Two months in.. how do you like the new forum?

Hi all, it’s been two months since we heard that oldTPCR would close. Now that we’ve all had some time to get used to the new Discourse based forum, what do we think? What do you like? What things are still difficult to this day? What would you like to change? Any functionality missing? Let’s discuss and see if we can improve this already pretty darned great place!

1 Like

Would love some help on how to get a view on my mobile of just the threads with new posts since I last visited the website. The below image was my go-to page on the old forum, and I’m finding not having one quick page to go to on the new forum holding me back from checking it regularly. Any help would be appreciated.

3 Likes

I’m pretty pleased actually both in content and the amount of members from the old board that have made it over.

I actually only have a request. Something like a “trending” list of the most recent posts. It could take multiple forms, such as by topic or poster I suppose.

Right now, it seems you occasionally have to hunt a bit to see something you might be interested in.

2 Likes

Yeah, that’s my top request too. The closest I’ve been able to get is to set preferences such that anything is considered new. That still gives me two sections to check (‘unread’ and ‘new’), so my default link goes to ‘unread’ and occasionally I check the ‘new’ section. Although often (always?) this forum will suggest new threads at the bottom of any thread I’m reading, so it’s hard to miss new threads.

My notification preferences

I used to have this, but this gave me ‘counter icons’ whenever anyone posted.
image

In now use this, which only increments the counter for replies to things you posted (except the OP) and likes:
image

I haven’t tried this, but just going to “latest” should also show everything coming by, right? Downside: it will also show recent threads that you already read. A unified “unread-or-new” view would be ideal, not sure if we can add that.

Not sure if this is exactly what you want, but as I mentioned in my tips thread you can make your own ‘trending’ link like this: https://forum.tabletpc.review/latest?min_posts=10 and then change the number to anything you like to limit the list.

2 Likes

Quick check and it’s looks workable. Thanks !

1 Like

Great. The only (big) downside is that it’ll show anything, even if there are no unread posts in the thread.

2 Likes

It’s been going great. Still finding features.

2 Likes

Nice, let us know what you find! One thing I found semi recently is that once you’ve started composing a message, you can still insert a quote into your started post by marking text in any other post and hitting ‘quote’.

Edit: this feature no longer works it seems as of June or July 2022.

Ditto.

I like this forum. It took some time to get used to it but it’s grown on me. :+1:

4 Likes

Fantastic job guys

2 Likes

@Yodamike, there’s a Discourse app if you’re on Android. Might wanna give it a try.

1 Like

First, thanks again to all the guys who stood this forum up. It’s really just amazing work to get the spirit of the old forum back up and running in such a short period of time. Great job!

If there’s anything I would gripe about, I would say that I still haven’t gotten used to the mobile version of Discourse, even on various forums beyond TPCR that I subscribe to. There’s something really off-putting about the design. And I think it’s because there is just so much visual clutter squeezed into a vertical format. So a thread that might have a few bits of valuable content from contributors is just difficult to consume, because the dividing lines between posts are extremely faint, and it’s overwhelmed with avatars, signatures, forum icons, etc. It just feels like a lot of scrolling through things that aren’t content related.

Honestly, I’ve just in general never really liked this forum software over some of the older ones, but practically every site uses it now so I’ve adjusted by now.

I guess It’s just how I’m used to read the old forum, but would it be possible to separate Hardware, software, and general technology discussion instead of just one technology section?

Or would there be a way to preview at least one first post in each sub section, at least in the technology and community section, so we can at least see one post of them from the main forum in mobile?

There’s generally less information on the main page that can be seen than the old forum, and I notice some sub sections are still empty or much less active because they get pushed down easier by other hot sub section in the same section, and people usually only find interesting things to read from the main page.

This is my first time using Discourse, so I’m still getting used to it. I do agree, the main page is a bit sparse because of how things get moved around and pushed down. I wish there was a default view that just showed all the sections with their sub topics that made it easier to choose where I want to go from the main page.

Other than that, I can’t complain too much. It’s sad that the new .review domain doesn’t show up as well with google searches, so less people are likely to find it, but that’s not really site design.

2 Likes

When you tap the Technology section though you get three recent (or pinned) posts from each subsection right? Like this. Does that work for you? Or do you want more of those tech posts on the main Categories page?

1 Like

We have a software section for tablet-specific apps (which I think should include screen mirroring/pen-remoting apps).

Platform Advancements is intended for chipset and silicon hardware discussion.

The Drawing Tablets, Pen & Accessories section I think naturally encompasses digitizer hardware discussion.

This seems to be a pretty good spread as far as I can tell. Any specific topics not covered that you’re thinking of?

1 Like

I mean yeah, there are sub categories under the main category, but you don’t see the newest post in each sub categories without having to click on the main categories (at least on mobile). For example currently the “Technology " section is full of “General” discussion that take up the top 3 spots, so I would have to click into it to check if the “Hardware” or " Software” got any update.

Also, currently each main categories only show the 3 newest post from them, without showing which sub categories they belong to. For example I was quite confused seeing a HP devices name with detailed spec in the general section until I click it and found it a sale post, not a discussion post. It would be much clearer if the forum show sub categories “buy&sell” before the post.

Most people would sweep their eye through the whole forum to see if anything interest them in every smaller categories and I liked that a lot in the older forum. It might not be necessary in more specialized categories like Windows/ Ipad etcs, but “Technology” and “General” show much boarder sub categories.

Of course, only if it is possible and easy to do, otherwise I’m happy enough that we have a new forum.

3 Likes

Very happy that we are able to continue, the UI/UX is still a bit bewildering for me, probably because I’m too lazy to learn it properly. Haven’t been able to figure out how to upload a picture from Android or iOS.