Forum Upgrade

Posted by: Ryan Latham on 22 November 2015

Dear Forum Members

This is an advance notice that there will be some significant changes happening to the site architecture as our forum provider is upgrading their platform. Of course with all changes some will be welcome, others will feel less familiar and may initially feel alien to regular contributors, please rest assured we have been working hard to migrate as much consistency as possible, and think we are very close. Luckily the new structure does provide plenty of admin tools and design flexibility, so your feedback on this thread will help us to fine tune as needed post launch.

This Upgrade is scheduled to occur - December 2nd, 2015 between 11:00 AM and 9:00 PM Eastern Time (Some disruption should be expected)

So what will be different?

The most important overall change for community members is that the site is fully responsive now. That means that no matter how you access the community, you will have a great experience that automatically adjusts to the device and screen size (no app download required)… with no loss of features.

If you blog or use our clips module, you will also notice an improved interface… and for blogs especially if you use our new Title Image feature, the posts can be much more visual.

Here is a little more detail on some of the site improvements as part of the upgrade.

Responsive Design: Say goodbye to a separate "mobile site" that was missing features and looked nothing like your main site, a new responsive platform where the interface automatically adjusts to each user's device, with no loss in features.

Navigation Menu: With responsive design, the navigation has to be much more flexible, and as result site navigations menu is automatically adaptive.

Title Images: Version 2.0 enables much more visual content. Title images are now supported for blog posts, audio clips, and file clips.

Video and Audio Download Option: Hoop.la now supports downloading video and audio files (excluding clips embedded from 3rd party sources like YouTube), There is a new user permission that controls whether who can download video/audio.

Widget Enhancements: Widgets have been greatly improved. The management of widgets on a particular page is simplified and there is a brand new Manage Widgets control panel, used for managing your custom widgets and embedded widgets (widgets embedded on outside sites). You can now create an embeddable widget in your control panel without having to display it somewhere on your site, as well. The "View All" links at the bottom of widgets have also been made more accurate, to reflect the parameters of the specific widget.

Kind regards and thank you for your continued support.

Ryan Latham

Director Marketing and Communications

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Huge

totemphile posted
... Grey writing on a grey background does NOT improve the reading experience, it's streneous on the eyes. Black on white is easier on they eyes, so why change to grey? If you choose a grey background, at least have proper black writing in a proper sized font.
...

Actually for many people with Mears-Irlen syndrome, dark grey on light grey is better than black on white, so black on white isn't automatically the right choice.

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Darke Bear

Very retro!

How do you make the fonts bigger!

DB.

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Huge

Darke Bear posted:
Very retro!
How do you make the fonts bigger!
DB.

You upgrade Hoop.La again!

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Don Atkinson

No direct access to any of the forums from either the top of a page or the bottom of a page ?

Do you always have to go via "Forums" or is there a setup option to provide direct access from any page to individual forums ?

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Huge

Don Atkinson posted:
No direct access to any of the forums from either the top of a page or the bottom of a page ?

Do you always have to go via "Forums" or is there a setup option to provide direct access from any page to individual forums ?

I can get to individual forums from the top banner (the black bit!).

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by GregW

I've looked over the new design and made a few posts using a 27" 5K iMac, 12" MacBook and a 9.7" iPad Air 2, all retina devices.

I'm generally happy with the font and colour choices, but like others I'm less happy with the information density. The old implementation was too dense, and this implementation is not dense enough in my view. Irrespective of screen size.

I'd also suggest that the delineation between 'Featured Topics' and 'Topics' in the 'All Forum Topics' view is too subtle.

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Don Atkinson

Huge posted:
Don Atkinson posted:
No direct access to any of the forums from either the top of a page or the bottom of a page ?

Do you always have to go via "Forums" or is there a setup option to provide direct access from any page to individual forums ?
I can get to individual forums from the top banner (the black bit!).

Yep, so can I now you mention it.

But I can't see any options at the bottom of the page which is often where you are when you want to go elsewhere and therfore no direct access to the Padded Cell, which used to be possible from the bottom of the page !

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Don Atkinson

The "Add Attachments" seems to be an "Option" but doesn't allow you to attach any files. I presume it does have some sort of purpose ?

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by rackkit

New look forum. Very slick.

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Don Atkinson

At the end of a paragraph in "Word" and other programs, a doulble "Return" is required to start a new paragraph and insert a blank line.

Using this "habitual" keystroke in Hoopla, inserts two blank lines between paragraphs.

