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  • #2173483

    TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

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    by jasonhiner ·

    Alright, so we’ve launched the new version of TechRepublic and we’re very pretty excited about. See:
    http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/hiner/techrepublics-2011-upgrade-simpler-and-lot-more-social/7473

    On the other hand, we know that we’ve moved your cheese (see http://bit.ly/moved-my-cheese) and we realize that many of you who come here everyday are going to take a while to get used to the new layout.

    However, we’d like your constructive feedback, and your help in running down bugs and alerting us to things we’ve inadvertently (or purposefully) changed that could have unintended consequences. Please post your feedback, bugs, errors, (and even applause) in this thread. If someone posts something that you agree with or were going to post then use the “+” voting button to vote it up. If someone posts something you disagree with then use the “-” voting button to vote it down.

    Thanks in advance for helping us make the site better. We always appreciate your time and input.

All Comments

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    Replies
    • #2850052

      Change your avatar

      by santeewelding ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      To a smiley face.

      Might deflect the shilt that is sure to come.

      Myself, I think you and your people done good.

    • #2850051

      50/50

      by oz_media ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      As usual, TR uses a pleasing colour scheme, though a bit bland on a notebook without colour matching. Navigation is more complicated and will simply perpetuate the ongoing issue with people not finding their chosen content or posting in the wrong places.

      NOTE: When you edit a comment, all previous formatting is lost and you have to space paragraphs all over again.

      I’ve come to expect that though, no matter how many changes have been made and how many times TR asked for feedback to find out people want it simplied, it continues to look too busy and takes what would be very simple navigation and turn it into a confusing mess of links (techs, you can’t live with ’em and you can’t teach them what KISS means).

      Oh hey, I just realised that, under a group of unrelated sidebars all offering links or ads, there is still a short Hot Discussions list (well a bunch of big blue bars with links anyway), hang on, it was on another page too, in a different place though.

      Sorry but you guys could have done WAAAAAAAAAY better.

      I know it takes a while to get comfortable with changes but this is just bad navigation gone worse. There’s no logical layout, it changes depending on what page you are on, ads and galleries are mixed with links.

      The right side bar is just a mix of rubbish with no logical layout at all. The last layout was the best yet, after many changes, but this is just good potential made to look like a mess.

      • #2848799

        Ditto on the paragraph formatting.

        by charliespencer ·

        In reply to 50/50

        I’m using FF 3.6, if that makes any difference.

    • #2850050

      Can you believe it????

      by oz_media ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Holy crap! Not only is my avatar missing, now I have to open a new account with another picture host. I only assume TR gets paid for image loads or something. So I grudgingly open an account with another hokey online host, pull my avatar from my current picture hosty, upload it and guess what? IT’S A DIFFERENT SIZE AVATAR NOW! So now I have to open in Fireworks, resize, trim redraw, all of my avatars (about 8 for the year) because, for some unknown reason, TR changed sizing and forces using their chosen avatar host. Thanks again fella’s! Oh hey, look at THAT, ANOTHER mess of links in a big blue bar at the bottom of the page, NIIIIICE layout guys, didi everyone design a panel at home and then they were all just thrown onto a page with no rhyme or reason? ICK! Of course, you have to scroll by a hideously balanced left white space with bar after bar of links on one side, in order to get to it though.

      Why do people do this when simple site changes to an existing format offer a vast improvements without redesigning the whole page and then reworking a ghastly layout for a year until it becomes sorta usable again. To think that with the money and resources C-Net has, this is the best they can come up with, a website that works like it was designed by n00bs on crack.

      I’ve seen some sketchy changes here over the years, this has got to be just an early April fools days joke though.

      • #2850043

        Get real

        by jasonhiner ·

        In reply to Can you believe it????

        You’re suggesting we get paid for image loads? Please. You’re a lot smarter than that. (But, then again, I did get a good laugh out of it.)

        • #2850028

          So, it’s just a user inconvenience then?

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to Get real

          I thought there had to be some motivation to have a single chocie for user image storage.

        • #2849952

          How is it inconvenient?

          by jasonhiner ·

          In reply to So, it’s just a user inconvenience then?

          All you need is an email address and an image, plus then you can not only use it on our site but others as well.

          From our perspective, we get a service that scales images well and keeps up with the latest security and decency filtering in images.

          Win-win from our perspective.

        • #2849942

          From your perspective isn’t everyone’s perspective

          by justin james ·

          In reply to How is it inconvenient?

          Jason –

          Gravatar should be an option, not a mandatory. Not everyone wants to set up a Gravatar account. I know I didn’t want to. It’s like the sites that use stupid OpenID for authentication… I now have a WordPress account that I’ll never use, just so I can post questions to StackOverflow. It supposedly cuts the clutter for users, but for folks who only need it for one site, it increases the clutter.

          The better approach would be to push Gravatar, but have a fallback option using the old system.

          J.Ja

        • #2849904

          Sigh

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to From your perspective isn’t everyone’s perspective

          I sighed when I realized I was forced to jopin another site, that offers free image storage for an email address, certainly an invitation to a flood of spam and junk mail from their ‘affiliates’ (anyone who wants to buy the addresses from them.

          The main PO for me was the change in sizing though.

        • #2848829

          I’ll be one of the blank avatars

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to From your perspective isn’t everyone’s perspective

          I thought TR might be offering a new library of avatar images but nope.. the profile link lead me to the Gravatar site. It would be nice if TR offered a short list of directly hosted icons. With only two of many websites asking me to join Gravatar; I’ll be remaining a blank avatar likely.

        • #2848797

          At last, someone acknowledges the option.

          by charliespencer ·

          In reply to I’ll be one of the blank avatars

          It’s not like an avatar is a requirement. If one doesn’t want to use avatar, the default silhouette is always an option.

          I’d still like to see the TR flag as the default instead.

        • #2848761

          It was always heavily encouraged though

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to I’ll be one of the blank avatars

          TR used to encourage it. they did a points and (reward?) system once to get people to complete profiles and upload an avatar. I know people’s avatar’s as I would recognize faces in the real world. TR once wanted to encourage use of avatars and completing profiles (as many good sites force you to do before posting) as it cuts down on spammers. People won’t post spam links and run if it is a more involved registration process, thus you build a better community with fewer ‘post and runs’.

          Now you have a choice, register with a new host, upload and reformat an avatar, welcoming more junk mail and spam, or don’t have an avatar. If the latter, why have them at all ,if they are all going to be blank avatars then there’s simply no point at all in using them to begin with, just list by user name.

        • #2848605

          Same here

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to I’ll be one of the blank avatars

          I’m not interested in signing up for another site. Especially since I can’t just use a garbage email address, (or can I?)

        • #2847085

          Me too

          by jackofalltech ·

          In reply to I’ll be one of the blank avatars

          What could possibly be so hard about just letting us upload a small pic directly from our own PCs? FB does it and so do any number of other, smaller sites.

        • #2848604

          I’m with you

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to From your perspective isn’t everyone’s perspective

          I set up an account and I *might* find a value in it at some time in the future, but I would have liked to take my time thinking it through.

          There are sites that I use that I don’t care to use a picture of me, others where I use a specific avatar for specific reasons, still others that I would prefer a more professional appearing pic. In my experience, one size rarely fits all.

        • #2848567

          You actually can do that with Gravatar

          by justin james ·

          In reply to I’m with you

          Gravatar allows you to use a different picture on a per-site basis. It’s a good system, and I like it, but it’s not for everyone and it’s not a good thing that TR forces you to use it if you want to use a picture.

          J.Ja

        • #2849482

          @Justin – Per site?

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to I’m with you

          I know they allow per email address, but I didn’t see anything about per site.

        • #2849467

          @Nick – Yup, per site

          by justin james ·

          In reply to I’m with you

          NT

          J.Ja

        • #2849258

          Yikes!

          by ansugisalas ·

          In reply to I’m with you

          I just now went and checked a webcomic I’ve been folllowing, and the comments I wrote in the feedback section… and now they have this gravatar next to them!!
          And it’s not like I’ve posted there through a login or anything, I just provided my email address in the comment form as required! :0
          Talk about nebulous…

        • #2849231

          Hmmm.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to I’m with you

          On that, and another note, I may stay blank.

        • #2849834

          On the other hand…

          by ansugisalas ·

          In reply to I’m with you

          Yahoo provides throwaway email addresses, so I guess you could put one of those up for gravatar. It’ll still be accessable through yahoo, but it’s hopefully insulated…

        • #2849905

          For people who have other, preferred image storage sites

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to How is it inconvenient?

          Such as Windows Live, Picturetrail etc. you now have to download, reformat, upload images to a new server that you have to sign up for and await a flood of spam and junk mail from. It would have been somewhat palletable if the image size remained the same though. Lose lose from a users perspective.

          If the average new visitor has an attention span of 12 seconds to find what they want, this is dead in the water before the champagne bottle breaks on the bow. Some lifers will take time to muddle through the birds nest of links and panels, but it is not at all inviting for new visitors.

        • #2848746
          Avatar photo

          RE: How is it inconvenient?

          by hal 9000 ·

          In reply to How is it inconvenient?

          Well Jason for starters the sizes are different which requires you to resize or do without.

          Then there is the slight issue of needing to join yet another site and spread what where previously Secure E Mail Address about. In the Past I was sure that TR wouldn’t be sharing my E Mail Address with anyone and they where the only ones to get most of those which can not be dumped at a moments notice.

          Now there is a site Gravatar who has 2 of my E Mail Addresses that would be inconvenient to loose though not [b]Earth Shattering[/b] it would certainly be Inconvenient. The remainder they will never see and any Accounts that are already open or may be opened in the future will remain Blank.

          Currently I’m not overly happy with the need to join yet another site just so I can post at TR with the same features that where in place previously. Maybe I’ll get used to the FB Look of things but currently at the moment I’m debating weather or not to continue using TR as it’s become inconvenient, hard to know where posts will end up particularly in Q&A Threads, Not Possible to Subscribe to Questions/Discussions without adding a post and seriously looks way too much like Face Book which I refuse to use. 😉

          I’ve also just seen that the Contact TR Link that used to be on every page is no longer there nor is there a link to report Spam Posts so I’m assuming that this was just an oversight that will get changed when it gets brought to your attention. :0

          Col

        • #2848736

          Looks like the spam button is still there

          by michael jay ·

          In reply to RE: How is it inconvenient?

          it is now called flag, and it gives you several options as to how to report the post, cool, I like it.

        • #2848691

          Reporting spam posts

          by justin james ·

          In reply to RE: How is it inconvenient?

          It’s still there… at the bottom of the post is a link that says “Flag”.

          J.Ja

        • #2848706

          Gravatar’s privacy policy

          by jasonhiner ·

          In reply to How is it inconvenient?

          Here’s the link to Gravatar’s privacy policy:
          http://en.gravatar.com/site/privacy

          In short, they promise to “never rent, sell, or otherwise distribute or make public your email address.” We wouldn’t have used them unless they had such an unequivocal policy.

        • #2848688

          Policies can be changed at any time…

          by justin james ·

          In reply to Gravatar’s privacy policy

          … just ask Google.

          Sorry, but there’s no defense on this one. Gravatar should be *an* option, not *the* option. Personally, I don’t mind Gravatar, but I’m standing up for the folks who have every right to not want to use it. Just let people host elsewhere, and offer defaults icons for folks as well.

          J.Ja

        • #2848561

          meaningless

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Gravatar’s privacy policy

          I bet that policy doesn’t apply to governments, for instance.

        • #2849818

          XKCD answered this as well

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to Gravatar’s privacy policy

          Have a look.
          http://xkcd.com/792/
          This is exactly why I sign up for as few services as possible.

        • #2848559

          multiple accounts

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to How is it inconvenient?

          This is now my third or fourth Gravatar account, thanks to the fact I don’t use the same email address everywhere for purposes of keeping things separated.

        • #2849226

          Oy vey.

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to multiple accounts

          I am hoping that I can at least choose avatars per-site from the same email address as Justin mentions.

          I am still really not happy with TR pulling the avatar from my existing Gravatar account automatically. A note that an existing Gravatar was detected and an offer to use it would have been just fine, if automated social connectivity was what they were shooting for. But the current behavior is just wrong.

        • #2848521

          So the pioneer spirit is quashed with your site?

          by rmerchberger ·

          In reply to How is it inconvenient?

          I never took the time to set up an avatar before, but I was considering it… until now.

          Why should I fork over my email address(es) and to some extent my online identity, wade through a bunch of incomprehensible legaleze which becomes null & void when someone buys out gravatar next year anyway… when I have 3 (yea, count ’em 3) web servers in my basement on my own static IPs. I have the ability of hosting my own avatar [and my own email… another reason to not sign up “just anywhere” – extra spam… ] yet it’s not an option to host one’s own avatar?

          A lot of the changes to the site I dislike immensely — mostly because I just don’t like change. [ I’m a serious subscriber to the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mantra. ] Any time that an option to host ones own images isn’t available sounds like there’s an underlying (and underhanded) motive (even if it’s just PHB foolishness) for the decision.

          I’m just sayin’…
          “Merch”

        • #2849289

          there is some security basis for not hosting

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to So the pioneer spirit is quashed with your site?

          I’ve considered it more than once:

          step 1, host avatar image on my own managed server
          step 2, give TR my avatar URL
          step 3, collect the logs as all you other TR readers download my avatar image
          step 4, (uh.. ok.. I got not setup four yet)
          step 5, Profit!! (this is where figuring out step four comes in 😉 )

          I’m not really sure how much of a concern it is but it does present an option to collect information on fellow TR readers.

        • #2849282

          Yeah I do it all the time :p

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to there is some security basis for not hosting

    • #2850048

      I’m missing my discussions…sort of

      by nicknielsen ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I like the new profile layout. It’s easier to follow contacts, update newsletter subscriptions, and set preferences. However, I can’t seem to find an equivalent of the Updates listing from the old Workspace. Where is a list of the discussions I’ve subscribed to? I used this list to try to keep up with my subscribed discussions and now I can’t find it.

      Am I looking in the wrong place? Or is construction just not finished yet?

      • #2850047

        It’s a joke

        by oz_media ·

        In reply to I’m missing my discussions…sort of

        Now go an edit your comment and see how well it is displayed without spaces or paragraphs. There is a mess of links in the bottom bar, scroll down past the ads and other junk in the right sidebar, you may find a page that disaplys your discussions, it’s not uniform, each page seems to offer a unique navigation set.

        • #2849971

          The edit issue is a known bug

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to It’s a joke

          I’ve already run into it, and we’ve already been told they’re working on it.

          As for the bottom of the page, most of that has always been there. It was just ignored except in rare cases when the targeted ads or recommended links didn’t make sense or were hilarious. I took a good look and It actually makes more sense than it used to.

          The problem I’m having right now is that I’ve set my default thread view to Expanded, yet this thread is displayed collapsed and I can find no way to expand it.

        • #2849903

          It has been there before but

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to The edit issue is a known bug

          Was mainly redundant as far more logical navigation was available near the top of the page.

        • #2848856

          I’m finding ‘Expanded’

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to The edit issue is a known bug

          not nearly as useful as the old Print/View All, primarlly because the old way used the entire screen whilst the new way stays to a limited column size.

          I do like that I can set my default view to expanded, however, and not have to click each comment to open and read.

        • #2847802

          Expanded

          by jackofalltech ·

          In reply to The edit issue is a known bug

          Try setting the default to collapsed, then back to expanded again.

        • #2847779

          I think it’s a glitch in the new site code

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to Expanded

          If I select and individual post, I get collapsed. If I click on the thread title, I get my default selections.

          Weird.

      • #2849937

        Your discussions now available from *anywhere*

        by stephen howard-sarin ·

        In reply to I’m missing my discussions…sort of

        @NickNielsen: At the top-right of every page is a menu called “My Account.” (It’s in the blue bar.) Mouse over that menu and select “My Stuff,” and you’ll go to a page listing all the discussion threads you have participated in. Also available on that page are all your Q&As.

        Scarily, mine go back to 2006!

        • #2849901

          Buried links

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to Your discussions now available from *anywhere*

          It was more accessible and sensibly laid out before. It doesn’ matter though, TR always asks for feedback, defends all the changes against complaints and then leaves it as is anyway. The same thing happens every time there are changes, whether people like them or not. The mentality is ‘you’ll get used to it’ whether it works or not. It’s really just about ‘user issue’ feedback and will acting on botched script issues but if the layout was purple and yellow and deemed absolutely repulsive, TR has no intention on changing it, apparently they know what everyone wants.

        • #2849466

          thanks for your feedback and have a beer

          by david slade ·

          In reply to Buried links

          Of course we can’t make everyone happy, but we’re working on it. We don’t pretend to be perfect and all knowing. If you have constructive feedback, we are listening and want you, the community to take a role in shaping this site. TR didn’t change a lot for a long time due to resources, but this is changing and the site will continue to evolve. Here’s your chance at being a productive, civil member of the community. It’s your choice.

        • #2849416

          David, can I have your kittens?

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to thanks for your feedback and have a beer

          David’s right, you know. TR is in the impossible position of trying to please everyone.

          There is a Google Docs link around page six (assuming you view 50 entries per page) that is attempting to gather up the issues in a way that will enable the tech team at TR to address them without things falling off radar.

          Oh wait! I have the link right here… https://spreadsheets1.google.com/ccc?hl=en&hl=en&key=tyt9_mAgySTdvb1ot3cL2Wg&authkey=CJmbw7sB#gid=2

          The last TR update was so many years ago that I was still using a Nokia cell phone that closely resembled a brick. You didn’t get thumbs up, you got points for answering questions… if you were lucky. Peter Spande hadn’t been replaced by Jason Hiner yet, and we still wrote our own News.

          In twenty years of working in technology, the only constant I have seen is the mandate, “Change or die”.

          Oz, to be fair, TR has asked NUMEROUS times for feedback on what people want. I have personally started a few posts requesting such information. VERY often, all anyone got was crickets- INCLUDING me.

          My opinion? They are doing their best. Realistically? They pay for the bandwidth and they assume all the risk. If they re-design my playground every few years, it’s a small price to pay.

          That Google docs link? There is a page JUST for suggestions.

          Edit for typos and poor sentence construction

        • #2849330

          Thanks Tig

          by jasonhiner ·

          In reply to David, can I have your kittens?

          Appreciate the perspective.

          And, just for the record, I was part of the last big redesign in 2006, too — when we rolled out Workspace and a lot of community changes. Pete Spande was the general manager of TechRepublic at the time and I was the head of editorial. We’re organized a little differently now, but today David’s role is similar to Pete’s back then (only David’s role is even more focused on the site itself). Also, the editorial department is now in a separate branch of the organization, so David and I collaborate closely on the big picture strategy of the TechRepublic site. He’s a super-knowledgeable guy with a lot of great experience in UX and we’re lucky to have him on the team.

        • #2847798

          2006

          by jackofalltech ·

          In reply to Thanks Tig

          And no one liked those changes either.

        • #2847799

          Who, exactly, did you ask about this change beforehand?

          by jackofalltech ·

          In reply to thanks for your feedback and have a beer

          Seriously, TR looks like a FB wannabe now. Did you invite a random sample of members to give their opinions? Did you do any mock-ups?

          I honestly don’t think I can stand it. This is so ugly. Wouldn’t it be much more user-friendly to have a just plain text theme for serious business users?

        • #2848841

          Ah, of course that’s much better than the old way.

          by jackofalltech ·

          In reply to Your discussions now available from *anywhere*

          There really should be a smiley that indicated sarcasm.

        • #2848745
          Avatar photo

          Stephen just a quick observation here

          by hal 9000 ·

          In reply to Your discussions now available from *anywhere*

          While it doesn’t directly impact on me I do have a few clients who are Color Blind so maybe I’m more sensitive to this issue but I can tell you any person that is Color Blind will simply loose most of the links up top when they are active.

          That is taking into account if they can see them at all which most will not be able to. 😉

          Col

        • #2849645

          Color Blind

          by k6lw ·

          In reply to Stephen just a quick observation here

          I’m color blind and don’t have any issues with the page color scheme. I do however dislike that I have to view it with ie as Opera 11 doesn’t like it.

