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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@Glory1 wrote:

Ok it's back again and you are 'top of the leaderboard' @pgn.

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Only because I've been using the "Unanswered" section of the HomePage, annoyingly... 

[jonsie]

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@pgn wrote:

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@Glory1 wrote:

Ok it's back again and you are 'top of the leaderboard' @pgn.

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Only because I've been using the "Unanswered" section of the HomePage, annoyingly... 

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Yep

[Cleoriff]

Well it's all changed now (as it does annoyingly by the minute!)

I'm top, jonsie 2nd and @pgn 3rd. Ridiculous and pointless...

[jonsie]

As I said before, the changes that were so long in the planning have left much to be desired and much to remedy.

[Cleoriff]

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@jonsie wrote:

As I said before, the changes that were so long in the planning have left much to be desired and much to remedy.

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As i said. Ridiculous and pointless. It's a post count 'counter' .....

Nothing to do with Top contributors.

[pgn]

Right @Martin-O2 and @Marjo - I've had a weekend of diddling with the new HomePage layout - it's driving me nuts, as well as overworking the PgDn key on my laptop keyboard:

• Go into "My Settings"
• Select any of the top-level settings to review.
• Hit PgDn to bring the settings back into view
• Select the sub-level setting you want to work on
• Hit PgDn to go back down below the grossly oversized top picture band to see what options and settings you want to work on
• Change a setting (Date format for me this time)
• Hit the blue Save button
• Hit PgDn to take you back down to where you can read the other settings that you want to work on...
• etc etc etc.

That bl**dy upper picture band occupies almost the whole screen on my laptop, making doing any work on Settings nigh-on impossible.

Even going into "Edit" this post results in the damn picture getting in the way again, needing another PgDn to get me back to where I can see the editor. (see screenshot below - infuriating!)

Please,just take it away - put a nice, thin blue band along the top of the page.

Or make the band picture go away when you are two levels down working on twiddly settings.

[jonsie]

It is just about bearable to me but ONLY becase I am using a standalone bluetooth mouse and keyboard, though the scroll wheel on the mouse will probably be close to being worn out through overuse. Only O2 could design something so cr@p!

[Cleoriff]

Just get rid of it all together. It's bloody awful and serves no useful purpose whatsoever. .

All the tabs that gave us the info we needed was far more useful.... (on the top of the old homepage layout)

Change is great if it creates improvement. This isn't an improvement at all.

As for the useless search facility, I'm using Google more and more.

Time consuming and unfit for purpose.

Problem is, I am sure people think we will get used to it and stop moaning. I won't.

[pgn]

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@Cleoriff wrote:

Just get rid of it all together. It's bloody awful and serves no useful purpose whatsoever. .

All the tabs that gave us the info we needed was far more useful.... (on the top of the old homepage layout)

Change is great if it creates improvement. This isn't an improvement at all.

As for the useless search facility, I'm using Google more and more.

Time consuming and unfit for purpose.

Problem is, I am sure people think we will get used to it and stop moaning. I won't.

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I second that motion - complete reversion to the previous format.

This format is frustrating in the extreme, both on laptop and on smartphone.

PS. The lack of a "Messages" envelope makes it even harder to see if someone has left you a Private Message.

[jonsie]

I would say it's nigh impossible to revert to the previous format.

besides, there are some good improvements such as......err....and err...