"Irritating " springs to mind.

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Don Atkinson

It's possible that Adam Meridith can spell. But I can't.

Looks like I will have to draft in "Word", spell-check, then paste into Hoopla. OK, I do that anyway for long posts, but short posts will now be full of spelling mistakes !

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Hook

Don Atkinson posted:
Yep, so can I now you mention it.
But I can't see any options at the bottom of the page which is often where you are when you want to go elsewhere and therfore no direct access to the Padded Cell, which used to be possible from the bottom of the page !

We were told under the old format that direct access to the Padded Cell was not there because of horizontal space limitations. Now that it is a vertical list (accessed through the menu button in the upper left portion of the top black area), can it please be added?

Otherwise, while I don't mind the font size, the spacing does seem excessive. Overall, this new look and feel will definitely take some getting used to.

Hook

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by ChrisSU

Don Atkinson posted:
The "Add Attachments" seems to be an "Option" but doesn't allow you to attach any files. I presume it does have some sort of purpose ?

It seems you have to click on add attachments a second time, then it works. Well, if a photo appears here, it works, anyway.....

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Huge

Don Atkinson posted:
It's possible that Adam Meridith can spell. But I can't.
Looks like I will have to draft in "Word", spell-check, then paste into Hoopla. OK, I do that anyway for long posts, but short posts will now be full of spelling mistakes !

Yep, an significant problem for a dyslexic.

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Penarth Blues

Agree with previous comments - it's no longer dense enough to be able to skim quickly over topics in the main list which was one of the main features of the old forum for me. I wonder if there is a personal setting to go and alter the amount of information displayed with each topic. I'll go and check now...

EDIT: No there isn't. It'd be good to be able to make the font smaller and to display less info if possible

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Don Atkinson

Just as well i've also got Mozilla Firefox. Internet explorer 8 is f**cked in this new upgrade.

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by totemphile

Huge posted:
totemphile posted
... Grey writing on a grey background does NOT improve the reading experience, it's streneous on the eyes. Black on white is easier on they eyes, so why change to grey? If you choose a grey background, at least have proper black writing in a proper sized font.
...
Actually for many people with Mears-Irlen syndrome, dark grey on light grey is better than black on white, so black on white isn't automatically the right choice.

Ok, horses for courses then. But things seem to get better, font size has increased without me doing anything. Overall the forum appears more organised now, making for a much better reading experience. Maybe people at Hopeless have been tweaking things in the background to make the forum appear unanimous across the various OS platforms and versions in the market. Still some irregularities, i.e. font and avatar sizes change from visiting the forum homepage and once logged in.

I have noticed the spell check function seems to be missing now. Or do you have to enable it actively somewhere? Would be good to have it automatically enabled. Unlike the "Follow" (a thread) function, which I have to turn off every time I reply to a thread. I have never followed threads and won't do so in future either. Good old visiting the forum to see what's new still works fine for me.

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Glyn

I quite like the overall design but not dense enough, too much space, can't see enough topics on one page.

Much better now on an iPhone.

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by TOBYJUG

Will my iPad battery juice run out quicker from whiteout overload ?

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Don Atkinson

ChrisSU posted:
Don Atkinson posted:
The "Add Attachments" seems to be an "Option" but doesn't allow you to attach any files. I presume it does have some sort of purpose ?
It seems you have to click on add attachments a second time, then it works. Well, if a photo appears here, it works, anyway.....

Thanks, I'll give it another try...............

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Don Atkinson

Ooopps........looks like the "attachment" option has disappeared

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by bicela

Richard Dane posted:
Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3...

Thanks, photo saved.

What I miss a lot is the bar with quik links to the forums at the bottom, where was also the paddled cell

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Don Atkinson

Nope, the "attachment" option only appears when I "Edit" a post. And it doesn't work.

Hopefully the link to Flickr will still function ?

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Don Atkinson

bicela posted:
Richard Dane posted:
Testing, testing, 1, 2, 3...
Thanks, photo saved.
What I miss a lot is the bar with quik links to the forums at the bottom, where was also the paddled cell

.............those were the days..................and not a hopeless situation in sight

Posted on: 02 December 2015 by Hook

Each forum used to show topics with unread posts in bold text. This made it easier for me to catch up on threads that I was interested in. All topics now look the same, regardless of whether or not I have read all of the posts in that topic.

The only way I can think of to get around this is to recall when I last visited, and only open topics with more recent update time stamps. Ugh...

Hook