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New site look and software upgrade Feedback Thread

21K views 246 replies 68 participants last post by  Administrator 
#1 ·
Hello Everyone,

We're proud to announce that the new site look and feel has been completed for GoldenRetrieverForum.com! Our designers and software engineers have been hard at work on this for several months. It's designed to modernize the site, make it easier to use, and to make it more attractive to new members and guests that visit .

The forum software we use, vBulletin, by default is not designed to be friendly to the eyes or to look modern. We went down to the nuts and bolts of the forum software and templates, and have done a ground up approach. There are several things you will notice now that the new design is live.

1) The site should be significantly faster.

We have applied every modern technique to speed up page load and tested with all modern browsers. We want the forum to be extremely fast and easy to use.

2) The site will work much better in mobile and tablet views

We've started applying responsive design, and have designed and tested against android and iPhone devices, Android tablets, and iPads. If you are sitting at your desk or on your couch, or just on your phone, the site will work much better than it did before, and load fast. We are still working on improving the experience even further in the months to come, but we wanted to launch this as quickly as we could.

3) The homepage is bright, crisp and clean.

We wanted the first page users saw to look beautiful, so that when a new guest arrives and is debating whether to join GoldenRetrieverForum.com, they see a beautiful doorway, and they walk right in.

As a forum member you can choose to use the new design (which is on by default) or you can go back to the old design. We ask that you give it a chance and see if you like it. Like anything new, it will be unfamiliar at first, but we suspect that the speed difference will make you want to use this new one. If you do decide to switch back, the link is at the bottom left of each forum page, you pull down and select the theme called "GoldenRetrieverForum.com Classic".

4) Users will be able to register with Facebook

5) The side bar can be hidden in your user options.

Click on my profile / user cp at the top right.

- click on edit your details on the left.
- Look for Show Sidebar on Forum Pages under Additional Information.
- Click disable and save.

6) Another new great feature is the @Mention user plugin. You can tag members by simply using the @ symbol.

7) Drag and Drop image uploader

We hope you enjoy it, and if you have any questions on the design, please let us know, feedback is appreciated.

If there are any issues you see. Post them up here and we will get them worked out.

Thanks,
-Your GoldenRetrieverForum.com Team.
 
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#8 ·
Horrible. Love the banner though.

I think the update will bury the vast knowledge of old timers for sure.

The ability to choose the skin of 2.0 or 2.1 or the original glow in the dark yellow etc gives us no choice currently although you said so and therefore makes it intolerable to me personally.

Sure I'm old and do not like change and can roll with things. But this is a blasphemy like buying Ikea furniture.

I'm surprised Verticalscope cares about my opinion but there it is.
 
#38 ·
@GoldenCamper

We left a classic view to revert to for people who prefer the old view, unfortunately, we could not leave them all.

I know change is hard to deal with but feel free to ask any questions and I will be more than happy to help.

**NOTE: many questions have already been answered in this thread that you can review also.

Jeff M
 
#15 ·
hate it, sorry to say.
 
#17 ·
Well, I opened it earlier and thought "what the heck, I'm lost already"! Then I looked around and thought I just need to get used to this. But what I really miss the most is the "old" home page that listed the recent posts at the top which to me was a snapshot or summary of recent posts, then with forums directly below. I don't go into every forum so seeing the recent posts first thing when you come on would get me to take a look at posts I might not ordinarily read. It's still goldens and an excellent resource.
 
#33 ·
#19 ·
Hello Everyone,

5) The side bar can be hidden in your user options.

Click on my profile / user cp at the top right.

- click on edit your details on the left.
- Look for Show Sidebar on Forum Pages under Additional Information.
- Click disable and save.


-Your GoldenRetrieverForum.com Team.
No. Doesn't work. Go into CP and disable/save it only works on "some" pages. If you go in to the CP Paid Subscriptions only the $25 and $50 subscriptions disables the sidebar.
 
#20 ·
Thanks for working on the site. Change is always hard with a new look.

I noticed that the Active Topics is kind of like the old top threads.

One thing you might consider is to include the search box on the page with the search results.

If you search on some topic and then find that the answers are not quite what you want you need to go back to a main area to be able to search again.

Love the new golden pictures... and of course the red goldie in the top left :)

Karen
 
#30 ·
#25 ·
I don't know if I like the new format.... it's not TERRIBLE and I did find a way around some things....

It seems to be a lot of clicketty click "make busy" work right now.

Also - is it just me or is the main screen really seem blown up? Like I did a ctrl-0 just because text and everything it was kinda yelling at me. :)

Also - I dislike the side panel.

It's all kinda crowded and noisy.
 
#27 ·
@Megora

Please stay logged to see less ads. There is a way to revert tot he old view or you can disable the sidebar, see first post.

You can also use Control (-) and (+) to increase or decrease the size.

I don't care for it either. Seems cluttered and I don't like having to pick a forum. I preferred being able to see it all at once. Also it seems as if there are a lot more ads.
@G-bear

You can view the full forum index by double clicking the "Forums" button on the top Nav bar to get to this link:
http://www.goldenretrieverforum.com/forum.php

Jeff M
 
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