The new site is essentially a modern piece of bloatware junk.

[Supercluster]

I understand that many people like it. I wanted this thread to exist for posterity.

SFF forum has transitioned to a more "modern" version that I do not find appealing in any way. It is harder to navigate as a database, and is more like a social network.
I am not expecting anything to change for the better really, since this is the way the internet experience is being designed now.

This is a simple statement that can be backed up by a 6.2 MB home page, which is shameful and ridiculous.

 

[The-Alchemist-404]

Im a recent forum user but i can relate, i didnt knew how to enter subforums from the home page (until recently i used the chain on top of the forum thread), that was because there are no strong visual effects to say a section contains the thread, honestly Thehack got it rigth

Readability is currently junk.

Remove the background images for any navigation. They add visual noise. Replace it with vector icons or other simple images if you wish to have images.

A subforum and the most recent post should be better differentiated. I recommend indenting the recent post. This visual clutter is also because there is no hierarchy via font selection. Subforum names need to be bigger and more bold while the recent forum post needs to be indented.

Thread posts need to have a better differentiation between user posts. Currently there is just a small visual break line that breaks each user post. Recommend have each post as a separate "card."

It is growing pains but there's a lot of visual clutter that needs to be trashed for more emphasis on readability.

Here's a mockup with some of my suggestions for example:

But i think the use of images are not that big of a problem if the pictures help the contrast of the text, wich rigth now are to ligth (on my opinion) to be coupled with the white text. (the anouncement sub forum piture is not that bad)

 

[theGryphon]

My jaw dropped when I read @Thehack's post above, because that is literally exactly the same things I was about to write. It's uncanny ?

I might just reiterate another obvious thing that was said above: 404 errors every now and then... very annoying.

@PlayfulPhoenix my intention is not to put your efforts down. I totally understand it if you're frustrated after putting long hours into this and not seeing people complain, but you should really take @Thehack's suggestions above into consideration...

 

[Penguin]

The new frontpage (aka not /forum/) looks okay. But the forums are really messy and I really miss the ability to see the latest activity in each subforum from the landing page of the forum.

 

[cmyk78]

I think that the 'old' forum was miles ahead of most other similar forums and the change in software was unnecessary. Currently I see no improvements in the core post system and the only new features that I've seen have been the discord integration and the ability to make tables (which is pretty great). I preferred the list style homepage as well.

Anyways I greatly appreciate the attempt to make the forum an even better place.

P.S. does the number next to the discord tab mean anything or is it just random?

 

[Arboreal]

I'm really sorry to say that the fact that I cannot browse the site effectively on my phone any more is a disappointment.
Chrome on Android is still giving me the first post on may page I link to, and navigating to the latest post on a long thread is painful to say the least.
Like has been said elsewhere, this is not a criticism of all the hard work that goes into the site, which is a daily visit for me, just reporting how I find the way it is currently.
Luckily, I can look at it on my PC at work, so it's not just am and evening visits.
Keep up the good work @PlayfulPhoenix, we have one of the best places to go to here on SFFN.
BTW, the Blue option is a real win for me.
@WadeAK78 - I think the number next to the Discord Tab indicated the number of people currently connected

 

[NotUsed]

just something I saw in the other thread and it just confirms that with the new design we made a big leap backwards

what happened to the UI here? I could barely find this thread.

 

[Soliel]

Newbie here. I don't understand this site at all. I'd love to get more information from it and join the community but I wouldn't have a clue where everything is.
e.g. I just want to see info on cases. Where's the case forum? Everything just looks lumped together, and the sections that are separate are based on I-don't-know-what criteria.

 

[confusis]

@Soliel what do you mean the case forum? You mean one off cases? Production cases designed by community members? https://smallformfactor.net/forum/category/custom-cases-projects/

This site is a community, not a for sale section for case designers.

 

[confusis]

Also, proper feedback goes here:

Feedback - The SFF.N Update Thread: Track our work!

Hey everyone, As we will be rolling out lot of changes and enhancements to SFF.N over the coming weeks, I figured it would make sense to create a dedicated thread to announce and discuss these, as well as to get feedback from the community. This conversation has already started in the original...

smallformfactor.net

 

[Soliel]

@Soliel what do you mean the case forum? You mean one off cases? Production cases designed by community members? https://smallformfactor.net/forum/category/custom-cases-projects/

This site is a community, not a for sale section for case designers.

Most other forums I would go to would have subsections for hardware types. One maybe for "core" stuff like CPUs, RAM, another for cases, another for peripherals. Everything here seems lumped together. But then some cases are in the Create section. I reckon you would benefit from creating more subsections. It's a bit of a mess trying to find what you want.
I get this place is different, I'm okay with different, but it took me a while to figure out what was going on with your home page. Makes no sense to a newbie, and by the sounds of it, oldies as well.

Anywho, I'll continue to lurk until I get a grips with how this site works. Usually forums are the easiest things in the world to use, this one requires a smidgen more thought

 

[Phuncz]

That's because SFF Network is about the concept of Small Form Factor computers, there's still discussion about computer components but viewed from the SFF viewpoint. People here tend to be informed about computer components for the general aspects already, there's little demand to reiterate on that. We'd also devolve into just another general computer hardware forum, with SFF tacked on. No, we are all about SFF.

Splitting everything in sections would also mean those sections could be desolate in some aspects, as there isn't much to talk about about RAM while cases would be over half the topics. It just doesn't make sense for the topics we discuss daily. Maybe you consider this forum as a general hardware forum with an emphasis on SFF, but it's the other way around and we wouldn't have value in being just like the other forums that already cover all of this.

