# Someone has broken in! Things aren't the way I left them! (New forum layout)



## Woody Stover (Oct 17, 2015)

Well, well, what have we here??   It's gonna take me a while to check out the changes, but we were certainly long overdue for a new home page. I would have been a member years earlier if I had been net-savvy enough to find the forums on the old one. 
My initial impression is that I'll like the changes. I like the font, and having the thread title and last reply columns more centered on the page. I don't have time right now to look around much but the first thing I'm gonna do is get a different skin color. I guess the 'pumpkin-pie-filling' orange-brown fits with Halloween and Thanksgiving coming up, but....


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## DougA (Oct 17, 2015)

OMG. I woke up this morning and my best friend died ... well, changed to another skin color and format ... maybe got the flu ... what am I gonna do??


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## firefighterjake (Oct 17, 2015)

Not liking the change so far . . . harder for me to find new, unread posts. There may be a learning curve here.


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## claydogg84 (Oct 17, 2015)

I'm forced to use the mobile version on my phone. Don't like that for sure.


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## peakbagger (Oct 17, 2015)

what happened to "new posts"?


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## brenndatomu (Oct 17, 2015)

peakbagger said:


> what happened to "new posts"?


"recent activity" at the top


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## Babaganoosh (Oct 17, 2015)

I've never liked too bright and light backgrounds, it's not easy on the eyes and it kills mobile batteries quicker. The new setup looks very clinical and cold in my opinion where in  the older format seemed to have a degree of warmth to it if that makes any sense to anyone. Haven't yet messed with the features yet so can't comment.


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## Corey (Oct 17, 2015)

Ug.  I've never been a fan of the modern 'flat' look.  Not now and not in the 90's when it first came around.  Too bad to see Hearth fall, too.


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## drewmo (Oct 17, 2015)

I miss seeing where people are from under their avatar. Location is a good reference.


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## Woody Stover (Oct 17, 2015)

Great idea putting stove, chimney, fuel and installation info on the home page. The pre-fab info must be important; It's posted twice.  Images there aren't displaying for me, and the "more" links are giving me an error...


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## Redbarn (Oct 17, 2015)

drewmo said:


> I miss seeing where people are from under their avatar. Location is a good reference.


x 2


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## Warm_in_NH (Oct 17, 2015)

I'm just happy to see the management did something constructive with all that monthly membership fee money they've been collecting! 

Typical knee jerk reaction, change is bad, but like a fungus, I'm sure it'll grow on everyone.


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## jatoxico (Oct 17, 2015)

Be a mistake not to put that back.


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## jatoxico (Oct 17, 2015)

peakbagger said:


> what happened to "new posts"?


It's on the Home tab on the right


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## sequoia (Oct 17, 2015)

I love the new UI !
Very clean and modern. I would agree with the above comments. Please return locations of members in avatars.


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## Woody Stover (Oct 17, 2015)

Where is the "tree" at the top and bottom of the page so you can go back in one click to a refreshed thread list in the forum? Does it refresh when I hit the back button in Firefox?


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## Woody Stover (Oct 17, 2015)

I liked the quote "bubbles." What's the deal on this "XenPorta 2 Pro?" More of a mobile format?


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## jeff_t (Oct 17, 2015)

If there's anything you don't like, go to the bottom of the page, click on 'Hearth.com' and select 'default'. Should look a bit more familiar 

At least with my iPhone. Haven't been  on a computer yet today.


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## DougA (Oct 17, 2015)

I use this link and it gives me new posts only.
www.hearth.com/talk/find-new/52869015/posts


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## jeff_t (Oct 17, 2015)

There's a thread going already 

https://www.hearth.com/talk/threads...rent-the-way-i-left-them.147697/#post-1986881


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## brenndatomu (Oct 17, 2015)

jeff_t said:


> If there's anything you don't like, go to the bottom of the page, click on 'Hearth.com' and select 'default'. Should look a bit more familiar


Much better, thanks!


