New Tom’s Forum Announcement & Feedback

[jpishgar]

I asked before the switch if links to the forum threads for articles would be included in the article but I don't see them, can we still expect that?

Editorial Commenting is currently disabled for all articles - but building a bridge to the Editorial side from the Forum side is one of the first priorities. The expected timeframe is currently 1-2 months. In the interim, authors will be posting direct links to their articles in the News Comments and Features Comments section of the forums, where all are welcome to comment. These comment threads will be linked directly from the articles themselves.

Any word on whether we might see a # of threads per page option, so that we can see same or at least close to the # of threads per page the old forum had? I'd also like a way to make unanswered threads easier to distinguish quickly like before.

Number of threads per page is not likely to change due to pagination, but will investigate this. As for unanswered, do you mean Unanswered, or Unsolved? Unanswered are threads that have zero replies to them. Unsolved are threads that are Question type threads, that may or may not have responses, but have not been selected with a Best Answer. Unanswered threads are currently visible using the left-hand menu. An easy listing of Unsolved threads is something we're hoping to have an easy listing for soon.

The amount of ads on mobile version make the site unusable.

Can you show me a screenshot of what you're seeing? There shouldn't be any more ads on mobile than there previously were.

As a request, could it be set up to have... a dark mode?

In the works!

On Chrome, the default font is extremely light, sort of a medium grey instead of black.

looks surprisingly WAY more bland than the previous forum as well.

6. Looks VERY plain.

4. It's not at all efficient on using lateral space. The thread width is either way too narrow, or a little bit wider with too large fonts.

Thanks for the catch on this. Not sure why the fonts are acting up, but you're right, they are rendering a little on the light side of the spectrum. Based on the feedback presented so far, there's going to be some heavy refinements to the theme, and likely the presentation of several options for themes.

Are there any plans to have a feed on the main page like the old forums.

Yup! Hoping to have it added back in as a module. The biggest challenge has been ensuring the migration of data itself, and making 100% sure all the infrastructure is stable and solid. Then we can start re-adding some of the older special sauce type of items we've had, like the front page forum thread listing.

Thanks all for the excellent feedback so far. Keep it coming! Let us know what you love, what you hate, what you want to see changed, and most of all if anything doesn't look right or isn't working right for you.

-JP

 

[Glenwing]

Currently working on reformatting my guide. A few more things I've noticed:

• Since "Spoiler" labels as well as links are now all red, it makes it more difficult to make any important text or warnings in my guides stand out. I know we're going for a "red" theme on this site, but I think the more standard greyish-blue text for links would be preferred, at least in my opinion.
  
  
• It appears the forum no longer supports non-breaking spaces; they are just replaced with normal spaces when the post is submitted. I use non-breaking spaces to prevent units and values from breaking across lines (for example, if I write 18
  Gbit/s, I don't want the line to break in the middle). It's a minor thing, but the non-breaking space character exists for a reason, it's a bit annoying that its behavior is ignored, and I have just that much less control over the formatting of my text.
  
  
• It also appears that I can no longer type multiple spaces in a row; if I type more than 1 space, any extra spaces are ignored. I use double spaces to increase the separation between section numbers and titles to make it a little more readable. Again, a minor thing, but proper control of spacing is important for readability. If I type two spaces it's because I want there to be two spaces; it would be nice if the forum would just put exactly what I type.

Anyway, just minor nitpicks.

 

[drivinfast247]

It would appear the ads are now gone and the threads are loading much quicker.

 

[DookieDraws]

Been around here for a long time, and have seen a few changes over the years, and so far, I like the new layout. Posting tools are much easier to find and use. I'll have to spend a little more time to see what I do not like,

Keep up the hard work, guys. Virtual beers for everybody!

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

I logged into the site this morning only to be smacked in the face with a completely unfamiliar looking site.
On top of that, it was super slow at loading pages.

But of course, immediately after being in stunned shock and confusion as to what was going on, I took a step back and collected myself.

I then realized that the site had gotten a complete overhaul of it's U.I.

At this point there were many new things to be aware of and what I was used to was no longer the way, but I took a moment to first assess the overall feel and design elements of the new forum.

I immediately took notice of the side bar which gave the system more of a streamlined app feel, especially since I was on my phone at the time, but I switched between mobile and desktop website view to evaluate the differences and so far, I like how seamlessly it works.

I of course then followed this up by going to the main forum page and going down to the feedback and finding the expected new post explaining the new site and how to use it.

