EAB OLD vs EAB NEW Comparision (56K warning)

[Bloodwych]

Someone had to do it.
Many will want to discuss it.

So here it is.

Using the magic of browser history, I've managed to make some screen caps in order to compare the new and old styles. The EAB banner is wrong in the old screen caps, but it doesn't really matter.

First, thanks Rck for all your hard work, commitment and dedication in providing us all with a free service in the form of the fantastic EAB. Respect.

Now my analysis after playing around for a couple of hours - opinion can obviously change with time. First, the pics:









Here are a few points off the top of my head and by no means an exhausted list. Everything IMO of course.


Like:

• Many of the new features:
  
  
• Pic thumbnails.
  Multiple pic uploads per post.
  Quick reply etc etc.
  
  
• Layout:
  
  Position of various items
  The new zone.
  HOL Search position - brilliant
  New popup menus
  ect etc - so much to list.

Dislike:

• The brightness!!!!! Hard to appreciate by only looking at the above pics since you are viewing them with the new, brighter EAB as background. Main issue like I mentioned in the news thread. How anyone else hasn't brought this up is beyond me. Just look at the pics of old vs new. The old version isn't as bright and doesn't have that 3D/XP shiny glow that modern sites seem to be adopting. If I had XP, I’d turn off that kiddie glow skin and be back to 2D Classic. Or perhaps find a more mature skin. It might be time to create some user selectable layouts.
  
  
• Screen space used. Uses far more space for the 3D glow graphics, taking after XP and designed for higher resolutions I guess. Bit large for 1024x768, but I'm sure it works well on resolutions higher than this. 800x600 and lower will be using that scroll wheel. Goes back to the need for adding a user selectable layout. You either love the modern glow/3D /colour co-ordinated thing that everyone is adopting to fit in with XP or don’t. Some themes work, but others tend to be appear “washed out” in appearance.
  
  
• Attachment business. What's all this about only having 1MB for attachments such as pictures? We've never had this limitation before??? Old threads that I refer-to/bump up will be ruined if I delete the necessary attachments and working through them all to decide which to delete will take ages. Is server space really that tight? I couldn't upload any pics to this thread because I've exceeded attachment space by 2.54MB from past posts!!!!
  
  
• New Animated menus - can't they just popup rather than slowly expand?

erm, that's about it.

Summary:

Less brightness and “washed out” look or provide a user selectable layout.
Attachment business.

More positive than negative, great new features combined with a very well thoughtout/prepared layout. As always truly appreciated Rck, you are just the best - Thank You.

Questions:

Someone PLEASE explain reputations and how it works (if it hasn't already been in the news thread)! I've clicked the icons, but don't understand the finer details.

[Enverex]

Reputation works basically by you rating a persons post. You click the button, tick wether you like or dislike it, and write a reason why. Thats pretty much is. It's more of a "This is a worthwile post" or "This post is a waste of space, this person sucks" rating. This all gets added up from each of their posts and creates their reputation symbolised by the boxes next to the users post count.

Lots of green - very good
Green - Positive
Grey - Neutral
Red - Bad
Lots of Red - very bad

[Bloodwych]

Thanks Enverex, interesting to see how this rating system ends up working!

I keep on going to the right hand side for "Post Reply" and "New Thread"! Old habits die hard me thinks!

[woody57]

If you really want a larger storage space for uploads then I supose its fairer to use your own website or rent upload space elseware then place a link via thumbnail or URL. I know that in your case Bloodwich that the majority of picture posts you've made are ON topic, and as you rightly point out trying to decide which gem to discard is not the same as eiether Fred or I removing useless picture posts, so maybe there should be a larger allowance for genuine archive material as opposed to the trash I post.

I have certainly found posting easier, though my screen view is not that of the majority, I do not load background colours anyway so maybe my setup is different.Obviousy I have as yet not tried to access this site through either Aweb or Voyager as I prefer to learn the nuiances of one browser before trying another with any particular site.

My view of E3 remains positive providing it does not prejudice the remaining 500 members to jump ship as it were, because this site is for all members not just a voiciferic few

[Chuckles]

Personally, I like the new look. You've gotta love the new feature that presents the start of the first part of the opening post in a thread as tooltip text when you let the mouse pointer hover over the link to the thread for a second. That can be real handy for helping you decide whether the topic of the thread is sufficiently interesting that you might want to bother opening it to read the posts. That's an enhancement that never would have occurred to me.

