[CrackBerry Kevin]

Hey All,

As promised, following last week's CrackBerry Forums upgrade we have been fixing lots of bugs and making lots of tweaks to things. There are a few forum threads floating around now, so I'm going to close them, and link them over to this new thread. I also want to give a good of update of where things are at and what's coming up, so we're all on the same page.

The feedback from the community has been GREAT - lots of love for the new layout, and the feedback on what people are not liking has been extremely valuable to help us know what to fix up next so everybody loves it. The goal of an upgrade like this is not change for the sake of change, but change in order to make things even better. So your feedback helps us to make sure we're always going in the right direction. Keep it coming!

That said, let's dive into the details here...


How to provide forums feedback on this thread:

1. When providing feedback for any bugs or formatting issues, etc. on this thread, please tell us device you are browsing the forums from, and also make it clear if you are visiting the full blown desktop website, or the mobile template of the forums. If you are reporting bugs or providing feedback on the full site, but you're looking at the site on your Bold 9900 or PlayBook and not a computer, we need to know that so we can take that into account. If you come across a bug or formatting issue, the more detail you can provide the better. Provide a screen capture, tell us what browsing you're using, etc.

2. If you have an opinion, please provide detailed feedback backing it up. Saying something like "I liked the old forums better" isn't helpful at all. If there's a specific feature or element you don't like to the new design, tell us exactly what it is and why you feel that way. Keep in mind our first priority at this moment is making sure functionality is 100%. Opinions are just that, opinions. And we've discovered they vary a lot. What some people see as a clean and modern look, others view as too bright and wasting space. Our goal is to please everybody, but we know that we can't please absolutely everybody, so we're striving for that happy balance that pleases the most. A single opinion doesn't tell us much as it's a single opinion, but when I see trends emerging within several opinions based on a sound premise, then that's something I can take action off of.


Changes already made since going live

We've already made over 100 bug fixes and tweaks since the site upgrade went live. If you read through all of the forum threads with feedback from the past week, a ton of the bug fixes have been made and we've done some template tweaking to to tight things up. Here's a little recap:

Search fixes: Right after launching the new site search wasn't fully implemented, which was causing the bugs for not being able to see old posts, etc. (all those are based off of search queries). So a lot of reported bugs were related to this. This has all been fixed and site search should be super smooth now. Keep in mind you have two different ways to search the forums. At the very top right corner of the header, you have the standard CrackBerry search, which is powered by Google. You can still use that if you want to (and sort results by Forums). Or you can search the forums with the search field in the forums "super nav", which provides forum-based and optimized results. This is working very well now and fast.

Tightening up the Forum Post Bit Area: One of the major changes with this rollout was moving the user info to the left of the forums, instead of between each post. This makes the forums much more readable as flow of content, vs. having to jump over each user profile when reading top to bottom. To keep the thread data "tight", we collapse the user profile down to just devices/posts when a user leaves a really short forum reply. However, if a reply is longer then we auto-expand it. If you visit a lot of forums that use this layout (and many do), you're going to find this implementation we came up with is pretty much best in class. We've done some tweaks to further tighten things up here too, like moving the time stamp out from above the user name to the post top bar, which allows us to move the username/avatar higher up.

Mobile Template Changes: When we did the forums upgrade, we also put live a new mobile template which was built around the upgraded forum software (not custom designed, but more off the shelf). That mobile template was not our end vision for the mobile template. We actually have a new really awesome mobile design in the works. But we put it live to see how it would perform. It seems it's not great on BlackBerry phones. It's a little too heavy on the javascript, etc. So for now we've gone back to the mobile forums template we had before the update, with some tweaks including a dark theme look. However, if you bookmark the URL, you can use whichever prefer. But off the m.crackberry.com site we're now linking again to the older style template, so shouldn't see any problems here. And again, we're working on the newer mobile template. We'll do some good testing on that before it goes live.

Latest forum template (based off old design) - http://forums.crackberry.com/index.php?styleid=6

The now-pulled mobile template which went live after upgrade (can still use if you want) - http://forums.crackberry.com/index.php?styleid=3

Other Style / Bug Fixes: Cleaned up lots of other bugs that have been reported. If you're still seeing a reported bug (truly a bug) that hasn't been fixed yet, please report it on this thread again. And keep in mind we've done a lot of other tweaks and will keep playing around with little things a bit as we work on bigger things. Like for example post font. We've changed the in-post font back to what we had before (which matches the font we use on the blogs in the comments section).


Other changes we're working on based on your feedback:

Theme / Color Changes: As I've mentioned, we are going to be working on a "dark theme" for all our forum sites that users can select. In the meantime, if you're on Chrome or Firefox on your computer, be sure to check out this user-created dark CrackBerry theme that works on the site. Beyond the totally separate dark theme, we are working on some changes next week to our current "light theme" theme that will darken it up a bit and add in a little more of that historical CrackBerry crackiness. A few users suggested that with the new cleaner theme it feels like CrackBerry lost a bit of its personality and that it looks to similar to Android Central's forums. Our goal across our Mobile Nations sites is to make sure each site still always feels unique to its user community and has its own distinct personality. We do want their do be a Mobile Nations familiarity between the different forums -- a user should be able to easily jump onto another site's forums and know how to use them without having to re-learn) and from a technical standpoint we want to keep the codebases similar, but even within that context there's lots of room for us to change up styles and colors to make each site its own. So we will do have some changes coming here. Please stay tuned for those and hold your theme/design feedback till after we roll that out. Note, we'll work on the buttons a bit too and on getting some bigger emoticons in there.