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## jharkin (Oct 17, 2015)

brenndatomu said:


> Much better, thanks!


+1. I didn't like the new look either.


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## BrotherBart (Oct 17, 2015)

jeff_t said:


> If there's anything you don't like, go to the bottom of the page, click on 'Hearth.com' and select 'default'. Should look a bit more familiar



The little symbol next to that toggles the page width of the new format which gives it a lot of the old look also.


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## Seanm (Oct 17, 2015)

jharkin said:


> 1. I didn't like the new look either.


Yup the default is much better!


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## Grateful11 (Oct 17, 2015)

Wow! Big change. Thought I had been taken to the wrong site for a second.

I've switched back and forth between Default and Hearth.com and I'm not sure which one I like better. The new font is a bit blocky and bold but easier to read on my tired old eye but I like the overall looks of the older format. If I stick with the new I'm sure in a week or two I won't think anything about it.


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## Dairyman (Oct 17, 2015)

Is there a way to change recent activity to new post in the nav bar?


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## Woody Stover (Oct 17, 2015)

jeff_t said:


> If there's anything you don't like, go to the bottom of the page, click on 'Hearth.com' and select 'default'. Should look a bit more familiar





brenndatomu said:


> Much better, thanks!


I like the new style where it's more in the center. Old style, it was work to go all the way across the page from the thread title to see how many views, last poster etc. 
I used the buttons at the bottom of the page, but then couldn't switch back when I went into my preferences. Had to close the tab and open a new one. 
Is the site slower or is that just my imagination? Speedtest shows my normal 15 Mbps...


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## dougstove (Oct 17, 2015)

The new interface is unusably slow for me (FireFox 41.0.2, AdBlockPlus, MacBook Air 2015, high speed cable internet).
Too bad, I really liked the discussions, but I will not be participating when each discussion thread takes many seconds to load.
bye for now,
Doug


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## saskwoodburner (Oct 17, 2015)

I don't really care for the new look, but then again, no one asked me. It runs slower as well.

 I liked the member location, as it could help (potentially) formulate a response. A guy having problems with draft in the dead of winter in Georgia or Texas, might be different than the same guy up here in Canada at the same time, being a big temp difference.

 Or, a member looking for duravent pipe, and I saw some on sale at Peavey Mart or Canadian Tire. Do they have those in the USA?


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## RSNovi (Oct 17, 2015)

One reason why I like the Tapatalk app.  Still all same as it ever was.


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## Husky (Oct 17, 2015)

I


dougstove said:


> The new interface is unusably slow for me (FireFox 41.0.2, AdBlockPlus, MacBook Air 2015, high speed cable internet).
> Too bad, I really liked the discussions, but I will not be participating when each discussion thread takes many seconds to load.
> bye for now,
> Doug


I agree. They need to figure out how to make it run faster. This is not an upgrade. I would prefer older look with faster speed.


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## begreen (Oct 17, 2015)

Babaganoosh said:


> I've never liked too bright and light backgrounds, it's not easy on the eyes and it kills mobile batteries quicker. The new setup looks very clinical and cold in my opinion where in  the older format seemed to have a degree of warmth to it if that makes any sense to anyone. Haven't yet messed with the features yet so can't comment.



When we switched to xenforo I advocated for the tinted background to keep white space down. It is fatiguing and hard on the eyes. Fortunately you can go back to the default old look, but I would like the new format with it's larger font to also have no white spaces. Regardless, it's great to have the option to choose what works best.


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## begreen (Oct 17, 2015)

Husky said:


> I agree. They need to figure out how to make it run faster. This is not an upgrade. I would prefer older look with faster speed.


Speed is server related, not based on the look. That is being worked on.


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## Warm_in_NH (Oct 17, 2015)

Agree w the speed issue. Painfully slow on a mobile device.

I'm sure the bugs will get worked out, no reason to believe otherwise.


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## BrotherBart (Oct 17, 2015)

Can't get it to work on my phone. Well, nothing else does either.