After reading for a bit and teaching myself the ways of the new layout, I have to say that I much prefer it over the old style.

Many features that were available in desktop site are now available in mobile site such as the much beloved "reply" button on someones post in a thread.

And I personally am not afraid of change, and in fact welcome it as it allows you to experience new things, and while yes, it will take a little amount of time for people to learn how to use the site, once they do I am going to find it hard to believe that they won't like it.

I believe that the main reason people are frustrated is because a lot of things moved to a different location in the site, got it's name changed, and some things got grouped together under a single new name to help organize the site which is making it difficult for people to know where things are and how to use the site like they previously understand how to and this having to re-learn things is what is frustrating them the most, not that the site is actually bad or worse than it used to be, just simply because they don't know how to use the new site and are a little confused right now.

I think that the site being more applet based in design with universal plugins is going to make things easier for everyone in the long run as this will help the developers to be able to work on specific aspects of the site individually and separately from everything else so that when they go to improve or fix something, it doesn't end up breaking other things because it's not all interlinked together anymore. And as a web developer and occasional part time programmer I completely understand the need to move to this type of design philosophy.

Overall, once I learned where everything moved to and how some of the new features worked, I am pleased with the new design. It feels more intuitive and takes cues from many modern apps and social media platforms making it easier to flow through the content.

The alert icon with it's notification badge is a HUUUGE welcome addition. Although not and active element that can update itself while you are on any page in the site, it of course with update it's status the moment you load into a new page or refresh which will let you know that someone has posted something new in a thread you are a part of, which I understand was noticeable by the right hand side bar area when on desktop with the old site, but unfortunately that was not available on mobile site, and now with the new design it is right there to let you know on mobile which is a big plus in my book.

The upgrade to having themes is nice too, as this will allow users to be able to partially customize the way the site looks and flows for them. I believe this new feature can be taken to the next level with community contests/votes for new theme designs. But of course the biggest most wanted thing is a dark mode, and while this is mostly remedied by the use the the Dark Reader add-on for Firefox and Chrome, a more native dark mode would be nice nonetheless.

Also, if it would please thine overlords of the site, I will have no problem making a YouTube video tutorial version of the text/picture based written tutorial on how to use the new site along with what's changed and what's new and how to use it that could be embedded into the written tutorial itself for those who may have a hard time with understanding the changes via reading, and learn/understand better when there is video and audio involved.

And naturally of course this video would be shown first to an Admin for review and feedback before being finalized and published on the site.

-----------

And with all that said, on a side note, I am noticing that in my tracked threads, many old threads are now showing up in bold making them seem like they have something new/unread in them, and a few of them don't change to non-bold text after having opened them and scrolled through. Is this an expected bug that is part of the migration or is it a new bug that needs to be addressed/already is being addressed?

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

also, will we see an update to the site that will allow username changes or perhaps I can just request this from an Admin? I created my username back when I thought having 1337 in my name would be cool, but not long after that I created my once and for all online handle that I would like to change to permanently.

--EDIT--

Also, where can I see what all the titles are and what they mean and why you have them?

I used to be known as Night Owl because I frequented the site late at night more often than during the day, but now it says Honorable.

Unless that's now a ranking thing aside from the trophies/accolades.
But still don't quite understand.

 

[Colif]

Hi all,

Like the new forum! Thank god it arrived after 3 weeks out Speed is slow, but that will pick up over the coming days no doubt. Some minor glitches. Mainly with last 5-10 threads where I've had best answer chosen, they don't seem to have taken to the new system. So instead of being over 700 best answers, I'm back down to 684.

Other than that, I like it. More options, easy to navigate and the design is a little more modern and fresh. Of course will take some more getting used to, but good job so far.

reputation system has changed, there will be a post about the changes shortly. Everyone's best answer count is likely to have changed. I had 6400 on old site and have 6243 here, maybe we just lose a few...

It is also possible that due to the current import of data, that your score may equal out. Its hard to say,

Also, where can I see what all the titles are and what they mean and why you have them?

That is also something that will be explained in a post shortly. Titles are based on total amount of Trophy points you have, it will all be explained once we have finished the transfer

Username requests will need to go through admin still (but its much better than before, they don't have to beg the devs to do it, they have the power)

Yes... Text in Chrome is really faint, I have been using bold in conversations just so we can both see it.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

reputation system has changed, there will be a post about the changes shortly. Everyone's best answer count is likely to have changed. I had 6400 on old site and have 6243 here, maybe we just lose a few...

