suggestions for the new look and feel

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:
Since I switched over to the new forum look, I think that I haven't been getting (or seeing) notifications for the guest authors threads.

I miss seeing those. They are one of my favorite types of threads.

Not sure I understand.

Do you mean the dailyish email?

Dana Jones wrote:

paul wheaton wrote:So a user would get a PM that would say "Dana thinks you would like to see this post: _____" ??

That would work. The other forum I am on, sometimes someone asks for help for their sick animal, lets say a sheep. The first people to comment on the post might not know anything about sheep, but will "call" others more proficient with sheep knowledge. @sheepwhisperer @sheepvet and then these people get notified. The way the other forum works, when I log in, I get alerts on threads that I commented on, if there is a new post. That's where the notifications show up for the "call" to a post. The alert says so-and-so mentioned you in a post, I click on it and it takes me to that post.

I am not trying to make Permies into another forum, so please don't be offended. But I think it would be a neat feature to have, the ability to call a person's attention to a thread or post. If it would be by PM, then that would work. I have read posts where a user asks a question, gets comments and another user says, that would be a question for Fred Ferklemyer, but there is no way to notify Fred that his attention is needed on that thread. Maybe Fred will find it, maybe he won't. Is there any way you could offer that option?

I get emails that there are new posts on threads that I have commented on and that really helps me find them again. I appreciate this feature!
Thanks Paul for this fantastic site.
Dana

Dana, I started a new thread about this here: https://permies.com/t/52304/tnk/feature-users-thread

It's hard to remember a feature that I think used to be here, but that I don't notice any more... I thought that a text message used to show up at the top of the web site, (where "want to preview our new look is today") that said something like "Our book author this week is....".

Perhaps they came in the dailyish eMail. I wasn't paying attention

paul wheaton wrote:

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:
Since I switched over to the new forum look, I think that I haven't been getting (or seeing) notifications for the guest authors threads.

I miss seeing those. They are one of my favorite types of threads.

Not sure I understand.

Do you mean the dailyish email?

Joseph Lofthouse wrote:
It's hard to remember a feature that I think used to be here, but that I don't notice any more... I thought that a text message used to show up at the top of the web site, (where "want to preview our new look is today") that said something like "Our book author this week is....".

Perhaps they came in the dailyish eMail. I wasn't paying attention

I think you are referring the banners we run announcing the book promotions. They are still here with the new look and feel. They just get a certain amount of impressions, just like all the other banners, so they only show up at the top of the forums sometimes.

I'm someone who has been reading the forum on and off for a long time, but usually just specific threads found through my search engine, the result being I'm not terribly familiar with the previous look and functionality.

Encountering the new look without inevitably comparing it to the previous, as regular users will, and without having explored a huge amount, I can say I like it. Done. I like the image-heavy main page. I like the best posts down one side, despite the pinterest etc. staggered image style. (I much prefer a linear horizontal look for ease of reading, but with only two columns, staggered is fine.) I also like the popular forums and topics down the other side.

The wood background is inoffensive. If Paul was going for a carved brass look on the buttons, as I think I read somewhere, that needs work. I see the attempt once it's pointed out, but even knowing what it's supposed to be, I don't think brass.

I do think that showing the time elapsed since something was posted, rather than the exact date and time, is borderline useless.

I'm viewing it on an older macbook, firefox 42.0.

Colors nice. Pics OK. A little busy perhaps but OTOH more offerings right out where you can click them. But please don't make main text area any narrower.

One definite negative: Standard text is harder for me. My eyes don't like picking the text out of the shading on both the left and right sides of the reading area. In the same vein, although I very much like the tinted background, it's harder for me to read the skinny text. It would be much better if a heavier font (not necessarily larger) were used for all standard text and also for the menus at the very top of the page. In fact, especially for the menus. Oops. I just mostly fixed the body text problem by allowing your site to set the font. However, the menu/buttons at the top of the page are still hard to read.

