New Forum-Design

[cyberjock]

Yeah. Colors are causing me problems too. On my color calibrated LCD screen the links are almost the exact same color as the text. In fact, I can't even recognize a link unless I see http://www.blahblahblah.com/whatever. I'm betting that if I had the default color settings on my monitor I'd see the links fine. It's quite entertaining to see stuff on a calibrated versus uncalibrated screen. Best $500 for the calibration device I ever spent.

I think I'm gonna take the weekend off and not look at this forum again until Monday. It's really depressing and I haven't gotten a response from James yet. Not entirely unexpected since its the weekend but the amount of spam that will accumulate sucks and I still don't have even standard user permissions(aka edit my own signature and edit my own posts). I think updating on a Friday was a very bad idea...

 

[gpsguy]

Last night, when I selected "class", I could click on a "+" in the upper left hand corner of the page and it brought up this "styler" selection box. I tried a few presets (awful!), I tried to reset it back to black and then it seemed to break.

Now, I'm stuck with the styler box that won't go away at all. Clicking with the mouse doesn't do anything anymore and I'm stuck with these colors. And, I sure don't want the "default" either.

It seems there are only two styles ("skins" or whatever you call them): "Class" and "Default".

 

[jgreco]

It seems there are only two styles ("skins" or whatever you call them): "Class" and "Default".

Pretty sure you meant "Ugly" and "Butt Ugly."

 

[joeschmuck]

I hate the new change! Why change what was working perfectly? I don't get it. All I see is a different look and more learning how to do what we could do before. This is just like Microsoft forcing Windows 8 on me or Microsoft changing shit from Office 2007 to a different look in 2010 or worse 2013.

 

[jgreco]

noticed:

joeschmuck
New Member

Member Since:
May 28, 2011
Message Count:
1,367

Uh, "shut up n00b?" hahaha irrational forumware for the win.

 

[titan_rw]

I agree. The new forums are ugly.

The default style "class" is absolutely horrible. I mean really bad.

I changed it to "default style", and it's marginally better, but it's still ugly. It seriously looks like a forum for a bunch of elementary school kids. Bright pastels, colors are really hard to tell apart. It makes navigating the forums harder.

Color issues aside, there's still issues with the layout. It just seems harder to get around. I wish I had a screenshot of the old forums, but they really were setup really well. Easy to navigate around, default colors were nice. No problems seeing things at a glance.

Why change a good thing? Was vB too expensive? Not flexible enough? Too hard to maintain? I don't think a little heads up and a short justification of the change would have been too much to ask for.

I agree with the sentiment of a few others. With the forums in the (ugly, hard to navigate) state they're in, I have no inkling to even read the forums, let alone post anything. I used to visit them a few times a day. Now I have to force myself to check once a day.

However, I realize that a few people not frequenting the forums will make little to no difference in the overall freenas project.

I will check in a few times a week to check for any changes (for the better). Otherwise, the new forums bug me enough that I'm not going to bother anymore.

At least the irc channel hasn't changed.

edit:

Now I see we're getting all kinds of spam on the forums too. I never noticed any on the old forums. Were the admins simply deleting it as fast as it was posted, or did the old forums prevent it in the first place?

I don't understand why there'd be such a major change made with no forum announcement or anything. I understand even the forum moderators were in the dark. And considering the major aesthetic issues combined with usability, and the spam, why bother?

 

[SkyMonkey]

To me, it's quite a bit less readable than the old forums. I dislike the fixed width and available fonts. Not sure what prompted the change, but I understand change is eventually inevitable (due to many factors), so if it has to happen, it happens. Hopefully some more options and fixes are coming.

One other comment though:

Features do not make a forum, the members do, and all I see around here are the more experienced folks (who are the most valuable public facing resources that FreeNAS has) responding less and less and some even leaving altogether. As a new user, I have questions, and without a maintained FAQ, seasoned vets, and wiki contributors, the resources I have to answer my questions are pretty slim. I do research and read a ton, and always post back after solving a problem so my issue is fully documented for those who might face it in the future. But sometimes it's not solvable on my own research alone, and so I turn to the community.

I would ask that the owners/controllers of this forum consider the value that the experienced people here bring to the table, and listen to their input. Without a viable community to answer questions and keep available documentation up to date, the use of FreeNAS by the average home user will stagnate due to lack of information/help. Maybe this is a "don't care" to the maintainers of the product, as they are aiming for corporate sales, and perhaps they have better support. But it certainly is a concern for the home users.

 

[tingo]

And now we have an inrush of spam messages on the forum too. Urgh. :-/

 

[Nid]

Rough on iPhone, somehow the left side of the screen got cut off.

 

[paleoN]

The look of the new forum is horrid. I also find it significantly less useable.

Just for the record guys ... i am out (edit: out of managing this forum /edit). I don't have much experience with XenForo engine and also i did not received any info about this migration.

I also appreciate the changes you did to the old forum. They were definite improvements.

