Forum Changes!

Hello everyone,
I am pleased to announce after several weeks of...

I've not been participating in the whole new forums thing (this is something mainly Aayrl and HiGuy were working on) and I like the end result. I like the touch of ensuring staff posts have a slight blue color to it, and a green color for useful posts. I assume green overrides blue though? You may want to remove the blue part from the spam board, though

Helpful posts will indeed override Staff Blue. I think we'll leave it as-is on the Spam Board, it's more fun that way.

~Aayrl

The new design is absolutely mind-blowing! The website sure looks sweeter than it already was! Literally the best uptade this website has encountered for long moments!

I really liked the new design.

The only thing that bothers me is:

1. The profile picture
- too big

2. The amount of times mistaking every damn post as a quote is too damn high!

Overall its good c:

1. the redesign is too cluttered on mobile
2. the "replied to" header is unnecessary and overlaps the top of some messages
3. the action button is unreliable. i deleted my post in this topic trying to edit it and i somehow managed to subscribe to it trying to make a new reply
4. the profile pics in mobile editor are way too big

The new forums look very nice! However, my status keeps going to "Away" when I'm not away, and it would be nice to have all of the information (posts, karma, and thank yous received) always visible like it was before. Could there be a way to, while writing a post, not have the subscribe box checked by default? It's annoying because I have to uncheck it every single time I post. Also, I very much agree with Lee's comment that every post looks like a quote. It's very confusing.

ok one more thing.

i just got to look at the new forums on pc and they look substantially better than on mobile. in fact, it looks even better than the old one here.

it seems like you just forgot to test the new forums on mobile before making it live, which is a major pitfall for any web developer. make sure your website works on every platform, yo.

Yea the new design looks really slick. Good work guys

Hey all,

Thanks for the feedback so far!

I would like to clarify a few troubling things I've read and heard so far and hopefully address them in the next few days:

FIXED:

• The Post Quote Issue - I have added a hotfix to remove this.
• Weird borders around messages and extra padding have been removed.
• Profile Pictures were huge and round! - The profile pictures are now back to their original size.
• Mobile Layout - We tested the layout on mobile devices and on smaller screen sizes to make sure it was readable and usable. Since I can't possibly own every tablet, smartphone, or small screen device in the world, I settle for a User-Agent switcher plugin in my browser to simulate these changes for me. We certainly strive to ensure we've adequately tested each aspect of the website before releasing an update such as this, I admit we have missed certain elements. I'll be sure to amend any mobile design issues you guys encounter, so please keep the posts coming. It helps speed up the process if you can tell us the following details: A) What device you are using B ) Your screen resolution C) An example URL we can compare against.[/strike] - These should be fixed for the most part - Please post some evidence if you encounter any further issues on mobile devices.

PENDING FIXES:

• Recent Topics / My Topics look strange on certain size screens - Pending CSS fix.
• Action Button - again, another limitation of the new forum system that I'll work with HiGuy to build a solution for in the coming weeks. It's not an easy nor quick code fix, and will require some time to test and adjust appropriately.

If I did not cover one of your topics above, it is absolutely on our list of issues to investigate - I simply identified the pressing matters above so everyone is aware of what we will be correcting first, since the above pertain to layout breaking functionality.

Again, we greatly appreciate the amount of feedback we've received so far. Please, keep your comments and suggestions coming so we can work to improve the Forums to the best of our abilities for the best possible user experience!

Please be mindful the holiday season is near, and our time is limited when it comes to Marble Blast. It may take a few days to a few weeks for us to adjust all of the necessary changes.

Thanks,
~Aayrl

Aayrl wrote: It helps speed up the process if you can tell us the following details: A) What device you are using Your screen resolution C) An example URL we can compare against.[/li]

I have an iPhone 7, so my screen resolution is 1334x750.

As for the URL thing, are there any specifics you need? Same forums hoster/website or just any website?

For URLs I'm looking for forum topics, users or pages on the MarbleBlast website where you notice a particular issue.

E.g., marbleblast.com/index.php/forum/rules-news/9252-forum-changes - on Landscape view on my iPhone 7, Rozi's avatar overlaps his message slightly and makes reading his posts difficult.

Thanks,
~Aayrl

Now that most of the reported issues have been fixed, the new forum design looks very nice, but there are a few other issues (aside from the pesky Action button). All of these issues are from using the website with Firefox on a desktop computer with a horizontal resolution of around 1900.