        • #2849619

          Hmm. Have you cleared your cache?

          by tobif ·

          In reply to Color Blind

          My Opera 11 doesn’t complain. Maybe you have some old CSS-file in your cache?
          Try refreshing your cache and/or restarting Opera. (Oh, there was an update to Opera some 12 hours ago. Why not run it…)

        • #2848550

          useless discussions list

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Your discussions now available from *anywhere*

          Unfortunately, the list of discussions is completely useless now. It shows my own comments; it gives me absolutely nothing about most recent comments to discussions. No matter how much activity goes on in a discussion, nothing changes on my discussions list unless I make a comment myself — and even then, all it tells me is that I made a comment. Well, duh, I know I did, because I’m the person who made the comment.

        • #2849548

          Exactly my problem!

          by justin james ·

          In reply to useless discussions list

          I have NO WAY of keeping track of the conversations, short of waiting for the email alert, getting an RSS feed (I really hate RSS feeds for busy conversations, its inbox overload), or hitting refresh and hoping to notice what’s new, because the coloring of visited/unvisited doesn’t work.

          J.Ja

        • #2849468

          queued a fix for the visited links

          by david slade ·

          In reply to Exactly my problem!

          as a quick fix for what’s been seen and unseen. will review the conversation tracking outside of email and RSS. send me any ideas.

        • #2849465

          Thanks!

          by justin james ·

          In reply to queued a fix for the visited links

          That’s great, thanks!

          J.Ja

        • #2849691

          Don’t take RSS feeds to your Inbox

          by sterling “chip” camden ·

          In reply to Exactly my problem!

          Even though I, too, convert my feeds to email, I deposit them into a different folder so I can scan them more quickly. They don’t mix well with correspondence.

        • #2849470

          interesting

          by david slade ·

          In reply to useless discussions list

          thanks for that perspective, will note it for feature improvements.

        • #2849286

          what would it ideally show?

          by david slade ·

          In reply to useless discussions list

          so you expressed what you don’t like, so what elements would be useful to display?

          thread title, who started it, who last commented? and/or contacts that last commented? link to your comment?

        • #2849268

          I think you have a solid start, it’s just the code behind found wanting

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to what would it ideally show?

          Discussion, Contribution, Date, Posts, Votes

          These are good columns. I think they just need to reflect different information. It seems to track comments user’s have posted into discussions rather than activity in discussions users are interested in.

          Discussion; show me the discussion or article title. This allows me to track specific discussions rather than my own comments within discussions.

          Contribution; optional though I’m not sure how it relates to discussions. I see how it relates to tracking user comments.. just not how it relates to tracking discussions.

          Date; the date/time of the last comment. Date was there in the past, time was missing. With time now indicated, I can see if comments are newer then my last discussion scan even if my browser does not grew out the discussion link as “visited”.

          Posts; number of posts in the discussion is good. Number of responses to my posts or number of posts since my last post could be handy information also. As is, it indicates how large a discussion is though so fair enough.

          Votes; maybe this indicates how many votes a person has gotten in the discussion though votes really does refer more to a specific post.

          Alternatively, maybe leave the display table as is; focusing on user posts. The user can see comments, if they’ve been voted up/down and Posts could refer to replies in the subthread versus total posts in discussion.

          So, what happens if a post is added but not under one of my comment’s subthreads? Currently, I don’t see that update. Potentially, you add an additional column; just wide enough for a “new posts” icon. In this case, I’m getting the current information; my comment title, time/date, replies to it, it’s being voted up or down – which is all good stuff to know. I also get the indication of new discussion comments outside of my own and subthreads.

          My other example would be OSNews.

          The display is by comment not by discussion similar to the new TR layout versus the old. comments are in cronological order newest to oldest. With each comment, I see votes up/down and number of replies. Links provide direct access to the sub-thread starting with my own comment.

          What OSNews system lacks is the overall discussion indicator. One must go back and scan down the discussion hoping to spot new comments in amongst the already read stuff.

        • #2849690

          Thanks for listening

          by sterling “chip” camden ·

          In reply to what would it ideally show?

          Others should chime in, too, but here’s what I would like ideally:

          One page, on which I can find, organized by discussion, an individual link to every comment *that I haven’t visited yet* on every discussion in which I have participated. Added bonus: a way to mark one of those comments as “read” without visiting it.

        • #2849277

          wait for this week’s visitor stats

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to useless discussions list

          That’s the key problem that’s alienating me; I can’t track discussions I’m interested in. Lurking the “Hot discussions” list gives some indication when it’s time to check back on chatter but it’s not ideal. Hopefully it’s enough of a crutch to keep up while the TR devs finish polishing.

        • #2849215

          Nope

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to Your discussions now available from *anywhere*

          That page now only carries my last 100 posts. It doesn’t have thread titles, it only updates if I post.

          I want to know when people post to discussions I’ve subscribed to.

        • #2849692

          Scarily…

          by sterling “chip” camden ·

          In reply to Your discussions now available from *anywhere*

          … mine only go back to 12/26/2010 — there must be some maximum on the number listed. I’ve been a member since the previous millennium.

      • #2849696

        Add to that, not enough posts are shown

        by boxfiddler ·

        In reply to I’m missing my discussions…sort of

        for the few contacts that still show in my contacts. Four to five in each category, and categories aren’t clickable to display a full list of posts. Again, no indication per post what thread was posted in.

    • #2850042

      Damn

      by santeewelding ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I had a totally acerbic reply, but I was cast into some netherworld, now having to log in again. Is this an anomaly, or, is it designed?

      • #2850041

        I’ve had to log in

        by boxfiddler ·

        In reply to Damn

        several times so far. Good question.

        • #2850037

          Editing is iffy, still.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to I’ve had to log in

          Can’t seem to edit that last one…

          I’d really like to see who made the last post in a discussion or question. Frankly, seeing the same new name ruling the ‘last post’ column was a dead giveaway that the newbie was a spammer and made it much easier to notice them, as well as find their profile and get rid of their crud. I’ve also noticed, that when viewing a profile and clicking on a spammers post, I’m taken to the head of the thread, not the post I want to mark. In lengthy discussions/questions, this is going to make it a huge pita to find and get rid of spam posts.

          I’ll have more in a few days. Pretty sure you can bet on that. 😀

        • #2850026

          Editing removes formatting

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to Editing is iffy, still.

          I can just people posting lengthy dialogue, properly spaced for easy reading, and then going in to fix a typo and all paragraph formatting is lost. Now that’s a PITA!

        • #2848770

          There was a prior issue with that.

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to Editing removes formatting

          Since a tweak from wayback, editing a comment with HTML entities required re-typing the entity codes. This may have occurred with some other HTML formatting as well,. Haven’t even tried with this forum software yet.

        • #2850032

          Voting bug.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to I’ve had to log in

          Voting kicks me out and makes me have to log back in.

        • #2850029

          That worked for me

          by justin james ·

          In reply to Voting bug.

          That’s really odd, it seems like this kicked on/off thing is only happening to some people?

          J.Ja

        • #2849919

          I’ve had to log on multiple times

          by gsg ·

          In reply to That worked for me

          On the old TR, this one, and other sites when I swapped to IE8 and tightened security and changed some cookie settings. I don’t know if that’s what would be causing it for others, but that’s what causes it for me. It’s an irritation, but I’ll put up with it in the interest of a little bit tighter security.

        • #2848557

          a specific cookie

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to I’ve had to log on multiple times

          There’s probably some specific cookie you need to accept to prevent that behavior — something that registers as a “third party site” origin for the cookie according to your browser, perhaps, even though it is likely to be some TechRepublic-associated property (just with a different domain name).

          It seems that nobody designs Websites to make things easy for people who care about the technologies they use.

        • #2849462

          there may be some funk with cookies

          by david slade ·

          In reply to I’ve had to log in

          as some have noticed we changed domains with the redesign, tr.com.com tr.com, which may be causing some issues. or you have a legit bug! Try clearing your cookies and let us know if you still see login problems.

          please let us know your browser, OS and steps to reproduce. thanks!!

    • #2850031

      I’m going to have to see what it’s like…

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      … after the content issues are sorted out.

      First and foremost, I know how much work goes into something like this… you guys know that I’m real familiar with what these kinds of projects are like. I don’t expect them to EVER be perfect or even go smoothly. The redesigned site I rolled out a few days ago was a year of work, and I’m very glad that my name wasn’t attached to most of the project because I’m not thrilled with it…

      The overall job done here is something to be proud of, and a lot of the feedback folks have been giving was obviously taken into account, and it’s appreciated. So think of this as a “punch list”, not as a set of “wow, this sucks!” criticisms.

      One of the things that’s really harsh on the eyes is this embedded effect on the text for all of the graphics. It’s adding a slight drop shadow on the inside of the “bezel” that makes it hard to see.

      Throughout, many of the color choices are making it VERY hard to read. White numbers on a light green button, for example (the comment counts), or a light green on a light grey background (like right above the box I’m typing in right now). White text on light blue buttons. All of these buttons need a heavier weight font so that they are readable.

      The over all issue is one of contrast. The left arrows on the “Media Gallery” to the right are invisible for all intents and purposes… and I’m using a very high end monitor!

      On the other hand, I like the increased font size very much!

      The content areas are, for all intents and purposes, SMALLER. Why? Because the font size is cranked to a readable level (finally). I have no clue how i am supposed to include code samples in articles or comments when there is less than 100 characters’ worth of width to work with. At least I use C# now where the whitespace didn’t matter, but for Ruby, Python, VB.NET, etc. code… let’s just say it’s not going to encourage folks to post sample code.

      The top few navigation bars are totally illegible.

      The highlighted item in the “Blogs/Discussions” nav covers up the pipe character to the right of the button.

      I like the “Collapse” on the giant buttons over the article. I never used them, and it’s nice to be able to get those 150 pixels back.

      The navigation, as is, is very poor. It will be extremely improved if the “blog” content goes into the main bins (“Mobile Development”, “Leadership”, etc.).

      J.Ja

      • #2850030

        Log out/log in needed to post

        by justin james ·

        In reply to I’m going to have to see what it’s like…

        I had to do a log out/log in to post. Maybe because I hadn’t logged into the new system yet.

        J.Ja

      • #2850018

        Re: Code Samples

        by justin james ·

        In reply to I’m going to have to see what it’s like…

        It looks like, at least in the blog posts, that code samples are actually displaying fairly nicely (in a colored box in a different font). That’s appreciated! Is there a way to tag content in a comment to be code too, like on Stack Overflow and MSDN?

        J.Ja

        • #2849935

          Let’s see how it looks

          by stephen howard-sarin ·

          In reply to Re: Code Samples

          I am not a coder. I am not a coder. I am not a coder. But I know how to copy and paste, and use the “samp” tag.namespace Microsoft.Crm.Sdk.Utility
          {
          public class CrmServiceUtility
          {
          public static CrmService GetCrmService()
          {
          return GetCrmService(null, null);
          }

          public static CrmService GetCrmService(string organizationName)
          {
          return GetCrmService(null, organizationName);
          }

          ///

          /// Set up the CRM Service.
          ///

          /// My Organization
          /// CrmService configured with AD Authentication
          public static CrmService GetCrmService(string crmServerUrl, string organizationName)
          {

        • #2849932

          The "samp" tag?

          by justin james ·

          In reply to Let’s see how it looks

          Looks good.

          How are we supposed to know about this? There needs to be a link near the comments box for formatting help. I’ve never used the formatting because I have no way of finding out how to do the formatting.

          J.Ja

        • #2849927

          Testing Samp

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to Let’s see how it looks

          Dim lTimeAtRes:
          Dim sDisplayedValue:
          Dim dtOne:
          Dim C32Ext:
          Set C32Ext = CreateObject(“Object”):
          lTimeAtRes = 0:
          sDisplayedValue = Mid(vReturnVal,4):
          If sDisplayedValue <> “” then:
          if isdate(sDisplayedValue) then:
          ‘Remove Date formating:
          dtOne = DateSerial(mid(sDisplayedValue,7,4),mid(sDisplayedValue,4,2),left(sDisplayedValue,2)):
          ltimeatres = datediff(“M”,Cdate(dtOne), Cdate(C32Ext.GetCRIVar(“SY_Today”))):
          End if:
          end if:
          vReturnVal = 750:
          If lTimeAtRes => 12 Then:
          vReturnVal = 250:
          End If:
          If lTimeAtRes => 36 Then:
          vReturnVal = 0:
          End If:
          Set C32Ext = Nothing:

          Fail

        • #2849924

          Looking at it closer…

          by justin james ·

          In reply to Let’s see how it looks

          … it is completely unacceptable. It cuts off long lines.

          J.Ja

        • #2848769

          It is also spilling its guts

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to Looking at it closer…

          out the bottom of the first sample “samp” posted.

        • #2849930

          Testing code sample

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to Re: Code Samples

          Dim lTimeAtRes:
          Dim sDisplayedValue:
          Dim dtOne: 
          Dim C32Ext:
             Set C32Ext = CreateObject("Object"):
             lTimeAtRes = 0:
             sDisplayedValue = Mid(vReturnVal,4):
             If sDisplayedValue <> "" then:
                if isdate(sDisplayedValue) then:
                   'Remove Date formating:
                   dtOne = DateSerial(mid(sDisplayedValue,7,4),mid(sDisplayedValue,4,2),left(sDisplayedValue,2)):
                   ltimeatres = datediff("M",Cdate(dtOne), Cdate(C32Ext.GetCRIVar("SY_Today"))):
                End if:
             end if:
             vReturnVal = 750:
             If lTimeAtRes => 12 Then:
              vReturnVal = 250:
             End If:
             If lTimeAtRes => 36 Then:
              vReturnVal = 0:
             End If:
             Set C32Ext = Nothing:
          
          


          Dim lTimeAtRes:
          Dim sDisplayedValue:
          Dim dtOne:
          Dim C32Ext:
          Set C32Ext = CreateObject("Object"):
          lTimeAtRes = 0:
          sDisplayedValue = Mid(vReturnVal,4):
          If sDisplayedValue <> "" then:
          if isdate(sDisplayedValue) then:
          'Remove Date formating:
          dtOne = DateSerial(mid(sDisplayedValue,7,4),mid(sDisplayedValue,4,2),left(sDisplayedValue,2)):
          ltimeatres = datediff("M",Cdate(dtOne), Cdate(C32Ext.GetCRIVar("SY_Today"))):
          End if:
          end if:
          vReturnVal = 750:
          If lTimeAtRes => 12 Then:
          vReturnVal = 250:
          End If:
          If lTimeAtRes => 36 Then:
          vReturnVal = 0:
          End If:
          Set C32Ext = Nothing:

        • #2849929

          Humph, neither works properly

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to Testing code sample

          “Pre” nor “code” worked, both lost the formatting. What else can we do?

        • #2849925

          Just do what everyone else does, please

          by justin james ·

          In reply to Humph, neither works properly

          Every site I’ve been to has a way of putting in sample code that does nice formatting and coloring and such. Just use that system, whatever it is, please.

          J.Ja

        • #2849923

          How?

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to Just do what everyone else does, please

          I am used to using the pre tag…

        • #2849921

          You aren’t everyone

          by justin james ·

          In reply to How?

          Every site has their own list of what tags do and do not work. Some sites don’t allow HTML, but prefer their own markup language (like Markdown). You might know about using pre, but not everyone else does.

          And the pre tag formats them wrong anyways… look what happens to long lines, they run off the edge. Pre is truly the wrong tag. The *right* tag for code samples would do the following:

          * Maintain spaces, indentation, tabs, etc. as types.
          * Wrap overflow text.
          * Use a fixed width font.
          * Set the block in some formatting that makes it obviously separate from the main text.

          J.Ja

        • #2849920

          So what should we use then?

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to How?

          Stop avoiding my question :p

        • #2849916

          Take a look at other sites

          by justin james ·

          In reply to How?

          Go to StackOverflow or MSDN and see how they do it. It’s not just a matter of what we, the users should be doing. It’s a matter of what TR needs to do. They need to provide a facility to post code samples properly, and they need to provide explanatory text.

          I’m not avoiding your question, I already answered it above. 🙂

          J.Ja

        • #2848544

          re: line wrap

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to How?

          I actually kinda like non-wrapping, as long as there’s a 100 column width box to use (or more), guaranteed for any reasonable display resolution (600×800 and up) and any reasonable screen zoom (150%), because it encourages people to write code with lines of a reasonable length. Then again, I don’t care much about Java, C#, and VB.NET — and I know line lengths tend to need to be much longer in those languages.

          I guess I’m just being a little self-centered when I say “So what?” about line wrapping.

        • #2848809

          When TR finally gets that bit sorted…

          by sterling “chip” camden ·

          In reply to Just do what everyone else does, please

          … I hope they’ll publish detailed instructions in an obvious location on how to post code. It would be really cool if they adopted an approach like the SyntaxHighlighterEvolved plugin, where you specify a code section with an optional language attribute, and it gets syntax-colored as well. The only thing I don’t like about that plugin is that it relies on JavaScript being enabled. Seems like the processing could be done server-side instead.

        • #2848541

          Ideally . . .

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to When TR finally gets that bit sorted…

          Ideally, it’d be something that allows dynamic updates (JavaScript driven, in other words) but degrades gracefully so that a page reload will achieve the same effect if JavaScript is restricted or unavailable for some reason. Unfortunately, it seems like almost everybody in the world has forgotten about the concept of graceful degradation of interfaces.

        • #2849262

          I’m missing a few things due to NoScript

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to When TR finally gets that bit sorted…

          The full selection of display preferences and third party tracking options apear only when I enable scripts. It looks like most of the site runs fine with full NoScript in affect though.

        • #2848726

          Code looks great here!

          by jerang- ·

          In reply to Humph, neither works properly

          @SinisterSlay – your code here is formatted correctly with the pre tag!
          http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-340633-3412219

        • #2848686

          Look again

          by justin james ·

          In reply to Code looks great here!

          It’s cut off at the ends. It needs to wrap. In other testing, Chip’s shown that pre DOESN’T work the way we need it to.

          J.Ja

        • #2848626

          It also lost its tabbing

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to Look again

          In the old TR theme, scroll bars were automatically added with the pre tag to fix the chopping problem.

    • #2850027

      More items

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      The votes shown in “My Stuff” seem to have no relationship to actual activity.

      My picture in my bio box on my articles is missing.

      In the bio box for authors, the normal right-click menu is broken.

      J.Ja

      • #2849985

        The votes shown in "My Stuff"

        by nicknielsen ·

        In reply to More items

        Appear to be the sum of votes for the entire thread, not the votes for a particular post.

        • #2849956

          I just noticed that too

          by justin james ·

          In reply to The votes shown in "My Stuff"

          It still makes no sense to the user why it would work that way… the only metric that anyone would care about is the number of votes on the post, not the thread.

          J.Ja

        • #2848855

          As does the sum

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to The votes shown in "My Stuff"

          in the ‘front door’.

    • #2850025

      Even more items…

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I can down vote my own comment. I can up vote my own comment. Both are broken.

      Down voting a comment when it is at “0” seems to not update the display to say “-1”, but upvoting does.

      J.Ja

    • #2850023

      Count yourself lucky, Justin

      by santeewelding ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I haven’t seen any activity with the “up” and the “down” vote. We could all go down in flames when it starts working.

    • #2850014

      Apostrophe problems

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      The apostrophes are still messed up in many places. This is a Unicode issue, the system needs to replace the various apostrophe characters with the single one that HTML likes. A good example is the header on the poll here: http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/programming-and-development/poll-are-microsofts-development-tools-headed-in-the-right-direction/3842

      J.Ja

      • #2848537

        ARGH! No more smart quotes!

        by apotheon ·

        In reply to Apostrophe problems

        The problem is all those asinine “smart quotes” on the Web. Jeebus cries, people, this is a textual medium perused by technically oriented people; we need characters that can actually be trivially duplicated from a standard QWERTY keyboard whenever at all reasonable. Copying text from articles and pasting them in comments has been kind of a problem because of auto-replacement of totally printable characters with totally unprintable characters off and on here at TR, and it drives me up the wall. People are bending over backwards to do things that shouldn’t be done in the first place, putting ungodly amounts of effort into implementing systems to automatically change text so it’s less usable. It’s absurd.

        Smart Quotes Considered Harmful

        Read it for a start on understanding the problem, if you don’t already get it.