Perhaps the text issue relates to my strong preference to set the display to low light levels because I can get headaches staring into a bright glare. However, IIRC this is SOP for people like architects who need to wok closely and accurately with screen detail for long periods. IOW, I may not be the only one to set their display level low.

Thanks for all the good effort. It looks quite stylish.


Rufus

I don't mind the look. Others have mentioned it has some flaws but I don't dislike it either. What I do dislike is the 'best ever' and 'best this year' columns that take up way too much room and make everything else harder to read. I don't really understand what purpose they serve, if they are current then they will be near the top and constantly 'bumped' anyway. If they are older, well that is what search is for. Could maybe have a category or sticky post with links to best ever threads.

One other question. With the old forum you could pull up the main forum page with all the categories and the newest post in each category. All very easy to see and read on one page. Does that page no longer exist or if it does how do I get there? That is the page I usually use/navigate all forums with and I imagine many others are the same. If I was a new user that is the page I would look for I think.

Here are our server stats for this month:

Note a huge rise in pageviews although the number of visitors is staying the same.

Also note that the total KB is well aligned with the number of pageviews. There was no huge spike when we switched to the new look - which was a huge concern of mine.

I like the new feel but I have to complain...er....make a few suggestions...er....beg for my continuation on permies.

Paul and his crew support have been courting people in the preparedness, resilience and survival communities...since we have a wealth of knowledge and experience....but there isn't a suitable topic head for this or button to push to find more info.

I would usually post my topics and stories I submit in the "Survival" section for lack of a better place to put them. Its my subject and what my farm and community is all about. Now, even "Survival" is tucked away at the bottom of "Wilderness". Preparedness and Resilience is really a complete different subject matter to "Wilderness Survival" or BushCraft.

Call me selfish...but I am not inspired to continue posting my experiences for permies if what I write just ends up getting stored down in a dusty cobwebbed box labelled "The X-Files"...or wilderness survival. I'm pretty good at wilderness survival but that's not the subject I write about.

Soooo....Please!!!...I call out to the omnipotent, site tinkering gods and goddesses of permies design, grand pooba-nesses proviers of divine grace and mercy......so I don't fell dejected, sent down to the X-Files and left to consider taking my ball and going somewhere else. I'd really prefer to stay here and play well with others.


The next issue...that also sounds selfish at first glance...is that I no longer see my number count on posts I've made. I'm not above narcissism, LOL, but that's not what its about. If a subject gets high numbers, that's a subject to continue writing on. If it gets low numbers, I know not to waste my very precious farming time trying to teach on that subject.

Once again, I beseech thee, oh, benevolent rulers of permies site management

Right now, there are the categories on the left, and the most popular forums on the right.

Of course, once you tell permies what your favorite forums are, it will adjust things to accommodate you. But, what you really want is a bit more light on your favorite forum.

I would suggest that you go to the tinkering forum and make suggestions about how to bring more attention to your favorite forum(s) so they will then automatically appear on the hot list. Maybe a book promotion? Maybe you have some other ideas? Maybe some really cool content there that cassie might want to mention in the dailyish?

Is there anyway we could have a link that takes us straight to https://permies.com/forums/forums/allForums on every page? I often want to visit a forum that isn't one of the "Top Forums." I also frequently have horrendously slow (dial-up) speed internet.

Currently, to get to one of those rarer forums or sub-forums, I have to (A) make myself my own bookmark to locate that links to the "All Forums Page." I already have a LOT of bookmarks, and don't really want 3 or 4 devoted just to navigating permies! Or, (B) I have to click the "Forum Listing," wait for that to load, and then click "All Forums," and then wait for that to load. I'd love to have one click and page load, rather than two! It would be lovely and wonderful if there was a place on each page--either up in the black header for registered/logged in users, or as one of those spiffy "brass" buttons on the side, or somewhere else visible to just click "All Forums".


