# Sorry to be leaving



## Hemsby (3 Feb 2018)

While I welcome and embrace change, after a few days of reading posts on the revised site, trying to cope with the background colours particularly the white I have come to the conclusion that I am unable to view the pages without “visual discomfort” I have therefore reluctantly decided that I will no longer be able to visit the forum.

May I say thank you to all who have answered my posts over the last 4 years and would like to think that I may in small way sometimes have been able to help others.

I wish the forum and its members all the best.

Regards

Hemsby


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## Noel (3 Feb 2018)

> If at first you don't succeed, destroy all evidence that you tried


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## tomatwark (3 Feb 2018)

The background colour is awful, I said this on the other thread, why not put a back ground image in and also change the text to black.

I find is hard to read on a wide screen monitor, although on my phone and tablet the site is great improvement on the old one.

Come on Mods listen to your members.

Sorry to see you go Hemsby.


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## rafezetter (3 Feb 2018)

@ Tomatwark

Mods can't DO anything - it's down the the sites owner Charley - he's calling the shots on how the site looks, seemingly for a forum he almost never visits. I didn't even know who he was until it was pointed out to me.


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## Brandlin (3 Feb 2018)

Seems like a bit of an over reaction. Whilst i can appreciate fully that some people are having a more trouble than others, especially with the colours, it has only been two days, so its not like the owner has had much chance to do anything yet.


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## banjerbill (3 Feb 2018)

It ain't going to change, so live with it or go. We use it and don't pay for it so it's not ours to alter.
I prefer the old site myself but can cope with this one.

If you want to follow RogerS and his many complaining posts, he is on a different place 2

Bill


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## Phil Pascoe (3 Feb 2018)

Which to my mind has awful format as well.


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## John15 (3 Feb 2018)

I'm finding it difficult to read the changed layout and colour but hopefully I'll get used to it.

John


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## tomatwark (3 Feb 2018)

rafezetter":3ol9jqrj said:


> @ Tomatwark
> 
> Mods can't DO anything - it's down the the sites owner Charley - he's calling the shots on how the site looks, seemingly for a forum he almost never visits. I didn't even know who he was until it was pointed out to me.




Well he lists himself as a Moderator.


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## SPSlick (3 Feb 2018)

After 4 years of having this forum as my home page I too am reluctantly leaving because of the new layout being unusable


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## defsdoor (3 Feb 2018)

Dunno if you are all using old browsers that don't display this correctly or what but it's perfectly fine here.

The font colour of body text is black here (expect when composing and the topic review posts at the bottom are grey)

The only complaint I have - and it is very minor - is that there is too much wasted space - especially in the left and right margins. This could be reclaimed to make the body div wider and result in more visible text per screen.
I note that on different zoom sizes this changes - sometimes to even wider, sometimes to acceptably narrow.

Not sure that it's bad enough to walk off in a sulk though....


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## defsdoor (3 Feb 2018)

Example of wasted space due to MASSIVE margins..


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## defsdoor (3 Feb 2018)

Note to site admins - in the .container style for all breakpoints, changing the width from the absolute values to 100% makes things lovely.

Note to users - if you use firefox you can add an override to this style in your userContent.css file - 

@-moz-document domain(ukworkshop.co.uk) {
div.container { width: 100% !important; }
}


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## defsdoor (3 Feb 2018)

Much better (imeho) -


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## profchris (3 Feb 2018)

The couple of snappy replies to Hemsby are rather unfair. He is finding the colour scheme actively painful to use, and I can see why because I'm finding it uncomfortable (though manageable) myself, so much so that I have to limit the time I spend here to rest my eyes.

I can't imagine the site owner wants to drive users away, and I'm sure he likes the colour scheme. But some of us are not just disagreeing with the choice of colour but pointing out that the overall effect has unfortunate physical consequences for some users. Then he can choose what to do - if we keep quiet he won't understand why numbers are dropping (if they do).

