Grabber5.0 wrote: ↑Wed May 03, 2017 5:00 pm
I'm sure there were important reasons to upgrade the forum software and switch completely over to https for security reasons. Unfortunately, the old styles are not always compatible with the new versions of the software. I've had the same issues with my own forum. They're not decisions made lightly.
Thank you for understanding and explaining.
Grabber5.0 wrote: ↑Wed May 03, 2017 5:00 pm
As an aside, there's nothing wrong with using tables for some of the layout.
Absolutely agree! However, if you're using it to display a full website layout rather than just some formatted data, screen readers are gonna have a bad time with the order of things.
Cigarguy wrote: ↑Wed May 03, 2017 8:01 am
The new look, looks busier and more cluttered. Having said that, the author's box on the right have a lot of empty unused space on a 1080p screen.
Totally agree, I hate wasted space also. This was part of the Prosilver design. We changed as little as possible from the style and used template inheritance to make merging between phpBB updates easier. I'll add to my to-do list setting a max-width on that area.
Cigarguy wrote: ↑Wed May 03, 2017 8:01 am
On the functional side the site is much faster. Thanks Joe.
Thanks! We're using php7 handled by php-fpm and Nginx as a front-end proxy for Apache now, which helps reduce server load and asset delivery time. Also, we're doing a better job of setting expires headers/leveraging browser caching and other things that make navigating site after your first page load much faster.
Grabber5.0 wrote: ↑Wed May 03, 2017 12:41 pm
I was worried when I couldn't connect from my Forums app this morning. I had to update the bookmark because of the https change.
We automagically forward requests from the http:// to https:// so that folks won't get lost, and everyone stays secure. I'm guessing your issue is with Tapatalk or some other app, and unfortunately I wasn't aware that there would be issues with that, and even now I don't know what I could do to alleviate that.
ajkula66 wrote: ↑Wed May 03, 2017 7:57 am
Having everything that was on the left now on the right is also not something I'm thrilled about. Makes reading and posting more difficult IMO.
Profiles on the right is the way Prosilver does them by default. The idea is that the content that's most important to read should be the most prominent, and that's usually the stuff on the left side. Here's a source on that:
eyetracking visualizations show that users often read Web pages in an F-shaped pattern. I didn't vet that or look for more data, but it backs up what I've learned and read over the years about web design. It's different than what you're used to here, but elsewhere I think you'll find it commonplace, especially at web-forward websites.
ajkula66 wrote: ↑Wed May 03, 2017 7:57 am
Way too bright and shiny, and not in a good way IMO.
Sorry, it is a bit brighter.
600X wrote: ↑Wed May 03, 2017 12:36 pm
I'm loving the new theme so far. I'm not sure about the right-aligned user info, but it's a refreshing change from the boring layout that every other forum has. Font sizes also seem to finally be fixed. They were way too tiny before.
Thanks! I wrote about the right-aligned user info a few quotes up. The fonts should scale much better with DPI changes now, especially on smaller screens.
Johan wrote: ↑Wed May 03, 2017 4:43 pm
There's a good word in computers saying: "If it ain't broken, don't fix it!" Why make all these
completely unneccessay (and counter-productive!) changes to something that has functioned
perfectly for years and years??
I'm sorry you're disappointed, Johan. I'm going to explain my reasoning, I hope you find it satisfactory:
Explanation of Why Some of the Changes Were Made
We had no choice but to make a change, this latest version of phpBB doesn't offer the old style anymore. So I'd like to rephrase your statement with the question, why do we
ever have change, especially when it doesn't
appear broken? DDR2 still works, so do rusty HDDs. Windows 98 ME could still be used, and Windows 7, 8, 10 were big changes that put a lot of people into a dichotomy of loving or hating it. The new versions of Windows brought mostly lots of good improvements, but the user interface was somewhat different. Something similar is happening with our forum. You've been here since 2005! As the web developer for Thinkpads.com, I want to make you as happy as possible, but some changes just had to be made, for example:
- Server software: it moves forward or gets hacked. Some things get faster, some old functions break. The phpBB 2.0 code we were using in 2005 would have broken nearly a decade ago with breaking changes in php 5.3. Old software has to be updated to keep up, else it breaks or gets compromised. Linux OSes from a decade ago can't run any of the software we're running on the server right now, literally.
- Forum software: our old version of phpBB didn't support php 7. In fact, it forced us to stay on php 5.6 which stopped being actively supported 3 months ago. So we couldn't stay on php 5.6 for much longer, but moving to php 7 required upgrading phpBB versions and losing our old forum style. What would you rather have me do?
- Forum style: we were using a table-based layout (Subsilver) that was not only bad for screen readers, but some companies have actually been sued for discrimination against blind people (as far back as 2006) for not switching to CSS. The old layout, with all the tiny images and extra code markup, was also painful to load on slow internet connections. Also, half of web traffic in the US is now via mobile devices. Google and other search engines are penalizing websites that aren't mobile friendly, for good reason, as it leads to difficult navigation and a poor experience for the user of a handheld device. Hastening our migration away from the old table-based layout was the fact that phpBB dropped the Subsilver style altogether in 3.2, which we updated to yesterday. Did we have to update yesterday? No, we could have waited until our old 3.1 version was hacked or vulnerable and then scrambled, and we'd be back here having this same conversation either way. Subsilver has been a bane of web designers for a long time, and phpBB has been phasing it out for the last 4-5 years, we've just been resisting. Well, here we are.
There are lots of other fixes, updates, and so forth - but nothing as noticeable as a design change. Many of those
required or necessitated the design change.
Originally, I proposed putting together a bootstrap-based design that matched the
homepage, but Bill (rightfully as I can see now) shot it down because he thought it would be too disruptive to the amazing, long term members like yourself, who help make ThinkPads.com such a great resource. For what it's worth, I spent considerable time trying to make the new layout of this forum match as closely as I could with the old layout. It's not easy, considering Prosilver is a completely different template from which we have to base the design. Perhaps someone else could have done better, but
this is the best I could do. So many things changed, from images to font-awesome and the way phpBB handles PM notifications and new profile stuff, etc. There was no getting it exactly the same as old and, besides, many of the new features are amazing. For example, have you put your curser over a topic title on the
view new posts page? Have you noticed the sharper images at all resolutions, including Charlie and his colorful parrot? Have you noticed the style is responsive (try resizing your screen or browsing from your phone)?
TL;DR: So yeah, there's wasted space on large screen resolutions, and some areas look too crowded. Some features I added in, that you weren't used to, are commonplace on today's web. The colors don't contrast as much as the old style. Some of these nuances are flaws, some are improvements, either way things look a little different. Some like it, some hate it. There's no way to win over everyone, but
we can work together to try to improve things. If that doesn't work, we'll make several styles available so that you can choose something different, but none will perfectly replicate the old style. I'm looking forward to reading your replies and trying to answer your questions.