What do you think of the new site design? (Welcome to report any bugs/odd behavior)

[LZ1 672]

Hello!

After scheduled downtime, the AirVPN website design has changed substantially.

What are your thoughts about the new design?

I can definitely say there's some fancy new additions that make some things a little smoother, even if it's tempting to want an "old.airvpn.org" site😄.

• Possible to "Recommend" posts and not just mark them as the solution.
• The design is more flat and the colors seem brighter overall.
• There's some tags which no longer work in signatures, but still in posts.
• There's now a reminder for unregistered users that they'll need to have their posts approved, before their posts are visible.
• More captchas it seems.
• The location of various information has been moved, such as with the top bar and your sign-in location.
• More use of drop-down menus.
• Profile settings options have been moved around, but seemingly remain largely the same.
• Some better moderator UI facilities.
• Apparently the AirVPN support departments like "Support", "Feedback" and others, have been combined into one single unit.
• Everything in the Client Area is now a top-down sort of affair.
• The FAQ sub-forum was changed, so that it has its own place under the "Home" menu.

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

It's still IPBoard, more or less, but a few major versions newer.

I can say that the waste of display space in threads is gone and the website looks good again on 100% zoom.

Then there's the editor. There is no "full editor" anymore, all the features are in the one you find under posts. Also, the ability to choose a different font was removed, something I used extensively. I also don't see the support for BBCode anymore, so our beloved spoiler tags are dead, along with all the others. You, Mr. LZ1, should revise your signature. They're still here, but buggy as hell. Oh no.

 

It also feels a bit buggy overall because while writing this my cursor controls were dead and I couldn't seem to make a new line anymore. Fixed in the edit.

Edited ... by giganerd

[LZ1 672]

Indeed. But luckily my signature remained the same, structurally. It's just not very colorful now.

• I just noticed we can now not only "Like" but append a specific emotion. "Like", "Sad", "Thanks", "Haha" and "Confused".
  

I think that will be mildly hilarious around here. Whatever Staff says, there will be 10 newly registered users clicking the heart icon and choosing "Confused" 😂. But now likes can also be removed.

But you made me sad giga, so you get the sad icon attached. I don't know how this will factor into your Like count though, haha. It will factor in independently. So your likes are separate from your sadness score. Oh dear.

[encrypted 13]

Everything looks new, flat and whitespacy alright. I suppose here is where people can suggest sane defaults.

Forum loads significantly faster than before.

Maybe it's just me, my fonts and my eyes, but the fancy blue forum titles look dizzyingly fuzzy here.

I"m going to try and say Haha to LZ1 because he's nice to people and because now I can.

 

edit: Turns out there are now audio notifications too! Check yours here:  https://airvpn.org/notifications/options/

[whiskey_76 6]

I didn't know they were re-designing the website. I'm really liking the new look and it's even easier to use.  

[LZ1 672]

36 minutes ago, encrypted said:

Everything looks new, flat and whitespacy alright. I suppose here is where people can suggest sane defaults.

Forum loads significantly faster than before.

Maybe it's just me, my fonts and my eyes, but the fancy blue forum titles look dizzyingly fuzzy here.

I"m going to try and say Haha to LZ1 because he's nice to people and because now I can.

 

edit: Turns out there are now audio notifications too! Check yours here:  https://airvpn.org/notifications/options/

Indeed, there's audio. But it seems like it's no longer possible to simply "Follow" a thread and get a notification. Now it's only via email, unless one starts or replies to a thread. 

[kah0922 4]

The config generator looks horrible. Things are misaligned and the load bar should not be gray.

The site does load noticeably faster now.

[LZ1 672]

10 minutes ago, kah0922 said:

The config generator looks horrible. Things are misaligned and the load bar should not be gray.

The site does load noticeably faster now.

Have you tried using a different browser, such as Chrome?

It also appears I'm not getting notifications of replies, even though it should be enabled. 

[Flx 76]

Where did all image examples go? From posts and topics.

I am not re-editing all my posts. 🙁

[NoiselessOwl 26]

Kah0922, can you explain what you are seeing? I am using Firefox 66.0.3, everything looks fine to me. One I do agree with you is the grey bar. It should be in green or red if it is nearly full. Again, this is redesign, it bound to have UI issues. I am positive the staff will take the feedback and improve the experience soon.

 

I am not a fan of mixture of glossy glass skeuomorphism and material design like I am seeing in “Buy and Download,” Config Generator, Overview, etc. I see the redesign is going for material design which it is great, I wish it applies on other parts of the website. It is recommended to stick with one design for cohesive purpose. If the website is going for material design, stick with material design for greater UI experience. Change the button in a flat design than glossy button.

 

I agree with encrypted. It is a lot of whiteness going on, it needs something to off-contrast with to balance the look than making everything in the shade of whites which can make it feels sterile (feel like I am in the hospital). I hope they would add dark mode, it is easier on my eyes and easier on the battery (easier on AMOLED display). I am using Dark Reader (Firefox addon), it works well on this site by making it dark mode.

 

I believe this redesign is great start, it is faster to load which always a plus for every user out there. Hopefully the staff will consider my feedback and improve the experience for the rest of us.

