Do you like the new GTP layout?

[nowcontrol]

When I click an alert to a new post it takes me several posts previous. Anyone else experiencing this?

Yes, I am having that happen too, but it only seems to be happening when I am taken to a page that has pictures or YT video.

Also, scrolling media filled pages with Chrome is painfully sluggish, I've had to switch over to Firefox for now.

 

[Moglet]

Right now, my main pet peeve is just that the miniature avatar that shows which threads I've posted in is relocated to a spot where it's tough to see. Having it in an easily detectable location in the empty space was more convenient.

Having used the site for a bit longer now I'm finding this change really frustrating. It was so useful in the busier forums (Console & PC Gaming for example) and it seems to have moved for no reason; the space where it used to be is now empty anyway. Is there any way to get it back where it used to be? I had a quick look through my preferences but couldn't see any options that may be related to it.

 

[Wiz]

@Moglet & @Carbonox

If you use a browser that is compatible with the Stylish extension, I made a quick little mod for you guys so the little avatar thingy is moved.


Install Stylish
Search for GTPlanet
Install "GTP Mini Avatar Move"

 

[Jordan]

It was so useful in the busier forums (Console & PC Gaming for example) and it seems to have moved for no reason; the space where it used to be is now empty anyway. Is there any way to get it back where it used to be?

This is actually a good example of how redesigning and maintaining a site like GTPlanet works. It's not an issue of what was "changed", but what wasn't changed.

When customizing forum software, your starting point is not a blank slate, but a default theme that was built by the forum software developers. The good news is that most of the design decisions are made for you; the bad news is... most of the design decisions are made for you. Sure, you, the designer, have free reign to modify it however you want, but each modification comes at a very high cost which must be paid both now and in the future.

The immediate cost comes as you figure out how to actually implement the change you want. When you remove something, you've got to put it somewhere else. Once you decide where you want it, you have to deconstruct that part of the template to figure out how to insert this thing that wasn't originally meant to go there. This usually requires you to re-write the new area of the template to accommodate your moved widget (and modifying CSS that might break other areas of the template), or discovering that variables (required to make the widget work) in the original template are not available in the other. So, now you've got to write some custom back-end code to make the widget work again, at the risk of adding more database calls or memory usage for the page, slowing the entire site down (because there's probably a good reason the forum software developers didn't include that variable in the template in the first place...).

Once you've got this widget where you want it, you have to test it in all possible states that a user may be viewing a page: as a guest, a member signed into their account, a Premium user, or a moderator. Each of these user states will see slightly different pages, with different code and controls that might affect the placement or behavior of your re-positioned widget in unexpected ways.

Finally, the most challenging step is cross-browser and cross-device testing the new widget with the responsive design, with each of the user states mentioned above. More than half of our visitors are accessing the site from a mobile device, so this is very important and cannot be overlooked. Placing that widget somewhere the forum software designers did not intend it to be means that you have no idea where it may end up on a mobile screen, so you'll have to write more custom CSS to reposition it in a way that looks acceptable — and is still usable with a touch-based interface. Of course, you may have to go back in and change the structure of the new template entirely to make this work. In some cases, you may not be able to solve the problem, so you have to abandon the idea and all the work you've done while trying to move this now-damned widget.

If you've made it this far with your modification, you can't celebrate too much. With each forum software update published by the developers (which happens about every other month), you'll have to review each one of these customizations that you made, merging them all back into the new default templates, one-by-one. Some of your changes will break, which means you've got troubleshooting to do, and some may have to be completely redesigned because of new features introduced by the forum software. If the new software update contains security patches, you won't have much time to fiddle around with this, because you have to apply the new update as quickly as possible to keep the site secure.

As you can see, each small change or modification can take hours or even days to implement, and could have consequences for me to deal with for years into the future.

There are many things that I don't like about the default forum templates, and there are many things that I change which most of you probably don't realize have been altered from their original state. The hundreds of customizations I make to a theme over the years means some features get overlooked when launching an all-new theme — this is why the "Go to First Unread" button was originally missing on mobile pages, why the last poster's name is hidden on smaller screens, and why a number of other small features or complaints that people have with the current theme exist.

The small avatars you're asking about are another example of this. In our previous theme, it is something that I changed. I moved them over to the right because, like you, I don't really like them over the larger avatars, either. However, when building our new theme (GTP15), I left most of the thread listing elements untouched, because I had customized our old one "too much". It broke frequently with upgrades, and I didn't think the change would be significant or beneficial enough to spend all the necessary time doing it again. Ultimately, I have to make sacrifices and tough decisions about what I'm going to work on.

GTP is much larger and has many more types of pages than it did when I last redesigned it in 2012-2013, so I can't afford to spend as much time making every detail of every page look the way I really want it to. I realize this will result in some "changes" which may be confusing or irritating to some of you, and I would love to address all of these, but I have to work within a limited set of practical constraints that ultimately define the layout of the pages you see here.

 

[Moglet]

Thanks for the detailed reply @Jordan ! It sounds very much like game development in some ways, and it's interesting to read about how much work is required for some changes; I naively assumed the previous feature was part of the forum software as opposed to a custom change, hence the comment about it being "moved for no reason". Apologies if my post came across as just moaning.

@Wiz I'll give your suggestion a try, thanks!