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Is The New Forum Design In Transition?

LEGEND ,
May 10, 2012 May 10, 2012

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I've got to say, the forum just feels broken as it is.

And I'm not just talking about little formatting glitches needing cleaning up.  I'm talking about the fairly significant number of features that have gone missing, such as listing who a reply is to, listing the post and points counts, etc.

More broken than it did.

My question is this: 

Is what we see what we're going to get, or are we in transition to something better?

-Noel

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LEGEND ,
May 10, 2012 May 10, 2012

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Yes, and yes!

The skin you're looking at now is the overall design that Adobe have decided to keep, but the team developing it are still releasing updates to fix issues and alter the feature set available.

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LEGEND ,
May 10, 2012 May 10, 2012

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Dave Merchant wrote:

Yes, and yes!

Thanks, Dave - I guess.  It's the terminology that bothers me I think...  This is not just a "re-skin".

"Skin" implies colors, shapes, sizes - but not functionality.

This recent change is therefore more than a "re-skin" of the old forum.  I have to say, I don't mind the colors and layout - it's usable.  And I understand the need for modernization, though I didn't see a real need to change the look before getting the functionality working better.

We seem to have entered the era of UI simplification.  Not long ago someone somewhere came up with the term "cognitive overload", which always seemed like a backhanded way of saying "most folks are too stupid to deal with a lot of stuff on the screen at once", and so everyone began simplifying their user interfaces.  Hell, Microsoft even stopped making their Windows OS actually do windows.  Kind of a slap in the face to people who yearn for more and bigger monitors just so they can get more stuff up there for use "at a glance".

I urge everyone to think of the derivation of Albert Einstein's immortal comment:

"Make everything as simple as possible, but no simpler."

-Noel

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Mentor ,
May 10, 2012 May 10, 2012

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As Noel said about Einstein's Comment. I agree.

Computer Makers and Software Companies have suddenly decided that despite education level of people. They assume everyone has the inteligence of 4 year olds.

There should be educational programs for school but when you become adults you should be treated as adults, and assume that people have adult inteligence. Therefore Computers should be computers, and Computer Programs should be written with adult intelligence in mind.

While I may not be the very brightest Bulb in the bunch. I've been able to get around just fine in any application.  All this new look and feel started with Google Chrome.  everyone is working so fast to emulate it.

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LEGEND ,
May 10, 2012 May 10, 2012

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It's not the best term, I agree - to be technical what you're seeing is a 'theme'. Jive is a template-driven CMS just like Drupal, Joomla, Wordpress, etc. so there are two aspects to a theme - the CSS controls the visual layout of the pages, and the template files control what the underlying HTML says. Adobe have re-written both parts. For example there's a Jive variable  for the Report button, and in the page template it results in a plain hyperlink immediately after your avatar and before the text of your message; which the CSS then hoofs over to the right and colors gray. If something is removed from the template (such as the variable for the reply number) all the CSS in the world won't bring it back.

In theory the template could send everything and the CSS could just hide the bits Adobe don't want, but aside from security issues the goal is to reduce the amount of data sent to the browser.

Noel Carboni wrote:

"Skin" implies colors, shapes, sizes - but not functionality.

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LEGEND ,
May 11, 2012 May 11, 2012

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Dave Merchant wrote:


Adobe have re-written both parts.

On purpose, and with a plan, right?

As a career software engineer, and one who runs a software company now, I perceive that something's wrong with the process.

It seems to me one or more of these factors must be influencing the changes to the web software here:

  • Incomplete or insufficient design work (plans)
  • An "I'm not sure what I want but I'll know it when I see it" attitude
  • Inexperienced developers
  • Inability to get to the core of what's wrong because proprietary software was purchased and is inaccessible
  • A philosophy of "let the public test it"
  • Insufficient in-house testing environment (multiple computers, multiple browsers)
  • Lacking process to evaluate and prioritize reported bugs
  • Unreasonable management pressure to release changes too soon, before they're tested and bugs are fixed

This latest change is the buggiest, most incomplete work yet exposed.  Adobe will not continue to succeed unless someone important decides that the quality of the web work here matters.  I sincerely want to see Adobe succeed, as my own business is tied to Adobe's products and success.

