okay, a new community, cool. Its not like I don't have too many of these things going with facebook, myspace, twitter, etc. I can't just have a freaking forums anymore, can I?
So, since all I want is the forum, how do I remove all the extra unnecessary crapola clogging up my screen real estae, so I have the forums full screen again?
Thanks!
/signed
likewise!
"recent topics" and "popular topics" are of no importance to me.
I agree it is annoying and would like to turn it off.
+1 here as well.
Lovely functionality but way to much wasted screen space.
+9000
Way too much wasted screen estate.
+1, terrible design, tell your web designer to go back and do it again.
I would whap the web designer with a rolled up newspaper and rub his nose in this filth.
Seriously, what is this, Gaiaonline?
Ye Olde /Signing
I would whap the web designer with a rolled up newspaper and rub his nose in this filth.
Seriously, what is this, Gaiaonline?
Wouldn't work, he's clearly one of those designers who thinks portals are awesome.
Welcome to Gleemax TNG.
+100000000000
I agree. I find this new forums extremely annoying.
1.- From D&D page link to forums (Community/Message Boards) you have to navigate and click a lot to find the forums.
2.- The subforums appear like a continuous text, not line by line. Horrible.
D&D Fundamentals
Sub-Forums (13): 4e Multiclassing, Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies, 4e Rituals, Equipment & Magic Items, 4e Races and Monsters, 4e Character Optimization, 4e Rules Q&A, 4e General Discussion, 4e Character Development, 4e Defenders, 4e Strikers, 4e Leaders, 4e Controllers, 4e Combat: Traps, Terrain and Tactics, 4e Books Errata
3.- You can not see the last thread post of each subforum, only the last poster, who cares???
4.- The sidebar with the recent posts is not interesting, because there are a lot of post, so it is improbable that these posts can be useful for anyone.
5.- There is much less space for text than in the previous forums, you have to scroll down a lot to read the posts.
6.- In this reply, I can not see the previous posts!!!
7.- I do not want another Facebook, I just want a plain and easy forum.
Please, back to the old and more useful forums!!!!!
Please at least remove ''Popular'' and ''Recent Topics'', they are the most annoying.
And the Quick Reply button would be nice.
Please at least remove ''Popular'' and ''Recent Topics'', they are the most annoying.
And the Quick Reply button would be nice.
Remove - or let me choose the content - latest and popular for my choice of board/forum would be fine.
I should have read this one before posting my own thread on how much I dislike the myspace/facebook social network being shoved in my face.
Signed!!!!!!
This is a serious downgrade from the previous forums.
1. Horrible waste of screen space: I actually have to scroll from left to right.
2. I cannot read the preview of a thread's first post without actually clicking on the thread and entering it. I just want to scroll quickly down a particular forum and check if the threads are worth reading.
3. Who cares about popular posts? I care about threads and topics which are of particular interest to me. They may be popular or not, but popularity has nothing to do with their intrinsic interest of relevance.
4. I cannot read previous posts while I reply. It used to be easy to copy and paste or check other arguments as I composed my own thoughts.
5. What is this glaring white? Where is the soft brown of the old forums?
6. What happened to the choice of font style?
I'll point out the obvious. This is still in beta.
Something even more obvious: Basic features and functionality should be added before the extras.
I'll point out the obvious. This is still in beta.
I'll agree with author "57285048" 
It is still in beta... but... it is odd that the base forum package is so much worse then even a basic PHPbb or one of the other various forum programs. My guess is that this is because they want us to focus on all the other bells a whistles like wikis and such. I'm not really interested in those. I loved the old forums style. I could find what I need fast. I hope that this is just a matter of relearning how to search around.
I too also loved hovering over a discussion to get the preview of the post.
2.- The subforums appear like a continuous text, not line by line. Horrible.
D&D Fundamentals
Sub-Forums (13): 4e Multiclassing, Paragon Paths and Epic Destinies, 4e Rituals, Equipment & Magic Items, 4e Races and Monsters, 4e Character Optimization, 4e Rules Q&A, 4e General Discussion, 4e Character Development, 4e Defenders, 4e Strikers, 4e Leaders, 4e Controllers, 4e Combat: Traps, Terrain and Tactics, 4e Books Errata
QFT
Yes, this is a beta release.
This is feedback for that Beta.
Perfect, this is exactly the post I was looking for.
I also want to remove the stuff on the right side, and make my forum full screen.
