Falling out of love with Flarum

essie112mm

This post comes from someone who uses desktop for 99% of her community activity and spent time exploring and reviewing features of Flarum. I disliked the look and absence of basic functionality of the previous Lithium website launched in 2016 (although with some exceptions I was happy with its predecessor) and was initially pleased in general with what I found on the preview community for Flarum.

However, I am now finding that for me there is a world of difference between the preview community and the community launched yesterday, partly because there are many more members now using the new community than a couple of weeks ago, which has changed things.

Before outlining my dislike it's only fair to say what I do like:

writing a post is now like using Word. Grammar, punctuation, spelling mistakes etc are highlighted so there's no excuse anymore for the barely coherent posts that we sometimes see.
just being able to post is reliable . No more annoying messages when clicking on 'post'.
we can see how many views a thread gets and that is really useful.
there are obviously a lot of features which please those who visit other communities as well (I don't and am not too bothered about anything other than being able to post reliably and find a thread when I want to), but it's right to ty and cater for all needs.
the website is generally faster, which will please everyone.

I may yet add to the 'likes' list, but for the moment that's it. Now for the 'dislikes' :

I neither like all the scrolling to read threads nor not being able to see anywhere near as many threads on the page as before, only three or four at most. So I have two questions: Why do we need a space between threads? Do we really need each thread box to take up so much space?
when a thread is open unless a post is only one line long I can only see one post to a page. More scrolling! I have elbow tendonitis and it doesn't react well to all the extra scrolling. ☹️
I don’t think the tags are as good as having the bar at the top where we could immediately go to a forum. Now I have to go to tags / all discussions and scroll (my elbow....).
It's annoying that whenever I want to click on “back” on my browser I have to navigate the mouse pointer to avoid the word “giffgaff” or it brings up a pane with a list of threads in the forum.
I am disappointed with the way Photography looks now. To see a photo a thread has to be opened as there's no longer a thumbnail visible and whereas before I could view the full photo now that’s only possible if it was uploaded as small size.
I don’t like the new email (which I assume is related to the switch to Flarum) confirming a successful top up which features flashing and what I would describe as an ‘animated electrical impulse’. When flashing and spinning avatars are removed from the forums on medical grounds I am really disappointed that it was thought okay to use this email which all members, not just community users, will see.
unless I have missed something, it's no longer possible to save a post draft. With the exception of short posts I often have to add to a thread/post over the course of several hours. For example, I started this post this morning and it's now my 3rd attempt to finish it. To keep a copy of what I have written during the day I've had to copy + paste it into a Word document.

Lastly, a question: why has my post count increased by about 1000 posts?

Naturally, Flarum has to be given time to bed in and - like everyone else - I daresay I will grow accustomed to the way it works. But at the moment I can't really see myself spending much time here - and I'm not around for that long now anyway.

harrrrrry

essie112mm unless I have missed something, it's no longer possible to save a post draft

That one's possible, by a different method. If you post the draft, you will find a "soft delete" option in the three dots menu. That removes it from public view. Then when you want to finish it, you can go to the post and restore it.

essie112mm I don’t like the new email (which I assume is related to the switch to Flarum)

I'm sure the emails have nothing whatsoever to do with the forum. They will be coming from the main site servers. But I agree, there's absolutely no sense in having distracting animations on the same screen as readable text, which is what emails usually are. Sadly, jobs like that are often given to external companies, who know that by adding a few pointless and annoying animations they can charge substantially more for little or no extra work.

essie112mm I am disappointed with the way Photography looks now

I'm sure that will change, though it might be a while coming.

joshpt

essie112mm Very difficult than lithium

blackfive460

essie112mm

I wouldn't say that I'm particularly unhappy with Flarum and I expect that by this time next year it will all seem fine as I'll have found ways to make it work.

I do like the overall clean appearance and I can live with Tags replacing boards.
I really like being able to hide certain Tags from 'All discussions', ones that I have no interest in, and be able to see what's happening in the areas I am interested in easily; rather like the 'New posts' or 'Watched forums' features that other software provides.
I also like being able to mark everything as read with a single click.

However, I would say that there are 'features', if that's the right word, that I'm starting to dislike intensely.

As it's early days I'm not going to list them all but first and foremost among those dislikes is scrolling.
Ok, I can see where they are coming from. If I return to a long thread I should see the first unread post and can scroll from there but what happens when I then find a post I want to reply to but also need to refer to the OP or worse, another post 'somewhere' in the thread? Off we go scrolling again.
While displaying complete threads and loading them on demand sounds cool, there's a lot to be said for pagination and pagination is something that Flarum can do although it's not an out of the box feature.
Wouldn't it be nice to have a choice?

Now some of you are thinking that even with pagination, there's still going to be a need to do a lot of scrolling but for example consider that you can always right click/long press on a page number and load that in a new tab in your browser. That way you can have plenty of content on tap with the simple click of a tab. In any case, I always found reading through a long thread page by page a more natural way of working.