• If you go to this post , and compare it with the BBCode version (by quoting), you'll see that it adds newlines in wierd places (in this post too, actually). I didn't add the space between "post" and the comma either, for that matter. :​P
• Before adding the URL, I had "this post" highlighted. It did put the highlighted text in the URL tags, but added a copy of the URL anyway.
• The sizes of the text at normal zoom look strange:
  
  
  
  I would suggest making the signature and edit note the size of the regular post text, removing the blue box around the edit note but keeping the blue color, and making the regular post text and quote text the size of the signature. Might be good to put boxes around quotes instead.
• The image, link, etc. properties are partially covered by the attachments button.
• The new status system seems a bit strange. Automatic online/offline statuses with a force offline option seem sufficient.

Now if you'll excuse me, a car just cleared the backyard fence.

I use a 13" laptop and the window size makes it so that literally 95% of the space is wasted on single-line posts:


And when I tried uploading that image:


If it ain't broke,...

If it ain't broke,...

Sadly a lot of Kunena was broken. We couldn't fix quite a few issues (namely remote code execution in avatar uploads) without a complete upgrade to this latest version. Hopefully the changes aren't too jarring or annoying.

i'd like it if you moved away from kunena entirely, seeing as it's incredibly buggy and is causing a lot of UX issues

i'm sure you could use software like phpBB (my recommendation), since a lot of the developers here are already familiar with php

if not, please figure out a way to revert to the old style. i accidentally subscribed to this topic again trying to make this post.

eboyblue3 wrote: i'd like it if you moved away from kunena entirely, seeing as it's incredibly buggy and is causing a lot of UX issues

i'm sure you could use software like phpBB (my recommendation), since a lot of the developers here are already familiar with php

if not, please figure out a way to revert to the old style. i accidentally subscribed to this topic again trying to make this post.

We've talked about this quite a few times now but unfortunately it would be quite a big undertaking to switch forum software. It's not as simple as just uninstalling Kunena and installing the new thing. We would have to migrate the entire post database, link user accounts to the Leaderboards, and then rewrite plugins that we've developed. Not to mention we'd probably have to develop or buy a skin for the whole thing on top of it all. Kunena also integrates well with Joomla (which we use for the front page, downloads, etc.) and we'd have to either replace Joomla or spend even more time developing an integration plugin. There are very few people in this community who have the time available to do all of that, and we aren't even convinced that it will be worthwhile.

Downgrading to the old version of Kunena also isn't an option, which HiGuy explained in his post above you.

We understand that many people (myself included) are upset with the new layout, but Aayrl has already done a great job at fixing some of the major problems and we will continue to improve it moving forward.

Thanks for the feedback Weather and Nobody, I've added your items to our internal fix list to take care of in the next few weeks. Please be patient as we find time to test fixes during the holidays.

eboyblue3 - I'm sorry that you are not finding the new layout as easy to use as the previous design. We were stuck in a position that forced us to upgrade to the new template due to security and infrastructure reasons and made our best efforts to tune the provided template to our website's format and user requirements.

If there are any features in particular that you would like us to further refine, as you've done earlier in the thread, please provide us with specific details so we can make adjustments as necessary. I've already worked with HiGuy to iron out most of the issues you previously discussed.

We have discussed using forum systems, including phpBB, in the past, but ultimately agreed on the current system as it integrated the most seamlessly with our databases and website while providing easy upgrade paths and customization options that simply aren't available with other open source and commercial products.

Thanks,
~Aayrl

One modal is fine. It functions how it should. Two modals selected at the same time will not work. I can't put a link, or just any text, in any of the boxes.
And the attachments button is half-covering the close modal button.

Let's go back to the proboards.

nice graphics

Just posting here to let people know I've attempted to make the signatures more obvious, and changed the action buttons to no longer be a dropdown menu. Hopefully this should fix some of the issues people have been having.

I think it would be useful to have a button that links the forum profile ( marbleblast.com/index.php/forum/user/17582-el-robert ) with the actual profile ( marbleblast.com/index.php/profile?disp=browse&user=17582 ).
Also:

I have the Attachment button overlay issue on my Todo list from an earlier comment. I'll try to get it fixed up this week if I have time.

What do you mean by a button that links the forum profile to the actual profile? A link under the avatar on the forums, perhaps?

Thanks,

~Aayrl

The issue with the attachments button is actually because the picture settings options are supposed to be a modal... Somehow jQuery doesn't have the modal plugin enabled.

Aayrl wrote: What do you mean by a button that links the forum profile to the actual profile? A link under the avatar on the forums, perhaps?

Yes, I think that would work too. What I meant is that whenever you click someone's name from a forum post it gets you to his forum profile (marbleblast.com/index.php/forum/user/17582-el-robert). I was thinking about having a button there (under the avatar, sure, why not) that upon clicking would take you to his "actual profile" (marbleblast.com/index.php/profile?disp=browse&user=17582), the one with game statistics, achievements etc. At the moment, in order to see that profile, we need to search the user in the Scores section of the site.

Makes sense.

I'll add this to our list.

Thanks,
~Aayrl