I suspect it's the luminosity of the bright blue buttons in combination with the rather luminous pale blue background, and that if these were dialled down a couple of notches all would be fine. Certainly easy enough to try out.


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## Phil Pascoe (3 Feb 2018)

I hadn't thought too much about it, but my eyes have given me far more gyp today than usual.


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## Chris152 (3 Feb 2018)

I'm finding the new format fine, bit of a shock when I first saw it but settled in now.
If people are struggling you may be able to make adjustments via your computer, which might help. Mine's an oldish Mac and I just went into the accessibility section of Preferences and saw some options - greyscale gets rid of colour (though you'll also lose that in photos), and increasing contrast makes the words stand out more clearly. There may be other things but I haven't tried any further. Just a thought in case it helps at all.


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## Charley (3 Feb 2018)

Hemsby":2v3ulfom said:


> While I welcome and embrace change, after a few days of reading posts on the revised site, trying to cope with the background colours particularly the white I have come to the conclusion that I am unable to view the pages without “visual discomfort” I have therefore reluctantly decided that I will no longer be able to visit the forum.
> 
> May I say thank you to all who have answered my posts over the last 4 years and would like to think that I may in small way sometimes have been able to help others.
> 
> ...




You've been using the forum for 4 years but can't wait just a few days for us to try and sort out the problems you're experiencing? I've been working pretty much none stop, trying to tweak the site since the new look went live. We have been listening and are working as quickly as we can to work on the issues and feedback. Thanks for your support...


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## tomatwark (3 Feb 2018)

The colour scheme is fine on my phone and tablet, as there is not the massive amount of duck egg blue around the edge.
On my pc it is really hard on the eyes though.


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## MikeG. (3 Feb 2018)

profchris":3vnugktf said:


> The couple of snappy replies to Hemsby are rather unfair. He is finding the colour scheme actively painful to use, and I can see why because I'm finding it uncomfortable (though manageable) myself, so much so that I have to limit the time I spend here to rest my eyes.
> 
> I can't imagine the site owner wants to drive users away, and I'm sure he likes the colour scheme. But some of us are not just disagreeing with the choice of colour but pointing out that the overall effect has unfortunate physical consequences for some users. Then he can choose what to do - if we keep quiet he won't understand why numbers are dropping (if they do).
> 
> I suspect it's the luminosity of the bright blue buttons in combination with the rather luminous pale blue background, and that if these were dialled down a couple of notches all would be fine. Certainly easy enough to try out.



A number of fora allow you to apply your own colour "skin", so that the colours you see are entirely within your control. It wouldn't answer the problem of the small area of the screen given over to forum content, but would possibly help with the colour/ contrast issue.


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## Kalimna (3 Feb 2018)

Having not really kept up to date with the forum for a while (many months really), the new layout has been a bit of a shock. It takes a bit of getting used to, for sure, but going by many of the comments over several posts it is the end of the world.
The degree of head-shaking, hand-wringing and petty criticism of a free service is beneath mature adults.
The colour scheme is different, and the layout is perhaps not as efficient with space. However, as a user, you will get used to it. I actually quite like the pale blue with white boxes.
I am quite sure that any initial niggles will be ironed out, and the mods/owner should be thanked, not derided, for providing this, again, free service.

Now, I have a backgammon board I have to finish for Christmas just gone so I had better stop adding to the grumpiness and make some more shavings 

Adam


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## Garno (4 Feb 2018)

defsdoor":maxa4eiw said:


> Example of wasted space due to MASSIVE margins..




I see you have an ad-blocker enabled.

The space that you do not like is for ads to be displayed in. Turn off the ad blocker and the space gets filled, keep the ad blocker enabled and you get the space. 
It really is a simple choice and one that you alone can make.


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## Brandlin (4 Feb 2018)

Feel free to challenge or ignore as you see fit... it is a Sunday morning and i feel in the mood to muse...