So, who's with me?
Forget Brexit, vote for pagination!

#Iwantpagination!

anth006

essie112mm I do agree with you. I like the overall look of the new forum and it's easy to find where I want to be.

The scrolling though is tedious as with only seeing one or two (if short) posts on a page.

Photography as you say is disappointing and just doesn't work very well without thumbnails. I am hopeful however that this can be improved.

Edit to say I also miss seeing who gave kudos (now reaction) as good to see who is interacting with a thread even though they may not post.

ma2013

essie112mm
I'm struggling a little with the new community... But I'm sure I'll get used to it... Even the features I don't like. 🤞🏽😬

dennisbowen

essie112mm good all points covered

tradertall

essie112mm It was a long post to read but I agreed with 90% of it.
I find the "quote" function was much better in the previous forum. Also the reply and kudo functions were less buggy in the old version.

j51h

essie112mm

This eloquently echoes my immediate thoughts on this new design.

"I neither like all the scrolling to read threads nor not being able to see anywhere near as many threads on the page as before, only three or four at most. So I have two questions: Why do we need a space between threads? Do we really need each thread box to take up so much space?
when a thread is open unless a post is only one line long I can only see one post to a page. More scrolling! I have elbow tendonitis and it doesn't react well to all the extra scrolling."

orangeman33

essie112mm As far as I can see there is no longer the reaction option of a thumbs down, which is good.
Think it will take a little while to get to grips with it all and for all bugs etc to be solved. Overall I personally find it easier to use.

ip633

harrrrrry That one's possible, by a different method. If you post the draft, you will find a "soft delete" option in the three dots menu. That removes it from public view. Then when you want to finish it, you can go to the post and restore it.

Except your message won’t be the latest reply, and in bigger threads it could be buried by the time it’s restored. People don’t always read threads in their entirety, and I think they’ll be even less likely to with this never-ending scrolling format.

kenco02

beginning to get fed up of multiple attemps to get on the fourums. also the format on my screen seams to change with the wind

piglet1902

kenco02 have you tried a different browser

kenco02

happens on chrome.. explorer.. firefox..

davidevans0000

i think the member put this up on flarum fantastic colour photo. https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33000080-craster-harbour

yvonnearmstrong

davidevans0000

That was me Yvonne 😍and glad you like the photo

Yvonne

harrrrrry

ip633 Except your message won’t be the latest reply, and in bigger threads it could be buried by the time it’s restored.

Agreed. Elsewhere (probably in the preview version) I suggested the devs might invent a draft tag which could be assigned to new posts and threads as possibly a better way to temporarily hiding them than soft deleting it. But that would only help if, when removing the draft tag, the post becomes a "new" post rather than retaining its historic position in a thread.

Clearly that would require some development and testing, to ensure they worked as intended. But perhaps that will be considered when the main dust has settled

germansheppard234

ip633 People don’t always read threads in their entirety, and I think they’ll be even less likely to with this never-ending scrolling format.

I have only just found out that to do back without scrolling go to top of page on thread you on it says like 1 of 50 posts click on it and function is there to go back or forward to different posts
Cheers

dez_d

ip633 and I think they’ll be even less likely to with this never-ending scrolling format.

There is a trick instead of the scrolling if you know the message number.
We can use this thread as an example - https://community.giffgaff.com/d/33000798-falling-out-of-love-with-flarum/ ⬅️here

All you need to do is add the message number to the end of the URL.

jokeyboi77

The one thing I'm not enjoying is no indicator of how many new posts there is in a thread now, unless you open up the thread to see how many new posts there is, a bit of a backward step if you ask me. But I do like the ability to scroll through a thread now without any page changes, so a step forward.

suppers_ready

I was going to post a longer reply, but I didn't want to do the copy and paste back and forth thing. So yes I agree there should be a facility to save a draft post prior to posting it.

Just a thought, although I'm OK with the absence of pages, if there were pages, would that give an opportunity to lose the scroll bar down the right hand side of the screen thus freeing up screen space allowing more posts per screen?

Edit: Just realised I'm still scrolling up an down using the Windows vertical scroll bar. Mmmmmm.............

essie112mm

harrrrrry

Before Tuesday’s launch I read both the desktop basics thread and an exchange between roxy_r and blackfive460 about the introduction of soft delete.

https://community.giffgaff.com/d/23766912-flarum-quot-the-basics-quot-desktop-version

Soft delete
" Whilst we’re here, we have a great new function that we’re trialling called ‘soft delete’. This means, if it happens that you make a mistake and didn't want to post something, you can use the soft delete function to hide your post from being seen on the community. The community team will still be able to view it."
Apart from the fact that it’s a trial function and the obvious disadvantage pointed out by ip633, why would anyone want to leave behind a trail of soft deletes of posts available for the community team to read? I certainly wouldn’t entertain this. So I believe we need a stand-alone draft function back.