It is also possible that due to the current import of data, that your score may equal out. Its hard to say,



That is also something that will be explained in a post shortly. Titles are based on total amount of Trophy points you have, it will all be explained once we have finished the transfer

Username requests will need to go through admin still (but its much better than before, they don't have to beg the devs to do it, they have the power)

Yes... Text in Chrome is really faint, I have been using bold in conversations just so we can both see it.

LOL, I wasn't talking about the text itself being faint (easier to see bold text in contrast to non bold text with Dark Reader), I was talking about how when there's new posts in a tracked thread, it shows the text for that thread link in bold and non bold for those that have no new posts in them, and my issue is that even when I click to go into a thread and check it out, when going back to my tracked threads a.k.a "threads with your posts" it stays bold as if I haven't read it yet but shows non bold text for other threads I have clicked on to go into and look at. So it's not updating the bold to non bold after having read a thread. And also that it is showing bold for a lot of old threads that haven't had anything posted in them for a long time, which makes it more irritating to my OCD because then I have to go through and click on all of them to make the bold text go away, but that doens't work for some of them.

 

[Colif]

the faint text comment was just a general agreement with what others had said in forums, I didn't intend to aim that at you.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

the faint text comment was just a general agreement with what others had said in forums, I didn't intend to aim that at you.

ah, ok. Still, you wouldn't happen to have any idea if the issue is related to the fact that the migration might be causing it to be buggy right now or if it's a general bug that might need to be fixed, or if it's a setting somewhere that I need to check out.

 

[randomizer]

Not a big fan of adding such extensions though as I have Clear Type set to max boldness of fonts. So an extension like that would make this site look acceptable, but others too bold. Even if it allows you to select which sites it's enabled on, I just like to avoid extensions if I can to keep my browser fast.

There's an extension called Stylus (Chrome, Firefox) which makes it easy to customise the layout of sites and even individual pages if you have a bit of CSS knowledge. It shouldn't bog down your browser at all as it simply does a pattern match on the current URL and injects additional styles into the page. The font can be improved in most places by "simply" adding these styles for forums.tomshardware.com:

html {
    font-weight: normal;
}

Some things won't change (eg. thread titles in the thread list) a they have more specific styles applied which need to be overridden, but it would be possible to change those too with a bit more work. Of course it would be nice if the font weight wasn't light to begin with, but this is a decent workaround for now I think

Can't do much about differences between browsers. It's mostly up to the browser/OS how it renders a font. CSS can only influence it.

• It also appears that I can no longer type multiple spaces in a row; if I type more than 1 space, any extra spaces are ignored. I use double spaces to increase the separation between section numbers and titles to make it a little more readable. Again, a minor thing, but proper control of spacing is important for readability. If I type two spaces it's because I want there to be two spaces; it would be nice if the forum would just put exactly what I type.

I'm surprised this ever worked. Browsers usually squash redundant space. Maybe the old forum replaced multiple consecutive spaces with non-breaking spaces (which are exempt from squashing), but if anything that's unusual, not expected.

 

[Colif]

ah, ok. Still, you wouldn't happen to have any idea if the issue is related to the fact that the migration might be causing it to be buggy right now or if it's a general bug that might need to be fixed, or if it's a setting somewhere that I need to check out.

that sounds like a display bug, there are a few of them that will be reported. I don't know enough about back end to know who fixes it, all I know its is not likely going to be you.

 

[QwerkyPengwen]

that sounds like a display bug, there are a few of them that will be reported. I don't know enough about back end to know who fixes it, all I know its is not likely going to be you.

It was definitely a bug in updating the "read" status. Because I decided to hit the "Mark Forums Read" option on the side bar (which of course applied to literally everything on the site) and it made the unread bold text go away.

 

[WildCard999]

Did we lose monthly scores?

 

[randomizer]

Something that's not mentioned in the user guide but I found to be quite useful is the ability to quickly quote an excerpt of a user's post. Highlight text within a post and you'll get a little popup with Quote and Reply links. They work the same as the Quote and Reply buttons, except they operate on the highlighted text rather than the whole post. Not more quoting a wall of text and trimming it down! Best of all, it even works on mobile devices, which were previously excruciating to construct an uncredited quote on, let alone one that links to the quoted post.

Did we lose monthly scores?

I think they've been reset for the current month, but they're here: https://forums.tomshardware.com/billboard/ (link is under Members in the left sidebar).

