Welcome to the upgraded SFN

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Hi everyone,

We've upgraded SFN to version 4.1 of our forum software, and things are looking good so far. Take a look around and enjoy the new features, and post here if you experience any weird problems. Some things to note:

• You may enjoy the new Activity stream, showing everything that's happening on SFN in real time (the page automatically updates).
• There are some minor updates to the LaTeX rendering we now use, which are detailed in an updated thread in the maths forums.
• The search system and "Unread Content" button may not work correctly for a day or so -- the system has to reindex all the posts and topics, so search results won't be correct.
• There's no longer a difference between "Display Name" and "Login Name", so if you logged in with a different name than was shown on the forums, you need to switch to logging in with the display name.
• The new site should look and feel much better on phones and tablets.

There are more new features than I can describe here, but hopefully being on the latest supported version will reduce spam, improve security, and eliminate old bugs. Possibly while creating new ones. We'll see.

Many thanks to Klaynos for the upgraded SFN logo, tweaked for the new look.

[Dave]

One additional note from me: we no longer use our older LaTeX rendering system in favour of a browser-rendered MathJax, for various technical reasons to do with the way that posts are parsed and stored in this new forum software. The syntax for using our typesetting is exactly the same as before, but you will probably notice some rendering differences, particularly in older posts.

Do let us know if there are technical issues on this front!

[Dave]

There's now an updated thread in the maths forums that describes some of the changes to the LaTeX rendering.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Update: All posts have now been indexed and search results should now be complete. You should be able to search your own content, find old threads, and anything else. Let us know if you hit any problems.

[Thorham]

How the hell did they manage to make the editor worse?

[Moontanman]

Is there some reason why when I click on unread content it doesn't take me to the last post in that thread? 

[Moontanman]

Oh yeah, is the blog gone? 

[iNow]

23 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Oh yeah, is the blog gone? 

Check here: http://blogs.scienceforums.net/

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

26 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Is there some reason why when I click on unread content it doesn't take me to the last post in that thread? 

Click the little bullet/star before the title and it'll take you to the first unread post. They had to hide it for some reason.

24 minutes ago, Moontanman said:

Oh yeah, is the blog gone? 

Nope, the blogs are still around! Nothing about them has changed, and you can log in as before. Just remember that blog accounts and SFN accounts are separate now, so changing your password on one doesn't change it on the other.

[Moontanman]

52 minutes ago, Cap'n Refsmmat said:

Click the little bullet/star before the title and it'll take you to the first unread post. They had to hide it for some reason.

Nope, the blogs are still around! Nothing about them has changed, and you can log in as before. Just remember that blog accounts and SFN accounts are separate now, so changing your password on one doesn't change it on the other.

Thanks, ask and ye shall receive 

[DrKrettin]

I haven't the faintest idea how to navigate around this new version. I thought the old one was perfectly acceptable.

[hypervalent_iodine]

9 minutes ago, DrKrettin said:

I haven't the faintest idea how to navigate around this new version. I thought the old one was perfectly acceptable.

It was sadly no longer supported, which was leading to issues. 

[geordief]

On 7/30/2017 at 0:08 PM, DrKrettin said:

I haven't the faintest idea how to navigate around this new version. I thought the old one was perfectly acceptable.

Yes I feel a bit lost too. I can't put my finger on  what the differences are  but it feels a bit  like tunnel vision.

Mind you , my interest in learning    seems to have  gone down a bit  anyway  and so the "blame" lies with me to an extent.

It has made me think about how important the layout of a website can be  (it seems a bit of an superficial   comment  but there it is.)

 

EDIT: hang on , the main "Forums" tab  feels a bit familiar ; maybe I will get the hang of it after a while. 

Edited July 31, 2017 by geordief

[DrKrettin]

All I get is what looks like a "stream of consciousness" list of posts listed according to time of posting. If I notice a thread of interest, I can either go to the beginning of the thread (which might be 30 pages)  or the last post. Obviously I need to go to the first unread post in that thread, but I can't. The result is confusing, although I admit to being easily confused. 

 

 

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

You want to click the little dot or star next to the title of each thread, which takes you to the first unread post in that thread. It's not particularly well labeled.