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## jharkin (Oct 17, 2015)

Im having the same problem as Doug - unusably slow even after switching to default.  It literally takes minutes to load each page.

This occurs both in Firefox on my desktop and Chrome on my tablet.  I have 50mb/50mb  fiber internet and the site used to load in a fraction of a second just yesterday.


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## jatoxico (Oct 17, 2015)

Dairyman said:


> Is there a way to change recent activity to new post in the nav bar?


There's a new post if you hover the Home or Forum drop downs.

Put people's location back and put the "top" of the page function on permanently. Right now I have to start to go up before it appears then go over and use it.


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## jatoxico (Oct 17, 2015)

jharkin said:


> Im having the same problem as Doug - unusably slow even after switching to default.  It literally takes minutes to load each page.
> 
> This occurs both in Firefox on my desktop and Chrome on my tablet.  I have 50mb/50mb  fiber internet and the site used to load in a fraction of a second just yesterday.


It is slow, even hovering for alerts takes a long time.


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## Dairyman (Oct 17, 2015)

jatoxico said:


> There's a new post if you hover the Home or Forum drop downs.
> 
> Put people's location back and put the "top" of the page function on permanently. Right now I have to start to go up before it appears then go over and use it.



How do I do that on a phone?


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## klxrelic (Oct 17, 2015)

Well...I am new here, but I prefer the old look. 

Miss the location info under avatar... definitely bring that back..

then again, I am new, so no one will listen to me anyways....come to think of it, even if I werent new, no one would probably listen to me either!hahaha


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## hossthehermit (Oct 17, 2015)




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## jatoxico (Oct 17, 2015)

Dairyman said:


> How do I do that on a phone?



Oh, don't know. Took me a little while to find it on my PC. Can you click the Home button? Haven't tried using the phone yet.


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## Fake coal burner (Oct 17, 2015)

Yes location in avatar. One other question the new format seems a lot slower to load pages. Any body else have slow loading?


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## DougA (Oct 17, 2015)

Both old & new are a bit slower now than normal - a few seconds for me, compared to instant. Maybe so much traffic.


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## brad wilton (Oct 17, 2015)

Ya have to agree about location id ,helps alot nobody likes change we'll get used to it i suppose ,by the way my fingers have problem with size of font bar


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## firefighterjake (Oct 17, 2015)

Getting a little more used to things here . . . miss the locations . . . definitely seems to load slower . . . also miss the fact that with the new set up I am now seeing all posts as unread vs. with the old format I only saw the new posts.


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## Woody Stover (Oct 17, 2015)

BrotherBart said:


> Can't get it to work on my phone. Well, nothing else does either.


Here's my backup phone._.._rockin' it old-school!  My main one is a "feature phone"....at least it has a keyboard. Got a lot of minutes on the Nokia...might have to get a cheap smartie.


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## saskwoodburner (Oct 17, 2015)

Fake coal burner said:


> Yes location in avatar. One other question the new format seems a lot slower to load pages. Any body else have slow loading?



Yes to both.


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## Bioburner (Oct 17, 2015)

Way slower, and it just triple posted and gave me grief when I tried to delete


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## jatoxico (Oct 17, 2015)

Too slow, unusable right now.


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## DougA (Oct 17, 2015)

Tried to get on earlier this evening and gave up - too long to load. At 11:15 EST, it loaded fine. Not sure why this would happen, just posting in case it might help.


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## jharkin (Oct 18, 2015)

Speed is a little better.

Along with location, post count and join date are gone.


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## webfish (Oct 18, 2015)

peakbagger said:


> what happened to "new posts"?




Still there , when floating on forums it is at bottom.


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## Warm_in_NH (Oct 18, 2015)

Speed is much better. Well done.


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## webfish (Oct 18, 2015)

Woody Stover said:


> I liked the quote "bubbles."




Just highlight the text a hit reply when it appears, works same as quote but now built in to software versus maintaining an add-on.