-Noel

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LEGEND ,
May 11, 2012 May 11, 2012

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Yes and yes - but that doesn't necessarily mean the plan worked.

Noel Carboni wrote:

On purpose, and with a plan, right?

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Guest
May 11, 2012 May 11, 2012

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I do hope Adobe will increase the FONT SIZE!.  It gives me a headache to read this fine print.

Am using a 24 inch monitor.

The other biggee is the LAST Post link.

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LEGEND ,
May 11, 2012 May 11, 2012

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Hey Curt, I've been resistant to use the zoom feature on the browser, because doing so is kind of like admitting defeat by old age, but it does work with this site.  Try pressing Control + and see if it doesn't become more comfortable.

Tiny is the new black.

-Noel

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Mentor ,
May 11, 2012 May 11, 2012

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Noel Carboni wrote:

Hey Curt, I've been resistant to use the zoom feature on the browser, because doing so is kind of like admitting defeat by old age, but it does work with this site.  Try pressing Control + and see if it doesn't become more comfortable.

Tiny is the new black.

-Noel

Or use FireFox and NoSquint!. That way you can set magnification of Background and Fonts spearately.  Set it like it should be.

here is an example: https://skitch.com/pjonescet/83uiq/fullscreen

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LEGEND ,
May 11, 2012 May 11, 2012

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Phillip Jones wrote:

...

Or use FireFox and NoSquint!. That way you can set magnification of Background and Fonts spearately.  Set it like it should be.

...

But Phillip, why should I and many, many others, have to spend time and efforts in setting things as they should be (your words)? I would perhaps consider trying to customize the forums if I was asking for very personal features nobody else wants, but not for making message texts readable, or recovering unnecessarily wasted space.

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Mentor ,
May 11, 2012 May 11, 2012

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You shouldn't. But once they decide on something they are not going to fix it.  They will fix bugs, but that is it. So you have to customize the way it should be.  If You wait on Adobe to fix anything right, people will be throwing Dirt in your face when your being buried.

Your lucky if you get any changes at all. Adobe and others are no longer interested in customers and users. They are so flush with Cash they can ignore the desires and wishes of users.

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LEGEND ,
May 11, 2012 May 11, 2012

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Curt Y wrote:


The other biggee is the LAST Post link.

What link is it to which you refer?

I am able to jump to the end to see new posts by clicking things like the "12 minutes ago" link in the Last Post column myself.  For example, the link shown here:

LastPostLink.jpg

Is that not working for you?

-Noel

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Guest
May 11, 2012 May 11, 2012

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Noel, well DUH!.  Never thought to click on the Last Post column.  Works well.  Always used the Last Post link that was right of Discussions.  Thanks for the hint.

Yes, I could use the zoom, but I am like Claudio in that I refuse to resort to add ons and "fixes" to force the forum to work the way it should.

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Guest
May 11, 2012 May 11, 2012

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I like forcing both hardware and software to work the way I want. 

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LEGEND ,
May 11, 2012 May 11, 2012

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station_one wrote:

I like forcing both hardware and software to work the way I want. 

I prefer trying to ask for the changes I want when I am given the chance to do so with a minimum of hope of being taken into account. Without any knowledge of how these things work, I would say that most of the features I have asked should be pretty easy to change. And, after all, if many participants report -say- readability problems, maybe they are right...

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Mentor ,
May 11, 2012 May 11, 2012

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station_one wrote:

I like forcing both hardware and software to work the way I want. 

Exactly the User should be able have software and hardware to work the way the user wants it.

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Community Expert ,
May 10, 2012 May 10, 2012

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A new meaning of WYSIWYG.

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Enthusiast ,
May 11, 2012 May 11, 2012

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LATEST

This whole forum complex has been in a state of transition since it was first inflicted on users.  For every improvement we get at least one step backwards.

And now we have light blud on light gray, light gray on slightly darker gray, etc, etc.  I an't see that any real thought has been put into this New and Improved "design".

Yes, I'm complaining!

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