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

[Glory1]

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@pgn wrote:

Mobile view looks a bit cluttered now..  

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Yes, it does @pgn but, on my phone, it looks exactly the same in full view. And this is probably a silly question but do we need a number against notifications? Against PMs yes, but against notifications. I rarely read the notifications as I go through my unread posts, so will see who posted what where!

[Cleoriff]

Yes look at this lot

All appeared whilst I have been tucked away in the drafting room....

[Glory1]

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@Cleoriff wrote:

Yes look at this lot

All appeared whilst I have been tucked away in the drafting room....

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Blimey, you're popular. I thought the 3 I had was bad enough but 101; good grief 

[Cleoriff]

@Martin-O2 @Martin-O2  @EmilieT 

I'm noticing something peculiar when I post

Also at the bottom of the page the cancel and post buttons are now centred. Prior to today they were at the bottom right

No sure whats happening here

[EmilieT]

@Cleoriff Thanks for flagging this - I can't see it on Chrome but it is happening for me as well on Firefox. Can you confirm it's indeed Firefox you're seeing this error on as well please? 

[Cleoriff]

Yes @EmilieT 

It's on my PC using Firefox.

[EmilieT]

Thanks @Cleoriff  

We'll raise this right away, and update you when we hear more!

[gmarkj]

Had the widget thing this morning on Chrome on Windows laptop.
Covers the discussion/post and previews/text options.

Edited to add: now seems to have corrected itself

[EmilieT]

Cheers @gmarkj! We're looking into it for Firefox only for now as it's the only browser I'm seeing this in myself but if it comes back on Chrome or any other one please let us know, guys

[Cleoriff]

@EmilieT 

The widget thing only appeared when making a post, and that has disappeared now.

However the post and cancel buttons are still centre page and not to the right. (at the bottom)

This is new from this morning. As someone who tries her hardest to be 'fastest finger first' on the Colours Challenge, I know EXACTLY where that post button is normally. (and it's NOT centre page)