 

[SFF EOL]

I’m no web designer, but a long time ago, when Web 2 was just being talked about, I had some limited ability because I had just done an undergraduate module on HTML/CSS (I was studying History of Ideas, which is a sub-set of philosophy, and logic is a sub-set of philosophy…). So I got roped in for a web site to do grunt work. Anyway we (or they) called it ‘mangled’. Because people were never completely happy we ‘mangled the overlying HTML/CSS (and that would have been the total limit of my ability) so that someone visiting the website could ‘have it there way’ (yes we nicked that from Burger King)- the underlying stuff was the same but it presented in three different ‘styles’/ ways. This went a long way to resolve some common complaints. The underlying stuff (database and so on) was quite complex (certainly for me) but I wasn’t involved in that part because as I say I am no web designer and never was



I don’t know if the idea is of any value here but just thought I would mention it. It seems a lot of people are asking for a utilitarian ‘list’ style and I think that could be done via ‘mangling’?



My position is 'wait and see', people are obviously putting a lot of work in and I don't want to demotivate them because the next idea might be absolutely excellent. So, let them finish then we can start the debate- some things grow on you over time as well, That said I do agree with much of what people are saying.

 

[SFF EOL]

Could anyone recommend a good website/ forum(s), like as good as this one, which doesn’t restrict itself to SFF? Sometimes I have a non-SFF question, I’m aware that it can’t really be asked here, but it would be great if there was somewhere I could ask such questions and get the sort of high quality, knowledgeable, responses I generally get here.

 

[Legion]

Could anyone recommend a good website/ forum(s), like as good as this one, which doesn’t restrict itself to SFF? Sometimes I have a non-SFF question, I’m aware that it can’t really be asked here, but it would be great if there was somewhere I could ask such questions and get the sort of high quality, knowledgeable, responses I generally get here.

Overclockers UK Forums

Overclockers UK Forum powered by Xenforo

forums.overclockers.co.uk

 

[Arboreal]

Could anyone recommend a good website/ forum(s), like as good as this one, which doesn’t restrict itself to SFF? Sometimes I have a non-SFF question, I’m aware that it can’t really be asked here, but it would be great if there was somewhere I could ask such questions and get the sort of high quality, knowledgeable, responses I generally get here.

Never been on Overclockers, but know it's a good big community. Some of the guys here, (including me), are on Bit-Tech, which is UK based and useful community.
That said, this place is special and a really positive supportive community.
Happy to help if you have any questions that I can answer, ask here or PM me.

 

[Stevo_]

Could anyone recommend a good website/ forum(s), like as good as this one, which doesn’t restrict itself to SFF? Sometimes I have a non-SFF question, I’m aware that it can’t really be asked here, but it would be great if there was somewhere I could ask such questions and get the sort of high quality, knowledgeable, responses I generally get here.

Also hardforum.com and overclock.net both have many dedicated hardware sub-forums for about anything you need outside of SFF.

 

[SFF EOL]

Overclockers UK Forums

Overclockers UK Forum powered by Xenforo

forums.overclockers.co.uk

Overclockers UK Forums

Overclockers UK Forum powered by Xenforo

forums.overclockers.co.uk

Yes. somehow I managed to lose my log-in details for that forum, or rather my password and apparently there's no way to retrievw it? So I drifted away but you do get some clever people on their, Overclockers

Thanks for the offer of support guys, always very much appreciated and I promise I won’t become a burden. I was using the overclockers forum but then lost my password about two or three years ago. That coincided with losing a job and my PC having to be sold for old hard cash. Feel my pain I think I was forced to use a AMD A8/A10 based system- it was a K chip but that wasn’t much of an improvement. So that meant I couldn’t afford anything that Overclockers sell, or anything fancy at all. I tried to retrieve my password but apparently that isn’t possible. I guess I could set up a new account with a different email address.

But I have the other suggestions to check out, so it isn’t the end of the world.

I support the idea of keeping SFF. Forum ‘clean’. Not from any elitism but because it ensures SFF concentrates on its ‘mission’ and encourages the development of excellence. Trying to provide 100% for everything is difficult and SFF is already quite a broad restriction, covering as it does say an internet enabled device all the way to a powerful gaming PC or workstation. And a lot of things are pretty much the same answer regardless of form factor regardless of your form factor.

Once again thanks for the suggestions.

 

[CC Ricers]

Getting used to the forum pages, including mobile, but there's still inconsistency with links afoot. The old canonical URLs for articles no longer work and lead to the "page not found" page. I've been trying to search up old articles. Same goes when you try to look past page 1 in any article category.

Here's an example of a article that's been indexed on Google for years, no longer works: https://smallformfactor.net/articles/project-matx-an-interview-with-jeffinslaw

 

[ricochet]

Change is ALWAYS a painful shock and adjustment but inevitable. Case in point... boy did I ever fight those push-button digital wireless phones in the late 70s and 80s much preferring the good ole dinosaur rotary dial hard line telephone. What a fool I was! As I SURE DO like and prefer my smart phone I have today!

BTW: For the life of me I can't seem to find "Subscribed Threads" would someone point this old fart in the right direction on how I find my list of subscribed threads. Many thanks. Cheers and respects.

 

[Stevo_]

Change is ALWAYS a painful shock and adjustment but inevitable. Case in point... boy did I ever fight those push-button digital wireless phones in the late 70s and 80s much preferring the good ole dinosaur rotary dial hard line telephone. What a fool I was! As I SURE DO like and prefer my smart phone I have today!

BTW: For the life of me I can't seem to find "Subscribed Threads" would someone point this old fart in the right direction on how I find my list of subscribed threads. Many thanks. Cheers and respects.

Ha, reminds me of my first cell phone(a flip model), sales guy is like do you want the camera option, think I replied why the hell would I need a camera in my phone? Of course not.