New style / layout rant
General discussion
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So they finally changed the style of the forum I mostly visit. I supect it's not the only forum that has a new look to it.
Anyway, I've gathered a list of flaws I've stumbled upon so far (10 minutes of browsing around.) Trying not to be too subjective.
- Fixed width forum, no benefit from a wider screen (scrollbars on pieces of code etc.) (At least the old version had a max-width of +400 px compared to this.)
- Huge waste of vertical space everywhere.
- No difference with normal, <em>italic</em> or <strong>bold</strong> text in posts. (You can still add text like this to your post and it will show up in the editor, it just won't make any difference on the final product.) Note that this forum has not been updated with the new layout so you'll probably see these styles now.
- No difference in appearance with read threads, unread threads (used to be bold) and threads with unread posts (used to be italic.)
- Thread icons (question, discussion, etc.) are not distinct enough. I guess the design team ran out of shapes and colours.
The alert and sticky icons are not on the list but you can guess the colour. That's right. Gray. - Marked answers barely dishtinguishable from other replies. (It's even worse if "Always Show Answers First On Thread Page" is not checked on the Settings page.)
Not all change is bad, only bad change is bad.
Edit: Couldn't start a discussion without changing the type after asking a question. This feature DOES WORK with the new layout.
All replies
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There have been some minor improvements (italics & bold have been returned), but the overall "look & feel" have not been modified to reflect all the things people don't like about it. My theory is that "higher powers" have decreed how things are going to look, no matter what we (the users) say we want.
From what I hear, someone new has fairly recently taken over the position responsible for all MSDN forums, so it'll be interesting to see what that brings.
Yann Duran
- Co-Author of Pro Visual Studio LightSwitch 2011
- Author of the LightSwitch Central Blog
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