What's everyone think?

Great. And I love the iPhone app.

Hmmm.. Just found something interesting.

 

The iPhone/Ipad app is formatted much better than PC version.

 

Topic starter's name next to their  avatar, for example, is default.  That's one example.

 

Also, it's a lot easier and faster to navigate on the mobile device.

 

This does make sense in a way.  Do some reading on (google search) Hoop.la.  They're are designing their forum boards as more of a social networking paradigm.  Having seemless cross device accesibility is paramount to their business plan.

 

 

It takes 6 mouse clicks to post a photo like this. There is nothing to cut and paste, no URL's to remember...just choose the file on your computer and done!

 

What trouble are you having that takes more steps?

 

I use an android system smart phone, so the Ipad/Iphone app does nothing for folks who don't have one.

 

Obviously a lot of thought and work went into making this change. It would not have been done if there wasn't a benefit of a large magnitude. You don't make a change like this for a small benefit.

 

I like the old format better myself. On the main 3 Rail Page, the most important thing seems to be - who made the original post - but only if you recognize their picture. Looking at the old forum at a glance you knew where you were. Here, I'm not so sure. I think the trend will become a small number of very active topics, as opposed to a large number of somewhat active topics, since fewer topics are in full view at the landing spot.

 

The photo upload is a nice feature, but unless I am missing something, I don't know of a way to look at a specific members album. If I wanted to see all of the photos uploaded by Leaving Tracks for example, is that available? That would be a nice upgrade.

 

I think the simplicity of the old forum was very comfortable, some of that is familiarity, some of it is large starting spot. Also keep in mind, we are an older crowd - many much older than I. I don't embrace change for the sake of change easily, and I am sure members ten and twenty years my senior embrace it even less.

 

There may be long term benefit. In the short term, I think there will be a lot of posts that fade quickly to the back pages with only a response or two. The most active topics will be really active because they are in plain sight.  

Impressive upgrade to the forum. Good job everyone!!!

Logged on easily enough...because computer isn't my second life...it took me a couple of tries...but I made it!

 

Congratulations to OGR Staff for the new look!

 

Frank

Took me just a few minutes to get comfortable but after a brief shakedown cruise including photo posting I was able to navigate around pretty good.  The photo posting process is quite easy.  It only took me two tries to get it just right.  The first time I did it I posted the same picture twice.  Overall I am quite pleased.

So far I don't like it.   I can't find the 2-rail forum information anywhere.   I don't like the variouis topics all dumped together.  

 

The whole screen layout takes up too much space - IE you can't see as many topics on one screen.

 

I think it is a major step backward.   I found navigation on the old one much better.   I tend to avoid the Yahoo forums because I find the navigation on them very confusing.   This one seems to be going the same way.

I like it a lot. Have the app installed on both my iPad and iPhone.

I'm not a person that likes a lot of change. However, in this case a very good job has been done here. It's easy to navigate. This work very well with Chrome. I really like the way pictures show up. 

 

All in all, well done!

The thing I like best?

No dopey GIF animated signatures!

 

(At least I haven't seen any yet).

Very Good. Thanks to everyone. Job well done.

me thinks I'm happier than a bubble dancer in a cactus patch!

 

trust me on this I'm no computer tech if I can do it anyone can navigate this.

 

rule # 1 forget ways of doing on old forum

 

rule # 2 remember rule # 1 LOL!!

 

really so far once I came home from work and sat down and started using the features inside forum it's getting easier and the photo posting oh way cool especially from my IPhone 4 have I said how much I love my phone next to trains best 200.00 I ever spent flat works period.

 

can't wait for Ipad 3 or? and hopefully LTE too.

 

I now return you to the real world of trains trains trains

 

$oo

I think they did a wonderful job on the new forum! I really like the new setup! It is really smooth too! Great job Rich!

I like it! I need to navigate around some more and post a photo or two later. Looking forward to downloading the i-pad app.

Looks like I made it 

 

The only negative thing I see so far is a lack of signature lines on posts.  I see that mine is still typed up in my profile settings, but why aren't they showing up on the posts?