I find myself with a fresh cup of tea and a few minutes to kill and thought i'd note my musings on website look and feel... my understanding from having some non-expert involvement in the process professionally, and running a few sites from a hobby perspective. I don't claim to be an expert and i am not attacking or defending the choices made here. But i do think there is a lot more to consider than many realise.

There is a lot of very serious research into how the human eyes and brain perceive and process text. Much of this goes back to the days of printed media, some of it is more contemporary and specialises in the interaction with a computer screen.

There is a reason why newspapers and most other professional printed media use columns - because it is recognised that scanning long lines of text is far more tiring and problematic to the human eye/brain than shorter lines. Add to that the fact that a LOT of modern display devices have a much larger aspect ratio (widescreen 16:9 rather than traditional 4:3... also phones in landscape mode) and are in general much larger (22 inch widescreen is now common compared to a 17" 4:3 screen a few years ago) which means IF the whole screen was used for text the line length would make it harder to scan and pick up the following line, and be much more tiring.

Try this simple test. Take a page of solid text in something like word and print it out twice. Once portrait onto A4 with 2.5cm borders and extra line spaces between paragraphs. Second Landscape onto A4 with no borders and no spacing. It very clearly becomes evident that the spacing, line length and general layout of the text has a significant bearing on its readability - especially over long periods of time.

_EDIT : You'll notice for example that this post appears as a 'wall of text' with no breaks. This is because the forum software is stripping out out line spaces I am putting between paragraphs (a simple technique for breaking up large amounts of text into readable sections). I don't think it did this a day or two ago and it might be a response from the owner to the cries of 'too much wasted space'? Personally i find it less readable._END EDIT.

It has also been shown that the human eye finds it easier and more restful to read without significant other distractions (text and pictures) surrounding it. Hence a lot of modern print and website design that ensures there is a clear border around a specific set of text, often with a different soft contrasting background colour. Its a technique that has been demonstrated to unobtrusively demarcate separate subjects (or in our case posts), though the choice of colours used can be critical. Too much contrast is jarring and can be tiring.

The design and use of fonts is a long standing area of research too. The rule of thumb is that fonts with serifs (Times New Roman) were developed to be easier on the eye to read in large blocks of text. And fonts without serifs (helvetica, arial, verdana - which the forum text is similar to) were designed to be more eye catching and easier to read in smaller blocks of text. Again there are also aesthetic choices here, serif fonts are often seen to impart more authority and non serif fonts are considered more friendly and accessible. Interestingly one of the main reasons that early versions of windows and apple products used Helvetica and arial so much was because low resolution screens dont handle the detail required for a serif font anywhere near as crisply as a non serif font. Likewise there's a reason newspapers stick with serif fonts - because they have large blocks of text that need to be scanned easily and they want to be seen as authoritative. (Given the length of this post i'm thinking I would like a font change option, but i don't see this musing as 'authoritative' either!)

The issue of font colour is interesting too. On a modern high definition screen black text on a white background has been shown to be more stressful and tiring on the eyes than a less harsh grey on white. However older, lower resolution monitors struggle to show grey and white as crisply as black on white. Modern flat screens are also capable of much higher brightness and contrast than old Cathode Ray Tubes. And modern small format screens on new phones are brighter and sharper again. So a grey on white on a modern screen with optimal brightness looks a lot different to grey on white on an older, lower resolution less bright CRT. The adoption of grey text by many sites is an attempt to satisfy both requirements. Naturally there are a lot more than fifty shades of grey and some work in some circumstances and not in others.

Naturally there is also a large amount of personal preference, quality of eyesight and familiarity mixed into this and as with anything to do with the human brain there is no "one size fits all". but there are some very sound reasons behind why modern websites have some common elements to their look and feel. 

