New Community homepage is live! :)

[Martin-O2]

Hi everyone,

I'm sure you've noticed if you've visited before, that our forum is looking a bit different today. We've been working hard for the past several months on making changes to the community homepage, and finally went live with the new version this morning!

We have been listening to your feedback from our discussions around what you like or don’t like on the homepage, passing it on to the designers and developers, along with ideas that you’ve come up with, and tried to get as much as possible included. A BIG thank you to everyone who have provided your views over the years. 

The update has brought several changes to the layout and to the different features of the page:

Welcome and search

• FAQs are linked from the top underneath the search bar, for quick look at the most-asked questions.
• If you're logged in, you have quick access to your latest posts right on the homepage. If you're logged out, you will see instead a login box and quick general information about what the community is about.
• Underneath that you have 3 quick links to help you get started: 1) info topic on what's the community about and how to get help, 2) topic listing all the different forum boards, and 3) the how-to guides board.

Notification Feed

A new feature on the right side of your avatar, next to your "My Settings", "Messages" (PMs) and "Unread posts" links when you are signed in. You can see a list of recent activity here related to topics you've participated in, e.g. if someone has given you a Kudos, replied to your posts, or @-mentioned you on the forum.

Community Topics and contributors

• See what everyone’s been chatting about with top and latest discussions.
• You can also help with unanswered questions or ask your own.
• You can see a list of current top contributors on the right

Most Popular Searches

• See the popular searches that others have made on the community to help you with your query

Latest News

• 3 latest topics that we've wanted to highlight!

Popular Topics

• Especially helpful for those looking for help: you'll see 2 most-used community how-to guides, with related Solved topics underneath.

Activity

• Some stats about the community where you can see number of active members and click into member search, number of members online (if they've set themselves visible in their settings) with a link to view all, total posts and questions solved.

We know that big changes can be annoying and even stressful to users if the old layout has been there for long (we had the previous look since 2014!!), and some of the abovementioned elements are both new and different from what we've had before. Now that the changes are live, we will be testing and monitoring over time to see how the page performs.

We'd love to hear your feedback:

We'd love to hear what you think of this new change. Do you like the design and feel of the homepage and its new sections? Do you think it's an improvement to the old design? What is your initial feeling around navigating the forum, finding and replying to topics, etc? 

Also, since we've just gone live today, don't hesitate to alert us if you see something that's not quite right. We've done a lot of testing but there can always be some lingering bugs or issues that we might have missed. 

Your continued feedback will be much appreciated as always to help us plan for future improvements. 

Cheers,

The Community Team

[pgn]

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@pgn wrote:

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@Cleoriff wrote:

@pgnthe part about leaving the wording in the search box doesn't happen when on PC.

However, the search  box changing the word from the one you are looking for isn't new. This has been going on ever since I joined the forum. Hence google being a better search engine that O2's own.

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Nope - Same issue on Chrome on the laptop - now I have not tried FireFox, life's too short... 

[welshsteve76]

Firefox & Chrome both clear the search box when I click in it for me.  Windows 10 laptop

[Marjo]

Hey guys, just wanted to give a quick update that we've gathered all the feedback so far, and hoping to have a catch up within the next few weeks with the wider team so we can look through everything you've reported so far and get clarity on what we can work on next and when.  

I've also noticed the search bar text remaining there when I typed in a keyword, however in the past couple of days this bug is no longer there for me. I'm using Chrome and Firefox on Mac. I wonder if you clear your cache and try click in it again, does it still happen? I've written it down in the list of feedback anyway but just wanted to check in case it's still happening for you?

Cheers

[pgn]

I'll try the cache clear thing, see if it fixes the Search Bar text issue. 

Meanwhile, that Mobile vs Full Version has to be fixable when trying to view All Topics in Full (remember, I can only add piccies in Full view on my mobile, yeah go figure...)  

[Glory1]

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@pgn wrote:

I'll try the cache clear thing, see if it fixes the Search Bar text issue. 

Meanwhile, that Mobile vs Full Version has to be fixable when trying to view All Topics in Full (remember, I can only add piccies in Full view on my mobile, yeah go figure...)  

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Yes @pgn it's driving me nuts as well. It means I have to keep switching between mobile and full view. Full view to post and mobile view to look at the topics. Surely it's fixable 

[MI5]

I can remember reporting that issue ^^^ around 6 years ago so don't hold your breath!

[pgn]

And right at the bottom of the new Community page are 4 coloured circles with some stats beneath'em... 

Why's the bottom-right (pink) circle show only 25 questions solved? 

Am I missing something.. ? 

[pgn]

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@MI5 wrote:
I can remember reporting that issue ^^^ around 6 years ago so don't hold your breath!

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Yeah, I remember too, @MI5 and @Glory1 - but I was on a roll... 

[MI5]

Good luck

[Glory1]

No, I'm not holding my breath. Will continue to switch between full and mobile view, as irrritating as that is!!