        • #2849544

          Smart quotes are killer in P&D

          by justin james ·

          In reply to ARGH! No more smart quotes!

          It’s especially important in the P&D section to not use smart quotes, because you need to be able to copy/paste into code and have it work. Many languages have a huge distinction between the apostrophe character and the backtick which is often what comes out when copying smart quotes and smart apostrophes. This is even more important for *Nix admins, now that I think about it…

          J.Ja

        • #2849688

          Smart quotes are the bane of technical sites

          by sterling “chip” camden ·

          In reply to Smart quotes are killer in P&D

          Furthermore, the font used for rendering code samples needs to make clear distinctions between ‘ and `, as well as between all other characters — especially between members of the following sets:
          0O
          |l1
          S$
          .,
          ;:

          Personally, I prefer when sites leave that up to the browser’s interpretation of the <code> tag — I can set that to Deja Vu Sans Mono and be happy.

        • #2849676

          leaving it up to the browser

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Smart quotes are the bane of technical sites

          That would involve just setting it to monospace in the CSS, and not setting any other options. Unfortunately, most users just use whatever defaults came with the browser, which in many cases is downright hideous — and would totally break up the look and feel of a Website.

          In general, though, that’s much less a problem for code blocks than it is for other fonts being set to sans-serif or serif. In fact, I’d say that usually serif fonts are the biggest problem, because of how many people go with the default, and on MS Windows that’s generally Times New Roman (a downright awful font for digital display). It’s great for narrow-column justified text in black-on-white print media, though.

    • #2850009

      Jason…

      by ansugisalas ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      The water cooler is a leper colony. Unseen, untrackable, a lawless waste for the unseemly.That might be cool, in a banished to hell -sort of way, but you’ll need to put a “My water cooler” list option on “My stuff”, otherwise it’s a given that we misfits will have to mingle with the posh people, just to keep track of each other and ourselves.

      In English: Posts with the Off Topic tag don’t show up in the “My Stuff”, making the whole thing very unfriendly. There is a risk that people will just ignore the section, posting whatever in the discussions proper section in stead.That’s not a threat, simly a prediction 😀

      • #2849978

        That could chase me away

        by nicknielsen ·

        In reply to Jason…

        While I read quite a few of the articles, most of my posting is done in the off-topic threads. If I have no easy way to track those threads, I’ll probably go back to lurking.

        • #2849908

          Hey Nick, have you tried the "My Discussions" area?

          by jasonhiner ·

          In reply to That could chase me away

          Go to My Account | My Stuff | My Discussions

          That should show you all of the discussions that you’re involved in, including anything “off-topic” in the Water Cooler. Let me know if it doesn’t work.

        • #2848639

          All I see there are my posts

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to Hey Nick, have you tried the "My Discussions" area?

          What I’m looking for is a list of the discussions themselves, and there doesn’t seem to be any way to get that.

        • #2849478

          Follow-up

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to Hey Nick, have you tried the "My Discussions" area?

          Jason, the posts I’ve made in the Water Cooler discussions [u]do not[/u] appear in the badly mis-titled My Discussions (should be My Posts).

          What I was expecting to find in My Discussions was the same thing we had before: a list of the discussions you have subscribed to, sorted chronologically by most-recent update, and including both the thread title and the title of the newest post.

          But I’ve got expanded mode back now, with the Expand/Collapse option available. Thank you very much!

        • #2849706

          My Discussions — expected behavior

          by jasonhiner ·

          In reply to Follow-up

          Thanks for the detail on how you’d prefer it to work. We’re noting this and considering it for the tweaking/tuning that we’re doing.

          The Water Cooler discussions should be showing up in there, but sometimes it’s taking a long lag before they appear. This is a known bug that we will fix.

        • #2849679

          That’s how it worked since the last update

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to My Discussions — expected behavior

          It’s really the most convenient way for me (and apparently Chad and others, too) to track the discussions I’m interested in. My off-line time due to work makes it nearly impossible for me to track activity using email or rss without dealing with a flood of email or feeds.

        • #2849617

          Still not seeing Water Cooler posts in My Discussions

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to My Discussions — expected behavior

          I AM getting the email updates, though.

      • #2849964

        Very good feedback

        by jasonhiner ·

        In reply to Jason…

        Thank you Ansu. This is exactly the kind of feedback we’re looking for. We’ll see what we can do to help people track their water cooler threads. Stay tuned.

      • #2849907

        Ansu, Water Cooler shouldn’t be blocked in "My Stuff"

        by jasonhiner ·

        In reply to Jason…

        You can track all of the discussions that you’re involved in at the My Discussions area.

        Go to My Account | My Stuff | My Discussions

        Do you not see your Water Cooler stuff in there? If that’s the case, then it’s a bug and not a feature. Let me know and we’ll investigate.

    • #2850006

      Saving an article to my favorites

      by mlerner123 ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Hi,
      How can I save an article to my favorites on TechRepublic? I’m not talking about Internet Explorer’s Favorites (if I was, I would be thrown out of TR). I’m referring to the list of favorite articles that every TechRepublic member can build – it used to be that every article had a Save button which would add it that member’s list of saved aticles. I just read an article, but I don’t see that Save link, just links to 3rd-party sites.
      I hope that TR didn’t get rid of that feature, since I use it often to access articles with good tips on any computer connected to the internet.
      -Michael

      • #2849974

        Can’t expand the view

        by nicknielsen ·

        In reply to Saving an article to my favorites

        I’ve set my default view to “Expanded”, but threads are coming up in collapsed view, with no “Expand” button visible. I can change the number of posts per page, but now I have to click through each post.

        Edit: It appears to be random and not dependent on how I accessed the thread.

      • #2849931

        Two ways to favorite

        by stephen howard-sarin ·

        In reply to Saving an article to my favorites

        @michael: Here’s how to do it…

        1) For articles, click the “more+” link in the sharing box on any article. There’s the option there to “Add to Favorites”

        2) For discussion posts or Q&A, there’s a star icon and the word “Favorite” right under the content of the post.

        Both work — I just tried ’em.

        • #2848609

          It works now

          by mlerner123 ·

          In reply to Two ways to favorite

          Stephen,
          I’m pretty sure I tried that the other day and there was no Favorites option.
          Anyway, I tried it now and it works.
          Thanks for your help.
          -Michael

    • #2850003

      Commenting format.

      by seanferd ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Do not want.

      • #2848853

        Would you

        by boxfiddler ·

        In reply to Commenting format.

        care to clarify that?

        • #2848756

          Certainly.

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to Would you

          Prefs.:
          1)Prefs not persistent.*
          2)”Community prefs do not offer “All” as a default display number.
          3) If I can’t set default blocking below -10, I may miss something, as this can be gamed and abused, etc.
          4) “Expanded” does not stay expanded, and the option to expand disappears off the page once used.*
          Layout:
          1) Horrific waste of space. Too much white, too low-density. Should I get a sixty-inch widescreen and hang it vertically to read more than a few sentences?
          2) Comment delineation (“boxes”) isn’t cute, it is more like a spill. Group it up and clearly box the comment, user info fields, and command links related to the post. Better separation in reply/answer view.
          3)Who told you to automatically pull a Gravatar from an existing account? Not cool.
          4)Never had to set a browser to not use font colors set by a site in order to see my typed text before.
          5)”Longer” posts – now I’m typing in a four-line scroll box. Whatever.
          6)”Read more”. A simply awful method of saving space on posts just so it can be wasted on this diffuse formatting.

          So, TR did go down the hideous path which ZDNet chose for their “forum”, which is exactly what I was afraid of when changes were first mentioned last summer. I seem to be sadly correct in predicting the outcomes of such announcements, now on the internet as well.

          I probably forgot some clarifications while typing.

          * = I assume for now this is just a bug.

        • #2848662

          RE: #3

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Certainly.

          On posts that have been voted ‘collapsed’, there is an option to view it. I tried it on a couple of spam posts that had been negatively voted on. I was able to read them.

        • #2848329

          Tiny text field fixed. By SeaMonkey 2.1b1.

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to Certainly.

          Someone was looking into the future, apparently. Re-sizable text entry fields FTW.

          Hopefully a better browser when this is out of beta. It isn’t as “nice” as the 2.0 beta, which was even beyond RC-quality.

        • #2848744

          Additional.

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to Would you

          The awful and undifferentiated “top rated” and “This just in” sections at top of the thread which have the non-persistent thread settings below. I just figured out what was going on up there.

          -10 points for accessibility, if that is the reasoning behind the font size/kerning/etc.

          edit: Also, font too light in thread lists. List even more ridiculously short than ever. “See more” function result is worse. At least we can page back farther (apparently, anyway), but the pages are far too short.

          Accessibility can not have been a consideration, or the accessibility designers are clueless. So, I think it is all a “look”, rather than any form of accessibility driving this. Someone will have to claim one or the other, though, before I can explain the goal-fail.

        • #2848678

          "Accessibility"

          by justin james ·

          In reply to Additional.

          What’s strange is that the big fonts seem to be a nod to accessibility, but then the color choices completely overwhelm it going in the wrong direction.

          J.Ja

        • #2848729

          Further: Ridiculous page load times. (nt)

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to Would you

           

        • #2849501

          Slow page loads here, too.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Further: Ridiculous page load times. (nt)

          I’m going to practice patience, assuming that there are still a lot of bugs to work out and lots of frantic behind the scenes activity…

        • #2848723

          More.

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to Would you

          No thread reference in thread list where comments are displayed by comment title. How many times should I open one thread from this list?

          “Pages”” Hating them even more than I had imagined. This is fine for a straight commenting thread, not a branched forum thread. What’s on which page now?

        • #2848717

          OK – some of the layout is looking a little better.

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to Would you

          I guess some of what I was seeing was ephemeral. But only some.

        • #2848716

          Last I looked

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to OK – some of the layout is looking a little better.

          the tidying up hadn’t been done yet in Q&A. Hope they do… I spose I should check the WaterCooler.

        • #2849273

          Indeed, it is much better. I hope Q&A does get better "boundaries"

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to Last I looked

          around posts.

          But I think many of the bits I had problems with have been improved.

          But the pagination thing – yow.

    • #2850000

      Software area now a pain to navigate

      by f18adp ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I found the software area so useful and easy to navigate, now its awful, no filter for OS/Free/Date ect and the search section on the left is poor too. I simply wanted to search for backup software and its not possible unless you want to search 8000 pages manually.
      I would put it back to how it was, unless there is more development on how it currently is. Or i am doing it wrong and cant see wood for trees?

      Andy

    • #2849980

      Not happy

      by 93961 ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Disgsutingly not good. Requires tremendous improvement. Too Slow!!!??? Unable to find many things easily. Too BIG FONTS and ICONS in Many places.
      🙁

      • #2849953

        Big fonts good, icons bad

        by justin james ·

        In reply to Not happy

        I like the big fonts, for accessibility reasons. Just because your eyes are good, doesn’t mean everyone’s are. Current recommendations are to keep Web fonts at the screen equivalent of 11 – 12 points. The font size is great.

        I agree 100% on the icons. They are so prolific and all look identical, it’s hard to separate the important ones from the unimportant ones. They are not self explanatory in some cases. For example, if the “Comments” icon was meaningful, it wouldn’t need to have the word “Comments” on it. If an icon needs explanatory text, the icon needs to be changed to text or to something that doesn’t need text to be understood.

        J.Ja

        • #2848803

          Fonts are too big for a unilateral non-option

          by sterling “chip” camden ·

          In reply to Big fonts good, icons bad

          I don’t mind making larger fonts available for accessibility to those who need them, but I really don’t need to be able to measure the length of each serif on my notebook with a yardstick. It seems to me the only solution here is to allow users to scale fonts to their own choice. In the mean time, Vimperator has a nice ‘zoom’ command. 80% works well for most of the text, though the headers and such are still way too huge.

        • #2848755

          Time for a forum script.

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to Fonts are too big for a unilateral non-option

          Never been big on user scripts for sites, but it may be a necessity. That, or TR can offer CSS switching to official alternative layouts.

          Accessibility != lowest common denominator (or below). Internet should come through the intertubes, not feeding tubes.

        • #2848599

          Having lousy eyesight

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to Time for a forum script.

          And an allergy to wearing my glasses, I have long been in the habit of setting my font size on my display to work for me as opposed to assuming that a forum admin would cater to my needs specifically. Accessibility is a great and wonderful thing, but it tends to be built in at the individual browser level and should be set from there.

          My $0.02, YMMV

        • #2849271

          I ran into a guy on a help forum

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to Having lousy eyesight

          who insisted in typing in ALL CAPS because it was easier for him to read.

          Both “normal” and “accessibility” browser settings have been around since, like, Mosaic. I’ll adjust the browser to work for me – why suffer or expect the internet to change for you? Don’t get me wrong – a lot of sites aren’t set up for accessibility settings, and need to be changed. But why go too far for some particular flavor of accessibility, especially if the “better” font style is now also lighter?

      • #2848854

        It seems to be for the visually impaired

        by oz_media ·

        In reply to Not happy

        Perhaps those who normally use the Windows magnifying glass to read websites.

      • #2848794

        Are Your Fonts Too Big?

        by charliespencer ·

        In reply to Not happy

        Try Font-Reducer, the handy-dandy all-purpose way to make fonts, graphics, and almost all other web page features smaller! Just hold down either Control key while you spin the mouse wheel.

        Brand new from the makers of Font Enlarger, the UL approved method of holding down the Control key while you spin the mouse wheel in the other direction!

        Remember, if your fonts are enlarged for more than four hours, see your doctor.

        • #2848788

          Who me?

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to Are Your Fonts Too Big?

          No. My fonts are the same (small) for all websites, I’m not about to reduce font sizes for one website.

          EDIT: Sorry I just realized there IS actualy a sort of tired layout, just the lines narely contrast to teh background so they are hard to see. What a farce this is, I’ve seen some poor changes made over the years but they are mostly minor feature removals etc, this joke of a redesign is just a complete kaibosh of a website. What an embarassment, a tech site with a practically unusable website.

    • #2849966

      I hate it

      by unhappyuser ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Bring back the old one. It’s much better.

      EMD

      • #2848793

        Care to be a bit more specific?

        by charliespencer ·

        In reply to I hate it

        EXACTLY what is it you dislike?

        • #2848785

          Better idea

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to Care to be a bit more specific?

          shorter list, what do I like about it……..mmmmmm……errrrrr….there’s GOT to be something….nope, nothing broken was fixed, everything else was screwed with just to make it different.
          I guess after a year of coding, if you come up with somthing similar it doesn’t look good. Might as well screw up the whole site and then you can justify a year’s salary for tweaking and fixing, as it sits it’s a joke. Absolutely laughable in every sense of web design.

          “Can you be more specific?” To begin with, hire someone that actually knows how to layout a website and create a logical navigation system. This looks like it was created for a 12″ screen.

        • #2848754

          So, not an improvement?

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to Better idea

          Not like the improvements MS made to the Win/Office UIs? :0

          😉

      • #2848786

        Get used to it

        by oz_media ·

        In reply to I hate it

        It’s almost become an annual nightmare over the last few years. They tweak and fine tune until everything is working okay and everyone finally likes it, then they think they will recreate the wheel and screw it all up again. I hate it when some tech decides he can do better and tries to justify his worth, only to do far worse. I’d have canned the web developer in a heartbeat if this had gone live with the sites I manage.

        • #2848733

          Here’s the difference… [my defense of the awesome TechRepublic team]

          by jasonhiner ·

          In reply to Get used to it

          You’re talking about TechRepublic like it’s a little site with a single Web developer. This is a completely different animal than the kinds of sites you’ve worked on because of the scalability issues it takes build a site with 6+ million users/month and the responsibility we have to serve a large audience with a lot of different (and sometimes conflicting) needs and requests.

          We have a team of over 30 people that have been working on this, getting lots of input from the TR community and implementing best practices from some of the Web’s most efficient and effective sites, including Google, Amazon, Digg, Slashdot, and more. In fact, we’ve got some great people on staff that have worked on these sites (some even pioneered well-known features at those sites). These are not amateurs and the work they’ve done on the new TechRepublic is the best relaunch that I’ve ever been a part of and I’ve been doing this for over a decade. It took tremendous discipline for our team to eliminate as much stuff as we did from TechRepublic. The result is a site that takes fewer clicks to navigate, loads faster, and puts content front and center.

          That said, the biggest part of this migration is something that you can’t see. We’ve completely re-engineered our front-end platform so that we can upgrade the site in much more incremental ways rather than doing massive relaunch projects like this one. This is easier on the users (we don’t move their cheese as often), it keeps the site adaptive and flexible, and it provides regular improvements. This is going to enable us to do a lot more cool stuff in 2011, especially some nice additions in community.

        • #2848685

          We need less "cool stuff"…

          by justin james ·

          In reply to Here’s the difference… [my defense of the awesome TechRepublic team]

          … and more of the stuff we specifically requested. Stuff like seeing what forum comments we’ve already read. The actions of the audience are a fundamental driver of the business, as we discussed. The end result of this project has not delivered the tools we asked for or the tools we need to continue our participation. It has made participation considerably harder. This new forum system is bordering on unusable. I can barely type responses since this box is so small only three sentences fit into it. I can’t easily see what I’ve read and what i haven’t read. I can’t easily subscribe to the conversations unless I’m starting a top level post.

          I’ve posted an extraordinary number of bugs here, as have others, and all but a handful have not been responded to with either a “bug filed” message or a legitimate response showing why this is not a bug. I think that having someone from tech respond to these items in this fashion would go a long way in cooling the flames, because right now, it looks like we are being ignored. That’s not a good feeling for the folks who took their time testing this site and providing feedback, regardless of how it’s worded.

          i know you’re on the defensive, I’ve been in your shoes on this kind of thing before. You didn’t write the code, and we all know that. But right now, we need someone to stand up as the voice of the community and get some actual COMMUNICATIONS going on, because right now, this is a mess. You’ve got a pile of angry people (note that other than a few minor comments regarding font size, NO ONE from the core users is happy!) who are either being ignored, or getting responses that feel like the feedback is not helpful. This is just going to make things worse. I highly suggest getting someone from the tech team on this. I’ve been involved in a fair number of disaster projects, and I promise you that the lack of communications from the tech team is causing a lot more problems than having someone lose the time to monitor and respond to this forum will cause.

          Let’s not forget, many of the people in this forum are also industry experts, and I guarantee you that all of them are more expert in the care and feeding of the TechRepublic community than any of the devs you have working on the backend. After all, we’re the ones who use this site on a daily basis, not them. I’ll put one comment by Nick, Charlie, Tricia, Boxy, Santee, etc. above a dozen “expert opinions” from developers who’ve posted to this site twice in their life.

          J.Ja

        • #2848673

          Don’t take it upon yourself to speak for the TR community or the core users

          by jasonhiner ·

          In reply to We need less "cool stuff"…

          These are all professionals perfectly capable of speaking for themselves.

          Thanks for sharing your input and feedback. We appreciate it. We can’t respond to every post, but we are certainly reading them and using them to help run down bugs and make tweaks to enhance usability. And we were just talking tonight about reporting back in this thread on some of the fixes and changes that we’re making.

          It’s also time to take it easy on the melodrama. We haven’t changed THAT much in the community, because we know that it’s hard on the power users that have established patterns of working with the site. But, at the same time, we need to keep expanding and looking for ways to make this stuff easier and more approachable and more efficient (you and I can argue about the strategy and implementation of that endlessly, but let’s table it for now).

          Ultimately, if there is stuff we can do to make things more effective and even in a few cases bring some features back (or find a compromise) then we’re always exploring that, but this is still day two. We’re getting lots of great and helpful input from users both publicly and privately and we’re continuing to forge ahead and make the site better.

          Give it a few days. We’ll get stuff fixed and make more tweaks and then let’s see where we’re at.

        • #2848664

          I never said I was

          by justin james ·

          In reply to Don’t take it upon yourself to speak for the TR community or the core users

          “Don’t take it upon yourself to speak for the TR community or the core users”

          Did I say I was volunteering? I was actually meaning to suggest that you’d be a good choice for that. Seriously, we need someone to really track this (and the other similar threads) and act as the voice of the customer on the inside. That’s what I meant. I would have edited it but…

          “And we were just talking tonight about reporting back in this thread on some of the fixes and changes that we’re making.”