The challenge for modern websites is the vast range of devices they need to serve, multiple browsers, dozens of versions of those browsers, thousands of screen sizes, aspect ratios and resolutions of screens not to mention the local adjustment of things like contrast and brightness, adblockersand other add-ons. Modern web coding using language extensions like "bootstrap" give a lot of flexibility to try and maintain a common look and feel for a site across all those variables. They aren't perfect, but they are a damned sight better than a "fixed" page layout - take it or leave it approach.

As to this website; its based on off the shelf forum software, where the heavy lifting and base code is provided as a package with a large amount of options for implementation. Some of those options will include colour and layout choices, but some of the structure and general style will be fixed. I do not know the details in this instance, but have worked with other similar packages in the past. I have zero knowledge of how much of the forum design is 'straight out of the box' or how much has been tweaked. I'd guess that the owners efforts have been focused on porting all of the existing material, memberships and such like into the new software without losing anything and ensuring that functionally it all works. 

I am not for one moment suggesting that everything is perfect in the changes to this forum, nor am i attempting to attack or defend them. I'm simply musing that there are solid reasons behind most if not all of the design decisions.

Clearly the change has been more successful for some than others. A lot of that will depend on a user's personal situation, preference and familiarity. I am sure that there will be some things that will change and evolve based on feedback. 

Tea finished... time to go fix my router....


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## JohnPW (4 Feb 2018)

> The issue of font colour is interesting too. On a modern high definition screen black text on a white background has been shown to be more stressful and tiring on the eyes than a less harsh grey on white.



I think that would be caused by having the screen brightness set too high. The white background is sending out too much light, resulting in too much contrast if the text is black.

On my laptop and desktop monitor, both LCD, I adjust the brightness so that the white background is about the brightness of white paper.

EDIT
removing the space between paragraphs makes it harder to read!


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## Brandlin (4 Feb 2018)

JohnPW":3q8cgri9 said:


> > The issue of font colour is interesting too. On a modern high definition screen black text on a white background has been shown to be more stressful and tiring on the eyes than a less harsh grey on white.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Agreed - there are a large number of factors. For example monitor manufacturers deliberately ship their monitors with contrast and brightness turned above optimum so that they stand out in shops. Same for TV manufacturers. I suspect that many/most dont then re-adjust. Another variable in why things look different in different places...


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## Brandlin (4 Feb 2018)

JohnPW":y7u4vkl7 said:


> > EDIT
> > removing the space between paragraphs makes it harder to read!



Agreed. It surprised me too.


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## custard (4 Feb 2018)

JohnPW":em33pmfe said:


> removing the space between paragraphs makes it harder to read!



+1

And also write!

It's especially tricky for a site like this where you often need a series of bullet point instructions on how to do something. Without paragraph spacings it just looks a bit of a mess.


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## misterfish (4 Feb 2018)

defsdoor":1ynf63vl said:


> Note to site admins - in the .container style for all breakpoints, changing the width from the absolute values to 100% makes things lovely.
> 
> Note to users - if you use firefox you can add an override to this style in your userContent.css file -
> 
> ...



Silly question - but where is this file? I can't find it on my Windows 10 pc running Firefox Quantum.

Thanks

Misterfish


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## xy mosian (4 Feb 2018)

defsdoor":39ajjtjx said:


> Note to site admins - in the .container style for all breakpoints, changing the width from the absolute values to 100% makes things lovely.
> 
> Note to users - if you use firefox you can add an override to this style in your userContent.css file -
> 
> ...


Well you learn something everyday, hopefully anyway. Thank you for that defsdoor, I'm off to play with other possible settings.
xy


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## AndyT (4 Feb 2018)

There's a lot of good sense in what Brandlin wrote. 

To add yet another layer of complexity:

He has pointed out that much is decided in the overall discussion board software - I think in our case it is still PHP BB. A quick glance at the PHP BB site shows that there are _hundreds_ of different styles that can be applied to the basic code, to make your forum look different from others using the same underlying software. 

Then there are local implementation decisions about which options to pick - decisions taken, I assume, by Charley - some of which have already been changed in response to our comments. 