 

[jpishgar]

I see you guys are enjoying that multi-quote function, and discovering a bunch of the little quality of life improvements like highlighting text. But wait, there's more! (More add-ons on the way and theme updates.)

So it's not updating the bold to non bold after having read a thread.

Will report to devs as an issue to see if QA can replicate this, but in the interim, I'd recommend clearing your cache. That might help.

Also, if it would please thine overlords of the site, I will have no problem making a YouTube video tutorial version of the text/picture based written tutorial on how to use the new site along with what's changed and what's new and how to use it that could be embedded into the written tutorial itself for those who may have a hard time with understanding the changes via reading, and learn/understand better when there is video and audio involved.

And naturally of course this video would be shown first to an Admin for review and feedback before being finalized and published on the site.

Thine overlords would be pleased, verily.

the faint text comment was just a general agreement with what others had said in forums

Faint text is a known issue - I have a vague recollection of this taking place in a previous migration, and a web font reference being off somewhere. Will get back to you on this.

 

[phaelax]

I for one hate the new look. Appears as if it was designed for mobile devices and not a PC. I used to be able view all forum boards on a single screen and quickly navigate directly to where I want. Now that same info is so spread out I have to scroll several pages to see the same list. Displaying a thread creator's avatar next to each thread from the board list is also very distracting and makes for unnecessary clutter. Overall, everything is just harder to read. Too much focus was put on looking "modern" and pretty and not on being functional.

no problem making a YouTube video tutorial version of the text/picture based written tutorial on how to use the new site

If a forum needs an instruction manual then it's a design failure.

 

[The Paladin]

1. so where is the "dark theme" button ?
2. have to get 5 best reply before ads go away .. ? guess I will wait until all users data is migrated cause I have 2,159 best answers and I still see ads (and that bottom one is most annoying) for some reason.
3. some details allow ANYONE to see profile and information, unless not changed by user to members only. just a head up.

love the new signature line

 

[jpishgar]

Overall, everything is just harder to read. Too much focus was put on looking "modern" and pretty and not on being functional.

Thanks for the feedback! If I'm hearing you right here, you'd like to see a Minimalist theme?

If a forum needs an instruction manual then it's a design failure.

Your toaster arrives in the box with a manual. Documentation and enumeration of feature set is not indicative of a design flaw, but a dedication to conveying comprehensive understanding to the user. There's something to be said for the old adage that jokes and user interfaces are bad if you have to explain them, but in this case, there's a lot of new stuff by way of functionality that most of the members here may not be familiar with.

 

[Math Geek]

i'm just happy we got the table options in the BBCode

now i got to think up a new tutorial to make just so i can make a table to go with it.

though i am pretty sure i'm not mature enough for all the new smilies available to me. 🧐

 

[The Paladin]

humm Associations to goggles gives me this...

 

[Glenwing]

I'm surprised this ever worked. Browsers usually squash redundant space. Maybe the old forum replaced multiple consecutive spaces with non-breaking spaces (which are exempt from squashing), but if anything that's unusual, not expected.

Well, it didn't work on the old forum either if I typed normal spaces, but if I type two non-breaking spaces it would work :3 but since non-breaking spaces are now replaced with normal spaces that's no longer available to me

I'd be satisfied with simply allowing non-breaking spaces if possible, that would solve both of the issues I mentioned.

i'm just happy we got the table options in the BBCode

now i got to think up a new tutorial to make just so i can make a table to go with it.

Yeah, I'm looking forward to trying that out

 

[Barty1884]

1. so where is the "dark theme" button ?
2. have to get 5 best reply before ads go away .. ? guess I will wait until all users data is migrated cause I have 2,159 best answers and I still see ads (and that bottom one is most annoying) for some reason

The dark theme is coming, just not launched as of yet. When launched it'll be available in your profile.

You certainly appear to have had more the enough BAs mapped over at this point, so shouldn't be ads.

 

[Wolfshadw]

One thing that irks me is the is the use of the Insert Link function. When you complete the form and click insert, the link is displayed as highlighted text, with the cursor just after. My normal reaction is to press the space bar to insert a space and then continue typing. Unfortunately, with this current set up (link as Highlighted text), pressing the space bar removes the link I just inserted.

Tom's Forums

Like So:

Any way we can get this changed so the inserted link is not highlighted?

-Wolf sends

 

[jpishgar]

Quick note to all, there is currently an issue with the Login. If you encounter a problem with logging in using the drop-down option, please go directly to the login page found here:

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