out testifies to that...

@Rys : In Firefox, when I click a link to take me to the forum page, eg. Console at the top of any console forum, the Forum page scrolls to place the relevant group at the top of the window, but with the forum links are not clickable. I need to scroll down a bit to make them clickable.
 
Confirmed that's a bug for me in Safari and Chrome too. It's a bug in the theme engine, so I've filed a bug with the developer.
 
That it's the most popular part of the board where most people hang out testifies to that..

But... how much of the activity in the console game forum is from people playing the game on PC who only use that forum out of necessity because that's where the most active (or only in many cases) games thread resides? A decent amount of my posts fall into that category.
 
Oh, quick thing I forgot to mention. The top bar now has links to each major top level category, plus The Archive. It's the only place where The Archive shows up as a link, so use that to drill down into the retired stuff.
Can each of those be made a pull down list for the sub-forums?
 
But... how much of the activity in the console game forum is from people playing the game on PC who only use that forum out of necessity because that's where the most active (or only in many cases) games thread resides? A decent amount of my posts fall into that category.
I think it's self-evident that there's not a lot of crossover in the users of the Console forum and the rest of the forums. It's a reasonably self contained bunch of folks as the posting majority there.
 
Please put the New Posts button back on the sticky bar at the top? It was so easy when it appeared on every page.
 
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There's no way for me to reenable that without removing other things on the bar, at least not easily. Added that to the list.
 
That one was quick and easy to enable. It doesn't look the way I want it to look, but that can be fixed later.
Lovely! :) Should make hopping around the forums easier without needing the old linkage.
 
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