And there are the differences caused by our choices of device and browser software.

But what may be less well known is that within our browsers, there are often built-in choices designed for us to use. Often, these will be intended to help people with less acute vision than the majority. Here's just one example. If you use Firefox, have a look at "reading mode". It strips out all the active content and gives you just plain black text. You'll find it on the View menu or by pressing Ctrl+Alt+R.







Ok, there is white space, but the number of words to a line (what typographers call the "measure") is much better and more readable.


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## Brandlin (4 Feb 2018)

AndyT":3edmr10b said:


> There's a lot of good sense in what Brandlin wrote.



Dear lord... i must stop posting immediately if i am making sense... its all down hill from here... !


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## cedarwood (5 Feb 2018)

Well I would be leaving too as the site colours are far too harsh on the eyes but cannot find a way to delete my membership so will just log out and not return


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## defsdoor (5 Feb 2018)

Garno":1pmmx8yu said:


> defsdoor":1pmmx8yu said:
> 
> 
> > Example of wasted space due to MASSIVE margins..
> ...



No. The adverts are of fixed size. The css has breakpoints for different screen sizes and within that sets the width of .container to specific widths. In some breakpoints this width is significantly narrower than the breakpoint size. Witness this for yourself by simply changing the size of your browser window....

The adverts are inside the container div.

Setting the container width to 100% makes a significant difference to the margin beyond the advert spaces as well as on the left margin. Instead of getting on your high horse why not try it ? Oddly enough I do know what I am talking about when it comes to HTML/css.


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## julianf (5 Feb 2018)

I have, in the past, used tampermonkey user scripts to edit pages on the fly. I tried very briefly to write one for this page - I'm not bothered by the new layout, but, if the site is loosing members because of it, I thought I would give it a go.

Sadly my skill is not up to the job.

However... If one of you lot, with your css skill was to give it a go, I'm sure you could do it, and gift the script to anyone who was having real issues? I figure that could be a good thing?


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## Garno (5 Feb 2018)

defsdoor":38qdjwpx said:


> Garno":38qdjwpx said:
> 
> 
> > defsdoor":38qdjwpx said:
> ...



What's with the aggression I was only trying to help.


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## defsdoor (5 Feb 2018)

Garno":cw4q2jcy said:


> What's with the aggression I was only trying to help.



Sorry - at first read it sounded like you were telling me that it was all my own fault 

Anyway - here are some examples -
Breakpoint driven absolute widths - 





Widths simply set to 100% -





Breakpoint driven absolute widths -





Widths simply set to 100% -





I've applied this locally so I'm happy with it - apart from when I view on my tablet. 

I will gladly help if needed to modify the site css - I'm qualified


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## Brandlin (5 Feb 2018)

That would be a huge mistake. As i noted in my long post above, there are very good reasons why long lines of text spanning the whole page are harder to read and more tiring, and why most modern websites use shorter lines with greater demarcation around text blocks. 

Naturally if that's how you personally want to view your layout then that's your prerogative to edit your view as you see fit. But altering the whole site to the width format you are showing would be a a backwards step.


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## defsdoor (5 Feb 2018)

Well that is all clearly in your humble opinion. The old format took full advantage of the full page width (it wasn't a responsive site and was a pretty standard old-style phpbb layout). I don't see anyone else proclaiming the new margins (1/3 of the entire page width in some views) are a godsend.
And I'm not advocating removing the margins completely - even with the container width set to 100% there are still margins. I would just rather see more content on a single page and the massive margins at some breakpoints result in only 4-5 topics being visible in some occasions.

Look at this for example -





It's ridiculous.


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## Cinimod (5 Feb 2018)

I'm not a prolific poster, but I do know which I find easier to read when I do visit. The pale blue/gray boxes and text are far more restful to read, also aides readability for those that suffer from dyslexia as the use of pale backgrounds has has been known about for donkeys years.