Yeah, can we get a mix of the two programs both old and new... this is too much of a change, if I wanted to use MySpace/facebook, I would be using those!!
on another note... it is still beta, and obviosly is in need of loads more work... so I would call this an open alpha rather than a beta
How do I remove all the excess CRAP that I dont want to see?? like all the crap on the right and the picture gallery and the column on the left and change my font and have a nice softer color that doesnt kill my eyes for my backgrounds(yeah I miss the old parchment color that said "this is a gaming forum")
now I lost track of my agruments... cause I cant see the other posts below!!!!
Give me back my functionality!!!!!!!
Smack that Programmer with an Italian Vogue or something!!
This is a serious downgrade from the previous forums.
1. Horrible waste of screen space: I actually have to scroll from left to right.
2. I cannot read the preview of a thread's first post without actually clicking on the thread and entering it. I just want to scroll quickly down a particular forum and check if the threads are worth reading.
3. Who cares about popular posts? I care about threads and topics which are of particular interest to me. They may be popular or not, but popularity has nothing to do with their intrinsic interest of relevance.
4. I cannot read previous posts while I reply. It used to be easy to copy and paste or check other arguments as I composed my own thoughts.
5. What is this glaring white? Where is the soft brown of the old forums?
6. What happened to the choice of font style?
QFT
I don't give a damn about bells, whistles or fancy twiddly bits. I just want something that works as a forum, that I can read without getting a constant headache.
This is not it.
Yeah, Recent Topics makes it impossible to even read some posts now. Lose it. At the very least make it an option that we can turn on and off. It's hard to have a conversation when half the text is blocked by a useless overlay.
Oh. And fix my name while you're at it, too.
How about a little ajax magic.
Be able to subscribe without going back to the first page of the thread. And also reply without being taken away from the thread.
Yeah, Recent Topics makes it impossible to even read some posts now. Lose it. At the very least make it an option that we can turn on and off. It's hard to have a conversation when half the text is blocked by a useless overlay.
Oh. And fix my name while you're at it, too.
Agreed (at least on the on/off option for the Recent Topics...it's a feature I will never use, and has been made too large...it could easily be made to "hide", restoring space...however I think Zombie's name is beyond fixing, and always has been...)
Why I oughtta ... I oughtta ... I really should do something, should't I? 
okay, a new community, cool. Its not like I don't have too many of these things going with facebook, myspace, twitter, etc. I can't just have a freaking forums anymore, can I?
So, since all I want is the forum, how do I remove all the extra unnecessary crapola clogging up my screen real estae, so I have the forums full screen again?
Thanks!
If you go here , there is a script for the Firefox plugin "Stylish" that fixes some of these things.
Looks like they fixed the colum issue! Woot! I knew they'd fix things eventually...
I don't get why everyone is always so impatient and wants everything done NOW... sheesh...
What everyone above me said!
For people wishing to remove the recent/popular post column, someone else came up with a fix if you're using firefox and willing to install a couple of addons.
First, with adblock you can hide the column by adding a filter for #div(mod_forum_topics).
Then, you can fix the width problems with the sylish addon and the following style script. Also, in the .module section, some of the text gets turned into ... for some reason. Just replace that with "visibility" ":" "hidden" without the spaces or quotes.
@namespace url(www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);
@-moz-document domain("community.wizards.com") {
body {background-color: darkgray !important;}
#oneBackgroundLayer {width:100% !important;margin:0 auto;background:url() !important;}
#oneFoundation {background:url() !important;}
#onePageContainer {padding: 0px 0 0 !important; background:url() !important; background:url()!important;}
.colParent1
{ width: 100% !important;
}
#one_controller_container
{ width: 100% !important;
background-color:lightgray !important;
margin-left: -120px !important;
}
.module
{ ... !important;
width: 0px !important
}
}
Thank you Wizards for removing those massive bars! Once you've spread out the size of the thread viewing page you'll be half way to having a viewable forum again.
I want to ask for one thing, though. I want those bars back... but only on the forum viewing page. And with a little modification.
I can't speak for the rest of the people on these message boards, but when I browse forums I typically do it like this:
- Go to the forums, pick a forum I haven't read recently.
- Find a thread I want to read.
- Read it.
- Return to step 2 and find another thread.