Also, on a related note, and I remember other's have asked for this, too, I'd love to have the little directory-thing that used to be on the top of a thread that showed which forum-->subforum it was in. It currently just says that it's in, "Cascadia," rather than "Forums-->Regional-->Cascadia." I find these little directory-thingies really useful for figuring out where forums are listed, so that I can post in it. It's hard wadding through a large list trying for find a sub-forum that could be in multiple forums. For instance, I went looking for the Cascadia subforum, and first looked in Community, only to find it wasn't there.

More importantly, though, I'll often find an awesome sub-forum (Say, frugality), and then wonder what other similar forums there are, but it's really hard to locate that, because I'd have to click "Forum Listing," then locate the "All Forums" link, then search through all the forums/subforums to find the sub-forum I was just in--all that just to find the forum the sub-forum resided in.

Also, having this little link forum directory thing is also an awesomely wonderful way to quickly navigate to "All Forums." So, maybe you could kill two birds with two stones and bring back the little directory-thingy to help us all navigate? Please? ::

These things aren't necessities, of course, but they would sure be nice!

Ross Raven wrote:I like the new feel but I have to complain...er....make a few suggestions...er....beg for my continuation on permies.

Paul and his crew support have been courting people in the preparedness, resilience and survival communities...since we have a wealth of knowledge and experience....but there isn't a suitable topic head for this or button to push to find more info.

I would usually post my topics and stories I submit in the "Survival" section for lack of a better place to put them. Its my subject and what my farm and community is all about. Now, even "Survival" is tucked away at the bottom of "Wilderness". Preparedness and Resilience is really a complete different subject matter to "Wilderness Survival" or BushCraft.

Call me selfish...but I am not inspired to continue posting my experiences for permies if what I write just ends up getting stored down in a dusty cobwebbed box labelled "The X-Files"...or wilderness survival. I'm pretty good at wilderness survival but that's not the subject I write about.

Soooo....Please!!!...I call out to the omnipotent, site tinkering gods and goddesses of permies design, grand pooba-nesses proviers of divine grace and mercy......so I don't fell dejected, sent down to the X-Files and left to consider taking my ball and going somewhere else. I'd really prefer to stay here and play well with others.

Wasn't Survival already there? I thought I'd seen it there and thought, there's GOT to be a better way to organize this. But, now, of course, you have to dig through the Forum Listing to find "All Forums," and then dig through that to find Wilderness and get lucky enough to spot survival under that. Perhaps one thing that could help would be making "Survival" the Forum title (rather than Wilderness), with sub-forums of Survival, Hunting and Fishing, Ancestral Skills, etc. under that. It wouldn't be perfect, especially since so much of what permaculture is is about resilient survival, so a lot of this site could go under that header. But, still, I think it would be an improvement, and perhaps draw more people with your knowledge base (which I really appreciate) here to these forums.

Having said that, it seems that with our new Beta view, a lot of the focus seems to be taken away from what forum things are in. Even when reading Most-Recent posts, you can't tell where something is posted until you click on it. I don't really like this format, because I miss a lot of things that had titles that didn't make sense without knowing what forum they were in, and so I didn't click on them. But, it does make sure your recent post shows up for everyone. But, it makes your older posts & knowledge harder to find.

The next issue...that also sounds selfish at first glance...is that I no longer see my number count on posts I've made. I'm not above narcissism, LOL, but that's not what its about. If a subject gets high numbers, that's a subject to continue writing on. If it gets low numbers, I know not to waste my very precious farming time trying to teach on that subject.

And, where were you finding these stats?! I had no idea we could do that on the old forum. Now I want to switch back to the old view to find out how many views different threads/posts I made had... but I have no idea where to find that info!

paul wheaton wrote:Of course, once you tell permies what your favorite forums are, it will adjust things to accommodate you. But, what you really want is a bit more light on your favorite forum.

How do I tell permies this? Is it via the Acorn feature? If it is, I can't find the acorn feature in the new beta view. Am I blind?

