New forum version

I'm looking at the new forum version that popped up this morning. It looks nice, but I dont see a way to search or see the newest posts. Without those features, its not very useful.

Agreed, it looks very nice and modern but it lacks functionality. With the previous version of the forum it was possible to see which forums had new posts, which (hot) threads had new posts, and which ones I replied to. This was all due to the indicators and icons the old forum had (and any general forum has). These basic features are not present with the new forum.

Again it looks nice but it needs some work, because now it is a step back. And that is not what we want with a new version of the forum that supposed to improve over the original.

JJ

Edit: I just also found that my post doesn't show anything I put between brackets, apostrophes, or show colons. I made this edit on the older version to show those. And it is also not possible to see if the user is online, though not that important, or who is currently looking at the thread.

Thanks for the feedback guys!

The new forum is a work in progress, so youre right, it needs some features like search and a new posts list. Were working on it!

JJ90, good catch on those bugs. Ill make sure those get fixed.

Please let me know if you find other bugs or missing features. We will be putting in regular updates until we get it right.

Yup! I miss the tags; "Yesterday" and "Today" that were previously affixed to the newer threads. I'd like to see those brought back to the "Last Post" column.

On the opening page of Forums, that which lists the sub-forums there are two columns to the right of "Last Post"; "Threads" and "Posts." Such numbers don't do anything for me. ZZWinkZZ While the "Replies" and "Views" columns appearing on the individual sub-forum pages can be useful/interesting I don't see the same for the large, historical numbers in the "Threads" and "Posts" columns of each of the sub-forums. Perhaps the space can be put to better use?

And don't forget to bring back/keep the GT Smilies in a nice, convenient place. ZZSmilieZZ

And most definitely... bring back/keep the "Preview Post" function.

Thanks for the feedback John. It's good to see your input!

We will be actively checking this thread. We want the forum to be a pleasant experience for all of our members. All suggestions and bug reports are greatly appreciated.

Thanks guys!

The new forum is not showing all the new posts.

Exemple from Song Request forum:
The old forum shows "Born on the bayou / CCR" and "Crazy, Never Going Back Again, or Down on the Border" as new threads opened at 06-22-2016. The new forum doesn't show those threads for me at all. "Doc Watson" is the newest thread shown using the new forum.
"Crazy, Never Going Back..." is shown in last post field for Song Request forum on forum main page.

Same thing with "Jack Johson" thread on Ask Doglas Showalter forum. Old forum shows the thread, but new forum doesn't.

Some characters are dropping out. A Colon, apostrophe and quote marks are not showing on a post. (Now done using the old forum)

And the same things as mentioned already: preview post, search forum, show new posts since last visit.

The problem I noted was that it seems not to show previously read threads.

I know its been mentioned but with out being able to quickly and easily see & find forums and threads with new posts I find it completely unusable. Without that function I would rarely if ever check the forum, currently I check once to twice a day.

Thanks for finding those bugs guys. The missing posts and missing characters in posts bugs are both now fixed! We are working on other improvements so stay tuned.

Originally Posted by: SJWeissenI know its been mentioned but with out being able to quickly and easily see & find forums and threads with new posts I find it completely unusable. Without that function I would rarely if ever check the forum, currently I check once to twice a day.

We will definitely bring that one back SJWeissen, we're working on it.

The new forum should have been tested with volunteer test users first. And after bugs are fixed and all the features are set and done, then make it available for everyone.

I'm a believer in, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Change for the sake of change often creates problems and may (will?) lose a certain amount of forum participation. I know that without "New Posts" and "Search" I will seldom be here. I don't post very often but I like to read and learn and have been "checking in" almost daily since I renewed my annual subscription.

Thanks for the input guys. We are monitoring this thread closely and reading all of your feedback.

We have tested this forum before making it public but with any update bugs may still occur. This is a normal occurrence for any platform.