          That should be a very high priority, to be honest, and will go a long way in letting folks know that their feedback is not going into a black hole.

          “It’s also time to take it easy on the melodrama.”

          I think that only a few people are being melodramatic… I’m certainly trying my best to be objective, now that my shock from Sunday over the missing content has passed. 🙂 I think that, for the most part, people are trying to be objective, but you’re in the hot seat so it’s easy to feel like people are attacking a lot more than they are. TR is “home” for a lot of people, and they are going to take any kind of change pretty personally.

          “Ultimately, if there is stuff we can do to make things more effective and even in a few cases bring some features back (or find a compromise) then we’re always exploring that, but this is still day two. We’re getting lots of great and helpful input from users both publicly and privately and we’re continuing to forge ahead and make the site better.”

          I think that for the next big change, or even the small ones, it would be extraordinarily helpful to have members of the Top 100 actually work with it, hands on, and provide feedback throughout the process. We’re the customer, not the development team. You’re very lucky in that TechRepublic has a core group of active users who would gladly give some time to that. Take advantage of it! I am certain that a lot of the “wow, I can’t believe they did that!” feedback would have been avoided by running usability tests with a small group of actual users in advance.

          Or, to put it this way… would you prefer a small focus group session scheduled for a few months before launch, with time baked in to adjust after the feedback is gotten? Or do you prefer these trials by fire every few years? Either way, you’re going to get the feedback and tweak later, why not build it into the development cycle and avoid this kind of pain?

          J.Ja

        • #2849366

          Well, to be fair . . .

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to Don’t take it upon yourself to speak for the TR community or the core users

          Justin has a point.

          You said:

          > We haven’t changed THAT much in the community, because we know that it’s hard on the power users that have established patterns of working with the site.

          Speaking only for myself personally:

          1. The last time there was a major site overhaul/redesign, my approach to keeping up with the site was rendered essentially unusable because mass management of email alerts evaporated.

          2. Off and on over a couple of years, I mentioned this, though after a while I stopped struggling to keep up by way of that workflow (see below). Unfortunately, nobody did anything about how broken it was.

          3. I finally switched my approach to doing things to a completely different, less efficient (for me) way of doing it, which involved visiting the Website to use the list of site updates. It worked well enough for me to just keep up with maybe half as many discussions for a given amount of time as I used to.

          4. Visited link colors stopped working in many cases after some minor changes to the site. At first, this more than doubled the effort it takes to keep up with discussions, because I did not have a quick at-a-glance way to see what comments I had or had not read, which is kind of a problem for high-traffic discussions.

          5. Eventually, I figured out the necessary arcane incantations that were required to actually get visited links to show up properly for me.

          6. While the group at last summer’s TR in-person event discussed the coming changes, I brought up the horrific email alert management interface and the visited links issue. The software developer who was there (and maybe you too — I do not recall for sure) assured me that someone would be looking into these things, especially the visited links thing (though the other was more important).

          7. On Sunday, the overhaul was rolled out. Neither of these problems was fixed. One of them was worse than before. In addition to that, the way I had been limping along (using the discussion updates page) without my previous means of keeping up with discussions (email alerts) had evaporated entirely.

          I spent a couple of hours over the last couple days — a couple of hours; that is ridiculous — editing my email alert settings for discussion subscriptions in the hopes I would not fall out of discussions entirely while I waited for someone at CBSi to come up with something that might make it reasonable for me to keep up with discussions in the long run. Having to manage every discussion subscription separately is not a long-term solution, though. It is far too labor-intensive. It is temporary while I hope that it will be different from the last few years, when every time someone broke something I used on the site it would just stay broken. I went from being consistently among the top three active members to being peaking at about #10 at my best, and slipping down to 80 or so at other times. I really hope the fact it is now worse than that for me actually gets some attention.

          . . . because this time I am not sure I can find a work-around that will work in the long term. I might just become one of those TR writers that never interact with the community, because community discussion is not a paying day job; I only have so much time.

          So. Maybe you “haven’t changed THAT much” but, from my perspective, you changed a lot of what matters most (where “you” means “some set of people at CBSi and TR who made these decisions”, and not necessarily you personally).

          I have received emails from others who are having similar problems, though. Maybe “we”, a dozen or so people, are the only people who have these problems — but I for one would not like to stay marginalized for long. I am waiting to see if things get better for usability from my perspective; hope springs eternal, and I hope the fact that I’m staring down the barrel of complete unusability of discussions in the long term (for me, at least) is just a temporary hiccup. On the other hand, if I am perceived to be in a minuscule, unimportant minority, I guess I cannot fault “you” guys if you decide the cost/benefit ratio is not high enough to fix my problems.

          You say to “Give it a few days.” Fair enough. I will probably give it a few months, if need be — as long as I can reasonably hold out. If something does not change for me, though, the time will come eventually when I just stop trying to keep up with discussions.

        • #2849293

          I nominate Justin’s comment as approved to speak for me

          by nwallette ·

          In reply to Don’t take it upon yourself to speak for the TR community or the core users

          I can’t think of a better way to say it, so: “What he said.”

          My few piddly gripes with the site before were not addressed. I have much bigger problems with it now. Sometimes an expert can be so caught up in academic theory that the reality falls short.

        • #2849265

          You nailed it.

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to Don’t take it upon yourself to speak for the TR community or the core users

          Sort of.

          It’s also time to take it easy on the melodrama.

          I promise to bring it in a little, if I have been overly theatrical. Hope I haven’t come off that way, but maybe I have.

          We haven’t changed THAT much in the community, because we know that it’s hard on the power users that have established patterns of working with the site.

          I think people have less of a problem with changing patterns and more of an issue with functions which no longer exist. I have to agree re: visited links, and the Q&A forum still has poor comment boundaries. And a weird thread structure, but I’m guessing that is fully intentional. Text entry boxes – I don’t get these. Four line scroll box?

          But, at the same time, we need to keep expanding and looking for ways to make this stuff easier and more approachable and more efficient

          That runs counter to everything in the prior sentence. You’ve changed a look (and probably a lot of important backend, which is great), but you have not at all improved approachability or ease of use, or efficiency. Just not seeing that at all. It wouldn’t look any more inviting to me as a new user, either, as opposed to a user who may be used to the “old ways”. Even the straight BNet comment format is more readable than the ZDNet and TR forum formats (but still with the ultra-skinny fonts that look nearly grey on a white background).

    • #2849965

      Just logged in…

      by jfuller05 ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      and I will list the pros and cons of my experience.

      Pros:
      Profiles are organized better and include more information.
      Overall, I think the site is organized better than before, but that doesn’t mean I won’t have to get used to it.

      Cons:
      Contrast. Right now, I’m typing in this comment box and I the black text on the baby blue box is very irritating…maybe it’s just me?
      Contrast throughout the site. Justin James covered it just fine in his comment.

      • #2849917

        Contrast

        by gsg ·

        In reply to Just logged in…

        I’m having the same issues with the contrast. Not just in the comments, but the whole color scheme. Super light grey on white, with lighter grey, and I’m getting a lot of glare. I’d like to see some of the contrasting colors a bit deeper with the font nice and dark.

        That said, other than a few minor things, I’m optimistic. Also, based on what they said the other day about their attempt to prevent the thread spamming, I’m hopeful that the evil spammers will be at least deterred, if not defeated.

    • #2849955

      Conversation starter text

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      When there are no comments to a post yet, it says, “The discussion hasn???t started yet. Why don???t you begin it.” It should end with a question mark, not a period.

      J.Ja

      • #2848676

        That’s a good example of the apos problem

        by justin james ·

        In reply to Conversation starter text

        That text in the above comment was a copy/paste from the site… yet it doesn’t display right in my comment. 🙁

        J.Ja

    • #2849951

      Some data updates, some doesn’t

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      It’s a little weird that some of the content gets AJAX-y updated, but some doesn’t. When I make a new post, it shows on my screen immediately, but the comment count doesn’t change. When I vote up/down, the counter right next to the +/- buttons updates, but not the count in the listing below. Etc. It’s just kind of weird to see the site act in some ways on a non-postback basis, but not in other ways.

      J.Ja

    • #2849950

      Sharing on Facebook, picture broken

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      When I do a “Share” to Facebook, the pictures Facebook wants to use are all totally wrong. The default (using the src_image header or meta tag, if I recall) should be either the TR logo or the article author’s picture, not the first ad on the page.

      J.Ja

    • #2849948

      Author pictures

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      The author’s picture should appear at the beginning of the article to help readers quickly identify if an article is by their favorite authors.

      J.Ja

    • #2849945

      Takeaway: great idea, formatting needed

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      The “Takeaway” area is good and I like that it’s been tweaked a lot. But it’s nearly invisible, with the light grey text on the white background and the light green “Takeway” text. My eyes float right over it, and straight to the actual meat of the article, rendering it less useful than it could be.

      J.Ja

    • #2849944

      "Top rated" is numeric!

      by ansugisalas ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Look at the spam over by the water cooler, the OP has a -4, and yet it’s “Top rated”…
      Not how it’s supposed to be, right?

      • #2849673

        That’s really strange.

        by apotheon ·

        In reply to "Top rated" is numeric!

        I wondered if this might be the result of using a character data type to store the numbers instead of a numeric data type, but even when sorted in ASCIIbetical order the dash character normally used to indicate a negative number comes before the full set of decimal digits.

        I imagine there must be an attempt to do some kind of magical time-averaged heuristic going on, and it’s broken.

    • #2849940

      Links need underlining

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      With all of the low contrast going on, links really need underlining to be more obvious and visible. Just making them blue doesn’t help them stand out, particularly to vision impaired users.

      J.Ja

    • #2849938

      Alerts email is broken

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      The links in the alerts email are broken. The links in the alerts email for the individual comments are not linked. Judging by the alerts email itself, I’m guessing that this is one of the “work in progress” items, though.

      J.Ja

    • #2849934

      Its nice, a few complaints though

      by slayer_ ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Overall its good, but I dislike the new login screen, its not working with my auto fill anymore, cause its script triggered I can’t let the browser auto navigate to the page, fill in the login information, and submit. I haven’t tried the site at home yet where I have third party cookies turned off. Hopefully that glitch here has been fixed and I won’t have to login every time I visit the site.

      Also, the new maximum number of comments view is a bit annoying, I preferred the more condensed, but show everything on 1 page view. This could be easily fixed by adding larger values into the drop down, such as 1000 comments or more.

      Finally, this gravatar thing is annoying, I don’t intend to make an account, why would I need ANOTHER image hosting service, plenty of free ones online and I have my own web server.
      The option to just provide a direct link would be nice.

    • #2849933

      This Can’t Be Good…

      by specialfx63 ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      All of my links, data & articles that I saved have gone up in smoke….Can someone at least return the ashes?
      Totally disappointed. >:[

      • #2848827

        Try the favourites in My Stuff

        by ansugisalas ·

        In reply to This Can’t Be Good…

        is your stuff there?

      • #2849338

        Try this

        by jasonhiner ·

        In reply to This Can’t Be Good…

        Check in My Stuff | My Favorites — According to our design, everything you’ve save in the past should be there; if it’s not, then it’s a bug and we’ll see if we can track it down; also, make sure you saved in the account you’re logging in with and not another account, that’s a common mistake.

        • #2849223

          This Can’t Be Good… Part 2

          by bdfrazier ·

          In reply to Try this

          I’m missing nearly all my saved article links also. I only use one account. I have only have 39 items showing under My Favorites. It appears most of the lucky 39 came from a Windows 7 project I created in 2009, but I need my links – all of them. Oh where or where have they gone? Please bring them back – I miss them. 🙁

        • #2849853

          Mine also missing

          by 93961 ·

          In reply to This Can’t Be Good… Part 2

          I had saved many articles & Links. All are missing. I checked in My Stuff | My Favirites. None are there

        • #2849667

          URL for your Favorites list

          by brandons ·

          In reply to Mine also missing

          The new URL to directly get to your Favorites list is:
          http://www.techrepublic.com/members/favorites/

        • #2848335

          Negative

          by 93961 ·

          In reply to URL for your Favorites list

          It says “No favorites found!”. But I have saved many.

    • #2849926

      Sorting Discussions by "Last Comment"

      by keighlar ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I’m attempting to mimic the behavior of the discussion threads to show the last commented on at the top. This allows some of the less interesting topics to drop off the list and not clutter my field of vision. Before you think me a complete moron, I did figure out how to to do it; however, the setting doesn’t “stick.” Every time I navigate back to the main page I have to re-set these preferences. A bit irritating, and I imagine it will only get more so over time.

      Am I missing something? I do not see anywhere to set this as a static preference.

    • #2849922

      More broken "Facebook share" behavior

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I also noticed that when you do a FB share, it puts the count up (like it does for Tweets), but when your refresh the page, the count is blank.

      J.Ja

    • #2849918

      Just noticed the "last seen" on members that haven’t logged in yet

      by slayer_ ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Some of them say last seen 10 years ago 🙂

    • #2849914

      Um…, Erm… Well… Oh!

      by tony hopkinson ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      This is going to take some getting use to, a lot of getting used to..

      Can’t say if it’s better yet, but I think you’ve been a bit too radical, my TR trained intuition is now failing me badly.

      I also can’t wait to try it on my wide screen monitor, I’ve a feeling it’s going to suck even more than it used to.
      Can I have a new wheel for my mouse, just in case please?

      • #2849909

        Re: wide screen

        by justin james ·

        In reply to Um…, Erm… Well… Oh!

        Tony –

        On my 1900 x 1200 screen, 505 of the screen (horizontally) is unused. It just does the “hard code width and center the content” routine.

        J.Ja

        • #2848846

          Well it was bad

          by tony hopkinson ·

          In reply to Re: wide screen

          Now it’s even more vertical, it’s going to be worse.

          My works second monitor is 1680 X 1050
          Submit button is on the bottom of it.
          Bet it’s off screen at home….

          Just noticed the Collapse / Expand for the top panel, should be hide/show as it preserves the absolute position of the main window…

          oops…

          Brill

        • #2848832

          Yeh.

          by boxy fiddler ·

          In reply to Well it was bad

          At the least, viewing ‘Expanded’ needs to be widened considerably.

        • #2848789

          That whole column to the right,

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Yeh.

          containing ‘Keep Up With’, etc… is distracting to me at any rate when reading. Can it be lost in Expanded mode to make room for widening the left hand column containing posts? Or could a Print/View All be returned to our viewing options?

        • #2848787

          Also,

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to That whole column to the right,

          once I’ve posted the view collapses and there’s no sign of the option to Expand it again, despite my default being set at Expanded.

          Sorry, couldn’t edit the original. That seems to be a sporadic issue.

        • #2848780

          Lost would work

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to That whole column to the right,

          Get rid of it or at least balance it left and right with the reading pane centered.. Whoever designed this, over a YEAR mind you, should be collecting welfare or greeting guests at WalMart, no design abilities at all. To think of how many skilled and creative people around here can’t find work and this wank has a job designing TR’s website? There oughtta be a law,

        • #2848727

          You still need to learn the difference between…

          by jasonhiner ·

          In reply to Lost would work

          attacking ideas and attacking people, and I’m getting tired of reminding you. We welcome your criticisms, input, and feedback about the site. However, attacking people and name-calling (such as “wank”) will get your posting privileges revoked. It’s in our Terms of Service and we are committed to keeping the discussions on TechRepublic civil and respectful. Consider this your official warning.

        • #2848764

          Um, option not even there in FireFox

          by tony hopkinson ·

          In reply to Yeh.

          So may be it’s a built in for Infernal Exploiter.
          Oh well, if you are going t make an arse of something, at least make a big arse of it.

      • #2848850

        That’s a great idea

        by oz_media ·

        In reply to Um…, Erm… Well… Oh!

        TR can offer a mouse with a low geared wheel to ease the scrolling, maybe a 1:30 ratio would work, of everyone can just change thier nmouse settings to scroll 10 lines at a ime.
        If using a notebook though, you can just hit space to page down a few dozen times and try to figure out where you want to go.
        The lack of horizontal real estate in a world where widescreens are standardized now, illustrates a utter lack of industry knowledge…hang on, isn’t that what TR boasts?
        It appears to be designed by a group of geeks with impaired vision and no concept of web based marketing or visual aesthetics. I’m surprised the forums don’t require binary input, talk about out of touch.

        • #2848796

          I agree it’s out of touch, but…

          by sterling “chip” camden ·

          In reply to That’s a great idea

          … in the other direction. This looks very “rounded corners and lots of whitespace” oriented, which is fine for artsy sites or high-gloss marketing. Technically-oriented readers covet their screen real estate and keystrokes required to navigate. It’s those folks with whom they’re out of touch.

        • #2848775

          Not to be misunderstood

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to I agree it’s out of touch, but…

          I agree with you, but it takes a technical mind with no cretive capability to come up with this jumble of junk and think it’s a website and draws new visitors. YOU’VE designed websites, you know the 12 second rule for new visitor attention, most would click away form this mess in about 3. “OOOOOPS, wrong link, try the next one maybe it looks a little more usable.”

          At first I thought it was a browser display issue, new website, not fully cross browser tested, tried with FF and its the same! Truly ghastly, if not one of the worst sites I’ve seen in ages. What a disaster! The new discussion layout and navigation is absolutely horrid!

        • #2848752

          Or

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to I agree it’s out of touch, but…

          A resumé, Nice formatting for that, but not for a forum or comment thread.

    • #2849906

      A suggestion…

      by trotter516 ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Maybe I am the only one in the world who thinks this, but having to click each reply and then have it reload the page just to see the post (and ONLY that ONE post) is so archaic. A little Ajax or even just putting the posts there in full would help a LOT. This is the only site (that I visit) that is so backwards in this respect.

      • #2849902

        You can expand all discussions.

        by keighlar ·

        In reply to A suggestion…

        Either set it permanently through your Preferences (My Account –> Preferences), or use the “View” option at the top of each thread to toggle to ‘Expanded’ instead of ‘Collapsed.’

        • #2848851

          That’s not the same

          by justin james ·

          In reply to You can expand all discussions.

          I don’t want to see them ALL expanded. I like the collapsed view, but when I see something I want to read, I don’t want a whole page reload, I want to see the comment I clicked on, and not lose my place in the tree.

          J.Ja

        • #2848849

          Ahhhhh….

          by keighlar ·

          In reply to That’s not the same

          I see what you mean. Pardon my misunderstanding. 🙂 Definitely agreed on that point.

        • #2848845

          Losing your place

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to That’s not the same

          KEY PROBLEM THERE!

          It has a next link, but you don’t know if it’s a reply to the previous post or the OP without again scrolling down and finding its place. It’s utter bollocks, a complete shite rebuild. They have made some bad changes in the past and slowly changed a link here or there to bring it into a semiusable state while it was completely rebuilt again but this is just hideous.

      • #2848774

        Hear here!

        by oz_media ·

        In reply to A suggestion…

        It;s certainly one of a kind, makes me wonder why nobody else does it but I guess that is easy enough to see.

      • #2848751

        And focus on the top of the page

        by seanferd ·

        In reply to A suggestion…

        rather than the opened comment. I don’t know why any site does this, but it is exacerbated by this format. Same problem the galleries always had – complete reload, but does not center on content.

    • #2848848

      Signing up to email alerts is hard

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Signing up for email alerts on a conversation that exists, but you are not posting in reply to the original item is “painful” to put it mildly. The checkbox isn’t there, so you need to click the email subscribe button (which is like 30 x 30 and nearly invisible), then choose a bunch of options (which are not set to rational defaults), and then hope that the link takes you back from whence you came.

      Please reinstate the simple “Subscribe to this conversation” link, and make the RSS subscription easier to get a hold of. Thanks!

      J.Ja

    • #2848843

      I smell marketing..

      by tony hopkinson ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Even more ad and link space to scroll through before you find waht you came here for in the f’ing first place.

      You want a laugh try Collapse/ Expand on that top banner thing…

      • #2848840

        Nope

        by jasonhiner ·

        In reply to I smell marketing..