 

It says signatures will only appear when you make a new topic or something like that.  Hope they fix that too.

 

Things are quickly coming along though with the forum.  I see changes each hour.

For those of you that like seeing all forums on one page, click "Forum List" under the Forums bar and you'll get them all on one page

The lack of signatures is a known bug in Hoopla. They are working on a fix for this.

So Far so good BUT Yea the screen display takes some getting used to.
And I don't like the fact that I no longer can see where everyone's from.
You could have a new member sign up that lives right next door to you and you wouldn't know he's into O scale trains.
There are several guys on the forum that live near me I wouldn't know anything about if I hadn't seen Roanoke beside their name on the old forum

I ask about it twice on the questions Thread but they seem to busy trying to get the guys with Iphones up and running to answer any other questions.

David

As an IT professional, I really like the new forum.  You guys did a great job.  What's really cool is that its now super easy to use on iPhone Safari.

 

Auto spell correction works good, now nobody can tell what grade we dropped out.

 

I have an older computer IMAC G4. All the animation slows things down,takes longer to load a page than the old Forum.  Also the index is too segmented. Would like a forum index all on one page.

 

Dale H

You have an old Imac G4 and you wonder why things are slow? C'mon Dale...you know the answer to that question, and it's not something I can do anything about.

 

A forum index all on one page is available. Just click on FORUMS and then FORUM LIST in the nav bar at the top of the page.

Everything disappears when I roll the mouse over a post.  This is already stressing me out.

The forum now covers my entire 24 inch screen end to end.

 

The forum posts still have a column width of about 40% of the screen, starting from the left and coming not quite to the center. Everything on the right is blank, except the ads and members on line stuff is all way over to the right now.

 

I was using Chrome, switched to internet explorer. The difference in loading speed is notable - much slower in IE.

 

The loss of auto spell check is a pain.

Fixing this is going to take a little time. I have to edit some very complex CSS code and I'm at the edge of my knowledge envelope doing that. I'll keep at it. It is slow going and I'm going to have to get some tech help from the Hoopla gang.

 

As you can see I got SOME of the size issues fixed.

Rich and OGR another big THANKYOU for the upgraded forum, the ease of picture posting is a HUGE improvement. Obviously posting photos is the best way to point out a technique,defect, repair, or anything related to this hobby. " A picture is worth a thousand words", this will indeed save us some typing!

Well I got here but I do not know where I am!

 

Gunny

From this creeps opinion , I think its great .. This Forum just keeps getting better  

Just found another way to get to the index page.  Just click on the forums button at the top instead of going through the drop down menu.  Takes you right to the index page.

On windows 7 there is a little wrench in the upper right corner.

 

Click on wrench.

 

Scroll to "Zoom".

 

Click on the "+" sign until you see "144%".

 

Posts are now full screen width.

Guys,

 

It will take me some time to get used to the new look, but I think it's great so far!!!

 

Mike

Works great for me.

 

Hey, on Firefox 9.0.1, I hit View/Zoom/Zoom Out several times, and it dropped the font size down to a more reasonable size.  And note that the main forum listing uses the full width of the screen window; it's only the individual posts that are constricted.  So there's hope that these too can expand to fill the space available.  Progress...

   Bob A.

I can't really complain about anything.  It will take a little getting used to, but playing with new stuff doesn't bother me in the least (just wish I had more time to do more playing).

 

Andy

I gotta say it kinda boggles my mind that most people think the new forum format is an "improvement"...

 

How is having to do twice as much scrolling and searching to find even less information an "improvement"?

 

And all that wasted white space.

 

Worst forum design I have EVER seen, and I've participated in quite a few forums on various topics.

Very nicely done. As with all things new, a bit of a learning curve, but my challenge is much less than that which was faced by Rich and his "helpers". Thanks to all involved!

Anyone else notice you dont have to be logged in to see a persons profile info including email address ?  Think most folks would want this visible to forum members only (i.e. logged in).