NEVERMIND!!! I finally found it. For anyone else wondering, I've uploaded a picture highlighting it. Aaaaaand, for those of you liking the old forum view of the forum, this "Rate Forums" page actually leads to it.

P.S. I really should go to bed now, before I start losing apples for writing so much in this thread!

Okay, I didn't take my own advice, here I am posting again . But, I realized that you (Ross) might not know about getting your threads posted in multiple forums. If you hit the "Report button," you can ask the moderator to post your thread in multiple forums. That should help people see that the Survival Forum exists, as well as having your threads show up in multiple forums, so you can--hopefully--get more views.

I hope that helps!

Nicole Alderman wrote:Is there anyway we could have a link that takes us straight to https://permies.com/forums/forums/allForums on every page? I often want to visit a forum that isn't one of the "Top Forums."

While reading through your post I had several different ideas. In the end, I think your suggestion of a button on the left edge, under the other buttons that says "all forums" - would probably be best. Anybody else have thoughts about this?

Also, on a related note, and I remember other's have asked for this, too, I'd love to have the little directory-thing that used to be on the top of a thread that showed which forum-->subforum it was in. It currently just says that it's in, "Cascadia," rather than "Forums-->Regional-->Cascadia." I find these little directory-thingies really useful for figuring out where forums are listed, so that I can post in it. It's hard wadding through a large list trying for find a sub-forum that could be in multiple forums. For instance, I went looking for the Cascadia subforum, and first looked in Community, only to find it wasn't there.

We call that "breadcrumbs".

The issue at the moment is that our new architecture allows a thread to appear in several forums. So if a thread appears in, say, five forums - how would this be implemented? Keep in mind that we wish for a clean and simple look.

Perhaps what you seek could be a pie feature? If the thread appears in five forums, there could be five breadcrumb lists?

More importantly, though, I'll often find an awesome sub-forum (Say, frugality), and then wonder what other similar forums there are, but it's really hard to locate that, because I'd have to click "Forum Listing," then locate the "All Forums" link, then search through all the forums/subforums to find the sub-forum I was just in--all that just to find the forum the sub-forum resided in.

Have you fiddled with the feature for rating your favorite forums?

Nicole Alderman wrote:
Having said that, it seems that with our new Beta view, a lot of the focus seems to be taken away from what forum things are in. Even when reading Most-Recent posts, you can't tell where something is posted until you click on it. I don't really like this format, because I miss a lot of things that had titles that didn't make sense without knowing what forum they were in, and so I didn't click on them.

Hmmm .... I could see adding in the forums at the top of a post. Or maybe just the first forum for a post.

paul wheaton wrote:

Nicole Alderman wrote:
Having said that, it seems that with our new Beta view, a lot of the focus seems to be taken away from what forum things are in. Even when reading Most-Recent posts, you can't tell where something is posted until you click on it. I don't really like this format, because I miss a lot of things that had titles that didn't make sense without knowing what forum they were in, and so I didn't click on them.

Hmmm .... I could see adding in the forums at the top of a post. Or maybe just the first forum for a post.

Simply putting the forum name under the title of the post, right before it says "four minutes ago"

I did some quick photoshopping to show what I'm talking about. Of course, the font and font size would be the same as the font for the time of the post. You may or may not want to make it the same color as the time--but most likely not the purple I used!

paul wheaton wrote:
We call that "breadcrumbs".

The issue at the moment is that our new architecture allows a thread to appear in several forums. So if a thread appears in, say, five forums - how would this be implemented? Keep in mind that we wish for a clean and simple look.

Perhaps what you seek could be a pie feature? If the thread appears in five forums, there could be five breadcrumb lists?