        This was primarily a usability redesign run by our product and editorial teams. We have actually reduced the number of ads, promotional units, and redundant text/graphics on our pages. That has allowed us to dedicate more of the pages to the content itself. The space on the page for content on blog posts, photo galleries, and videos is over 15% larger as a result. The idea is to let users immerse in the content more than all of the extraneous stuff on the pages. On blog posts, we’ve even removed the headers with photos of the editors and authors at the top of the blog because we know users care more about the content itself and want to get directly to it.

        As you noted, with our top stories unit at the top of our pages, we’ve made it collapsible so that it’s more user-friendly.

        • #2848771

          However

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to Nope

          In the discussions you display avatars at every header? You have simply made room to add more content, BIG content, that is porly laid out.

        • #2848730

          Avatars in threads

          by jasonhiner ·

          In reply to However

          We used this format because members have said repeatedly that they want easy ways to identify the people whose opinions they care about within a thread (in order to read their posts). And, by contrast, they want to avoid the trollish, arrogant posters who often resort to personal attacks and name-calling.

        • #2848757

          Acutually I noted that Collapse DID NOT

          by tony hopkinson ·

          In reply to Nope

          work!
          All it does is hide the three image panels, the rest of the page does not flow, I just get a big gap!

          On top of that, the option isn;t even there in FF!

          And tell you web designers to stop using wide screen rotated 90 degrees!

          At 1920×1080, I’m going to need Magoo glasses within a week, and I still can’t see your answer and my reply on one screen full!

          Some thing like 60% of the real estate is outside the main ‘window, of that, half is unused!

          Usability?
          Message from user, are you kidding?

      • #2848772

        Apparently not

        by oz_media ·

        In reply to I smell marketing..

        That was my read too, but then I realized that anyone with any marketing ability couldn’t have designed it. No, the ads and banners, mixed in with headers, panels and other junk (facebook, twitter, digg, linkedin, feeds?) are simply there to make the page busy and ugly. It’s like they are looking for a way to fit the entire Internet into one page so nothing is missed. ‘Gross’ doesn’t count when you must try to include all the web’s content.

    • #2848838

      Wow, who was your target audience, 5 year old chidren?

      by jackofalltech ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      This is THE worst change in TR in all the years I’ve been on here. I haven’t considered usability yet, I’m only talking about appearance. I neither need nor want eye-candy, any chance you’ll consider offering a ‘plain-text-only’ theme as an option?

    • #2848826

      "alert me when new comments are made" only in comment form?

      by neon samurai ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      so, I found the “My Discussions” which seems to show my comments. What I want to see is the list of discussions I’m involved in updating based on other’s comments. I’m guessing those updates apear in the same location I haven’t anything recent enough (or everyone is busy with the new UI).

      when I checked this discussion for the familiar “subscribe to this discussion” link, I could only find the comment form field “Alart me when new comments are made”. Is there a button I’m missing to “subscribe” a discussion without entering a comment to make use of the checkbox?

      • #2848816

        confirmd, I’m not seeing updates

        by neon samurai ·

        In reply to "alert me when new comments are made" only in comment form?

        I’ve got this discussion, as near as I can tell, flagged to notify me when comments are added. Two comments drop after my post starting with the one from The Generalist. If there is a notice in the My Account area, I’m not yet seeing it.

        (I do like the addition of times beside the comment date though; I generally know if a time is after my last skim for new comments.)

      • #2848674

        It’s there…

        by justin james ·

        In reply to "alert me when new comments are made" only in comment form?

        … but you need to dig, it’s an email icon at the top, that says, “Follow this discussion”. But then you need to jump through hoops to use it. Hoops that ignore your default settings, it seems like. 🙁

        J.Ja

        • #2848582

          how am I alerted when comments are added?

          by neon samurai ·

          In reply to It’s there…

          I think I see two different things here. At the discussion top I see “Follow Via: [rss] [email]”.. what I want is “Follow Via: My Stuff”. RSS is a nice option but I don’t want to require my web browser rss tracking. This would also mean a third party sync option or only having discussions tracked in one browser on one machine. Email is also a nice option but switching between browser and email client constantly is not optimal; even with the email provided link. I’m pretty much lurking on the site all day; Ideally, I should be able to log in, load the My Stuff page and see notices of activity in discussions of interest. I should be able to check back to the tab, refresh and know that there are new comments in a followed discussion.

          The second thing is the “notify me” checkbox in the comment input form, but not this comment reply form. I’m not sure where those notice are supposed to arrive; I’ve seen some notices in email but nothing more then that.

          That’s really my killer feature; being able to sit on a page and see notices that new comments are in my tracked discussions.

        • #2848563

          Did you try "Favorite"?

          by justin james ·

          In reply to how am I alerted when comments are added?

          I haven’t tried the “Favorite” functionality, that might do what you want.

          J.Ja

        • #2849476

          The Favorites area

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to Did you try "Favorite"?

          is the old Links section. No updates, just a list of threads.

        • #2849452

          No, it won’t

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to Did you try "Favorite"?

          It’s a simple list of ‘favorited’ discussions. No updates whatsoever. It’s what used to be the “Links” area.

    • #2848825

      Where did they hide it today?

      by generalist ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      One of my favorite phrases when it comes to ‘upgrades’ is the phrase ‘Where did they hide it today?’

      The TechRepublic ‘upgrade’ is making me ask the question for the same reasons the questions are asked when dealing with software upgrades. It would be nice to have a before and after map of how to get to things so I don’t have to spend a lot of time exploring.

    • #2848817

      I don’t like it

      by unhappyuser ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Added a second time since the first one was removed. Bring back the old setup. EMD

      • #2848657

        Agree

        by deskhero ·

        In reply to I don’t like it

        I like to print the full comments thread to PDF -(after the article itself) which I add to my knowledgebase.
        Not so easy now and looks scrappy.
        Also – EVEN MORE external javascript – at least a dozen different sources according to NoScript – I do not trust them by default, and only enable the bare minimum for the site to work. Apart from security concerns they slow my browser down.

        • #2848597

          Yeh.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Agree

          Print/View All was mightly handy. 🙂

          As for NoScript, I think that’s what’s been kicking me out when I vote. Took me too long to figure that out…

    • #2848808

      ‘Message has been deleted’

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      not showing on all deleted posts… 😉

    • #2848800

      One thing I do like…

      by sterling “chip” camden ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      … is the expanded conversation option. No more clicking in and out of responses!

      But each response does take up too much space vertically, and not enough horizontally. I wish it was horizontally fluid (based on browser width).

    • #2848791

      Comment seem to post much faster.

      by charliespencer ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I’m seeing a much quicker refresh rate after I post a comment.

    • #2848790

      Peer Messages limited to Contacts??

      by charliespencer ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I notice a ‘Send a Message’ option under the ‘My Account’ link in the upper right. I also notice the ‘To’ field appears to be limited to those in ‘My Contacts’. Is that a correct perception? If so, is it limited to when both members have the other as a contact?

      Also, on the Membership / Preferences tab, I’m unable to select ‘No’ for ‘Allow members to contact me’. I’m not really interested in disabling this option; I was just testing it to see if I could still send peer messages if I disabled it. Since I couldn’t disable it, I couldn’t test sending with it disabled. Since I didn’t use the word enough times in this paragraph already, here’s a few more: disabled, disabled, disabled. Or ‘challenged’, for the politically correct.

      • #2848782

        I came up against that also.

        by boxfiddler ·

        In reply to Peer Messages limited to Contacts??

        Related, searching for a user name in the search box on any page displays a bazillion threads but no users. It would be useful if we could easily find users we haven’t added to our contacts.

      • #2848759

        Two sides to the coin

        by oz_media ·

        In reply to Peer Messages limited to Contacts??

        First of all I see your side completely but then I thought that it’s a good thing in another way. I sometimes get peer mail from people I have never uttered a word with, asking about something I mentioned 7 years ago that came up in their Google search.
        I had one a few months ago from a guy who was looking for advice on stereo tuners. Sent me model numbers and prices of stuff he was looking at and asked for purchase advice.

        I got one teh other day from someone who was asking why I had a peer in my contacts list because of something he said. It included a link to ao conversation I’d not been following or posting to and asked me to delete him from my contacts and tell him what I thought. I read the linked post and it meant nothing to me, some tech stuff I knew nothing about. I replied and said I don’t have to agree with someone all the time to consider them an acquaintance or a friend and that I don’t let other people tell me who to befriend anyway! 😀 Gawd!

        Anyone knows I don’t have a problem with offering advice or buying tips on stuff I work with but I get some bizarre emails from people here who I have never heard of before.
        It’s a junk email account anyway, but still…

        • #2848722

          Response

          by charliespencer ·

          In reply to Two sides to the coin

          I didn’t intend to give the impression I was complaining. Like you, I hope this really is a case of limiting peer mails to mutual Contacts. I too receive my share of e-mails from members I’ve never heard of before, making vague references to something I posted back when XP was cutting edge.

    • #2848778

      Clicking on a post made by one of my contacts

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      when viewing their profile to find their posts, takes me to the start of the discussion/question, not their post. Not useful. 🙁

    • #2848763

      Oh no.

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Pages? Oh, no.

      • #2848750

        Exactly.

        by seanferd ·

        In reply to Oh no.

        It’ oh so “social”, though.

    • #2848760

      In addition to ‘Ask for clarification’ in the QA forum

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      each reply needs a reply button. I’m seeing a lot of answers posted using ‘Ask for Clarification’, and those folks will never get a positive or negative vote out of their responses.

      Additionally, once a thread gets long, and some over there do, it’s a royal pita to have to go back to the top of the thread to reply.

      [i]add something[/i]
      [i]remove the double amp: that just showed up[/i]

    • #2848758

      PRINT / PREVIEW ALL POSTS?

      by oz_media ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I don’t see the print / preview all posts option anywhere, I thought it might provide a better way to follow a discussion.

      • #2848748

        That, in itself, would "fix" a lot of issues.

        by seanferd ·

        In reply to PRINT / PREVIEW ALL POSTS?

        Providing “all” means all, and is not limited by “page” or “read more”.

      • #2848721

        Here’s how

        by jasonhiner ·

        In reply to PRINT / PREVIEW ALL POSTS?

        Go to the main thread and change the View from “Collapsed” to “Expanded.”

        For example, from here:
        http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-340633

        • #2848715

          No, Jason.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Here’s how

          We’re asking for the addition of Print/View All option, as it was. Expanded is not the same thing at all. Too much wasted screen space. Too, too vertical.

          [i]clarify[/i]

        • #2848702

          That;s not even remotely close to the same thing

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to Here’s how

          That jutst expands a couple of top level posts and lists the rest as individual links with avatars beside them (we don’t need avatars beside each heading, just when the post is opened, as before).
          It’s not even close to having each and every post opened in a thread, with the ability to reply to and edit in the same view, not even on the same planet as the old print/preview option, which worked really well.

          Did anyone actually look at what worked in the old site instead of just how to add a load of other junk that nobody seems to have wantedanyway ?

          Seriously Jason, this scrolls and works like a torrent website (rlslog etc.). It is horrendously bad, terribly laid out, navigation is all but non existent compared to anything that has been done over the last 10 years, it’s like Windows ME all over again, the whole thing’s just a big, bad mistake. Too bad, what a total screw up by the development/design team.

        • #2848699

          What it [i]does[/i] do

          by santeewelding ·

          In reply to That;s not even remotely close to the same thing

          Just like before, is to reproduce your typos perfectly.

        • #2848696

          I won’t even bother trying to edit now.

          by oz_media ·

          In reply to What it [i]does[/i] do

          When you edit a post all formatting is lost so f-it just keep bashing them keys and hit submit.

        • #2848689

          You know

          by santeewelding ·

          In reply to I won’t even bother trying to edit now.

          I’d thought of it before…

          That, there should be no editing possible. Make it, like, your diamond is forever.

          Only thing you get to do is another post. You get to explain how you flew off the handle. Only, without flying off the handle again. If you can.

        • #2849404

          Edits and time to edit

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to You know

          I moderate another forum that allows people only 30 minutes to edit their own post. Beyond that time limit, they have to reach out to a section moderator.

          The rationale is that that once something has posted, people generally will respond. If the original post is edited to remove references to the response, it leaves the respondent looking like an *ss.

          I would hazard a guess that I am a small minority on this, but I would love to see an “edit” time clock that would disable the ability to edit after a specified- and communicated- length of time.

          Edit: Clarity

        • #2848625

          HIghlight your post, Control + C

          by slayer_ ·

          In reply to I won’t even bother trying to edit now.

          Then click edit, select the broken content, and press Control + V. BAM, your post is ready to be edited.

        • #2848693

          Your hyperbole…

          by jasonhiner ·

          In reply to That;s not even remotely close to the same thing

          makes it hard to take anything you say seriously. These kinds of melodramatic comments cause you to lose all credibility — even if and when you have something valid to communicate.

          If you can’t stand the new TechRepublic that much then I’d suggest you take a break and come back when you can approach it with a clear head and less emotion.

        • #2848694

          On the subject of ‘Expanded’…

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Here’s how

          A default in my preferences for ‘all’ would be extremely helpful. As it is now, I have to choose ‘all’ for every thread I view, every time I view it.

        • #2848672

          There is a default for that

          by justin james ·

          In reply to On the subject of ‘Expanded’…

          It’s in the settings somewhere, I stumbled on it by accident, so I can’t recall how to get there to share. 🙁

          J.Ja

        • #2848667

          Yeh, there is.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to There is a default for that

          My Account/Preferences. But ‘All’ is not an option.

        • #2848665

          That is a bug

          by jasonhiner ·

          In reply to On the subject of ‘Expanded’…

          It’s in your Community Preferences, there are only options to choose 25,50,100 and no option for All.

          Its driving me nuts, too, so I’m pushing to get it fixed as soon as possible. 🙂

        • #2848630

          Not working properly

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to Here’s how

          I’ve set my default view to “Expanded”, but I’m viewing this thread in collapsed mode. There’s a “Show” option on the page, but no “Expand” option.

    • #2848737

      Search seems to be improved.

      by seanferd ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      It should be, considering the monstrosity of a search box placed at the top of the lists.

      Suggestion: retain the search form on the results page. Srsly, come on.

      • #2849405

        new search coming + need clarification

        by david slade ·

        In reply to Search seems to be improved.

        We’re rolling out a google powered search solution in a couple weeks.

        what do you mean by “retain the search form on the result page”? the form remains in the top right. Are you suggesting it should be somewhere else on the page? thanks for your feedback.

        • #2849682

          User search.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to new search coming + need clarification

          I’d like to be able to search by username.

        • #2848233

          Sorry, just caught this.

          by seanferd ·

          In reply to new search coming + need clarification

          At the time, once search results were displayed, there was no search terms entry box on the page. I see there is one at the page bottom now.

          I would guess that it was just odd behavior during the initial shakedown.

    • #2848732

      Echoing other comments here…

      by nwallette ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Everything is *SO* *BIG*.

      It looks like someone with a small monitor and high resolution took their glasses off and then resized everything so they could still see it. It makes it very difficult to get a bird’s-eye view of the content all at once.

      At 1280×1024, the size of the buttons and panels makes it impossible to view any page without having to scroll around. This would be hopelessly counter-productive on my iPhone.

      You want a clean layout? Condense the objects and provide white space between them. Lots of visual separation. Right now, there’s just too much stuff everywhere. And the eye is drawn more to the rightmost “other stuff” column than the article.

      Also, my biggest complaint ever about the article comments was that you had to click each and every one to read it. I’d prefer at least a couple levels of comments preloaded. If not expanded, then tucked away in an invisible DIV with a clickable expander. If not that, then AJAX-loaded. Reloading the entire page is a huge waste and makes for cumbersome reading.

      At least before, though, you could see the hierarchy between comments. Now the comment tables are too bulky to take in. I can’t tell who started a thread because the original poster is about 1000 pixels north of the replies.

      Can we start over?

      • #2848698

        That Power Users block is as annoying as hell

        by oz_media ·

        In reply to Echoing other comments here…

        You are scorlling down poorly contrasted test and links in a thread and keep seeing teh big blue block of nothing. Power Users, cool and all but does it need to be one o fthe most dominant blocks on the page? A tiny blue list ina text box would be just fine and less intrusive, actually, while I initially liked that they retained a colour scheme, the more I see it the uglier and mroe useless it all is.

        FUGLY describes it well. If I had designed it, I’d be cleaning out my desk and collecting holiday pay right before it went live; run before they find our what you were paid to come up with!

      • #2849396

        great comments, thanks.

        by david slade ·

        In reply to Echoing other comments here…

        lots of good points here. we’ll work on refining the layout over next quarter or two. It’s a big site, this will take time. The list of post launch features and tweaks is huge. we’ll keep coming back to you all to get feedback on what’s most important.

        We’re working to improve the speed and loading of comments, including the use of ajax where it makes sense.

        in the next several months we’ll be rolling out some mobile versions of the site as well. stay tuned.

    • #2848724

      Download Page And

      by thechas ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Well, like most everyone else, I do not like the larger font and the spread out information on the pages.

      I check for new downloads every Saturday. Checking today I noticed a few things:
      1. I can no longer tell what articles I have already downloaded.
      2. The list of view all defaults to date order, but starts with a November 11th 2010 article. And, does not include the articles I downloaded this past Saturday.
      3. When I click on the link to sort by date, I get a 404 error.
      4. How come the content type pull-down does not have an All option?
      5. The update did not fix the ability to download articles that I have links for and had reported as not downloading such as:
      http://www.techrepublic.com/downloads/10-chrome-extensions-that-enhance-online-security/1832559

      On the plus side, my bookmarks to old articles do work.

      I don’t like having to click through multiple pages to review all the posts on long discussion threads.

      Do we really need a column inch of text to preview posts and articles?

      Personally, I would prefer to return to one of the pre 2005 site layouts with more plain text and less graphics.

      Chas

      • #2848697

        Perfect

        by oz_media ·

        In reply to Download Page And

        The layout before the last was awesome, the only problem that site has was peopl eposting in teh wrong forums but that happens anyway and here they’d just be completey lost anyway. Maybe that’s the idea, make it a maze nobody wants to navigate, get clicks and plenty of page loads as people click about aimlessly but you don’t have forums to moderate anymore!

        • #2848695

          No fear

          by santeewelding ·

          In reply to Perfect

          You are incapable of being moderated.

      • #2849447

        Alert Emails

        by thechas ·

        In reply to Download Page And

        I received 2 Alerts emails today.
        The first one for the Q&A section was fine and the link worked and took me right to the question.

        The second for this thread had only one clickable link, and it ended up as a blank (white) page.

        This was a text only email. I was able to copy and paste a link. But, it took a very long time to load the page.

        Chas

    • #2848690

      clicking on +, – or poll selections goes to

      by who am i really ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Page not found

    • #2848683

      More broken right click menus

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Another oddity, when you look at the top level of the discussion thread, and it shows the top rated and newest posts, you can’t do a right click on them to get the “Open in New Tab” or “Open in New Window” options. This makes me leave that view, making it hard for me to spawn off a bunch of new tabs to read the new comments.

      J.Ja

      • #2848682

        That’s not good.

        by boxfiddler ·

        In reply to More broken right click menus

        I open multiple discussion tabs that way, too.

        • #2848675

          force new tab with wheel click

          by who am i really ·

          In reply to That’s not good.

          instead of right click > open link in new tab
          a single middle “Wheel” click will force a new tab or window (depending on settings)

        • #2849507

          Ctrl-click works as well

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to force new tab with wheel click

          On the laptop, that’s my preferred method.

        • #2848669

          It’s only for the top stuff, luckily

          by justin james ·

          In reply to That’s not good.

          Thankfully, it’s only for the two posts at the top. But I *have* noticed the same thing in a number of other parts that have an AJAX behavior, the right click menu is butchered.

          J.Ja

    • #2848680

      Time for the GOOD stuff

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I know, it may look like i hate the new site. I don’t. I like many of the ideas it represents, but there are a lot of implementation details that I think were not done quite right. In the spirit of giving credit where credit is due, let’s list some of the GOOD things about the new design:

      * Bigger fonts. Yes, less content appears on the screen. That can be fixed by widening the center column. But with the bigger fonts, it’s a LOT easier to read, especially for vision impaired (a good part of the population.

      * The collapsible areas. A number of areas that are less important are collapsible, giving the opportunity to get some pixels back.