I guess we should give it a few more days as the upgrade could still be ongoing, and while the "Class" theme is a bit too fancy and pretty for my liking (way over-designed) I prefer the more functional aesthete of the old forum which in some ways can be reproduced with the "Default Style" theme (click on "Class" at the bottom left of each page to access the style chooser) but the colours are still a bit too bright... I guess we'll all get used to it eventually.

It's clearly not finished. Someone at iX needs to be working on it. Of course if they were they wouldn't bother to tell anyone anyway.

 

[Caesar]

wow I'm surprised that most people don't like the new forums... I think these forums look more modern that the old and I like the way things are now. I do find it easier to find stuff that I had a hard time finding before.

 

[titan_rw]

Here's some pictures comparing the old vs the new. Most of the pictures you have to click on to get the full resolution. Please compare them at native res.

(EDIT): Actually once I posted it, it seems they are displaying at native res. Doesn't hurt to check.

Old forum overview:

Old forum posts view:

This was a very nice layout. Everything is simple, clear, easy to read, and easy on the eyes.


Here's how it looks now, with the two different themes:

Forum overview theme 1:

Forum overview theme 2:

Forum posts theme 1:

Forum posts theme 2:

I know it's not just me that thinks the new forums are horrible. Bad enough I really think I'm not going to be browsing them anymore. I'll probably still hang out on irc. At least it's easy on the eyes.

 

[pirateghost]

Hey, can we get some more spam on the forums? I don't think I have seen enough tonight....

 

[Milhouse]

Hey, can we get some more spam on the forums? I don't think I have seen enough tonight....

I don't think we've got any moderators any more, have we? I've still got the title, but none of the powers to actually tackle spam (or do anything out of the ordinary, for that matter). I'd send the admin a PM about the situation, but that's not working either.

 

[HolyK]

Rough on iPhone, somehow the left side of the screen got cut off.

I have same situation on my Android Phone. Tried Opera, native browser, FireFox, Chrome. Also tried both desktop and mobile user agent ... on all of them its the same issue. So forum is not even readable on mobile device, which i'm using quite a lot.

wow I'm surprised that most people don't like the new forums... I think these forums look more modern that the old and I like the way things are now. I do find it easier to find stuff that I had a hard time finding before.

The "look" is modern, also some HTML5 features are modern, but still, XF is missing a lot of features. Some functions are over-coded (that quick reply in shadow box is horrible!), so lot more work will be required to get back old features at least.
BTW i can tell you that i had on my schedule a new forum template (dark one) for prev. vBulletin, i was just waiting for some access rights. Well, now i am glad that i didn't started working on it. Duno how good is the template management on XenForo, but on vB it was fine (at least for me).

 

[cyberjock]

Just like you Milhouse I have no rights to do anything. I can't even edit my own signature or edit my own posts. I emailed James on Friday about both of those and I've gotten no email response at all nor are those problems fixed. I have a lot of gripes with how this whole migration was handled. In no particular order:

1. Holykiller was the designated "forum technician". As such, he should have been told about this before the change, even if he wasn't allowed to say anything.
2. The moderators should have gotten a PM, email, something, that this was going to happen. Just logging in on a Friday afternoon and going "WTF" was not a good choice. Then the situation was allowed to deteriorate while nobody has gotten a response a full 96 hours after the "upgrade".
3. Why would you do such a large change on a Friday unless you planned to either work on it as necessary all weekend or weren't considerate of the forum users and potential issues? Rule #1 of big projects: NEVER EVER EVER roll them out on a Friday unless you plan to work all weekend or be a jerk and not fix anything if things go bad.
4. This new design is very broken. As far as I know nobody at iXsystems has solicited any feedback, questions, or complains from any of the moderators(or users), nor do we even have any control of the forums. If someone wants to demote me from moderator duties that's fine, but leaving me unable to edit my own posts and my own signature(which currently has a broken link I can't even fix!) reeks of "failure".
5. I'm not a fan of the new colors(links and text colors are so similar by default I can't even tell the difference, I had to change the links to bright blue) but new users to the forum shouldn't have to figure out how to change the colors just to identify the links. That's just bad etiquette on the forum admin. The default colors should be aesthetically pleasing(yes, this is open for debate as to what "pleasing" is) but they had better be damn well functional. They're currently not, which is a failure in my book.
6. As Holykiller has said, emails are not being responded to. This thread ran all weekend without a peep from anyone(in particular, James) and it's Tuesday and stuff is still just as broken as Friday afternoon.