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## Warm_in_NH (Oct 18, 2015)

webfish said:


> Just highlight the text a hit reply when it appears



Finally works on a mobile too!  Nice.


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## webfish (Oct 18, 2015)

Warm_in_NH said:


> Speed is much better. Well done.



Don't think out of woods yet. Host still monitoring. Still some server issues and will slow as more activity but working on it.


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## firefighterjake (Oct 18, 2015)

Speed seems to be better . . . noticed that now in addition to the location the join date and post count are gone. Truthfully, I like these things -- location helps when someone in a particular area is trying to identify a tree species in that area (I have no idea of what types of trees grow in California for example, but I'm pretty good at trees in New England) . . . join date is nice so folks can see if a person posting a comment has been around for a while and as a consequence may know a thing or two about woodstoves and burning wood . . . post count is . . . well . . . I guess that's a guilty pleasure . . . showing one just how much time they "waste" away here on the internet when they could be out cutting or splitting wood. 

I still wish there had been a way to only show threads with new posts when making the revision . . . i.e. I had actually viewed most every thread in the areas that interested me (i.e. Woodshed, Hearth, DIY, Gear, etc.) so that every time I logged on fresh I could easily tell if that section had new posts.


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## vinny11950 (Oct 18, 2015)

First post in the new format!  Yay.

Getting used to it.  Logged in last night and didn't like it much (thought Microsoft had redesigned it!).  But this morning I am liking it better - guess I am getting used to it.  I think it was the same with the last update a few years ago.

Thank you to Webfish and the staff for keeping this place running.


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## webfish (Oct 18, 2015)

firefighterjake said:


> noticed that now in addition to the location the join date and post count are gone. Truthfully, I like these things -- location helps when someone in a particular area is trying to identify a tree species in that area (I have no idea of what types of trees grow in California for example, but I'm pretty good at trees in New England) .



Got it. ( 12 times)  It will be back. Might take a day or two as other issues are more pressing.


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## jatoxico (Oct 18, 2015)

Webfish, so uhh, can you put the location back?

Would be nice if the top/bottom scroll was on at all times. Only appears after you use some other scroll function, then have to mouse over before it disappears.


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## webfish (Oct 18, 2015)

Location is back.


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## jatoxico (Oct 18, 2015)

Great! Speed is much better today too and hasn't really been an issue.


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## jharkin (Oct 18, 2015)

Speed was a lot better this morning... slower now with Sunday night traffic, but not as bad as it was.

Another thing I noticed is that it doesn't seem to remember my login between browser sessions even when "stay log in" is selected.


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## pen (Oct 18, 2015)

jharkin said:


> Speed was a lot better this morning... slower now with Sunday night traffic, but not as bad as it was.
> 
> Another thing I noticed is that it doesn't seem to remember my login between browser sessions even when "stay log in" is selected.



I've had that issue for years when using firefox.  Not a problem on chrome.  For some reason, the browser decided to fulfill my wishes and actually remember me this summer...... No clue why, but it did.... Now it's not again.

On a different computer, where I use the same version of firefox, I don't have this issue.  I swore I had the configurations for firefox the same on both, but I guess not.

In all, it's a problem that seems to happen to some and not others and not related to this move in particular.  

pen


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## BrotherBart (Oct 18, 2015)

With the change of software and server I would try clearing the browser cache and cookies and then logging back in. The forum software has to plant a cookie on your browser to enable staying logged in. And the one there now is probably from the old software version. Just an educated guess.


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## Jan Pijpelink (Oct 18, 2015)

Bart, you are sooooo smart. I tried that.
Last night after the upgrade, the site was extremely slow.
This morning in NJ between 6 and 9 AM lightning fast, great.
I am in Houston now (no wood stoves here) and again slower than my 85 year old mother can wall paper her house from her wheelchair.


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## DougA (Oct 18, 2015)

Ya, it remembered me a few times this morning, then forgot who I was tonight.  Can't say that I blame the software, I prefer to be forgettable.  I think it will take a week for everything to settle in and most of us can't remember for more than a few days.  Just sayin ....


