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

[Cleoriff]

In my case it showed I had 3 unread. I thought it was an error, then realised I had actually read them via my emails but hadn't opened the PM's to read on the forum.

Mine are working properly since the fix.

[Cleoriff]

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@Glory1 wrote:

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@jonsie wrote:

When the 'fix' was made, it showed I had 10 unread although on checking, I had in fact, read them all. Once I had marked them all as read again there has been no problem.

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Thanks @jonsie you solved my problem. I marked all my PMs as read, which with the exception of 1 have been and all is now clear.

It seems you have to mark them as read even when you have read and replied to them. How odd and what a pain. 

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I don't have to mark mine as read though @Glory1 

Once I read them, they disappear from the message notifications.

ie I read all 3 showing, once I read one, it went down to 2, then 1 then showed 0 after I read them all.

[jonsie]

I couldn't be assed opening all 10 which would have sorted it, I went for the quick fix

[gmarkj]

So the unread posts problem is back...
Insert a vegatable, off topic room 101, virtual lounge and Films A-Z all stay on unread posts regardless of reading or not.
Tried to mark topic as read.
Even posted on one!
But still there...

[Cleoriff]

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@gmarkj wrote:
So the unread posts problem is back...
Insert a vegatable, off topic room 101, virtual lounge and Films A-Z all stay on unread posts regardless of reading or not.
Tried to mark topic as read.
Even posted on one!
But still there...

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All working OK now @gmarkj ?

We had an O2 guy on earlier making a couple of test posts...that may have been the cause?

[jonsie]

I haven't seen that problem for a couple of weeks now to be honest. The actual fixes seem to be oh so slow. I can't help thinking that Lithium place the community way low down on their priority work schedule.

[gmarkj]

Had to resort to the main mark all as read solution which did the trick.
Seems ok now, but for how long...

[Marjo]

Hi guys,

While we're waiting for some comments from the design team, some more tech updates have gone live just now based on the homepage feedback! Please have a look, hopefully these are all working ok but let us know if you notice anything strange.

• Unread topics appear in bold again on board level
• 'Messages' now reads 'Private Messages'
• For consistency, there is now a number next to 'Notifications' (the number should then disappear when you visit the Notifications page to see them)
• 'Sign in' link on the homepage now clarifies: 'Sign in to the O2 Community'

[Cleoriff]

Thanks @Marjo 

Any news about the banner?

[pgn]

Mobile view looks a bit cluttered now..