The way the Forum works...

Is it just me, or do others have a hard time with the manner in which the forum displays topics and threads?

I guess I’m used to a little more style in the way that things are formatted and structured. The way this forum is formatted, with the lack of borders around topics and the general "loose" appearance of the forum, makes it very difficult for me to read things.

Maybe I’m just loosing it here but thought I’d throw it out there for comment.

Thats what i had the first week or so but now i do not want it another way.
There was a way before to set the look and feel more like phpbb etc but I can’t find it anymore I think its disabled

You’l get used to it

Enjoy your stay

Dimmy

After a while I got to the point where I found other forums to be annoyingly "busy"!

Dear all members,

We can understand that the current design is a bit hard, because it is a way different style from classic forum styles.

But there are some good news for you.

As you are aware that we have re-designed the main site sometime ago, and now we are in process of re-skining of SMF RC2 (the latest release of SMF) to match the main site. Of-course you’ll see the difference when it will go live

So stay tuned, we’ll be back very soon with new skin!

best regards,

zi

Sweet, zi! I’ll be watching!

True, the Simplicity theme for SMF disorients people because it’s not the way a classic board is displayed...

We had a passionnate discussion on the french board about this ! I was one of the few to like Simplicity better than classic forums, but then again I’ve strange wiring up there

I hope the new them will keep the current logic

Actually, the new theme will be based on classic layout, but with some nice look and feel.

IMO, Simplicity is not that simple ...

The main thing to focus is, make something different but try not to brake overall usability.

"I could be wrong"

regards,

zi

I can appreciate all sides of this discussion.

For me, change for changes sake is not always the best course. Just to change so as not to be like the "typical" forum may or may not make sense. Useability should be the guiding light, not just the desire to change because you don’t want to be seen as the same as something that came before. Does that make any sense?

I’m all about good design, but also useability. If I have to look for longer than I feel I should have to look at something, just so my brain can assimilate and make sense out of what I’m looking at, then to me that’s not a good thing. But if I can look and instantly get my orientation, then that is good design.

I’m sure not trying to stir things up or step on any toes... I’m just trying to gain an understanding as to why I seem to be having such a hard time sorting out the forum topics and posts in my brain so that it makes sense to me.

I think the main site is more to my liking... so if a new skin is in store for the forum, perhaps it will supply the visual cues to the forum that seem to be missing... at least for my brain anyway.

Keep up the great work team. This is a great CMS and I’m really excited what the future development will bring to this most excellent platform.

Quote from: cnymike at Jan 26, 2006, 09:15 PM

For me, change for changes sake is not always the best course. Just to change so as not to be like the "typical" forum may or may not make sense. Useability should be the guiding light, not just the desire to change because you don’t want to be seen as the same as something that came before. Does that make any sense?

Hmmm, let me bring to the table some consistent reasons why I think Simplicity is better (in some cases) than classic forum.

The classic table layout presenting all boards has the following information :
- top level boards title (always)
- second level boards (sometimes)
- a little summary of the board purpose (sometimes)
- number of post and replies (always)
- link to the last post (often)

The board overview has relatively few informations, and the information takes up the whole width of the page. Simplicity has a different take and uses a third or even a fourth of the space to display the very same information, plus some others :
- the last X topics (from all boards)
- the last X post (from all boards)

It has some advantages :
- for those who come often (like every two hours ) : always have an overview of the activity, at first glance. This mean less click to access information.
- you can find things that you were not looking for (beauty of the web : serendipity...) : an interresting thread can come up in a board you normally would disregard given your personnal interrest

Your points are will taken, but Simplicity does not present a "friendly" way of viewing that information that you cite.

For instance, the topics in "Recent Topics" are scattered within the list. If similar topics were grouped together, that would be much more user friendly than having them scattered haphazardly down the long list. They aren’t even alphabetical...they’re just a jumble.

The same can be said of Recent Posts.

This is counter-intuitive to the way I want to see information organized. I actually prefer to see the top-level categories and be able to see when the last post was made. I can quickly navigate to the sub-topic that interests me most without having to scan (which slows me down) a long list of subjects in bold, with the category in a much harder to see font style.

I guess we just disagree on how we like to view things. My way is not wrong, nor is your way wrong. We’re different in our expectations.

I like it the "old" way.

This is way more confortable for me to make sense of...
http://www.realmacsoftware.com/support/

It probably repulses you, but for me, it is much more logical in organization, but admittedly does not convey as much "upfront" information as you might like to see. Oh well, I guess I can deal with whatever it ends up being, but I’m just expressing my views. Time to move on.