I think just having the main one would be great. And it could definitely be a registered user or PIE user setting, and perhaps other's would like all the bread crumbs. Personally, I like the old setup, where there was bread crumbs for the first forum it was posted in, as well as just links to the other forums. I did a little mock-up of where the bread-crumb could go to not be too obtrusive. (I put it right above the links to the forums the thread was posted in). I think it would look better if the breadcrumbs were black and underlined, rather than blue and underlined, so as to be less obtrusive. But I wasn't easily able to photoshop it that way without knowing what font you use, so just imagine it's black!

Have you fiddled with the feature for rating your favorite forums?

I have--it took me a while to find it!--and it did help in making my favorite forums show up in the "Most Popular Forums" column. Yay!

Hello fellow permierienos and Paul!

I thought i might throw a spanner in the works and suggest a complete redesign
i actually started this design ages ago but thought it will never catch on... might have been as the banners i made to help with the rocketstove kickstarter never got much traction ... nvm

But now that its talk about a refresh look and feel maybe there is a chance..
I thought there could be some cool paralax scrolling effects on the homepage header perhaps maybe it could rotate with some different themes like the google logo type thing for current events in the permaculture sphere...
I started on some designs as well for the sub pages, not quite ready, so the homepage will have to do for now.

Anyway would be great to hear what you guys think.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas!
Cheers Olof

Olof Jönnerstig, I really like it! I can tell that you put a lot of time, energy and thought into it. It's a very nice, well-organized layout that's easy on the eyes and quite cheerful. I especially like the little Paul figure you made. I think the page is a lot better organized and visually appealing than our current intro page, and I like how the color scheme almost perfectly matches the forums (whereas the current home page does not).

I think one thing that would be good for "branding" would be to have the homepage and the forums match stylistically. I think Olof page is a big step in the right direction, and I have no idea if there is already a new homepage in the works that will match the forums. But, having the color schemes, fonts, and logos match would be really helpful. The fewer stylistic changes there are, the easier it is for the reader to focus on the content. For instance, it would be nice and more intuitive if the bumper stickers matched the icons on the homepage (or vice-a-versa).

Speaking of bumper stickers, Paul/Cassie/anyone, is there a reason they are blue? The permies "P" is green, and green is more "natural." (i.e. when people see green, they think natural/organic/nature). It wouldn't be too hard to photoshop them all to be in a green gradient. But, I have no idea if green is the color you want, or if you chose blue because it matches the overalls, etc, etc...

I look forward to seeing what Paul and the other "Powers that Be" have to say!

I use an iPad, and it may be different if using a bigger screen, but with not so young eyesight the new look is hard to live with. PLEASE allow the "old"/"current" view for those of us who can't/won't get on with the "new" look.The woodgrain makes legibility worse IMO, as do the shadowed buttons etc.

Whatever was wrong with the original view?

It seems like change for change's sake.


I've just tried the beta view again, and the dark sides to the window make it physically uncomfortable to view, giving some sensation of eyestrain. Going back to the original view was like a weight was lifted. So much brighter.

I am catching up on lots of stuff and just now saw the new home page by Olof. Wow! Very cool!

I agree with Nicole - this is a step in a better direction!

Okay, what are the steps to implement this? Olof, is this something you have in html?

For the big image at the top, can we get the overalls and the "super P"?

Re the breadcrumbs, I strongly feel they should be shown for every thread as they used to be. I also think they should be shown for every visitor - it is not a "bonus" feature, but a matter of usability. If some features need to be reserved for the elite, okay, but I think it is counterproductive to make it harder for new users to find relevant forums they may not have been exposed to yet.

Threads used to be able to be cross-listed, with a breadcrumb trail for just the first connection, and I think that is fine.


By the way, like Nicole, I have used the "Forums" link part of a breadcrumb trail to go to "all forums" in the past, and think this is a useful shortcut.

I like the fact that all the most recent threads are simply all together in the main list on the main page. I think people will see more things that way that they might have missed otherwise.

paul wheaton wrote:I am catching up on lots of stuff and just now saw the new home page by Olof. Wow! Very cool!

