Website suggestions / issues

[thebrookster]

Well, for me this is a good move. 

For the first time in several years I am now routinely keeping the forum open on my phone and checking it. The old site I was lucky if I checked it a couple of times a year!

Small thoughts re usability, well more regarding the colour schemes. I am a big fan of the "dark mode" theme that is gaining more and more popularity, far easier for me to read. So I enabled here. However, some of the navigation features become "lost" with the colours, so if it is feasible can we highlight these? Below I highlight what I mean, using Sideways as comparison to illustrate the bits that kinda disappear:

So you see here the link to return back to parent section on sideways has an arrow around it, giving a visual clue as to what it does. On CT dark theme this can't be seen (though the link itself is there!!)

Here (no comparison on this sorry) I find the test very difficult to see, maybe lightening or changing colour is possible?

Basically, small niggles so far, and yet to venture into the main site (majority of my browsing these days is on phone, so signatures etc don't enter my radar 🙃). Also, I haven't tried this site on pc yet (and will not be able to do so for quite a while) so I cannot say if this is the same on desktop view.

Phil

[Ben Hutchings]

3 hours ago, thebrookster said:

some of the navigation features become "lost" with the colours

Thanks for the examples. I’ve started to compile a snags list for UX/styling, and @Craig or I will go though tweaking the themes soon 👍

 

3 hours ago, thebrookster said:

For the first time in several years I am now routinely keeping the forum

Me too! It’s gonna make a big difference once completely live. 

[TimW]

I notice that if you Google club triumph its still directing to the old site and the new one doesn't appear unless you type the Web address into the browser. I know @Craigsaid he'd made the site invisable to Google in the early days but should we now be looking to change that? Everytime I tell someone about the new site I have to include the Web address as they couldn't find it on their own. 

[Craig]

There are still some features on the old website we need to implement on the new website, and that is preventing us from making the final step.

I need to fix some of the bugs in the dark mode skin. I forked the stylesheet a while back and while testing changes to the blue theme the dark theme has lagged behind. It is on my list to fix.

[TimW]

Great Craig thanks. I've sent the local groups introduction wording to Clive. 

[Craig]

I added it.  Any photographs across the website tagged with "local-groups" will appear below the block of text

[TimW]

Thanks Craig

Shame it doesn't show on the mobile version of the website. Not alot we can do about that though I guess? 

[Ian Perry]

Just to say... for what little my opinion is worth, I like the look of it and much respect and gratitude to those who're working obviously hard to get it right.

No particular niggles for me as yet, though I am one who would quite like to see a little bit more sub-division of the 'technical' bit. While not suggesting a return to 60+ separate sections, it might be worth breaking out into groups, such as the following?

"Big6 saloons and Stag"

"Small chassis cars"

"Toledo/Dolomite family"

"TRs"

 That aside, all great stuff so far!

[TimW]

10 minutes ago, Ian Perry said:

Just to say... for what little my opinion is worth, I like the look of it and much respect and gratitude to those who're working obviously hard to get it right.

No particular niggles for me as yet, though I am one who would quite like to see a little bit more sub-division of the 'technical' bit. While not suggesting a return to 60+ separate sections, it might be worth breaking out into groups, such as the following?

"Big6 saloons and Stag"

"Small chassis cars"

"Toledo/Dolomite family"

"TRs"

 That aside, all great stuff so far!

I agree but would prefer sections like 

Engine/drivetrain

Chassis/suspension /wheels and tyres

Body and trim. 

 

[Clive]

17 minutes ago, Ian Perry said:

Just to say... for what little my opinion is worth, I like the look of it and much respect and gratitude to those who're working obviously hard to get it right.

No particular niggles for me as yet, though I am one who would quite like to see a little bit more sub-division of the 'technical' bit. While not suggesting a return to 60+ separate sections, it might be worth breaking out into groups, such as the following?

"Big6 saloons and Stag"

"Small chassis cars"

"Toledo/Dolomite family"

"TRs"

 That aside, all great stuff so far!

Ian, the issue is that so many parts are shared by te different cars. So a waterpump is the same on the OHC dolly and stag, or indeed all the OHV 4 and 6 cylinder engines are more or less the same. And of course, many owners won multiple cars.

Add to that the realism that the forum will never get back to its heyday, we plan, at least initially, to keep it as it is. If there is a need at a later date, we will re-evaluate and consider changes. But as usual, we didn't expect everybody to be pleased about this, however, it is preferable to having sections that are almost dead. Besides, many/most people tend to use the "unread posts" view, so they will see all the latest posts before digging about.