[Dalai]

Hmm, where's the new zone? I don't see it...

Edit: nm found it.

I can't say I like the new 'big' layout either, there's a lot more screen spaced used up by buttons/icons and suchlike, you just end up having to scroll more. I'm wondering it's going to stay all big/XP like this or if RCK just hasn't got round to customising everything yet?

[Amiga1992]

BEsides the facelift, are there any functional advantages to this? I like this look but it's too big but whatever, as long as there is new functionality...

If the new system is biased against nonsense offtopic spam, even better.

Now where the HEL is the "View posts since last visit" thing??? new posts?

[Enverex]

It's the "New Posts" link along the blue bar at the top.

[Mr Creosote]

Sorry, but I don't like this change so far. Here are just a few points:

-I have to agree with Bloodwych and all on the colours and the graphics - they're hideous!

-I've always strongly dislike the forum summary page ('forumdisplay') of the new vBulletin since I've first seen a beta some weeks ago. E.g. why is the name of the thread starter below the thread title? That's damn confusing!

-Reputation: I doubt such a system will do much good.

-Attachments having a 'global per user' limit. As Bloodwych said, deleting my old attachments will basically make old threads useless.

-WYSIWYG posting; I just hope this will not cause tons of 'overformatted' posts to pop up. That'd just make the forum unreadable.

I'll have to 'explore' this new forum more later, I guess...

[RCK]

Originally Posted by Bloodwych

Dislike:

• The brightness!!!!! Hard to appreciate by only looking at the above pics since you are viewing them with the new, brighter EAB as background. Main issue like I mentioned in the news thread. How anyone else hasn't brought this up is beyond me. Just look at the pics of old vs new. The old version isn't as bright and doesn't have that 3D/XP shiny glow that modern sites seem to be adopting. If I had XP, I’d turn off that kiddie glow skin and be back to 2D Classic. Or perhaps find a more mature skin. It might be time to create some user selectable layouts.
• Screen space used. Uses far more space for the 3D glow graphics, taking after XP and designed for higher resolutions I guess. Bit large for 1024x768, but I'm sure it works well on resolutions higher than this. 800x600 and lower will be using that scroll wheel. Goes back to the need for adding a user selectable layout. You either love the modern glow/3D /colour co-ordinated thing that everyone is adopting to fit in with XP or don’t. Some themes work, but others tend to be appear “washed out” in appearance.
• Attachment business. What's all this about only having 1MB for attachments such as pictures? We've never had this limitation before??? Old threads that I refer-to/bump up will be ruined if I delete the necessary attachments and working through them all to decide which to delete will take ages. Is server space really that tight? I couldn't upload any pics to this thread because I've exceeded attachment space by 2.54MB from past posts!!!!
• New Animated menus - can't they just popup rather than slowly expand?

1. The brightness: there will be more skin available later
2. Screen Space: there will be more skin available later
3. Attachment: just join the "Zone" group to boost your box to 10MB (instead of 1MB)
4. Animated menus: hum...

[RCK]

Originally Posted by Mr Creosote

Sorry, but I don't like this change so far. Here are just a few points:
-I have to agree with Bloodwych and all on the colours and the graphics - they're hideous!
-I've always strongly dislike the forum summary page ('forumdisplay') of the new vBulletin since I've first seen a beta some weeks ago. E.g. why is the name of the thread starter below the thread title? That's damn confusing!
-Reputation: I doubt such a system will do much good.
-Attachments having a 'global per user' limit. As Bloodwych said, deleting my old attachments will basically make old threads useless.
-WYSIWYG posting; I just hope this will not cause tons of 'overformatted' posts to pop up. That'd just make the forum unreadable.
I'll have to 'explore' this new forum more later, I guess...

1. Wait for more skins
2. ? question of habit
3. I'm agree with reputation: let's test this system for a few months before choosing to keep it or not.
4. If you join Zone Group, you will have 10MB -> stats show me that normal user don't go far away 3-4 Mb (since beginning of EAB, in 1999)
5. It will depends of user's intelligence

[Bloodwych]

Thanks Rck, nice to know more skins will be available. One close to the old EAB colour scheme would be nice, called "Classic EAB".

About attachments - yes I've joined the zone and I'm assuming from what you've just said that 10MB is for both zone uploads AND picture/file attachments.