So, +1 for as it is now. All the best.....................dom

Ps both forums that I belong to that changed to Tapatalk have had their fair share of problems, many of which seem to be more major than our choice of colour and line width, so it could be a whole lot worse for us all. I think most of us are at an age where we're not comfortable with change but sometimes change is as good as a rest.


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## Brandlin (5 Feb 2018)

defsdoor":1fl7djuw said:


> Well that is all clearly in your humble opinion.



Except its all pretty well researched evidence based and also industry standard for design.
But thats ok, you know best.
Just because you shout louder and longer doesn't make you right.


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## pcb1962 (5 Feb 2018)

Cinimod":2py0m4qm said:


> Ps both forums that I belong to that changed to Tapatalk have had their fair share of problems, many of which seem to be more major than our choice of colour and line width, so it could be a whole lot worse for us all.



This forum works perfectly well on Tapatalk, both before and after the current changes.

Sent from my Nexus 5X using Tapatalk


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## defsdoor (5 Feb 2018)

Brandlin":2y703j93 said:



> Except its all pretty well researched evidence based and also industry standard for design.



Are you really saying that a page that looks like this (and all that blue is the margin) is an industry standard design ? 

If it is I clearly need to change "industry"....


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## MattRoberts (5 Feb 2018)

He's quite right - readability is an important aspect of online usability 

https://www.smashingmagazine.com/2014/0 ... eb-design/

You also need to bear in mind that 100% width on your monitor resolution might be drastically different to someone else's - especially given the prominence of high resolution / ultra wide screen monitors.

I'd recommend looking at some of the Neilsen Norman research, especially the eye tracking studies. I've run a lot of usability sessions myself and find their insight fascinating


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## Brandlin (5 Feb 2018)

defsdoor":1jfan4sq said:


> Brandlin":1jfan4sq said:
> 
> 
> > Except its all pretty well researched evidence based and also industry standard for design.
> ...



Good luck in the job hunt!

Yes, line length matters in text for ease of readability. I don't understand what you think you are achieving by forcing a longer line length that makes blocks of text harder to read? What actual benefit are you gaining just by using every single pixel of the screen? 

As to the layout of the forum I'm pretty sure there arelots of things that can be continuously improved and the response to feedback has so far shown that the owner is willing to do so. Making a backwards step by making the text harder to read should not be one of them.


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## MikeG. (5 Feb 2018)

One of the issues is that information that used to be to the left of the text boxes, such as avatars, poster's name & location etc, is now above each text box. This means there is a lot of wasted vertical space. Given exactly the same length of text as is currently displayed, significantly more stuff could be put on the screen by returning all that information to the left. This would waste less space, allowing more posts per view, but without being any more difficult to read.

I'd also reiterate my (unanswered) point that converting text into links should be do-able with a couple of clicks and without doing any editing.


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## defsdoor (5 Feb 2018)

I haven't misquoted anything. I asked you a straightforward question - you are advocating that changing the current page margins to relative widths would be a mistake and quoting "industry standard design" as your argument. Whereas I never suggested implementing a specific margin size - just that the margins would be better if they were consistent with the page width (I set mine to 100% and it looks good - perhaps the site should use 90-95%). Make the container width a percentage and the page margins are proportionally identical whatever the page width - the blue to white ratio is consistent.

I have been doing web development for as long as there has been web and, specifically, responsive web sites since it was feasible across browsers. You cannot have a (nice) responsive site with a fixed inner content size simply for the reason Matt above states. On a browser with a window width of 3200 pixels you would be looking at a tiny bog roll of content in the middle of a sea of margin - which is currently what happens at specific sizes on this site.

Typically, on a truly responsive site, you'd rearrange and resize your content to suit the space available. On a forum though there isn't really much content - it's primarily a list - so the only real option to provide responsiveness is to resize the list (you can rejigg the content within the list and this site does). Resizing the list means that the content - which is just what people have posted - will change to fit.