      * AJAX in some appropriate areas. Like the contact forms, nice touch.

      * Improved search. The search is much improved. Not what I think it needs to be in some areas (I’ve posted separately on search issues), but it is much improved.

      * Dropping the “.com.com”. That always annoyed me.

      * If you are someone who is willing to use Gravatar, it *is* a good system. I understand why folks don’t like it (look at the Top 100 “Power Users”, a very small minority of them have Gravatar images, so clearly it’s not widespread in use already), but at the same time, I do like it as a system.

      * Code formats slightly better. The code formatting is not what’s needed, but it is still better than what we had a week ago.

      * Voting on comments, burying comments: much needed, and much appreciated.

      * RSS feeds to monitor discussions is more obvious.

      * When the main navigation areas get all of the content imported, they will be potentially much better than what was there before.

      * Author disclosures: this is very important, and welcome.

      * Identification of “staff” on avatars.

      * Focus on the the users. While the “Power Users” box may be a bit too over the top, it’s a nice thought and representative of the thought process that went into the site.

      Anyone else care to share the GOOD things they see in the new design?

      J.Ja

    • #2848677

      So far…

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Larger fonts, YES! I was always having to CTRL/+ the previous format. Haven’t had to with the new.

      Definitely like the voting on comments.

      Thoroughly appreciate that the color scheme is not obnoxious.

      Whether I’m in Discussions or Q&A, the Water Cooler shows on the opening page. Nice.

      Expanded as a default is sweet. I hate clicking each post to open, and I didn’t always like responding from Print/View All as it was difficult to find the next spot up the tree when the posting limit had been reached.

      I like the option to cruise Unanswered Questions. Nice.

      I haven’t finished exploring yet. But I will post what I like in addition to what I don’t like. 🙂

      (ooh – I may not do a lot of editing until that’s fixed :0 )

      • #2848574

        I also like

        by boxfiddler ·

        In reply to So far…

        being able to view posts that have been collapsed due to negative voting. ]:)

        • #2849392

          power to the users

          by david slade ·

          In reply to I also like

          it’s our gift to users who can’t wait for stuff to be moderated, or want to tune out the noise. 🙂 you all can bury it or change your preferences to bury it faster.

      • #2849390

        thanks!

        by david slade ·

        In reply to So far…

        some like big font, some like small, collapsed/expanded, potatoes, tomatoes, we’re working on giving you all more control over how you consume the site. more to come!!

        hot tip – changes to user ranking are coming, and those that are helping answer questions and contribute positively to the community will definitely get some points! so keep an eye on the unanswered questions!

    • #2848670

      expanded view collapses after reply

      by who am i really ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I set the view to expanded in preferences
      I’d rather scroll for miles than open each comment individually

      however, after a reply is posted the whole view collapses to the default titles only

      • #2848611

        What browser?

        by charliespencer ·

        In reply to expanded view collapses after reply

        I’m not seeing that effect.

        • #2848580

          I’ve been getting that intermittently.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to What browser?

          Using FF. Once I fully disable NoScript (don’t like having to do that, btw) the getting kicked out when I vote and collapsed after replying appears to have stopped.

    • #2848668

      Permission denied

      by thecalguy ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Even though I’m logged in, I get “Permission denied” when I try to leave a comment.
      (This one included).
      I’ve now logged out and logged back in to see if works.
      If you are reading this, then I guess it worked.

      • #2849394

        clear your cookies

        by david slade ·

        In reply to Permission denied

        and log back in. you should be fine. it’s a known issue with changing domains and some changes to cookie handling. apologies.

    • #2848663

      IT Management * Development * IT Support * Data Center * Networks * Securit

      by who am i really ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      links are not click-able

    • #2848661

      New Site/design

      by freda ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      2 problems: getting easily at the download associated with a blog & The title or wording of pictures etc should be just below the picture not below all the thumb-nails

    • #2848659

      Irony

      by random2010 ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      You say you got rid of a load of ad units, and yet, ironically, when I open the link to the article on the new site design all I could see was ad units, the title of the article near the bottom on on the left in a huge font and the first line of text. To read the article I had to ignore all the ad units and scroll down. Guess that will become instinctive soon enough 😉

      Oh, and I had to take a few goes at posting this comment because it kept saying ‘permission denied’ in an ugly red box. Logging and and back in fixed the bug, but it was not a great first impression guys…!

    • #2848640

      Jason, dear….

      by gadgetgirl ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      going through My Account > contacts > I appear to have lost 90+ people….. (including YOU!)

      How do we search for people?

      (small list: on lunch, eating and typing…. 😉 )

      GG

      • #2848629

        That explains it

        by nicknielsen ·

        In reply to Jason, dear….

        I was wondering why you counted me as a contact last week, but are not following me this week…

        How you been, luv?

        • #2848624

          My usual is frantic

          by gadgetgirl ·

          In reply to That explains it

          but it’s been frantically frantic lately. Mainly home, but now work is ramping up again after the holidays.

          I think I better send you an email…. I owe so many people catch up emails it just ain’t funny anymore. I’ll group email the “huggers” at the weekend.

          (Promise)

          😡

          GG

        • #2849506

          I’ve heard that before ;)

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to My usual is frantic

          Looking forward to it.

          Wrap-around hugs. 😡 😡

      • #2848623

        Yikes

        by jasonhiner ·

        In reply to Jason, dear….

        I’m checking into it. Sorry about that!

      • #2848596

        That explains a lot.

        by boxfiddler ·

        In reply to Jason, dear….

        I tried to pm some peeps I [b]know[/b] are in My Contacts[/b], but couldn’t. :0

    • #2848631

      You need a URL Icon on your home page, too.

      by compumind ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      It is not there, when I click on the site.

      It should be to the left of the URL.

    • #2848617

      Downloads not properly linked

      by jeremy barker ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Many blog posts state “This blog post is also available as a TechRepublic download”. Unfortunately the links no longer work and you get dumped into a general downloads page with no workable method of finding the download you wanted.

    • #2848614

      Ugh, I don’t think I can stand this

      by jackofalltech ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      After 10 years, this may be my last week on TR. I’m going to search for a tech site that still cares about looking professional.

    • #2848613

      The question forum needs some work

      by slayer_ ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      There are a number of visual issues as well as usability issues.

      The key things I notice are, you can no longer answer specific posts, you can only ask for clarification, so if the OP asks a question, then a followup question, its hard to tell which answer is for which question. It is also hard for those finding TR from google, to tell which is the correct answer without the thumb system or some sort of “best answer” system. Personally I preferred the thumbs but the current system can work as well.

      Secondly, the way it is displayed with the speech balloons, is hard to tell who posted what. Especially if there is a reply to one and it just appears below the previous posters name.

    • #2848606

      Can you bring back the old ability to post pictures?

      by slayer_ ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Or at least have all pictures appear as thumbnails or something?

    • #2848602

      Interesting

      by tink! ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      This is my first visit to the new Tr. I’ll pitch in my 2 cents after I explore a bit I’m sure. 😀

      BTW, I really did mean to be at the preview, but I totally had a brain fart and miscalculated Eastern time to Central time. Tried to get in 2 hours late!

    • #2848595

      Gravatar

      by tigger_two ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      [i]We use the service Gravatar to display profile images. The process is very simple. Go to Gravatar.com and create an account with the same email address that you use at TechRepublic. Associate an avatar with your email address. Voila, you’re done. Your Gravatar will automatically show up on TechRepublic within about 10 minutes. Create one now[/i]

      Or not.

      I went out to Gravatar and uploaded an image that I wished to use. I found the site to be not terribly intuitive but I managed. That was about 30 minutes ago.

      I have since logged out and logged back in to TR- a scary proposition as my old self seems to have gone away and I can only hope that my new self hangs around for a while. Still no love- I seem to not be able to set an avatar.

      *sigh*

      • #2848592

        Well Tig

        by tink! ·

        In reply to Gravatar

        you appear to have one by the time I posted this. Whether or not it is the one you intended I do not know. But nevertheless it’s cute!

        • #2848591

          Thanks Tink!

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to Well Tig

          I still can’t see it. It should be a kitty buried under paper.

          Very strange. At least it is visible to the community!

        • #2848534

          That it is Tig

          by tink! ·

          In reply to Thanks Tink!

          cute little kitty. Is that yours? or a public domain pic?

        • #2848531

          Public Domain

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to That it is Tig

          The kitten still moves too fast to get a decent pic and the older girls only play the cute card when I don’t have a handy camera.

          What I don’t understand is why I can’t see my own avatar. I have no way of knowing what you are seeing. All I have to go by is what Gravatar shows me- which may or may not be what you see.

        • #2849436

          Did you try hosing down your browser?

          by ansugisalas ·

          In reply to Public Domain

          Getting rid of all cache might help.

          I am also getting compatibility issues, BTW.
          I just now accidentally opened the site in IE (rather than Opera), and I got a blank when I tried to reply this.

        • #2849428

          I wiped cache and cookies

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to Did you try hosing down your browser?

          And everything else I could think of. Finally got to see my own avatar about 6.5 hours after loading it to Gravatar.

          I use Safari on Mac and have yet to try reaching the site with either FF or Omni. Not sure I want to…

        • #2849504

          That’s what it is

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to Thanks Tink!

          Get that poor thing out of there before it gets crushed! 😀 Don’t know why you can’t see yours. I’m not having any trouble seeing mine. My peeve at the moment is not having the capability to view this thread expanded. I’ve set it as my default, but it’s displaying collapsed and there’s no view option to select. So I’m getting to go through it post…by post…by post…

        • #2849480

          Nick, have you tried

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to That’s what it is

          disabling NoScript? (Providing you’re using FF, of course) Worked at all sorts of minor annoyances for me.

        • #2849427

          Nick, I have tried to mimic that behavior

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to That’s what it is

          On Safari on Mac. No love, hon. Sorry.

          Have you tried a browser other than FF?

        • #2849840

          IE 7 works the same way

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to Nick, I have tried to mimic that behavior

          Thread is collapsed, with no option to expand. It only happens if I access the thread via link to a specific post. If I come in through the Discussions page and access the entire thread, it’s not a problem.

          etu

        • #2849737

          I have that problem with IE

          by ansugisalas ·

          In reply to IE 7 works the same way

          But not with Opera. Browsers are weird nowadays.

    • #2848593

      Flow irritation

      by tigger_two ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      From the Discussion front door, I see the top two Water Cooler discussions- tres cool!

      Here’s the issue I see… I have to click “View More” to see a full list of Water Cooler discussions. If I read one, I can’t easily navigate back to that full list. Near as I can tell, I have to go back to the Discussion front door, click again on the “View More” and then try to recall the last discussion I read. Some days, that is easy. Other days are not so much.

      Like many posters, I enjoy the Water Cooler area as I like to think about topics other than tech and appreciate the insight that others bring to those topics. I can’t be the only person finding navigation difficult.

      I would love to see a clickable that will take me back to the full list of Water Cooler topics. I haven’t tried this for other topics but if it is the same, I think a direct navigation option should be available there as well.

      Edited to see what would happen…

      Interesting- all formatting went away and my quote marks were suddenly problematic on editing. I’ve re-formatted but wonder what this is going to look like…

      • #2849435

        Agreed

        by ansugisalas ·

        In reply to Flow irritation

        It’s too hard to get there. That’s another thing that might cause a jailbreak 🙂

    • #2848588

      Thumb Down for article

      by scarf ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      The idea of having only the Thumb Up button for the article, is useless for any statistics.The new version doesn’t add a Thumb Down button for articles – which I was really looking forward to see included. Adding it, may allow others to judge the general contribution of an author.

    • #2848586

      Using Gravatar for user’s image breaches personal privacy

      by scarf ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      These days, more and more web services lack the minimal respect for the user’s privacy, but not allowing the users to completely remove their accounts.
      Gravatar is one example of such web services. Their explanation is surreal, at least: “Because of how our system works, we cannot delete accounts completely.” How the system works when it doesn’t have one user’s account, and why it cannot work anymore if that user decides to remove his account, these are qustions beyond any technical explanation.
      I don’t understand why Techrepublic doesn’t keep the users’ images in it’s own database for this version, deciding to push the users to a service which lacks the minimal choice of removing the user’s account.

      • #2849474

        TR never kept the user avatars

        by nicknielsen ·

        In reply to Using Gravatar for user’s image breaches personal privacy

        Outside the default avatar collection, all they ever stored was your link to the image file.

        • #2849311

          Interesting

          by scarf ·

          In reply to TR never kept the user avatars

          In the previous version, I quite remember adding my personal photo. I browsed the local drive and uploaded it somewhere inside Techrepublic systems. I suppose that they didn’t linked the image to my local drive, eh?
          Anyway, I wasn’t asked to create a new account with another web service, as it is now. And, what really makes me angry is that Gravatar doesn’t delete the user accounts at request.

    • #2848578

      View more.

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Is pretty awful. I really don’t need to see a synopsis, just titles. Too little information takes too much space.

      [i]Forums View More, that is[/i]

    • #2848577

      Adding Blogs, etc. to My Favorites List

      by qageek55403 ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      In the previous version of TR, I often saved articles and blog entries. I see they are still listed within my Favorites. What I don’t see is how to continue that practice in the new version. I see Add Favorite for discussion items, but not for the source document. What am I missing??

      (Also received Permission Denied error; grrr!)

    • #2848576

      Who likes my post?

      by tigger_two ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Not a quibble on how things are working now, just a thought for the back of your collective mind…

      It would be interesting to know who is voting a post up or down. Don’t know how possible that would be to do, just think that it could be interesting.

      • #2849433

        Who is following me?

        by ansugisalas ·

        In reply to Who likes my post?

        Not to sound paranoid; but I see a list of people whom I’m following, but I don’t see a list of people following me.
        Having both would make it easier to fix the many cases of broken contact-hood, since they’re usually mutual if they’re for real.

        • #2849432

          That is missing, isn’t it? (nt)

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Who is following me?

          .

        • #2849426

          I managed to lose ALL my contacts

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to Who is following me?

          As well as the old spelling of my name. *sigh*

          I should be prompted to [i]accept[/i] someone as a contact before they are allowed to count me as a contact. Don’t know yet if that part works.

    • #2848568

      QA Request for Clarification.

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      It’s great that these show up in my posts, [b]but[/b] They show up with no indication as to which thread and which post in that thread they apply, nor any indication what content is in the clarification. This makes keeping track of those requests impossible.

      [i]close tag[/i]
      [i]flow[/i]

    • #2848566

      Seriously? Feedback?

      by kenone ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Huge! looks like it was designed for three year olds. Cludgy, Slow, you must be a big Java fan, No thumbs? No motivation. Can’t find anything. What’s inconvenient about the Gravatar site? Spending 20 minutes trying to come up with a new user name and password combo that they approved of only to discover that they have no stock icons available and then having to search through my PC to find something {Ahem} acceptable to use. Wasted half my morning, I’ll have my boss contact you with any questions.

    • #2848556

      duplication

      by apotheon ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Is there any chance you could summarize the feedback from the other discussion here so there’s a central repository of feedback, rather than leaving feedback that has already been offered in its own little largely-ignored ghetto?

      • #2849542

        Bug list too

        by justin james ·

        In reply to duplication

        I’d also like to be able to see the bug list, so I know what has already been reported.

        J.Ja

        • #2849531

          A bug list or "Previously reported/suggested" list

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to Bug list too

          I’m tossing stuff out there as I run across it- things that I believe make navigating the new environment difficult or unwieldy and stuff that doesn’t seem to be working for me. It would be great if they could spawn a link from here to a subset of things that have already been mentioned.

          Given my early onset Alzheimer’s, such a list would keep me from repeating everyone else’s input and hopefully provide the PTB with a list of what we are seeing, possibly even prioritized from the community’s opinion based on votes.

        • #2849514

          I’m looking into …

          by jasonhiner ·

          In reply to A bug list or "Previously reported/suggested" list

          a way that we could publicly expose a bug list. It probably won’t be something on the TechRepublic site, but we might be able to do a shared Google Doc for those interested.

          No promises yet, but I’m exploring the possibilities.

        • #2849491

          I’ll make your life easier

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to I’m looking into …

          I combed through this thread and pulled out everything that looks like a bug report or a suggestion. It’s a plain text document but I can slam it into any format you like that works on my Mac.

        • #2849488

          Thanks Tig!

          by jasonhiner ·

          In reply to I’ll make your life easier

          How about making it a Google Doc or a Google Spreadsheet? Then you can share it and allow others here to collaborate on editing it?

        • #2849484

          I could do that

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to Thanks Tig!

          I sent you the plain text that I pulled together. I’ll link the Google resource when I have it done.

          ETA:

          Linked: https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AoRoJ-kx4ueVdHl0OV9tQWd5U1RkdmIxb3QzY0wyV2c&hl=en&authkey=CJmbw7sB

        • #2849461

          Awesome!

          by justin james ·

          In reply to I’ll make your life easier

          You rock! I know that wasn’t fun or quick!

          J.Ja

    • #2848554

      Page Navigation

      by tigger_two ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Since I can’t tell at a glance what I have already read, I find that I just head for the last page of responses. What isn’t working well for me is that I have to scroll to the bottom of the page in order to navigate through the pages.

      Would it be possible to make page navigation available at the top of the page as well as the bottom? That would make it easier to get to the last page or wherever I have left off.

      • #2848543

        We’ll look at this idea.

        by brandons ·

        In reply to Page Navigation

        Thanks for this feedback, it is really helpful for us to see.

        • #2849523

          What can the code do?

          by ansugisalas ·

          In reply to We’ll look at this idea.

          I accidentally made the code display a water cooler discussion as a Question (you can see how I explored that over at the water cooler (“Will you look at this?”).
          But that made me think, perhaps the code can display threads in more ways than that? Would it be possible to develop a condensed view, with as many lines per screenful as is at all viable, and with increased indentation to reveal the thread structure better?
          That can be made an optional view, and we’ll see if that makes things pick up, if it helps people follow the discussions more easily…

        • #2849521

          Shouldn’t take

          by santeewelding ·

          In reply to What can the code do?

          But a few hundred thousand more lines of code.

      • #2848540

        Good Suggestion

        by jfpsf ·

        In reply to Page Navigation

        I’ve asked the product team to add it to the list of changes

      • #2849540

        That’s not effective

        by justin james ·

        In reply to Page Navigation

        That doesn’t help you to see the actual replies that people do to existing comments, which get inserted at the place that the response occurred.

        J.Ja

        • #2849535

          I agree

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to That’s not effective

          I would like to see the newest response that shows up on the front page of the discussion carry a hyperlink to where the response is added (See my comment, “Context is evereything”).

          Having a page nav at the top of the page would let me just go to the last page of a discussion without having to scroll to the bottom of the page first.

          The forum I moderate has a paged format that puts the page nav at both the top and bottom of the page and offers a “Jump To” option as well. “Jump To” is EXTREMELY useful for very long threads. I might not be looking for the most recent comment in the entire thread but rather a response to a comment whose page number I know or am pretty sure of.

        • #2849530

          I like the link idea, Tig

          by santeewelding ·

          In reply to I agree

          I often wished in the old style that a latest post carried a parenthetical hint, like (close to the top), or (near the middle), or (at the bottom) for longish threads, like this one is getting to be. The hyperlink would take you right to it.

          I also miss knowing [i]who[/i] made the latest post.

        • #2849524

          You beat me to it, Santee

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to I like the link idea, Tig

          I have missed not being able to see the name of the last commenter on a thread as well. There are people I tend to prioritize reading and I don’t want to have to search on that person in order to find their posts when I am actively reading the site.

        • #2849882

          Looks like they got that in.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to I agree

          [i]I would like to see the newest response that shows up on the front page of the discussion carry a hyperlink to where the response is added (See my comment, “Context is evereything”). [/i]

          However. When I click on the link, it takes me to the post, but everything in the thread but that post is collapsed, despite my default setting of ‘Expanded’.

          Nice to see you good folks working on navigational things, for sure. Thumbs up! 😀

        • #2849533

          It’s Effective For One Use Case

          by jfpsf ·

          In reply to That’s not effective

          We aren’t claiming that it would solve that problem, but if you just want to navigate by page, it would be helpful.