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## Jan Pijpelink (Oct 19, 2015)

Well, things got better this morning. The response of the site is excellent again. Pages open very fast. Great !!
Also nice to see is that the locations under the avatar are back.


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## Woody Stover (Oct 19, 2015)

I see that the 'path' is now at the top of the page. I found one at the bottom useful; When I got to the end of a thread, I could just hit the forum name and get a refreshed topic page. As it is, I have to either go back to the top of the page to get to the path, or right-click, hit 'back,' then reload the page.


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## Woody Stover (Oct 19, 2015)

It's now really easy to see which threads have posts I haven't read yet. Speed is back. Liking the changes better all the time. 
Kudos to webfish on a job well done. 
But dammit, where is my straight smirk smiley? Can I take the smirk with shades into Paint, erase the shades, and draw in eyes?


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## Jan Pijpelink (Oct 19, 2015)

Woody Stover said:


> It's now really easy to see which threads have posts I haven't read yet. Speed is back. Liking the changes better all the time.
> Kudos to webfish on a job well done.
> But dammit, where is my straight smirk smiley? Can I take the smirk with the shades into Paint, erase the shades, and draw in eyes?


You've got too much free time on your hands.


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## pen (Oct 19, 2015)

It's good to see some nit-picking.... Means the big stuff is working!

I'm no IT guy, but in my own terms I see where we are at now (now that the big job is complete) as being similar to getting a new computer or phone..... Yea, it's supposed to do what the old one did, but takes some time to get it there and then also make use of the new abilities. 

In the long run, just remember this sort of thing isn't done on a whim, and is for the longevity and safety of this resource.


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## Woody Stover (Oct 20, 2015)

Jan Pijpelink said:


> You've got too much free time on your hands.


I really don't. There are plenty of other things around here that could use my attention, but I'm really fond of loafing on the computer. Is that so wrong?


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## Grisu (Oct 20, 2015)

webfish said:


> Got it. ( 12 times)  It will be back. Might take a day or two as other issues are more pressing.



What a gutsy call doing the change right before heating season. Good that fish don't sweat. 

Kudos for getting everything going so quickly again. That must have been a hell of a weekend.


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## maple1 (Oct 20, 2015)

What happened to the style choices? I'm back at the 'new' one - which works like crap on my XP machine. I'm not likely the only one still using XP. I hope this is temporary...


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## jharkin (Oct 20, 2015)

With the new format I find that on my Android tablet it forces me into the mobile view even if I have the "show desktop site" option enabled in Chrome.  Is there something set server side overriding this preference?

With a big tablet I prefer the regular view to the phone optimized mobile look.


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## webfish (Oct 20, 2015)

jharkin said:


> With the new format I find that on my Android tablet it forces me into the mobile view even if I have the "show desktop site" option enabled in Chrome.  Is there something set server side overriding this preference?
> 
> With a big tablet I prefer the regular view to the phone optimized mobile look.


I will check.


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## jharkin (Oct 20, 2015)

Thanks fish!


Another thought on navigation. I think this was an issue on the old site as well. When you go to the top of the forum list at first the navigation breadcrumb looks like:

*[home icon] > Forums*

Then if you go to a sub forum, say the inglenook, you will get this navigation breadcrumb:

*[home icon] > Non-Hearth Forums > The Inglenook*

What happens its showing the category in place of the top level forum link.  Now if you want to go back to the full forum list you have to click home and then navigate back down to the forums. It would help the navigation to have the breadcrumbs render the full path like so: 

*[home icon] >Forums > {category} > {forum name}*


Sorry to nitpick, software quality is my profession


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## maple1 (Oct 20, 2015)

Ahh, back to sanity - lol....


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## webfish (Oct 20, 2015)

maple1 said:


> What happened to the style choices? I'm back at the 'new' one - which works like crap on my XP machine. I'm not likely the only one still using XP. I hope this is temporary...