 

EDIT: That is a weird experience. I am not sure if it is a bug. When I click to edit my post, instead of showing me the editor. It show me the front page of airvpn inside the post. I attached the screenshot. I am not sure why it is doing that. I am logged in, my extensions are not fidgeting with it. Airvpn.org is whitelisted. I am using Firefox 66.0.3. Mmm seem this forum does not support .PNG, I tried to upload my .png screenshot, it said upload failed. I converted my screenshot to jpg and it uploaded just fine.

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

2 hours ago, LZ1 said:

Have you tried using a different browser, such as Chrome?

It also appears I'm not getting notifications of replies, even though it should be enabled.

Nah, I do. But the inability to disable email notifications drives me mad. 😣

[NaDre 157]

You used to be able to just see all thread names (not the posts themselves) across categories, in descending chronological order of posts within the threads, whether previously read or not. Don't seem to be able to do that any more.

Why do things have to keep changing? It gets irritating after a few decades.

 

[NaDre 157]

5 hours ago, giganerd said:

... I also don't see the support for BBCode anymore, ... They're still here, ...

Are you saying that you can still access BBCode? How?

If I could not retrieve and save the BBCode for a largish post/guide that I had written, I would be very disinclined to ever modify/update it.

If I had the BBCode for a guide that I wrote for another forum, how would I port it here without a huge effort?

Not being able access the BBCode raises a question in my mind. Do I have rights to the content of my posts here? This does not seem very "open".

 

[Guest]

Looks much, much cleaner!

[LZ1 672]

2 hours ago, giganerd said:

Nah, I do. But the inability to disable email notifications drives me mad. 😣

I could not agree more. It's especially bad if one isn't even using a valid e-mail address - as AirVPN allows - thus one won't get notifications as much presumably.

@NoiselessOwl

There are some bugs and they're being worked on :). I actually just experienced what you described, when I posted, clicked "multiquote" then edited my reply. But I can't immediately reproduce it. This was in Chromium.

I also see my post count went from 2002 or so to 1990. Hm. Well the 90's were great anyhow 😄

[LZ1 672]

1 hour ago, NaDre said:

Are you saying that you can still access BBCode? How?

If I could not retrieve and save the BBCode for a largish post/guide that I had written, I would be very disinclined to ever modify/update it.

If I had the BBCode for a guide that I wrote for another forum, how would I port it here without a huge effort?

Not being able access the BBCode raises a question in my mind. Do I have rights to the content of my posts here? This does not seem very "open".

 

Nadre, you may be able to achieve something similar, if you go to Browse>My Activity Streams>Create New Stream>Then tick the boxes associated with seeing topics and including everything. Then your custom stream will show up under My Activity Streams. 

[Clodo 176]

Hi to all!

4 hours ago, Flx said:

Where did all image examples go? From posts and topics.

I am not re-editing all my posts. 🙁

Absolute NOT!

We have an old, static copy of previous version as reference (yes LZ1, an old.airvpn.org ).

Absolutely any user-content will be the same without re-editing, only please be patience, we are working on that.

For all others: i will check each things tomorrow, please wait, i have other priority right now.

Unfortunately the BBCodes are deprecated for IPBoard, but there are the equivalent for spoiler, log etc, we need only to tuning and write a guide.
I added the Font button to the toolbar now. Some features still exists but are disabled by default in this edition.

[sundi 8]

Do we have any option to change user timezone and date format for the profile so that we can see web site's times in our local timezone and as per our date format?

Edited ... by sundi
Adding date format

[Flx 76]

@Clodo Somehow the number of posts got from 190 to 177. Another glitch?

It is fancy/better looking than the "old version".

Thx for your reply,

Regards,

Flx 

[OpenSourcerer 1435]

8 hours ago, Clodo said:

Hi to all!

Absolute NOT!

We have an old, static copy of previous version as reference (yes LZ1, an old.airvpn.org ).

Absolutely any user-content will be the same without re-editing, only please be patience, we are working on that.

 

For all others: i will check each things tomorrow, please wait, i have other priority right now.

Unfortunately the BBCodes are deprecated for IPBoard, but there are the equivalent for spoiler, log etc, we need only to tuning and write a guide. 
I added the Font button to the toolbar now. Some features still exists but are disabled by default in this edition.

 

Would it be helpful if we use the first post to collect all the bugs and inconveniences people notice so that it's easier for you to keep track of at least the community-submitted ones?

[zhang888 1066]

7 minutes ago, giganerd said:

 

Would it be helpful if we use the first post to collect all the bugs and inconveniences people notice so that it's easier for you to keep track of at least the community-submitted ones?

 

Actually it would be much better if you submit any issues with a separate thread in this forum section, or any other (possibly) critical

things via the contact form. This thread was made by LZ1 for just casual feedback, and was not intended for direct bug submissions or

feedback. You can feel free to post here, but in order to make bugs resolved we need to flag them, so a random reply in a long topic

with the issue you are having is not the best way to track it.

 

Open your own threads.

 

 

[encrypted 13]

Post numbering is missing too. It's a useful navigation aid.

[flat4 79]

I like it, great job

[Monotremata 22]

I just saw it for the first time this morning and I dig it! FINALLY my login is saved and I don't have to sign in every time I come to the website now!!! YAAAAAAAAAY!

[george493 2]

Hard to find forum, and then, "new content".