Tightening up the spacing at the top (PlayBook optimizations): With the rollout of the forums super navigation across every page of the forums (not just the forums index which is only where the hot from the forums info was before), we've seen some complaints about too much scrolling before you get to content. This is especially an issue on the PlayBook. We have a solution for this that I think works well mocked up. Just need to get it put into final design and coded up. I think it'll go over well. Will aim to have this live for next week too. We'll also keep working on resolving any PlayBook/device speedback bugs/formatting issues that pop up.



Getting There!

OK. This is already a novel. But if you read through it all, you should have a pretty good idea of where things are at and what to expect going forward.

We want to make sure we're not missing out on anything, so keep the bug reporting coming and send along your feedback as we make changes.

Thanks! Keep on Crack'n!

Kevin

[daveycrocket]

Hi, Thanks for the update, I am using my window 7 PC. I don't get the search next to my details because when I fill in a search item and click the magnifieing glass nothing happens I then have to go into advanced search and reinfill the search details, am I doing something wrong.
Otherwise I like the new look, being dyslectic I would appreciate a softer background to the text.
Many thanks

[rgorman]

Whoa- Mobile Beta is looking good. MUCH, MUCH, MUCH better than the previous version.

[rgorman]

But that mobile look, looks like "carp" on the full version site... somewhere in-between will likely end up being the final version, I suspect.

[CrackBerry Kevin]

We changed up the forum post font back to the old font from the new one... vote on it on this poll and let me know what you guys and gals prefer...

http://forums.crackberry.com/general...prefer-749187/

[jeffh]

I hadn't logged in for a while and just noticed the new forum layout. I'm using the full PC site on Windows 7 using Firefox 10.0.7. (I know that version number looks old, but it really is current; it's just an Enterprise version.) I think I have found a bug. If I click the "Unanswered" button under my avatar, I get five pages of posts. The posts on the first page all have 0 replies, as I expected. If I click on 2 in the Page 1 of 5 box at the bottom of the page, I'm taken to Page 2 of 3 (not 5) and the first post has 6 replies, not 0. The page has a mix of posts, some with replies, some without. I get the same result if I click the Next arrow instead of a number.

[mmcpher]

I'm viewing this on a widescreen desktop, Win7, IE 9. . . . And I like the direction it is going in. One thing, however, is that I have some limited color blindness. I can't distinguish between black and red (on screen or in text books) but also I just don't have visual acuity when it comes to colors and I miss some subtle contrasts. The color of the bar or bracket or stripe at the top of each post causes me trouble. It sort of blends into the box above and it doesn't do a good job of meeting its purpose which is to distinguish between posts, as a dividing line. I know this may just be peculiar to me, but OTOH it is not something that I see on most websites. More contrast.

[CrackBerry Kevin]

Yep, going to work in a little more contrast into next week's "theme tweak". Thanks for the feedback.

I'm viewing this on a widescreen desktop, Win7, IE 9. . . . And I like the direction it is going in. One thing, however, is that I have some limited color blindness. I can't distinguish between black and red (on screen or in text books) but also I just don't have visual acuity when it comes to colors and I miss some subtle contrasts. The color of the bar or bracket or stripe at the top of each post causes me trouble. It sort of blends into the box above and it doesn't do a good job of meeting its purpose which is to distinguish between posts, as a dividing line. I know this may just be peculiar to me, but OTOH it is not something that I see on most websites. More contrast.

[wolfee48]

New mobile version looks great!
9930/7.1.0.580

Desktop looks great too!
Windows 7 and IE9.

[sputneek]

Ok, I'd been whining about the thread page numbers within a thread and they are there now, thanks very much for that. Could've been me too 'cause I was on that member created dark theme and that covers them up. The one thing I really miss though is the lack of choices to jump to another forum, would it be a big problem to put a simple little box somewhere to jump to any given forum or is there something I'm not seeing. Right now I'm going to all forums and scrolling down to places other then the eleven "popular" forums. Again maybe I'm missing something and someone will chime in and make me feel real foolish. Other then that I find the change kinda refreshing, the brightness is a little tiring but you're working on that, the generic avatar, well...... I don't get it. Still it's pretty much a good job overall, and the rest of the stuff? Just takes a little while to get used to things is all.

[Rootbrian]

I know! It's smooth and fast, even faster without javascript.

I'm happy it's more streamlined. No more of those intrusive ads that with glitches, jumped right on top of the input area and what you were reading.

[Rootbrian]

Kevin, we need a classic crackberry theme choice. We MUST have it.