Was renaming it to Old Hearth. You can change by going into your profile page and change preferences. There may be some  functionality issues on the old style.


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## maple1 (Oct 20, 2015)

I'm not sure why but I was having lots of functionality issues with the new style on this XP machine. I got errors when clicking on the little notice bell thing, and the notification button. Didn't see a forum jump bar, and there was a couple of pages at the top of menu item type stuff that I had to scroll past every time to get to the actual forum page. And the pages loaded a lot slower.

But as long as I can view old style I'm good - so far. I suspect there are lots of bugs to work out yet anyway - maybe I'll try the new style again after some time goes by. Good luck.


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## webfish (Oct 20, 2015)

maple1 said:


> I'm not sure why but I was having lots of functionality issues with the new style on this XP machine. I got errors when clicking on the little notice bell thing, and the notification button. Didn't see a forum jump bar, and there was a couple of pages at the top of menu item type stuff that I had to scroll past every time to get to the actual forum page. And the pages loaded a lot slower.
> 
> But as long as I can view old style I'm good - so far. I suspect there are lots of bugs to work out yet anyway - maybe I'll try the new style again after some time goes by. Good luck.



Are you on IE8? Any specifics and screen shots would be helpful. It was tested on XP IE 8. If issues were Before Sunday , then please try again.


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## Michael6268 (Oct 20, 2015)

I switched back to old style forum.

I am happy now!


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## pen (Oct 20, 2015)

I have to chuckle, as I remember how much some folks hated the "old style" when it came out as new,,,, and now it is coveted  

In all, I'm going to stick with whatever the new style is as doing so and providing constructive criticism will be part of making the next version of what this place will be.  Even though we can choose the old style for now, I do not believe that option will remain available forever.  

pen


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## webfish (Oct 26, 2015)

jharkin said:


> With the new format I find that on my Android tablet it forces me into the mobile view even if I have the "show desktop site" option enabled in Chrome.  Is there something set server side overriding this preference?
> 
> With a big tablet I prefer the regular view to the phone optimized mobile look.



Here is answer on responsive design. The show as desktop  setting doesn't work for responsive sites. That feature is if you have a mobile site separate to your desktop site, which most sites do not have. Why chrome has that in boggles many people, you can read about it here:

http://www.webmonkey.com/2013/01/turning-off-responsive-design/


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## Jafo (Oct 26, 2015)

Love the new look.  So much better than before!


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## Woody Stover (Nov 2, 2015)

Woody Stover said:


> I see that the 'path' is now at the top of the page. I found one at the bottom useful; When I got to the end of a thread, I could just hit the forum name and get a refreshed topic page. As it is, I have to either go back to the top of the page to get to the path, or right-click, hit 'back,' then reload the page.


Now I can use the up arrows that pop up in the lower right of the screen to get back to the top, then click the forum name in the path to get a refreshed topic page. A path at the bottom of the page, in addition to the one at the top, would be nice, but this isn't too bad...


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## Woody Stover (Nov 2, 2015)

jharkin said:


> Now if you want to go back to the full forum list you have to click home and then navigate back down to the forums.


I've just been clicking the 'forums' button at the top of the page.


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## Corey (Nov 5, 2015)

Anyway to get more white space and even less definition between posts? [sarcasm]  But this is one of the 'features' I really dislike with the new 'flat' style.  Here is an (admittedly extreme) case, but they are all over the place...an entire full screen view with literally two lines of content and I'll bet it takes a few seconds just to figure out how many posts you're actually looking at.


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## webfish (Nov 5, 2015)

Same post with the new default theme.


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## Corey (Nov 7, 2015)

Thanks for the tip.  That does solve the 'post definition' issue...but then you get wonky colors, goofy round photos and still only a couple lines of 'substance' on every page in some cases.  Plus, then I have the eerie feeling I've killed and buried a friend I've known for the past...oh...10-ish years or so.


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