However, when I go to the attachments section, it's still only allowing me 1MB:

[Bloodwych]

Originally Posted by Chuckles

You've gotta love the new feature that presents the start of the first part of the opening post in a thread as tooltip text when you let the mouse pointer hover over the link to the thread for a second. That can be real handy for helping you decide whether the topic of the thread is sufficiently interesting that you might want to bother opening it to read the posts. That's an enhancement that never would have occurred to me.

Actually I find it quite annoying! I'm trying to look at a list of new threads but wherever I move the mouse boxes keep popping up! It's faster to simply shift click threads and open them in separate windows rather than fight the little time sensitive preview boxes.

I'd like to see that feature go, or be user selectable.

[RCK]

Originally Posted by Bloodwych

Thanks Rck, nice to know more skins will be available. One close to the old EAB colour scheme would be nice, called "Classic EAB".

About attachments - yes I've joined the zone and I'm assuming from what you've just said that 10MB is for both zone uploads AND picture/file attachments.

However, when I go to the attachments section, it's still only allowing me 1MB:

It should be fixed !! (one zero was missing somewhere )

[Bloodwych]

It certainly is fixed, as I've just attached the following image.

Even though 10MB should be enough for a long time, it's still a shame if people delete picture attachments to classic threads. I can understand why you want people to clean up after themselves however. Perhaps I'll just have to become a superMOD!

[Enverex]

How about automatic image pruning based on age? That way people wont have to go back sorting through images to delete unless they post large images very regulary.

[RCK]

It is technicaly possible, but I don't want to destroy important thread with this system.

[Bloodwych]

Originally Posted by Enverex

How about automatic image pruning based on age? That way people wont have to go back sorting through images to delete unless they post large images very regulary.

That would still kill Classic threads, so I'd prefer it to be user choice. I think pictures should be excluded and only file download attachments listed for the 10MB limit in threads. Much easier to sort through.

Junk pictures are posted in off-topic and get deleted based on age anyway. Ontopic pics should be left intact and be transparent to the user like the old EAB, along with the usual 100K limit. With the new thumbnails and small likely hood of viewing, bandwidth isn't really effected, only server space.

If server space isn't an issue, then I stick by this suggestion.

[dreamkatcha]

RCK, you've probably already realised this, but if you intend to change the theme colours you either have to edit the transparencies of all the graphics or use non anti-aliased ones. Well you don't have to but they'll look really nasty if you don't. Since it's so much hassle editing them individually for each new colour scheme I decided to keep the custom graphics I was using with vB 2.x.x - these blend in well irrespective of the background colour used. Can't stand these new ones anyway - no reflection on you of course. Some of you may be interested to know that these new, much anticipated graphics were almost the cause of 'industrial action' over at the official vB support forums.

[Mr Creosote]

Originally Posted by RCK

1. Wait for more skins
2. ? question of habit
3. I'm agree with reputation: let's test this system for a few months before choosing to keep it or not.
4. If you join Zone Group, you will have 10MB -> stats show me that normal user don't go far away 3-4 Mb (since beginning of EAB, in 1999)
5. It will depends of user's intelligence

1. I will
2. Indeed it is, however, I'm visiting many message boards regularly, and none does it like vBulletin 3. Either there is nothing below the thread title, or there is a short synopsis what it is about. This is why I always get the impression the threads are about people, not posted by them... time will tell if I'll get used to this.
3. Agreed, just let is run and let's hope it won't turn into another flamefest
4. As Bloodwych said - there seems to be a bug somewhere I'd still prefer not to have any overall limit at all (a limit per individual file is necessary, of course), but if it has to be, better keep it the way it is and don't just prune according to age.
5. Well, you certainly remember what happened on the Internet when the likes of Frontpage became popular: lots and lots of ugly 'about me' homepages. However, as with the rest, I'm willing to let time prove me wrong - which it hopefully will...

Back to browsing around now. Still discovering some of the better hidden features :P

Edit: Just discovered a minor annoyance. On the old forum, when I'd hit Firefox' 'Back' button on 'forumdisplay', it'd send me back to the forum index, but scrolled down as far as I was when I entered a subforum. This way, I could very conveniently jump from one forum to the next. Now, it always sends me back to the top of the index page instead. Any idea what might be causing this behaviour?