[Branta]

I hadn't logged in for a while and just noticed the new forum layout. I'm using the full PC site on Windows 7 using Firefox 10.0.7. (I know that version number looks old, but it really is current; it's just an Enterprise version.) I think I have found a bug. If I click the "Unanswered" button under my avatar, I get five pages of posts. The posts on the first page all have 0 replies, as I expected. If I click on 2 in the Page 1 of 5 box at the bottom of the page, I'm taken to Page 2 of 3 (not 5) and the first post has 6 replies, not 0. The page has a mix of posts, some with replies, some without. I get the same result if I click the Next arrow instead of a number.

Confirm the bug report for "unanswered threads", and it is NOT browser related. Appears also on other browsers including PB.

UPDATE: The same problem appears if the same query (Posts, at most 0 replies, show threads) is entered in the Advanced Search tool. Something is wrong in our underlying search engine..

[BreakingKayfabe]

I'm noticing that setting my timezone to Pacific time isn't working. Times of posts are showing an hour earlier.
For example, Branta's post should be showing 2:37 PM and is instead showing 1:37 PM

[gtpointer]

More of a suggestion going forward rather than a feedback relating to the update, but here still seems appropriate. It occurred to me today that it would be a lot easier if you could log into the forums without having to navigate away from the page/thread you're on. So a login button somewhere near the top that produces a overlay box allowing you to log in. Don't know whether this is possible/practical with the login mechanism/site layout but just thought I'd float the idea.

[Branta]

I'm noticing that setting my timezone to Pacific time isn't working. Times of posts are showing an hour earlier.
For example, Branta's post should be showing 2:37 PM and is instead showing 1:37 PM

I disagree. 2:37pm is correct if you are on PDT - unless you are not using daylight saving on your system!

I posted at 22:37 UK/BST (UTC+1) so 21:37 UTC. The time diff from UK (BST) for Pacific zone (PDT) is currently -08:00 (also between PST and UTC). 22:37 -08:00 is 14:37PDT - or 2:37pm if you can't count above 12

There is an extra hour difference for a week or so later in the month, because daylight saving in USA has different start/finish dates to UK, but that doesn't concern us today.

Edit: Check your time zone and DST settings and make sure they all line up, both at OS and forum level. Forum settings are at http://forums.crackberry.com/profile.php?do=editoptions

[pr1nce]

I like the new mobile version. Like the old font.

[BreakingKayfabe]

I disagree. 2:37pm is correct if you are on PDT - unless you are not using daylight saving on your system!

I posted at 22:37 UK/BST (UTC+1) so 21:37 UTC. The time diff from UK (BST) for Pacific zone (PDT) is currently -08:00 (also between PST and UTC). 22:37 -08:00 is 14:37PDT - or 2:37pm if you can't count above 12

There is an extra hour difference for a week or so later in the month, because daylight saving in USA has different start/finish dates to UK, but that doesn't concern us today.

Edit: Check your time zone and DST settings and make sure they all line up, both at OS and forum level. Forum settings are at http://forums.crackberry.com/profile.php?do=editoptions

Yes, 2:37PM would be correct. But it's showing 1:37PM. It is one hour behind.

Edit: And to confirm, I have the exact same settings over at iMore and the post times are correct.

Edit: It is now fixed.

[SCrid2000]

Hm, did you remove ads entirely? I notice that the top box fits much more nicely now, and I'm not seeing any ads with adblock off.

I'm still having the "search" and "find your device forums" boxes look a little strange. Windows 7 Home Professional, Dell Inspiron 14r (image attached); not sure if that's something you've messed with. It seems to come and go depending how zoomed in I am.

[Laura Knotek]

Please use Arial or another sans-serif font.

Times New Roman (or any other serif font) looks great on printed material, but it is hard to read on a PC monitor.

[randall2580]

I am using Chrome on a Win7 64 bit computer. I am still unable to "like" a post. It's interesting to note that "thanks" works, but "like" does not. I tried at first to "like" your initial post to this thread, unable. But as you will see above, I was able to "thank" you for your concern

[djenkins6]

I am using Chrome on a Win7 64 bit computer. I am still unable to "like" a post. It's interesting to note that "thanks" works, but "like" does not. I tried at first to "like" your initial post to this thread, unable. But as you will see above, I was able to "thank" you for your concern

That's odd, I am able to like/unlike. thank/remove thanks and I'm also on Win7 64 bit chrome. I just tested these on your post.

EDIT: I'm on Version 24.0.1290.1 dev-m version so maybe it doesn't work on the released version.

[Branta]

Yes, 2:37PM would be correct. But it's showing 1:37PM. It is one hour behind.

Edit: And to confirm, I have the exact same settings over at iMore and the post times are correct.

Edit: It is now fixed.

OK, I interpreted your report as the reverse scenario. My error there. So... what was the fix?

[randall2580]

That's odd, I am able to like/unlike. thank/remove thanks and I'm also on Win7 64 bit chrome. I just tested these on your post.

EDIT: I'm on Version 24.0.1290.1 dev-m version so maybe it doesn't work on the released version.

Yes I am using : Version 22.0.1229.92 m

I did just check and "like" works for me on Android Central

[sleepngbear]

And you've added good smileys!!!!