As soon as we get a bug report we work on resolving it so please keep us posted if you find any! In the meantime we are monitoring the forum and keeping an eye on this thread :)

Originally Posted by: BeachBillI'm a believer in, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

Change for the sake of change often creates problems and may (will?) lose a certain amount of forum participation. I know that without "New Posts" and "Search" I will seldom be here. I don't post very often but I like to read and learn and have been "checking in" almost daily since I renewed my annual subscription.

I couldn't agree more! Unfortunately the old forum is 'broke' in a way. It's out of date software that isn't supported in its current version, so we are forced to update. We'd leave it alone if we could.

We've got an update with some fixes and improvement coming.

Hey guys - we just pushed out an update with a bunch of forum improvements, including emoticons , post previewing, and more. We added links in the new forum to the old forum search and new posts in the meantime while we make the new versions of those pages.

As always, let us know if you find any bugs. Thanks for your patience as we get through this update.

I'd like to see a higher contrast and/or a change in font size in the forum's opening page that lists all the sub-forums. Specifically, the third line(s) in the "Last Post" column which detail the date/time of the post. Put another way, the new style/version is harder for me to scan quickly.

Please also fix the time settings soonest. https://www.guitartricks.com/forum/thread.php?f=12&t=45766

As an aside...I miss the old GT smilies. I used them quite a bit in postings and emails away from GT and had a shortcut to their page on my Desktop. Now I find the old GT url where they were found is, "Page not found."

Now that the new forum version has fully launched and it is not possible to return to the old forum I have to say that I don't like the new forum for one particular reason.

As I've mentioned in my previous post: "With the previous version of the forum it was possible to see which forums had new posts, which (hot) threads had new posts, and which ones I replied to. This was all due to the indicators and icons the old forum had (and any general forum has)."

I want these icons and indicators back! Then I don't have to click on the "show new forum posts" but the icons will tell me which forum thread has new posts, which threads I've replied to and which are hot. Even sticky or locked threats are not visible now.

This is an absolute must in my opinion, since it allows for much simpler regonition of these things. Hope you guys can get this back or are working on implementing this. Again, compare it to any general forum and it baffles me why it is not present. The current forum version lacks basic functionality in that regard.

Kind regards,
JJ

Edit: What I also remember about the previous forum version is that you could message individual forum members as well have a control panel where I could easily edit signatures, avatars etc. It was also possible to give reputation to forum members posts that contained great ideas. I can just summarize it that the old forum was perfectly fine, and I want all those same features back. I'm just curious what you plan on doing with the forum. Is it still in development or are we stuck with it as it is now? With the latter I'm afraid I won't be using the forum for much longer.

Thanks for the feedback guys.

JJ90, to answer your question the new forum is still in development so we will continue to release updates. Your settings and the private messaging all still exist at the same page as before (though we are working on a new forum version): https://www.guitartricks.com/forum/usercp.php?

I know some of you wish we could have kept the old forum, and frankly, so do I. But we didn't have that choice so our mission now is making the new forum work well for everyone. I think we're getting there but still have some things to add back in.

Hi Ben,

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated. And I totally get that you guys didn't have a choice but to upgrade to a new version due out of date software of the old forum. Nice to hear you guys are still planning on improving and adding features, and taking our feedback seriously. I look forward to the new features!

JJ

Originally Posted by: JJ90
Hi Ben,

Thanks for the reply, much appreciated. And I totally get that you guys didn't have a choice but to upgrade to a new version due out of date software of the old forum. Nice to hear you guys are still planning on improving and adding features, and taking our feedback seriously. I look forward to the new features!

JJ

I mostly agree with JJ above but...

It's perplexing and aggravating to see a 'new, improved' version that has less features and capabilities and won't show me posts in my own time zone. But maybe that's just me.

I would offer the constructive criticism that GT should study priorities a little harder. Maintaining old features and capabilities and maybe bringing in new features should probably take precedent over making the new pages look different/nicer.

Making a time suspense/cutoff date by taking a step backwards in features is, to [u]me[/u], the wrong decision. Just sayin'