There was an issue in the forums and I had sent a PM to the "Admin" user on the forum. After all, if something illegal were to be going on in the forums that person had better respond if anyone. I've mentioned several times in the forum that Admin never responded to my PM but I have still not gotten a response 4 months later. Can we say "I don't care" any louder than ignoring a forum PM from a moderator? I'd hate to be the person responsible if something illegal were to take place on the forums and the "Admin" was just ignoring PMs.
7. The amount of spam is increasing rapidly and nobody at iXsystems seems to care. Someone(?) has deleted a couple of them, but the lack of emails just reinforces the 'we don't care' attitude.
8. Alot of the old tags don't work. Bold is broken, color is broken, and I can assume there's more that are just broken now, but I'm not going to go looking for an inclusive list because this new design just hurts my eyes.
9. There was an issue in the forums and I had sent a PM to the "Admin" user on the forum. After all, if something illegal were to be going on in the forums that person had better respond if anyone. I've mentioned several times in the forum that Admin never responded to my PM but I have still not gotten a response 4 months later. Can we say "I don't care" any louder than ignoring a forum PM from a moderator? I'd hate to be the person responsible if something illegal were to take place on the forums and the "Admin" was just ignoring PMs.

As such, I'm resigning from the forum effective immediately. I will continue to post responses to threads which I've been involved with(I get emails to the threads I've posted in before) but I have no intention of making any posts in any new threads from this point on. If things turn around someday I may reconsider being an active member of this forum again and checking out the forum postings a couple of times a day, but as it is I want to grit my teeth when I come here because of 1-7 above. Honestly, I'm not sure which is more frustrating, the lack of response to emails or the non-functional forum we now "enjoy".

It is sad that I have to step away from this forum, but the frustration with so many things being broken and no response to emails has convinced me that its not worth the frustration anymore. I donated my time(sometimes several hours a day) to help out people in need, I spent quite a bit of time maintaining the noobie guide for FreeNAS, and I'd expect to at least be replied to by email when I email someone. I could understand that maybe forum users' emails would be ignored, but ignoring your own moderators. That's someone trying to sabotage the forum, just doesn't care, or is overworked. In any case, some paid employee is definitely responsible for those 3 situations and should be held accountable.

If there's one thing any forum needs to do right to be a healthy place to discuss problems and issues within the forum's topic, its a functional forum board. This place doesn't have that quality right now.

Thanks for the fun memories all, but I'll see you guys around the interwebs. If you and I have exchanged PMs before and want to stay in touch feel free to PM me with your email address (if you can figure out how). I'm convinced I don't have the appropriate permissions to actually send a PM to someone that hasn't sent me one first.

 

[cyberjock]

And FYI.. the search function in the forum is broken.. again(in my opinion). Try searching for "m1015" and then "M1015". The searches are now case-sensitive with no option to turn it off. Not a good option to have on by default.

 

[Milhouse]

Amen on all of that.

You can add my name to the list of former moderators.

Although I only visited somewhat rarely these days, my time is still valuable and the people mismanaging this forum no longer deserve that time. They've taken liberties with moderators and the goodwill of various members for a very long time, and what is happening now is just out of order. The incompetence I can cope with, it's the indifference and ignorance that has finished me off.

 

[joeschmuck]

iXsystems is doing this intentionally, but to what end is the real question. Are they trying to force us out so they don't have to give up FreeNAS in favor of TrueNAS? Hell, I don't know but there must be some endgame in mind. I would like to see FreeNAS 9.x running on my machine but 8.3.x is running just fine so maybe that will be it for years to come.

 

[cyberjock]

iXsystems is doing this intentionally, but to what end is the real question. Are they trying to force us out so they don't have to give up FreeNAS in favor of TrueNAS? Hell, I don't know but there must be some endgame in mind. I would like to see FreeNAS 9.x running on my machine but 8.3.x is running just fine so maybe that will be it for years to come.

I really was wondering if it was intentional myself. I can't imagine people are smart enough to develop FreeNAS and run a business but can't figure out how to do stuff right in the forums. Either someone(or maybe several people) needs to be fired or there's a hidden agenda for the whole thing. That's the only conclusion I can make from what I've seen. As it is, I don't think FreeNAS could ever go closed source(not a licensing guru so I have no clue), but maybe iXsystems is hoping to burn enough bridges that nobody wants to use FreeNAS and instead opts for TrueNAS. Honestly, I've started questioning the hidden agenda idea back when 8.3.1 was released. Who would release FreeNAS with broken hard drive serial numbers in the GUI? That's something that really shouldn't be left broken. Especially since FreeNAS is really just a user interface for FreeBSD. If the user interface itself is broken then why not just use FreeBSD? You could even make your own FreeBSD server out of 9.1 right now once you've decided to ditch FreeNAS for FreeBSD. But, there is Hanlon's Razor... never attribute to malice that which can be explained by stupidity.

I know 3 people from various places that manage TrueNAS servers at work but started off managing FreeNAS as a home server. After the individual got the hang of FreeNAS they decided to convince their company to buy a TrueNAS server. One person claimed to have 3 TrueNAS servers in their company and they love them. One primary server and 2 backup servers(one on-site and one off-site). So if the plan is to burn FreeNAS to the ground and hope people go to TrueNAS I think that's cutting off your nose despite your face. I will admit that now that I've used FreeNAS at home, if I were in a position to decide what type of file server to build for a business I'd seriously, and I mean seriously, consider TrueNAS. I'm far more comfortable with FreeNAS/TrueNAS and more trusting of it than Windows 2008 R2 with a hardware RAID controller.