CrackBerry Forums Upgrade coming **soon** - Read This!

Hey All,

OK... So we're close to pulling the trigger on a much needed upgrade to the forums. It'll be a fairly major change in a couple respects.

One, we're upgrading the content management system from vBulletin 3.8 up to version 4. It's a pretty big jump with a lot of small refinements and improvements.

Secondly, we're also going to roll out some of the UI changes and new features that we introduced recently on Android Central's forums and iMore's forums.

If you're a member of either site, I suggest logging in and checking it all out. And even if not a member, take a spin. Obviously we'll be CrackBerry'ing up the design in terms of colors, but the basic layout and structure will be very similar.

With this new design we introduce a lot of nice features that give the forums a much cleaner and modern look:
- new forum super navigation at the top, including forum finder search box.
- wider forums (they expand up to 1400 pixels wide, vs. the current at ~950 pixels).
- post bit at the left. instead of putting the user info on each above the post, we're now putting it to the left, which makes reading forum threads up and down much cleaner
- overall cleaner, friendlier, easier to read and use look
- updated mobile forums template (making some further tweaks to this on the other sites soon)

I've been heavily involved with the forum design changes and upgrade rollouts on Android Central and iMore, and I've really liked the changes.

I want to make sure everybody on CrackBerry here is happy with them too. So I invite you to take a look at the other sites, and if you have any ideas of things you think you may want tweaked for CrackBerry in advance of it going live, submit your feedback and ideas on this thread.

I'll keep everybody in the loop as we get close to pulling the trigger here. And again - if there's anything you see on the forums that you think might not work 100% when implemented on CrackBerry, just let me know.. after we go live we'll be able to make tweaks and make sure everybody is happy. I'm really excited for the changes... think you all will like them too!

Stay tuned for more!

Is wpcentral also getting a makeover?

I'm a member here, on wpcentral, Android Central and iMore.

I really like the way Android Central and iMore look.

I'm happy to see Crackberry get a makeover too.

I'd also like to see a wpcentral makeover.

Yep, all of the sites in the network are getting the forums upgrade. WPCentral will also be getting a bigger overhaul soon on the full site design to clean it up and give it a freshened up look.

I sure hope it can be mobile friendly. Will the Crack-App also have an upgrade? Best of luck on the endevours.

The new look is a lot cleaner, but one feature I liked very much about the previous look, but is gone in the new look is the easy navigation between my favourite groups. Taking away the easy navigation of the previous look is a giant step backwards.

Which favorite groups? Not sure I'm following what you mean here.. if you can explain so I can understand we can work to improve that.... we worked to improve nagivation here, so if we missed out on something I want to know (haven't heard this complaint before ever?!)

Originally Posted by bimmerdriver

The new look is a lot cleaner, but one feature I liked very much about the previous look, but is gone in the new look is the easy navigation between my favourite groups. Taking away the easy navigation of the previous look is a giant step backwards.

Originally Posted by Kevin Michaluk

Which favorite groups? Not sure I'm following what you mean here.. if you can explain so I can understand we can work to improve that.... we worked to improve nagivation here, so if we missed out on something I want to know (haven't heard this complaint before ever?!)

Surprised you haven't heard this before, lots of posters complaining about it in the 9900 and hybrid groups. Previously, when you were in a forum, at the top of the page, there was an area with links to the other groups. Once you read a group, you could click on the another group and read it, and so on. Now, how do you go to another group? You have to go to the top of the screen, click on "forum", then scroll down to the group you want to read. It takes forever. Or you find it from the browser history. The point is that before it was very easy to navigate between groups, it took a single mouse click. Now it takes a lot of mouse clicks and/or typing. The old format was much better for navigation.

Is there any way that new "Menu" display can be hidden? It shows columns for a bunch of my profile options, Social, Popular Forums, Most Viewed, Top Posters, Top Thanked, etc. Quite the clutter up there, that I don't really need to see. I'd rather have access to on pull-down menus rather than displayed at the top of every page, every time.

Also one thing I LOVED about CB Forums was when I started to post a new topic... the forum would automatically run a search based on my title and give a bunch of thread suggestions with a "check other threads before you post a new topic!" message. I almost always found my answer through that search, before posting my own new thread. I've tried regular searches on the new forum but they don't come up with much. I'm not sure what changed with the Search engine on the software, but the old format was extremely useful and gave better results.

As of today on my PlayBook these forums look simply gorgeous! I love the black background and the speed it super slick.

The new forum is now black.

I kind of don't like the black. Especially the quick reply box. Light blue over grey? I kind of find it hard to read (personally)

Issues here today when trying to post replies or send messages. Site is very slow and causes a popup that asks if I want to leave the page. Leaving the page actually posts the reply anyway but no ability to add "Quote" with reply. Anyone else experiencing the same issues?
Thanks, Go1ndr

The new look is missing a lot in the mobile forums. The color is pretty dull but with time is acceptable. At least better than all that white.

No ability to quote is a serious fault. How did that get lost?

No obvious way to begin a new thread on the mobile.

Most any action bumps back to a full site look. Not good. Early this morning search was one of the functions that lost the mobile connection. Others, too, but memory is failing now (human not phone).

This looks like the vBulletin 5 demo!

Keep up the good work 'Fearless Leader'...