This site currently resizes the content container at fixed breakpoints - so the content stays at a specific width until the next break point. Unfortunately at some breakpoints the min and max width are significantly large, which results in small margins, getting bigger and bigger until break point - back to small.
Set your page width to 1201 to see an example of small margins - 1200 is a break point. The next breakpoint is 1600 so there are 400pixels of margin at 1599 pixel page widths. Proportionally this is 25% margin to content whereas at 1201 pixels its about 30? each size - 5%.


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## defsdoor (5 Feb 2018)

Brandlin":1oj434wr said:


> Good luck in the job hunt!
> 
> Yes, line length matters in text for ease of readability. I don't understand what you think you are achieving by forcing a longer line length that makes blocks of text harder to read? What actual benefit are you gaining just by using every single pixel of the screen?



A proportional content size allows the user to choose the line length by simply resizing their window (admittedly hard on a tablet). I'd be in favour of choice every time.
I personally can scan a screen of text very quickly so I like to see as much of it as possible. It means I don't have to scroll so often and, when programming, for example, get a lot more done - my text window is 250+ characters wide and 100+ tall (split in to multiple panes). I hate bog roll sites where you have to scroll for what seems like forever to get to the point.



> Making a backwards step by making the text harder to read should not be one of them.



When you find someone that is suggesting they make the text harder to read - let them know. In the meantime why not suggest to the site admins that they change the container width to the 65 word per line "perfect measure". I think it would be completely unusable for a forum but hey - experts know best.


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## transatlantic (5 Feb 2018)

Lets be honest. The main idea behind most sites having to make the user scroll more is to increase the amount of ad space they have. I don't disagree that filling all space with text makes things difficult to read, but most websites over do it.


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## Brandlin (5 Feb 2018)

defsdoor":2pr7suoz said:


> I haven't misquoted anything. I asked you a straightforward question - you are advocating that changing the current page margins to relative widths would be a mistake and quoting "industry standard design" as your argument.
> <SNIP>



I said no such thing.

You sarcastically suggested that the comments i had made in an earlier post were "my humble opinion". I responded by saying that the points I had made were well known and researched points and form industry standard. At no point whatsoever did I suggest that the forum design IS industry standard. That is your misquote to further an argument.

In your last two posts you have expanded your comments to talk about relative widths, choice and scaleability. Your initial posts did not say that - you simply demonstrated screen shots with excessive margins compared to no margins. I responded to say that forcing full width use of the window for text makes it less readable and would be a mistake.

At no point have I suggested that the forum is in anyway ideal - if you read my musings post you'll see that I specifically stayed away from making a comment on whether it was good or not, to stay away from this kind of rant. Instead I attempted to discuss the choices and decisions that need to be made in design and why they are made. Partly to order my own thoughts partly because i had been reading a lot of complaints here from people who might not understand why certain changes have been made.

Now I happen to agree with a number of the comments you have made about flexibility, choice and particularly vertical screen space. But those comments were not what you made in the posts I responded to.

However as an IT professional who by your own admission ...


> I personally can scan a screen of text very quickly so I like to see as much of it as possible. It means I don't have to scroll so often and, when programming, for example, get a lot more done - my text window is 250+ characters wide and 100+ tall (split in to multiple panes). I hate bog roll sites where you have to scroll for what seems like forever to get to the point.


Congratulations on your exceptional visual acuity ... but this is not typical across the population nor is it I suggest typical of the membership of this forum. There is a huge difference between the layout of a screen required to code and one for readability of text. What you have expressed there is YOUR preference, not what is remotely accepted as good practice for readability of text for a cross section of the population.

I have worked in the past on triple screen systems with complex schematics, engineering drawings and multiple associated written documents running concurrently. There is no way on earth I would suggest that thats a suitable visual format for the casual browsing and readability that a predominantly hobby related website designed to encourage contributions and social interaction.