[Ian Perry]

HI and thanks, Clive and Tim

Tim - on reflection, that makes a lot of sense and would get my vote.

Clive - please don't take it as a grumble from me, as it's not meant in that way. I do understand and sympathise with the view of not wanting to reinstate "dead" sections. I'll just have to get into the habit of looking specifically at the "unread" section 🙂

[Steve AKA vitessesteve]

Strange formatting. Screenshot from my android phone. The edited by text should all be under the image

 

[Craig]

Strange. Does that on my android phone too, but doesn't show the same layout using chrome dev tools on a desktop browser.

[Ben Hutchings]

@Craig @vitessesteve I made the mistake of setting that image to float left, and was going to carry on typing after it. Saying that though, that 'Edited' span shouldn't really be inline like that. Unless its something we have controller over through templates I think it's a thing for IPS to fix. It probably needs to be a cleared block-level element so it always wraps below. I was able to reproduce the 'problem' in Firefox RWD mode, at a certain width. 

[thescrapman]

Any chance we get get rid of the mostly irrelevant stats box that takes up about 40% of the RHS of the screen, that just becomes a grey empty area after you go down a few inches? Would stop all the posts coming out in a narrow vertical column.

[Craig]

@thescrapman- we'll look into this. Do you know the screen width in pixels you are running at? Are you on a tablet? 

[thescrapman]

4th gen iPad, says 2048*1536 when I looked it up.

[Craig]

Standard installation of Invision hides the right hand side bar on mobile and tablet devices up to 980px wide. It's a tricky call to make as we don't really want to remove the sidebar on desktop devices, as it's not a good UI/UX experience to read lines of text that overly wide. Pretty much every news or social media website out there has a side bar. If we can work out an option where you can turn it off individually, we will provide the option. 

 

[thescrapman]

Morning CRaig

A way round it was found on another Triumph based forum. The problems really kick in when a thread gets to 3 pages long ISTR.

Do a search for screen AND width.

Even Clive mentioned on 7th Sept he dislikes wasted screen width as well. Do we really need all those stats? 

[Clive]

2 minutes ago, thescrapman said:

Morning CRaig

A way round it was found on another Triumph based forum. The problems really kick in when a thread gets to 3 pages long ISTR.

Do a search for screen AND width.

Even Clive mentioned on 7th Sept he dislikes wasted screen width as well. Do we really need all those stats? 

Kevin on the TSSC forum found a "very rough and ready" way round those stats, but it was an "improvement" by invision once a thread got to a certain length. 

Hopefully there is a fix available...

[That Man]

Really liking the new website/forum. Top marks to all of those involved. If this doesn't drag people back from FB then nothing will!

It don't see how to post anything in the Local Groups section? Am I missing something or is it on the "to do" list?

[TimW]

17 minutes ago, That Man said:

Really liking the new website/forum. Top marks to all of those involved. If this doesn't drag people back from FB then nothing will!

It don't see how to post anything in the Local Groups section? Am I missing something or is it on the "to do" list?

Thanks for your kind comments on the new site. I'm the national local groups organiser and about an hour ago I asked the same question amongst others relating to the local groups. As soon as I get a reply I'll let you know 

[poppyman]

43 minutes ago, TimW said:

Thanks for your kind comments on the new site. I'm the national local groups organiser and about an hour ago I asked the same question amongst others relating to the local groups. As soon as I get a reply I'll let you know 

You won't get much from our group leader Tim, he's always out testing his car and going on run's.....A touch of envy i think :) Just tried the local group section Tim and nothing works when you tap on the "more".  

Tony.

Edited April 24, 2021 by poppyman

[TimW]

25 minutes ago, poppyman said:

You won't get much from our group leader Tim, he's always out testing his car and going on run's.....A touch of envy i think 🙂 Just tried the local group section Tim and nothing works when you tap on the "more".  

Tony.

Yes I know Tone. It's not a section that's been developed yet. There are more important things to finalise and finesse with the site currently. It will be addressed in time and I'm hoping for more features than the last site had to offer so that the groups can communicate with each other more. 

[poppyman]

3 hours ago, TimW said:

Yes I know Tone. It's not a section that's been developed yet. There are more important things to finalise and finesse with the site currently. It will be addressed in time and I'm hoping for more features than the last site had to offer so that the groups can communicate with each other more. 

Our own whatapp group is working well for us. We can't have everything all at once Tim. Just making sure it wasn't my old system.

Tony.