Also, under the Activity Tab, My Activity Streams, there should be an Unread Topics stream which is condensed and easier to follow. I wonder if I can adjust the defaults.

[DrKrettin]

Thanks for that!

[StringJunky]

5 hours ago, Cap'n Refsmmat said:

You want to click the little dot or star next to the title of each thread, which takes you to the first unread post in that thread. It's not particularly well labeled.

Also, under the Activity Tab, My Activity Streams, there should be an Unread Topics stream which is condensed and easier to follow. I wonder if I can adjust the defaults.

That's a better choice for me: Unread Topics. Cheers.

Edit. would it be worthwhile putting Unread Topics on the bar, instead of hidden, seeing as that's pretty much like the old New Content button?

Edited July 31, 2017 by StringJunky

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

That's a good idea. Unfortunately, the Admin CP only seems to give me the option to replace the Unread Content link at the top right with Unread Topics:

(..sigh.)

If enough people think it's worth changing out Unread Content for Unread Topics, I can do that, and people who want Unread Content can find it under the Activity tab.

[StringJunky]

20 minutes ago, Cap'n Refsmmat said:

That's a good idea. Unfortunately, the Admin CP only seems to give me the option to replace the Unread Content link at the top right with Unread Topics:

(..sigh.)

If enough people think it's worth changing out Unread Content for Unread Topics, I can do that, and people who want Unread Content can find it under the Activity tab.

Perhaps people will comment as to their preference. i'm for the swap. I don't see the point of seeing a sequential list of unconnected comments. 'Stream of consciousness' as DrKrettin so aptly put it.

Edited July 31, 2017 by StringJunky

[koti]

Frankly, I can't get around this new thing here at all, I'm no newb too. I think this update was too much of a shock, I'm not saying I can't get used to it but the question is how long will it take to sink in and how many will not assimilate and leave. The necessary security upgrades should be implementable without touching the GUI too much. The previous look  & feel was perfectly fine needing no tweaks. This is not a tweak btw, it's a revolution. I understand that its' a nightmare to go through the code and implement the new security features while keeping the old interface (more or less) but I'm sure that there are users here (I got a one year old so forget it) who will be willing to help out in this. To be honest, I prefered the constant spam to this. It's not that it's bad, it looks fine and the engine looks like its doing what it should, it just disrupted the previous usability in such a profound way that it's difficult for me to get a hold of things here and eventually in a few days/weeks time I'm sure I will give up and not show up anymore. I hope I'm wrong.

[Cap'n Refsmmat]

Unfortunately, given the size of the changes between 3.6 and 4.0, manually porting security fixes simply wouldn't be practical. So much of the code was replaced outright that we wouldn't be able to take some changes and not others.

What in particular is most confusing about the new system, besides the Unread Content page that has changed so much? Maybe there are tweaks we can make to help everyone get around.

[iNow]

Gentle reminder that you have a major sampling bias here and that the most frustrated members are merely more likely to comment about it. Most of the rest of us, however, are just like, "whatever... it's only a software upgrade. so what? I'll adapt" and so consequently don't bother posting to share that. 

[StringJunky]

1 minute ago, iNow said:

Gentle reminder that you have a major sampling bias here and that the most frustrated members are merely more likely to comment about it. Most of the rest of us, however, are just like, "whatever... it's only a software upgrade. so what? I'll adapt" and so consequently don't bother posting to share that. 

Or they might be saying "Sod this, I cant be bothered". You can hear people complain but not the ones walking away, especially those not particularly committed. This is now the most convoluted forum format I've seen so far. It helps CR to hear feedback so he can tune, where possible, for most people.

[Mike Smith Cosmos]

On 28 July 2017 at 1:22 AM, Cap'n Refsmmat said:

Click the little bullet/star before the title and it'll take you to the first unread post. They had to hide it for some reason.

Where is this " little bullet /star before the title " , 

i am equally lost .

 

mike 

[StringJunky]

25 minutes ago, Mike Smith Cosmos said:

Where is this " little bullet /star before the title " , 

i am equally lost .

 

mike 

Click the blue circle before the title if you want to go to the first unread post.

i've found after I customise my start page, I can then copy the url and then paste the link to the bookmarks bar so i don't have go into My Activity Streams doing two extra clicks to bring up my start page.

Edited August 1, 2017 by StringJunky