    • #2848536

      Context is everything

      by tigger_two ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      When I click on an active discussion, the first thing I see is the top rated post and the next is the most recent post. When the top rated post is truncated, I can hit “Read Whole Comment” and see the whole of the post but I have no idea where to actually [i]find[/i] that post. The same thing goes for the most recent comment- I have to go digging to find it.

      It would be great if the title appeared as a hyperlink to the actual post so that I can see what the post is in response to without having to go digging.

      • #2848535

        Worth noting, in this case

        by boxfiddler ·

        In reply to Context is everything

        the top rated post is rated negatively. Not sure how a negatively rated post is worth that much attention. (Whether I’d read those anyway or not)

        If you’re simply counting vote clicks, there may wind up being a lot of that.

        • #2849526

          It’s worse than that…

          by ansugisalas ·

          In reply to Worth noting, in this case

          Top rated is consistently out of whack with any logic.
          Sometimes -4 is better than +1 and sometimes +1 is better than +2.
          Whatever algorithm is doing the comparison isn’t properly insulated.
          Maybe it adds the votes of a reply to the votes of the post it replied to… or something.

        • #2849519

          In which case

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to It’s worse than that…

          there’s also a serious lag going on somewhere?

        • #2849430

          Maybe… or just paracelsus and nostradamus

          by ansugisalas ·

          In reply to In which case

          messing around with arcane arithmetics again….

          Look at the unofficial poll; last I looked it was 7 to 2 in favor of good, but bad was still “top” rated.
          I guess it could be browser cache issues, but if not, then it must be doing something just plain wrong.

        • #2849441

          will investigate and caching

          by david slade ·

          In reply to Worth noting, in this case

          thanks we’ll look into this, and verify the logic. it may also be the due to the different levels of caching for the site’s systems. We’re caching things more aggressively right now to make sure the site stays up as we tune everything.

    • #2848527

      Thanks for noting

      by tigger_two ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I saw that and wondered if I was going a bit strange. Or if it was something that only I was seeing. If the PTB are hoping that posts that fall beneath the negative rep tolerance don’t get read, why put them on the front of the discussion as “Top Rated”?

      As with any change this sweeping, I know that there will be some “shake out” time.

      ETA: This post should have been in reply to Boxfiddler above. Not sure why it ended up where it did.

      *sigh* Off to reformat the entire post before saving…

    • #2849508

      With Discussions and QA ‘hidden’ at the top right

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      below the narrow blue bar, I suspect we’re going to be seeing even more Questions in Discussions from newbies. Had I not known to look around hard, I would have never seen them there. To deal more effectively with that long standing problem, those links need to be [b]WAY[/b] more noticeable.

      [i]typo[/i]

    • #2849503

      Now that’s interesting

      by nicknielsen ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I’ve selected the ALL option for the thread because, like others, I’d rather scroll than click. But, since I can’t expand the posts, I have to click next on each post. But when the page redraws, it falls from all posts to 100.

      Even more interesting, the All option doesn’t appear to be displaying all posts. Jason’s introduction isn’t visible at the top of the list.

      • #2849483

        Yes, sorry about that

        by jasonhiner ·

        In reply to Now that’s interesting

        This is something that’s not working right and is a bit frustrating. We’re going to make the UX for this part smoother and more intuitive.

        • #2849471

          It would appear to be fixed, Jason

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to Yes, sorry about that

          I have both the Expand/Collapse option and a static page now. Search by date works, so I’m all set…for this discussion.

          Now, if only I knew which of the other discussions I’ve subscribed to have been updated… 😉

        • #2849445

          Or not

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to Yes, sorry about that

          I came into this discussion this time from the Discussions front page and everything is working fine. I clicked on a post title to spawn a second tab and guess what? Same old, same old: collapsed posts with no option to expand. Screen shot

        • #2849439

          Further info, if it helps

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to Or not

          This is the URL for the full, expanded thread: http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-340633?count=all&view=expanded&tag=discussion-thread;thread-sort

          This is the URL for the thread, from Jason’s first post, as accessed from links to individual posts: http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-340633-3412071?tag=discussion-thread. This thread, on my system (WinXP SP3, FF 3.6.13, NoScript allowing all except Google-Analytics and admeld), displays collapsed, doesn’t give me the Expanded/Collapsed option, but allows me to display all posts.

          Added: Interesting. Stripping out what appears to be the post number (‘-3412071’) and refreshing the page gives me everything I’m supposed to get.

        • #2849302

          noted, work in progress

          by david slade ·

          In reply to Or not

          thanks! There is definitely something wonky with the persistence of the community settings. We’re investigating.

    • #2849499

      And another quirk

      by wdmilner ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I left a comment in the other thread http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-340622 so I won’t repeat it here.

      Another annoyance (perhaps it is just me), is that I have to click “next” or specific comment links twice (double-click) or the page just sits there. This new interfacve may be “modern” and cutesy but it is a PITA, in colloquial acronyms.

      For those who have login or permission denied messages when trying to psot comments, if you logout, delete all techrepublic.com and techrepublic.com.com cookies and then login in a new window the problems go away (or have so far).

      • #2849443

        Browser reset

        by jasonhiner ·

        In reply to And another quirk

        Yes, we recommend resetting your browser to erase all TechRepublic cookies, cache, etc. from the old site.

    • #2849479

      It seems to me that the white background is too white

      by michael jay ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Kinda too bright, after reading thru this thread, my eyes seem more tired than they should.

      Any thoughts on a less bright white, turned down the brightness but still I think a less white, white would be better for reading.

    • #2849469

      Can’t Edit, it just goes to blank screen…

      by who am i really ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      the page vanishes is and the title in the tab just changed to a URL

    • #2849455

      Smart phone…

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Motorola Bravo, Android.

      Doesn’t show all posts in a thread. Definitely the new format, didn’t have that problem with the old.

      [i]typo[/i]

      • #2849451

        Oh no

        by michael jay ·

        In reply to Smart phone…

        a lost post Boxie?

        • #2849450

          Multiple missing posts

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Oh no

          from multiple discussions. :0

        • #2849448

          I am reading posts in this thread that I thought

          by michael jay ·

          In reply to Multiple missing posts

          I read in the water cooler, I will have to look again.

          No, guess I have bugs, not the site.

      • #2849424

        Weird

        by tigger_two ·

        In reply to Smart phone…

        My Touch isn’t having that issue so far. Major difference is that my Touch uses the house wireless connection.

        I have to wait until May to get an iPhone on Verizon. Early adoption would cost me around an additional $100 a month, so I’ll wait.

        *sigh*

        • #2849420

          I was using the house wireless.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Weird

          I should check the other way, too, though. It’s the last thread in a ‘section’ that’s missing.MJ’s post above you, for example. I’ll have to do some more fiddling in that area. I found the darned thing highly useful for alleviating boredom in several recent long drives.

        • #2849389

          Smart phones, wireless, and drop outs. Oh My!

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to I was using the house wireless.

          I’m seeing a lag in the last two hours or so between posting and smart device updating. I think that they are trying to stabilize things and possibly resulting in breaking others.

          Please report this Bug here: https://spreadsheets1.google.com/ccc?hl=en&hl=en&key=tyt9_mAgySTdvb1ot3cL2Wg&authkey=CJmbw7sB#gid=2

        • #2849384

          I’ll watch it for a day or two.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Smart phones, wireless, and drop outs. Oh My!

          If it doesn’t resolve, I’ll add it. Or, if someone else posts similar. Surely I’m not the only smartphone user who checks into TR with it. :0

          [i]botched ‘resolve'[/i]

    • #2849415

      Collapsed/Expanded erratic

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      To reproduce:

      1. I set my preferences to be “Expanded”.
      2. View thread
      3. Set thread to “Collapsed”
      4. Click a page number at the bottom

      Result: Go back to the first page, in expanded again. This is NOT consistent, I don’t know why. It’s a now and then kind of thing.

      J.Ja

    • #2849406

      Yuck!

      by tonythetiger ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Yuck!

      • #2849385

        Would love to hear your thoughts

        by tigger_two ·

        In reply to Yuck!

        The change is a lot to absorb all at once but if you could clarify your thoughts, it would be really helpful.

    • #2849393

      I’m suddenly being logged out

      by tigger_two ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Roughly every ten or so minutes.

      I’ll add it to the Bug sheet.

      Bug sheet is here: https://spreadsheets1.google.com/ccc?hl=en&hl=en&key=tyt9_mAgySTdvb1ot3cL2Wg&authkey=CJmbw7sB#gid=2

      • #2849368
        Avatar photo

        Tigs you are being logged out

        by hal 9000 ·

        In reply to I’m suddenly being logged out

        Because No One loves you. :p

        There couldn’t possible be a issue with the New Site Design as it’s been fully tested. :^0

        God help me I’m sounding like a M$ Representative at a Product Launch. :_|

        Col

        • #2849359

          I know no one loves me

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to Tigs you are being logged out

          And I am past caring.

          I think that the anomalies are to do with trying to keep the site stabile. I could be wrong.

          I do believe that I have reached the magic place called “Exhausted”. I need to sleep now.

      • #2849308

        clear your cookies

        by david slade ·

        In reply to I’m suddenly being logged out

        let us know if this helps. if there’s any steps to reproduce, or browser/OS let us know!

        • #2849247

          Thanks, David!

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to clear your cookies

          I think that it was a temporary issue while your folks were working last night. The problem resolved by itself.

    • #2849375

      My Links Section IS Gone

      by drmoon ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      From Original Thread:

      My Links
      Please tell me you didn’t get rid of the My Links section! I had several articles bookmarked and tagged there and now I can’t find it under My Stuff anymore…

      [Reply from Jason Hiner]
      It’s still there
      Go to your profile. Go to My Stuff. Go to My Favorites (that’s what My Links has been renamed to).

      [My reply]
      No, actually it’s not
      Yes, I looked there already. I looked everywhere. All of my links are gone; there is nothing listed under My Favorites.
      Can you tell me how I might get them back? Please?

      EDIT: Issue added to Bug Sheet (Bugs – line 39)

      • #2849361

        Thank you!

        by tigger_two ·

        In reply to My Links Section IS Gone

        A great report and hopefully identifiable and resolvable.

        Appreciate you clear addition to the tracking sheet!

    • #2849371

      settings don’t propogate when navigating via links

      by who am i really ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I’ve set my preference for expanded

      but when I navigate via links in my stuff

      the pages always open collapsed

    • #2849369
      Avatar photo

      Jason could you send me a message on who to report issues to?

      by hal 9000 ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I’ve been getting 2 lots of 2 E-Mails daily with supposedly listings of my postings here one the Normal PreUpdate one and a new one. The New one isn’t working it leads to a dead link. 😉

      Col

    • #2849365

      Attention Jason

      by apotheon ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I have an idea that might help everybody a bit. Here it is:

      Set up a bug tracker.

      Seriously. This solves several problems:

      1. You would not have to deal so much with duplicate reports of the same problem.

      2. When there are duplicate bugs filed, you can merge them or at least close one with a note to check the other.

      3. When a bug starts getting attention from developers, it can be marked as such so that people feel like they are actually being heard and their problems are being addressed — so they stop complaining about something that should be fixed in short order.

      4. When there is a reported issue that is not deemed suitable for fixing, an explanation can be posted in a central location so people will not keep requesting the same thing.

      5. You get a brag list for concerns that have been addressed. Even if someone’s pet issue has not been addressed, knowing that others’ issues have been fixed helps them understand that the developers are accomplishing things, and they just have to wait for their issue’s turn.

      I do not know how much say you have over something like the idea of using a public bug tracker, but maybe if you like the idea you can spitball it at a meeting, at least. Frankly, the only reason to avoid using a public bug tracker for a community-oriented site that comes to mind would be trying to hide the fact you do not want to serve community needs. I really doubt that is the case with TR, though; I just think that communications are breaking down somewhere, and the result is a pretty chaotic “feedback thread” with several disgruntled users making the majority of the notable noise — and understandably so, I think, given that breakdown in communication.

      That’s how it looks to me, anyway. Hopefully my suggestion helps. I just want everyone to be happy at the end of the day.

      • #2849364

        Umm… late to the game

        by tigger_two ·

        In reply to Attention Jason

      • #2849332

        We’re in luck…

        by jasonhiner ·

        In reply to Attention Jason

        Tig volunteered to compile the bugs and requests and asked her to put them in a publicly-shared Google Doc. The TR staff is tracking this and I’ve already responded with notes on several of the items in there. This will accomplish the noble goals you mentioned. And, thanks, we definitely appreciate the constructive feedback.

        • #2849742

          hmm

          by apotheon ·

          In reply to We’re in luck…

          I hope a more permanent solution is coming in the future at some point, with a less cluttered interface. I’m not complaining about what Tigger_Two did; it’s a good stopgap, until TR/CBSi can provide something more permanent. I’ll see about making an effort to contribute to it starting tomorrow (it’s about bedtime for me now, and somehow I never got notice of these replies).

          Thanks for trying out the idea of a bug tracker.

    • #2849353

      Top of Screen, And Bottom of comment

      by madsmaddad ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Every time I click on the next comment ina thread, Most of my screen is filled with all the Bumpf about Techrepublic and advertising, so I have to scroll down to see the comment. That is Poor.

      Also at the bottom of each comment there used to be a ‘next’ tag, and this is gone, so that after I have read a comment I have to scroll up again to find the ‘next’ tag. Not Good.

      • #2849333

        Not able to replicate this one

        by jasonhiner ·

        In reply to Top of Screen, And Bottom of comment

        Please clarify.

        When I use the Next button (in Firefox) I just go to the next discussion. Are you saying you’re getting redirected back to the original article?

        • #2849899

          I think, Jason

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to Not able to replicate this one

          He’s referring to the individual comments in a discussion thread. The Next | Previous links used to be at the bottom of each post, to the right of the poster’s information. Now, they are at the top of the post. It does get to be a pain, if you are reading a long post, to have to scroll back to the top to proceed to the next post in the discussion.


          @Madsmaddad
          , might I suggest expanding the discussion and reading the posts by scrolling through it? That option is now available. When it works, it’s awesome. You can also use the link at the right, just below the Search box, to collapse the TR hot links, if you like.

    • #2849343

      Interesting

      by roxy786 ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Pretty looks good…
      Need to see whts Further…

    • #2849331

      One thing that is quite ridiculous

      by neilb@uk ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      is that, when I click on a thread link, the page displayed doesn’t even show me the first post until I scroll down past “Top Rated” and “Just In”. Because of these and headers and adverts and the wonderful new spacious layout, the actual subject of the thread is a page and a half down.

      I’ve no doubt that someone else has mentioned this – and almost certainly in this thread, but I haven’t read through because I have rubbed the skin off my index finger on the scroll wheel, zipping down the narrow track of the stuff I want to read and admiring the clean white space to the left and right (there’s a LOT of it).

      God! It’s SO BRIGHT.

    • #2849310

      Make the Q&A tabs persistent

      by oldbaritone ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      The tabs under Q&A are great, but after reading a thread and submitting a post, the only one-click way I have found to get back to the top level is to click the “Q&A” at the top of the page.

      But when I do that, it always goes back to “Newest” – even if I was reading through one of the other tabs like “hottest” or “unanswered”

      It would be nice to have a one-click way to get back to the top level of the tab I was already reading, instead of needing to start over again.

    • #2849309

      Weird page count

      by scarf ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      At the bottom of the discussions, there is a series of page counters for as many pages may be using 50 comments per page.
      Roght now there are 8 pages of comments. The counter shows:
      1 … 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
      I really don’t get the dots between 1 and 2. It looks very non-archimedean.
      When there are 5 pages or less, the counting is like this:
      1 2 3 4 5
      without the dots.

    • #2849288

      I can vote for my own post

      by scarf ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Should the user be able to vote for his own comment?

    • #2849279

      Found a funny glitch

      by slayer_ ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Set yourself a number of posts per page. Such as 100.
      The, go into yoru address bar, find “count=100” and change it to “Count=0.5”

      You will now see several posts per page, but have twice as many pages as you have posts.

      Lower is even more fun.

    • #2849256

      You might want to think about

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      tightening up the parameters on autofill as it applies to beginning a D/Q. Zombies are starting to surface. I’ll keep watching to try to see how marked the increase is.

    • #2849235

      Printer friendly and save as PDF Where?

      by kdpawson ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Where have the print article and save as pdf buttons gone??
      I really like to have those feature so that I can read when offline, I don’t have Internet all time from where I am!!!

    • #2849214

      Wasted space

      by dwdino ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Web pages are most efficient when little scrolling is required. With the oversized everything and massive amounts of whitespace, the quantity of scroll inputs has multiplied greatly.

      On the forums, there is more junk occupying space then forum posts.

      The previous format was much more space and workflow efficient.

      Also, the color choices for the links at top is very poor. An off white background with lite blue links and white selected link? Extremely poor choice.

    • #2849898

      Can’t Post

      by dogknees ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      For some reason I am not able to post to the site any more. Any ideas?

      • #2849896

        Well, Seems I Can

        by dogknees ·

        In reply to Can’t Post

        Can’t find items posted Monday or Tuesday. Now seems fine, but where are my posts?

        • #2849890

          My Account.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Well, Seems I Can

          At the top right of the page. Hover your mouse and choose ‘My Stuff’ from the menu that displays. Or just click on it and then click on ‘My Stuff’.

        • #2849868

          Yes

          by dogknees ·

          In reply to My Account.

          That is where I’m going but there was nothing for several days. I had posted in that period, but now they seem to have diappeared.

          It seems my ability to post comes and goes. These ones appear OK, but I tried to post a question about two hours ago and it failed. Again!

    • #2849893

      Older content Pages not found

      by who am i really ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      ie. I’m looking at the google cahced version of

      http://techrepublic.com.com/5208-6230-0.html?forumID=34&threadID=31941

      clicking on the actual search result goes to page not found
      using cached version goes to OP only
      and I can’t get any further down the discussion than the OP
      as clicking any post in it returns to

      Page Not found

    • #2849871

      Ok, re: spam, Water Cooler, Questions.

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Please pay a visit to this link. :0

      http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/questions/103-340761?tag=mantle_skin;content

      [i]fix link[/i]

      edit
      Ok, I just looked in on that again, and it’s showing as a Discussion, with Requests for Clarification that show as ‘normal’ posts, with Reply AND Request for Clarification buttons.
      Oh, my.

      • #2849870

        Holy cow!

        by boxfiddler ·

        In reply to Ok, re: spam, Water Cooler, Questions.

        Where are the tags? You know, the ones that used to be at the top of a Discussion/Question?

        • #2849835

          There is no way

          by ansugisalas ·

          In reply to Holy cow!

          to combine other tags with off-topic.
          For some reason that’s not allowed anymore.
          So, now, when we want to discuss non-work, or just plain oddball applications of hard- or software or networking or other such, we’ll have to choose, IT tags or off-topic tags.

          I don’t know why off-topic posts can be accessed either from http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/questions/ or /www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/ but that’s how it is. They seem to be in both folders at once… while totally synchronized. You can even choose “the answer” to the discussion you started yourself, if you access from the /questions/ folder…
          Non-OT threads seem immune to this though…

        • #2849698

          I’m not seeing tags on any Discussions or Questions, Ansu.

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to There is no way

          I’m mostly assuming design. But maybe it’s a bug.

        • #2849652

          Holy mackerel!

          by ansugisalas ·

          In reply to I’m not seeing tags on any Discussions or Questions, Ansu.

          You’re right. You can put them there, but they don’t show.
          I also don’t see a way to search for discussions bearing a certain tag…

    • #2849869

      When I come into this Discussion via a link

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      from ‘My Stuff’, the Discussion is collapsed despite my ‘Expanded’ default setting. I’m pretty sure this has been mentioned previously, but holy cow finding it in a discussion of this size is way too time consuming.

    • #2849854

      Thanks loads

      by sissy sue ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Now all I can see of the discussions is the subject. I can’t expand at all.