As regards Photography, a few weeks ago I had a PM exchange with an educator about the state of the old forum. I understand that Flarum now will not be the same Flarum we perhaps see in a year or so, but to launch it with no preview thumbnails was not the best move in my view. Since starting the thread I have already seen one of the best contributors to Photography saying that they will no longer visit the forum.

I have no clue who is responsible for the email highlighted in my OP. Perhaps I didn’t make myself clear, but my point was that it was obviously timed to launch with Flarum. And giffgaff must have signed it off.

harrrrrry

essie112mm why would anyone want to leave behind a trail of soft deletes of posts available for the community team to read?

It's probably necessary, for legal reasons, for the community team to be able to read deleted posts and it's highly likely that admins on most other forums can read "deleted" posts too.

Calling it "soft delete" does at least give you the possibility of understanding that the message still exists, which might not be so obvious to users of other forums where the message appears to be "deleted" but isn't.

ip633

I must admit that my enthusiasm for the new platform is already starting to wane. I suppose the acid test was always going to be the actual launch, and right now I’m feeling a little underwhelmed by the whole experience.

I can live with the fact that it’s “buggy” at the moment, and you’d expect that at this early stage of its development. But I fear that we’ll be spending a long time trying to iron out faults, and making the necessary improvements. Some people genuinely enjoy being a part of that process, but you have to be in it for the long haul, because that seems to be the giffgaff way.

I think it’s probably going to be easier for newcomers, because you’re starting from scratch, and probably more accepting of new features, and suchlike. But I notice that not all of our existing content (i.e. posting history) has survived the migration, which is disappointing to say the least.

essie112mm

I get the point of soft delete. But that's irrelevant because it is not what I want. I want a feature where I can create a draft which I can add to if or when I want or have time , and perhaps post or discard without having ever to post it in the first place. And, as you know, we could do so with Lithium.

Edited to add a comma!

jt_21

essie112mm I get the point of soft delete. But that's irrelevant because it is not what I want. I want a feature where I can create a draft which I can add to if or when I want or have time , and perhaps post or discard without having ever to post it in the first place. And, as you know, we could do so with Lithium.

Edited to add a comma!

Agree with draft 👍🏼

essie112mm

blackfive460

I just voted for pagination 😀 Do I get any payback?

Seriously though, I am glad that someone else dislikes all the scrolling. Can you imagine scrolling through some of the long threads? For me it's a sore point (literally) 😉

In a way it pains me (no pun intended 🤣 ) to be having this discussion as the team have worked very hard to launch Flarum and here we are at this early stage listing dislikes. But whilst it's important to acknowledge the advantages the platform brings it's also honest to say what we don't like about it.

ujo55

I don't find it to be the shiny new platform we were told we should be super excited about.
Dislike the scrolling, much more difficult to find a post in mid thread before, when perhaps I remembered it was on page 9 or 10.
Dislike the resultant waste of space on the rhs for the scroll bar.
Many good features of the old forum are missing with in my view little gain - even in speed.
Guess it will improve over time, my fear is it will just become more cluttered in appearance
So yes
#Iwantpagination!

shabazmoqsud

ujo55 i am happy and excited at the possibility of what the forum could become in future but to be honest i have to agree with you

until many things are not sorted i will still be active but less so.

this is far shy from being user friendly heck id go far as to say with the issues that lituim had for newer devices it was user friendly and easy to you.

now we have to start from the beginning all over again.

ukrun

ujo55 I've understand it almost 70%

shabazmoqsud

essie112mm the scrolling is a nightmare. it makes it difficult to follow, read or reply to posts.

ip633

I mentioned this in the dedicated feedback thread, but it does concern me that private messages that I’d previously deleted have somehow been resurrected following the migration. Now that they are displayed as being “private discussions”, we have the option to “soft delete” or edit, but if it’s a received message you can only flag it (i.e. report it).

I’d prefer to see a conventional inbox / outbox arrangement. But you should always be able to permanently delete those messages. Trust me, I never kept any of those “ranking up” messages from Gregg 😉, but some of them have come back, and it seems that I’m stuck with them 😐️.

But it does raise serious questions about GDPR, when data that we thought we were deleting is still being retained. Some of those private discussions were about issues that I’d prefer to forget, so I’d rather not be reminded of them.

On a lighter note, check the emojis for ”confused”, or “frustrated”, as neither seem to be an accurate representation of the mood that they’re trying to convey. They just look sad.

Edit: sometimes I’m Like a dog with a bone, but I did finally get an answer to my question, even if it’s not entirely satisfactory:

https://community.giffgaff.com/d/23769708-new-community-platform-boards-forums-vs-tags/14