I agree with Nicole - this is a step in a better direction!

Okay, what are the steps to implement this? Olof, is this something you have in html?

For the big image at the top, can we get the overalls and the "super P"?

Hey thanks Nicole and Paul !
Haven't got anything in HTML.
Wanted to check the feedback first and if you guys liked it then I was planing to design the other pages so it all fits together before developing anything
but was hoping you might know some good developers from permies or java ranch that might be up for helping out on the dev side..
I can do some front end stuff and css. my focus lies really on graphic design (and permaculture design off course ).
When I'm creating websites these days for the most part i just edit a wordpess templates to how i want them to work and look like.
for other larger more bespoke projects i always work with a dedicated developer or team of them.

Regarding the overalls... I believe Permies brand is strong enough to own the super \P/ on its own with out overalls in the logo..
I know the overalls represent you as you always have overalls on and the farmer, homesteader and permaculturist in all of us and there has been many discussions about the icon and logo to get to where the logo is now..
But its seems like it is a natural progression and inevitability that the logo will end up needing to be simpler more legible and iconic.. and that's why i just went just the super P on its own.. because being a permie is being a hero regardless if you have overalls or not
If you outright don't agree with that.. and invoke your powers of dukedom and twist my arm.. i would have to have another look at incorporating the overalls in to the header image background.. but feel free to take my professional experienced backed opinion on board too


i got one more page design up my sleeve today will post it in a bit...



Im thrilled i got my first pie and apple whoop whoop ! Thanks for that!!!

You might be interested in the incredibly long history of the overalls in the icon:

https://permies.com/t/39087/tnk/Permies-Overalls-Icon

I was planing to design the other pages

Other pages?

but was hoping you might know some good developers from permies or java ranch that might be up for helping out on the dev side..

Adrien has been doing an excellent job of fiddling with the permies.com home page and the richsoil.com home page.

Devaka and some of the coderanch staff have been doing an amazing job fiddling with the forum software.

Of course, they are all booked to the gills with projects. To get to this new look and feel took three years.

You can probably guess that everything we do here is on the freaky cheap and almost entirely done with volunteer labor.

Other pages..
was thinking to design it all so it all fits together and is consistent..

Icon...
I had a look at the icon threads a while back, and i know there has been a lot of work/input there. and the last one on the last page is not too bad it dose give some character with the overalls...
Its just when you compare it to other social media icons it still looks a bit too complicated to me.

Dev / time...
I think i can do quite a bit with just css changes and maybe if you could set up a dev site for me i could have a go at some php tinkering,
and perhaps if Adrien and Devaka could pitch in when i get stuck it might go quicker then 3 years to implement this design

I'm not saying im free 24/7 either but i can work on it when im free, I'm currently out woofing around the world with my partner Anna.
we have a blog site so have a few thing to do on that at the min and working on a permaculture design for a couple we helped out with in Bulgaria

But i would love to be able to have permies.com as a portfolio piece especially as i would like to transition to doing more ethical webdesign projects.

I think, maybe, Paul is talking about incorporating this version of permies overall https://permies.com/t/43310/tnk/ya-ll-logo. I think it fits pretty well with the vibe you've got going, too, as well as with the landscape of the garden. Here's the original image. You could probably fiddle with the color scheme to fit the color scheme going on your page.



Here's the smaller one that we see on the top of our forums:

https://permies.com/t/43310/a/30019/thumb-Screen%20shot%202015-07-10%20at%206.51.42%20PM.png

I know this guy

I kind of got an idea how i could get in the overall dude in there the header...
with the logo, where it is will have to have a tinker with it.. i think it could work in the header or as part of an image with the logo but not as the logo.

with the header the pan was to perhaps to add two characters or permies on either side of the logo, thats why i left a bit of space next to the logo on either side. i just didnt have time to add them, and i just wanted to post the homepage example while this topic was still hot to get the ball rolling

here is another 2 designs. These are not quite finished yet but just adding what i have done so far...
there is still functionality that is on the current site that is not added to this design..
but just wanted to show what i have been up to..