    • #2849846

      Facebook link generates page error

      by scarf ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      While loading the page:

      http://www.techrepublic.com/blog/five-tips/five-tips-for-working-with-excel-sheet-protection/574?tag=nl.e101

      I have the following error on the webpage:

      Webpage error details

      User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E)
      Timestamp: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 13:57:43 UTC

      Message: Syntax error
      Line: 1
      Char: 1
      Code: 0
      URI: http://api.facebook.com/restserver.php?v=1.0&method=links.getStats&urls=%5B%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.techrepublic.com%2Fblog%2Ffive-tips%2Ffive-tips-for-working-with-excel-sheet-protection%2F574%3Ftag%3Dnl.e101%22%5D&format=json&callback=fb_sharepro_render

      This may come because we are blocking FACEBOOK at the router’s level.
      I still believe not being a great idea such a high integration with the social sites.
      Same as Palmetto said in another thread, I am also an eSocially celibate, except for this site and a forgotten Linkedin account. Probably, many Techrepublic users are, so I really don’t see the point of this integration.

    • #2849825

      First post issue

      by justin james ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I noticed that when you put the first post onto a blog, it still says “The discussion hasn???t started yet. Why don???t you begin it.”

      J.Ja

      • #2849789
        Avatar photo

        Sounds familiar…

        by Tammy.Cavadias ·

        In reply to First post issue

        ..That issue sounds strangely familiar to me.

        -Tammy [_]3

    • #2849780

      Community Preferences Failed

      by tink! ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      when I entered from the middle – i.e. I clicked my comment from “My Stuff” page. My default is set to expand and it didn’t. I had to go to the first page of the discussion before the preferences kicked in.

    • #2849747

      I am growing to rather like

      by santeewelding ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      The 24-hour reference clock. It’s kinda like a miniature [i]pons asinorem[/i] — can’t get past it; too bad.

      I so do not like, as if it has not been bruited enough, the identity absence of [i]who[/i] made the most recent post. Nor, once the post is opened, the poster provenance.

      Provenance is so very helpful in the case of outright spam, not to mention the previous death-ray answer thereto, of which we are lately bereft.

      Updating of most recent posts still needs work.

      And, then, who in their right mind, decided to submerge Questions to subsidiary importance, below even the altogether Crass announcement of “Power Users”?

      Get the three of them — Discussions, Questions, Water Closet — upfront and on equal par.

      I dare you. I double-dare you.

      • #2849744

        ‘Nail the Spammer’

        by boxfiddler ·

        In reply to I am growing to rather like

        is dead in the water. 🙁 No more points for boxy.

        And whatever is going on with that ‘Take offline’ is bizarre. Please, don’t ask for detail. If I could figure it out, I wouldn’t use the term bizarre. :0

      • #2849736

        What? No death-ray?

        by ansugisalas ·

        In reply to I am growing to rather like

        What then happens to posts we flag as spam?
        Total agreement on the triune!
        Disco, Questing and WC… what’s one without the others?

    • #2849735

      The WC Discussion as a Question bug…(DaaQ)

      by ansugisalas ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Goes beyond the links at the top of the Q&A…
      Here’s how to reproduce it for any WC discussion:
      Go to the discussion in the Water Cooler : In the browser URL field, change /discussions/ to /questions/. Load the page, et voila: your DaaQ of choice.

      Here’s the link to my latest, the thread about the WC pic, where I just marked a post as The Answer. BTW, I had the option to choose one of my own contributions as the answer; that’s another thing to get rid of…

      http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/questions/103-340623?tag=content;discussion-table

    • #2849719

      Expanded threads

      by darpoke ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      take up way too much space in this new roomy format, whether you restrict the entries/page or not. Could you display only the post for each post, perhaps, and have the voting and replies available only on mouseover, or something? Just trying to envisage a more efficient format. It looks great, don’t get me wrong, but it’s quite a lot to process visually and scrolling takes a lot longer now… Otherwise, I’m liking it!

    • #2849685

      2 more things on viewing Threads

      by tink! ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      1) There is no “View” option other than on the front page of the discussion. Really need to have that on each page so that you can expand from the last page or middle page etc. Members revisiting a thread don’t want to have to go to the front page first, they want to go to the place they left off at.

      2) The page links are way down at the bottom. No big deal if you only show 25 posts, but when you show 50 or 100, and especially if you View Expanded, it’s annoying to have to scroll all the way down just to jump to the page you want. Would be nice if the page links were also at the top of the discussion pages. After all, regulars here know how quickly a thread gets into the hundreds of posts!

      • #2849677

        Both have already been identified, Tink

        by nicknielsen ·

        In reply to 2 more things on viewing Threads

        The Community Preferences only seem to apply correctly when you click on the title of the discussion; clicking any individual post collapses everything and doesn’t allow you to expand. I’m waiting for “All” to be made available as a view setting. As it is now, I have to select it each time I open a thread. It’s doesn’t make a difference in most threads, but in others (this one, for example) it makes all the difference in the world.

    • #2849647

      New Page Format

      by k6lw ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Page doesn’t render correctly when using Opera 11.

    • #2849618

      What does this "Take offline" link do?

      by tobif ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      It seems that when your discussion tree goes deep enough, the “reply” link is replaced with a “take offline” one.
      Does the “take offline” spawn a new discussion altogether?
      Will there be some automatic linking forth and back if I do?
      And, if that’s the case, why not have the possibility to “take offline” even higher up in the tree?
      Oh, remembering how we handled the limited depth before: Couldn’t we get a “fill in” link instead of the “reply”, which would automatically enter your “fill in” as a reply to the “parent post”?

      • #2849608

        What the "Take off-line" link does

        by nicknielsen ·

        In reply to What does this "Take offline" link do?

        Many discussions reach the maximum level, then continue at that level for tens of posts; we’ve both played in those types of threads. The reasoning, as I understand it, is that the topics in those “maxed out” discussions are quite often much different than the original topic of the thread. Clicking the “take off-line” link opens a new discussion in the Water Cooler, the new off-topic area. The off-topic discussion can then continue without making the original discussion thread too unwieldy to browse or load. A notation–This discussion has been taken off-line– is inserted at the point where the new discussion was spawned. The original discussion is accessible from the spawned discussion by clicking on the discussion title.

        Interestingly, the same thing happens to discussions in the Water Cooler, where one would assume off-topic branches are not as much of an issue… ?:|

        Happy weekend, Tobi.

    • #2849613

      Forums organization.

      by boxfiddler ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      To quote a friend, “One of the things I think Jason and the rest lost sight of in the planning for this upgrade was that most of those on TR (and almost all of the regulars) don’t track individual posts, they track discussion threads. And for those that do track posts, it’s not the post that matters, but the person who made it.”

      Spot on. 😀
      And, thank you, for putting it so concisely, and allowing me to share it.

      • #2849605

        Your friend

        by santeewelding ·

        In reply to Forums organization.

        Is uncommonly informed. Articulate, too.

      • #2848354

        Huh?

        by jasonhiner ·

        In reply to Forums organization.

        Don’t forget, we use the site, too. A lot. And, all of us track threads (not posts) just like you do. So, no, this isn’t accurate.

        We actually had a new beefed-up feed in “My Stuff” that was going to help with this, but we had to pull it out at the last minute due to technical difficulties in UAT. However, we’re still working on getting it back on. Not having that has left a bit of a gap, admittedly.

        To make a long story short, any pain that you feel, we feel the same because we use this site every day to track the discussions that are most pertinent to our areas of specialty.

        • #2848280

          There’s a vast difference

          by boxfiddler ·

          In reply to Huh?

          between tracking content, and tracking people. While TR content is what originally drew me here, it’s the forum members who keep me here.

          Vast difference.

        • #2848273
          Avatar photo

          See Davette

          by hal 9000 ·

          In reply to There’s a vast difference

          I knew that you loved me. <3

          Col :^0 😀 :^0 😀

        • #2848247

          The silence on this issue, Jason, was deafening

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to Huh?

          All we saw from this side was that our primary means of tracking new posts in our subscribed discussions was gone, with no explanation. Many of us, I think, would have been less vocal about it if we had known a fix was in the works.

          Looking forward to the solution.

        • #2848239

          Solution doubtful

          by santeewelding ·

          In reply to The silence on this issue, Jason, was deafening

          Has to do with muting, I think.

        • #2847113

          We know that you actively use the site

          by tigger_two ·

          In reply to Huh?

          The problem is that many of us are trying as hard as we can to use it too, and are getting frustrated. At least, that is what I am hearing people say. Knowing that y’all are feeling the same pain isn’t really helpful.

          What I am hearing Nick say is that the less we hear from the PTB, the more we are likely to shout about the problems that we see.

          I find it extremely frustrating that I can’t see at a glance if there is a new post in a discussion that I have been involved in. I can’t tell who made a post. I either already know who [i]started[/i] a thread or can easily find out. What I don’t know at a casual glance is if someone added new information to a post… or if I care [b]more[/b] about that addition because that is a person I enjoy reading- who may or may not be in my contacts. P.S… The “Posts from My Contacts” tab has never been useful for me.

          I understand- possibly more than many- how difficult it is to keep communication lanes open. You are trying to fix the issues and do that on the fly, while not asking your folks to work horrific hours. I know that is a difficult task. But we really NEED a way to communicate on a two way street.

          If there is a way to facilitate better communication, I am willing to do all that I can to help with that. Tell me what that might look like from your perspective and I’m there.

          Something else to consider is that you probably [b]don’t[/b] use the site the same [i]way[/i] that we do. Our pain may NOT be your pain. You care deeply about your specific AREAS, we care deeply about our specific PEOPLE.

          Right now, it SEEMS like many of the things that we- the users- consider to be extremely important are being relegated to the “who cares” bin. I have no doubt that this is [b]not[/b] what you mean to communicate.

          I think that all of us “get” that your primary interest is identifying and fixing bugs. This is a reasonable thing. But lack of feedback to things that currently exist as suggestions (and some that exist as bugs) isn’t helpful. As Nick put it, “The silence [is] deafening.”

          How can I help to bridge this gap?

    • #2848501

      Friends, let’s do backups!

      by tobif ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Wow – Great job!

      We really need to make sure nothing bad happens to such a useful document.
      In the shared document, I went to menu
      File – Download as – Excel document.
      So I got a 42 kb snapshot a couple of minutes ago.
      I suggest everyone, who notes this comment, does the same.after editing the shared document.
      This way, if the document should get broken, chances are we’ll be in a better position to recreate the document.

      If I’m totally off on this one, please let me know. Before yesterday nights, I’ve never used Google docs before.

    • #2848492

      my recommendation

      by mzbcracker2 ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      i’d recommend putting advanced articles about microsoft and cisco networkinhg, virtualization,security,linux,voip, storage and etc… . in fact at the moment you are perfect and great.i don’t know how to thank you.thanks…

    • #2848481

      Problem in Search Section

      by mzbcracker2 ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      when we search something in the 2011 upgrade of site ,at first, every thing is okay and the result is shown.but when we go to the next page of results , no result is shown.for example i searched “voip configure” and there was 151 results.when i clicked page 2 or any page other than the first page , no search result was shown.the website is perfect but i found this problem in it.that can affect the efficiency of the search results.if possible correct the code of this part(search).

    • #2848445

      anyone else notice this? "Image Galleries show double thumbnails"

      by who am i really ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      ie.
      on this page:
      http://www.techrepublic.com/photos/tech-destruction-photos/498331?seq=1

      I see two sets of the thumbnails for the images

      the first set is 5 wide,
      and the second set is 8 wide
      both sets contain the exact same images
      as well as the blue highlighted border around the current image on screen

    • #2848340

      Them there

      by santeewelding ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      “Areas of specialty” — would they be pertinent to poignance, too? Or, has poignancy nothing to do with the “Information” of IT?

      Edit: something else awry. My post was in direct reply to yours, Jason; only, it ends up down here.

    • #2848320

      Microsoft could have done better

      by john3347 ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      You guys must have spent a lot of sleepless nights to have screwed up something SOOOOO badly that wasn’t even broken to start with. Looks like the work of a crack team within Microsoft bowels. The only good thing about the “new look” is that now you have something that actually does desperately need fixing.

    • #2848310

      Self-aggrandisement

      by darpoke ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I was pleasantly surprised to find someone had voted my earlier comment +1 (thank you, unknown TR member!), but less pleasantly surprised to find I could ‘plus one’ myself. Now I am unable to ‘minus one’ to return my original vote status! I feel like Governor Elbridge Gerry himself… :-/

      Might I suggest (i) that one is unable to vote at all on one’s own posts; and (ii) that if one votes one way or another on a post, that they are allowed to undo this action. It’s quite right to allow me to +1 a post only once (as long as I didn’t write it!) but I ought to be able to -1 it back to its original state, in case I mistakenly supported a sentiment with which I disagree – not so difficult to achieve given the proximity of the two discreetly small buttons.

      It appears that voting is anonymous – quite rightly – but I would still hate for an accidental mouseclick to inadvertently strengthen apparent support for the rantings of some chump – sorry, esteemed TR colleague – especially given the frequency with which I have encountered such individuals among the fine people that make up this community. Why is it that they are often among the most vocal? Ah, a question for another time.
      </rant>

    • #2848305

      HTTP 500 Error

      by gechurch ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I must be alone because I haven’t seen anyone else mention this, but I subscribe to email alerts when new discussion posts are added, and for at least a week every one of these gives me an HTTP 500 (internal server error) message.

      I have tried the links in mutliple browsers, and also from a terminal server that I’ve never visited TechRepublic on before. An example of a link that does it is:
      http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-340163-3414420&alertspromo=100901?tag=nl.rCOMBINED

      Does anyone else have the same problem?

      • #2848248

        Already caught and posted in the bug list

        by nicknielsen ·

        In reply to HTTP 500 Error

        I have found that stripping the tags from the end of the link (“&alertspromo=100901?tag=nl.rCOMBINED”) fixes the problem. It’s a pain, but it works.

    • #2848299

      Test Post

      by mckinnej ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Was getting Access Denied error on the new site when I tried to post comments. Testing to see if issue is resolved.

    • #2848211

      Bring back the Print/View All

      by old-fart-iv ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Was much easier to read and follow discussions — Why remove/update/break a feature that was useful??

    • #2848209

      Not sure about this new layout

      by hartkl ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I have to say I am finding navigating this new layout is not as user friendly as it should be. I like to review the downloads and software section and finding it much harder to quickly review. Time is short in the day and I like to be able to quickly look over and pull out what I need and go. The old layout was much easier to navigate.

    • #2847287

      Were are my favorites/Saved blogs list?

      by hckradm2005 ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Before in the old view I was able to view a list of saved items with key words that I have made Ex: Certain posts/blogs I found interesting towards PC Tool tips I would save a link/save them with the words PC Tools. Then when ever I wanted to see all the posts/blogs that I liked for PC Tools I would click on the link PC Tools.
      Is that Hiding somewhere else now or is that completely gone???

    • #2847272

      Found new glitch, try and edit your profile contact info

      by slayer_ ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      It will say your user name is already in use, of course it is, it is MY user name 🙂

    • #2847166

      1 more thing

      by tink! ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      (470+ posts – I am NOT reading through them to see if this is already posted)

      I miss the “last posted by [i]TRMember[/i]” on the Discussions Home Page. It was an easy way to tell if someone had added something after you posted. Time and date CAN do that if one were to actually note the specific time you posted, but seriously…name of last poster would be much more helpful. 🙂

      • #2847156

        Ah, but, Tink

        by santeewelding ·

        In reply to 1 more thing

        That would turn this place back into a bedlam of conflicting personalities as opposed to the sanitized version.

      • #2847124

        Yes Tink that would be helpful

        by michael jay ·

        In reply to 1 more thing

        so as a workaround I find myself right clicking and opening the post in a new tab to find the last poster to the thread, time consuming, but better than losing your place in the discussions home page.

    • #2847152

      can’t delete double posts

      by who am i really ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I attempted to reply in a discussion and the page froze
      so I reloaded the page and tried again
      after which my post was doubled

    • #2847784

      You’re tweaking the vote code, are you not?

      by ansugisalas ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      It’s now erratic, with disappearing, reappearing votes.
      http://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/103-340969-3415902

      EDIT:not>now

    • #2847747

      Fixes to two bugs (contacts and favorites) … please help confirm

      by jasonhiner ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      We’ve made a couple fixes in the past 24 hours.

      You should now be able to see all of your contacts in your profile. It’s no longer limited to just 100 contacts, which is the way it had been since the upgrade.

      Also, some of you had reported that your favorites were either completely or partially missing. They should all be restored now.

      If you check profile and find that these bugs aren’t fixed, please let us know.

    • #2847732

      font not dark enough

      by cg it ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      in the Q&A and also Discussion sections, the font for when last post was made is way to light. Even with my bifocals, it’s tough to read….. can that be darkened up maybe one shade more? maybe make it blue or darker grey?

    • #2847731

      Tech Republic V4.0?

      by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I like the format, it is clean. I’ve been giving it a chance, because I know change is hard, and the old, clunky way may seem better simply because it is familiar.

      But I am really missing the going into the “forums” and into “my posts” and seeing a nice cohesive, sequential list of MY posts in the old presentation format. I think the closest thing is going to My Account and selecting My Stuff which gives a reverse chronology, top-to-bottom, sequential list of forum posts. I’d be less interested in seeing the # of posts and votes in this list than a display of what forum topic the message was in response to – that is, the title of the ORIGINAL post that this discussion is attached to. Still easier to track your conversations here than on ZD-Net. 🙂

      • #2889231

        No responses…

        by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

        In reply to Tech Republic V4.0?

        So, is it in fact, the only way to track your posts is now the “My Stuff” area of “My Account”? Is there a better way to do this? I’ve having a lot of difficulty tracking conversations under the new format.

      • #2889063

        We already beat this one up, Donavan

        by nicknielsen ·

        In reply to Tech Republic V4.0?

        This branch provides the management response, and ours to theirs.

    • #2847469

      Not liking a few things…

      by rayjeff ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      I haven’t been paying attention to the news of the upgrade, as I’ve had alot going on since my last visit to TR, Imagine my surprise when I logged in today, I saw the change. I was surprised, as others have been about the missing avatar. I don’t think (as like others) I want to go through the process of having a picture on another website just to have it posted here. And the avatar I had, I don’t think I will be able to find it, as it was pre-2000 picture.

      The main issues I have are with the listing of all of the posts a TR member makes. Umm, there is no listing anymore. All I see is the recent postings, but not a total listing of postings, as which are shown in the old layout.

      I (like others) don’t like the Expanded/Collapse view. I like the Print/View of the old layout. It would’ve been nice to not be forced to use the current options like Gravatar and the old format.

      • #2847465

        It is what it is

        by michael jay ·

        In reply to Not liking a few things…

        Welcome to the new format, things are still being adjusted, and for now this is what we have.

        • #2889192

          The site editors and our readers:

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to It is what it is

          have both expressed to me on numerous occasions that they appreciate that I and other site contributors engage in ongoing discussions in the forums that our blogs generate. A site that doesn’t facilitate my ability to easily track conversations makes it harder for me to do this. Currently that is the situation with the Tech Republic user forums. That is less than desirable, but it is what it is. Hopefully the adjustments that are made to the site will consider and accommodate this, will happen quickly and we’ll have more ability to easily track conversations in the future than what we have now.

          To TR readers – the easiest way right now to track your conversations is to hover over “My Profile” in the blue bar at the top of the TR page. A drop down menu will appear. The 4th option down in the menu is “My Stuff” Click that link. That will bring up a list of your last 100 discussions. You can also change the tab to My Questions or My Favorites. It isn’t perfect, but it is the best alternative to the old “My Forums” display that I’ve been able to find for now.

        • #2889062

          Minor correction

          by nicknielsen ·

          In reply to The site editors and our readers:

          The My Stuff area provides a list of your last 100 [u]posts[/u], not the last 100 discussions you have participated in. As you have already noticed, there is no easy way to track subscribed discussions on the site itself.

        • #2888975

          For me…

          by dcolbertmatrixmso ·

          In reply to Minor correction

          My last 100 posts generally are the last 100 discussions I ahve participated in – so it does the job for me. But it is awkward, compared to how things used to work. I don’t think they should throw away the features they’ve added, but I don’t understand why they removed something that worked so well. I think otherwise I wouldn’t have any complaints at all about the new site format.

    • #2888976

      Another new glitch

      by slayer_ ·

      In reply to TechRepublic’s official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

      Lately, the site no longer highlights the post currently select. This makes it even harder to read the posts in a tree. Though I would prefer the posts open in line, rather than at the top of the page each time, I would at least like the post I am reading to be highlighted

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