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## Brandlin (5 Feb 2018)

defsdoor":1bc1wjls said:


> In the meantime why not suggest to the site admins that they change the container width to the 65 word per line "perfect measure". I think it would be completely unusable for a forum but hey - experts know best.



'Perfect measure' is considered to be 65 characters per line, not words.


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## Noel (5 Feb 2018)

Brandlin and Defsdoor:

Wise up the pair of you, stop slagging each other, if you can't agree then learn to disagree.


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## pip1954 (7 Feb 2018)

Hi I don't see the point in I said he said but I have to agree this forum is hard to read and makes my eyes hurt when I read I only pop in now and again but it won't be my first choice anymore sorry
Pip


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## Glynne (7 Feb 2018)

Noel":adpjza9o said:


> Brandlin and Defsdoor:
> 
> Wise up the pair of you, stop slagging each other, if you can't agree then learn to disagree.



Probably just practicing so as they will be match fit for the next sharpening thread!


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## bugbear (7 Feb 2018)

Noel":2vnvg7pg said:


> Brandlin and Defsdoor:
> 
> Wise up the pair of you, stop slagging each other, if you can't agree then learn to disagree.


Actually, (unlike sharpening threads) they're not just slagging each other off, they're citing actual evidence and reasoning for their differing views.

This is an actual discussion, and view and facts are being exchanged.

I know this is unusual on this site. I rather like it.

BugBear


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## Noel (7 Feb 2018)

bugbear":225grwmp said:


> Noel":225grwmp said:
> 
> 
> > Brandlin and Defsdoor:
> ...



Fixed that for you. : )
And you are quite welcome to your opinion, however we can't have less than respectful dicussions, no matter how many _facts_ and _views_ are expressed.


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## Brandlin (7 Feb 2018)

Care to tell me what you think wasn't respectful?
You seem very willing to judge.
There was a simple debate going on.

Pretty sure the least respectful comment on this thread was this one ...


Noel":2ezdly1a said:


> Wise up the pair of you, stop slagging each other, if you can't agree then learn to disagree.


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## El Barto (7 Feb 2018)

Thanks again to the owner/admin for this free to use, helpful public website.


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## monkeybiter (8 Feb 2018)

Should another topic be added to the banned list along with politics and religion?


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## Noel (8 Feb 2018)

Brandlin":3i82nnp1 said:


> Care to tell me what you think wasn't respectful?
> You seem very willing to judge.
> There was a simple debate going on.
> 
> ...




Ignoring your judgement of me judging you : ), yep I'm very, very willing to judge.


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## memzey (8 Feb 2018)

I too am finding the new layout less comfortable to view and harder to use. As a result I’m visiting and posting less. It would be nice if the forum would allow users to select the skin of their preference as other fora I use do. Although I really enjoy the content of this (free to use) site, I’m finding visits to it more of a chore than a pleasure as it was before. 

Never mind. Perhaps I’ll get used to it or perhaps I’ll find another site to visit. I suppose it won’t make a jot of difference to anyone but me anyway!


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## NickN (8 Feb 2018)

On a constructive note:

Positives: since the initial launch of the new forum I'm pleased to see that the colours have been toned down and the text appears darker - it's now a lot easier on the eyes when reading. I've even got used to the wide right margin, and have reduced the left margin to zero using the CSS workaround. The frame around each post too is something that takes getting used to but I don't mind it now.

Negative: it appears that for certain shorter posts, because the User Info/Avatar is now above each post rather than to the side, a disproportionate amount of screen estate is taken up by the remainder of the very white User Info frame, which gives the impression that posts appear a long way apart and become disjointed rather than flowing nicely. The larger text exacerbates this problem. However I concede that on the previous layout, when a user had an avatar and made a short post, it also caused a lot of blank space to appear - I guess because the text was smaller it visually didn't look quite as bad.

EDIT: after posting the two screenshots together, it's obvious that space taken up is pretty similar, so it must just be the white background and larger text that gives the impression of more space, not sure to be honest!

The screenshots below illustrate this point.


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