I should really ad a long rational for each design but its 03:41 in Myanmar where I'm at so i better get some shut eye
Ill add an explination tomoror with some updated versions of this too


Cheers guys talk soon!

second one

Olof Jönnerstig wrote:I think i can do quite a bit with just css changes and maybe if you could set up a dev site for me...

Olof, I have PM'd some information to you on setting up a dev site for you. Please check your purple mooseages.

I merged your stuff with the following thread. I hope that is okay by you.

Just my preferences, of course.

1) Definitely prefer to see an actual date of a post that I'm reading rather than the "3 months ago" or "1 year ago" as it shows now. The calendar date is factual and as well could be used, potentially, to sort and arrange. The approximation seems too fuzzy, lacks any clear idea of, for example, what month it was posted 3 years ago. Which could matter since this site is all about cycles of growth, and earthy things and such.

2) Very much don't like the alternating item text background colors on lists, eg. the list of threads in a forum. It causes my eye to skip items of one or the other color when scanning down the list and prevents me from quickly checking the list to catch keywords or topics. This definitely impairs my usage of the site. If you feel a need to further define separate items in a list use a little more space between items, close up the line spacing w/in items, use a thin line between items.

3) Another thought on formatting items in the thread list: Consider using columns, rather than simply additional lines as at present. For example put date and apples in the right (or left) column (or other info that is normally about the same number of chars); then the subject in main column. The age and number of replies are very useful and could stay on the 2nd line. In addition I would very much like to see "original poster" and "last poster" shown also when a thread is listed; this info often matters to me when selecting those posts to read when I have only a short time available.

Strangely I find that the dates in "n (time chunk) ago" format works well for me in the list of threads - just not on the posts themselves, per #1 above.

On the display of posts in a thread it would be nice to see the "join date" of the author below the "number of posts". Most posts contain enough lines and so are "deep" enough to allow this w/out awkwardness, I think.


Thanks for all your creative work.

Rufus

Also a who's on line feature

And mobile is missing some features

Rufus Laggren wrote:Just my preferences, of course.

1) Definitely prefer to see an actual date of a post that I'm reading rather than the "3 months ago" or "1 year ago" as it shows now. The calendar date is factual and as well could be used, potentially, to sort and arrange. The approximation seems too fuzzy, lacks any clear idea of, for example, what month it was posted 3 years ago. Which could matter since this site is all about cycles of growth, and earthy things and such.



Rufus

You can hover your mouse over the approximate date to get the specific date. This has already been discussed in this thread.

I once again encourage everyone to read the entirety of this thread before posting so we don't get duplicate suggestions.

I appreciate the attempt at an "antique" look. It's a pretty good job really. Unfortunately the reality of the modern internet is all usability and getting tricky with design doesn't really work anymore. I'll give one example that is a pain point for me:

These days most people improve on their miserable existence at work by cruising their favorite websites. Websites that are very utilitarian in design and layout fit in just fine with all the mundane BS that we have to stare at on the screen every day, so they don't attract attention. This site is not one of them. This is not a surf able site while the boss is around. I once ran a very popular forum where we had an alternate theme that was designed to look like an Excel spreadsheet. Maybe you could do something like that for members willing to purchase and annual subscription?

Olof Jönnerstig wrote:here is another 2 designs.

These are excellent.

I agree with Su Ba some time ago:

"I'm not interested in flagged topics, hot topics, and definitely not best topics. My number one go-to is most recent."

I always and only go to the "recent topics" page, and when I saw Paul saying he wants to make 120 new forums, my immediate thought was "good thing I can go straight to recent topics and never have to see the forum list!"

I was interested to read to rationale for the wood grain design. It had always reminded me of vinyl with fake wood design.

I have continued using the old view. Any chance you could always keep a view option for those of us with limited net access?