The "recent posts" and "popular topics" bars made it almost impossible to read threads because of how much space they took up, but they were actually almost useful for finding another thread. The forum viewing page doesn't need nearly as much space as the thread viewing page does. It can easily afford to have those bars on there without rending the page too small. And they actually come in use -- if I'm on the forum viewing page I'm probably looking for a new thread to read and those bars point out threads I might not otherwise see.
Finally, if you do put them back in, I would ask that you focus them a little more. These forums are huge. They contain a dozen different communities and you know this. Those bars show posts and threads from any part of the site and it just comes out to be too broad, you know? I don't deal with the star wars section, don't play magic any more, don't keep up with the market place any more. Chances are if I'm here I'm here to surf the D&D boards. Nine tenths of the threads and posts on those bars are useless to me because they come from other parts of the boards. If you tightened their scope, though, and you only had posts and threads from the D&D boards show to people surfing the D&D boards (and the same for all other board communities on this site)... well, I would actually like that. I would actually use them.
So, in short:
- Keep the "Recent Posts" and "Popular Topics" bars out of the thread viewing pages. When I'm reading a thread, I want to read that thread and the user content in it. They just waste screen space there.
- Put the "Recent Posts" and "Popular Topics" bars back into the forum viewing pages. When I'm on the forum viewing pages I'm looking for a new thread to read. Those bars could help point out threads I might find interesting in forums I don't normally visit.
- Make the "Recent Posts" and "Popular Topics" bars only show threads and posts from within the forum group you're currently in. If someone is viewing the D&D forums, show them threads from the D&D forums, and the same for each other community under this umbrella.
Do that, streamline this post editor, and give me some way to change the background color to something other than neon white and I would love this forum.
Yeah the ability to customize that bar would be really cool if it showed up only on non thread viewing areas of the site.
My personal gripes:
- I want to be able to close the columns on the right. Most popular thread? Whatever. I understand some people might like this functionality, but give those who don't the option to not have to view it and let it take up HUGE amounts of screen real estate.
- I want this glaring white to be returned to the light brown parchment texture of the old forums. Black text on stark white is a little hard on the eyes, but black text on light brown was easy and relaxing to read.
- The horrible formatting for posts. I DON'T WANT TO DOUBLE SPACE PARAGRAPHS AUTOMATICALLY. It makes presentation for homebrew items like feats look TERRIBLE.
EXAMPLE FEAT
Prerequisites: Example prerequisites
Benefit: Example benefits.
Is there are reason all that has to be spread out over 6 lines? I want them organized with no spacing between them.
You can put stuff: on adjacent lines
by holding Shift when hitting Enter
It's stupid, but there it is.
Cheers, -- N
You can put stuff: on adjacent lines
by holding Shift when hitting Enter
It's stupid, but there it is.Cheers, -- N
Whoa.
That is quite nice.
Will have to use that in the future.
Despite how dumb it is.
You can put stuff: on adjacent lines
by holding Shift when hitting Enter
It's stupid, but there it is.Cheers, -- N
Thanks Nift!
I, too, would like to be able to remove that side bar, as it is completely useless to me, looks terrible, and clutters up my screen. However, I think the entire top-level interface needs to be rethought; interforum navigation is one of the worst things about the new site.
You can put stuff: on adjacent lines
by holding Shift when hitting Enter
It's stupid, but there it is.Cheers, -- N
Woot!
Woot!
To fix some of the spacing issues, I added the block below to my Stylish customisation. It removes a lot of unnecessary line breaks so the space between paragraphs are a lot smaller.
.mb_t_p_t_post_div > br {
display: none;
}
.mb_t_p_t_post_div > ol > br {
display: none;
}
.mb_t_p_t_post_div > ul > br {
display: none;
}
.mb_t_p_t_post_div > blockquote > br {
display: none;
}
It's still a work in progress, but it helps.
Edit: the forums ate my code 
. It kept replacing "display: none" with "...", worked around by making the space in the middle bold.
I'm disappointed in the number of features that don't work.
- Previous HTML formatting? Broken from pre-update builds
- Viewing previous posts while posting? Not available
- Quoting takes up a massive amount of space
- etc.
I don't buy the beta argument (there was plenty of time to test the new interface before taking the the old forums down for a week). Very disappointing for an upgrade...
+1
I'm disappointed in the number of features that don't work.
- Previous HTML formatting? Broken from pre-update builds
- Viewing previous posts while posting? Not available
- Quoting takes up a massive amount of space
- etc.
I don't buy the beta argument (there was plenty of time to test the new interface before taking the the old forums down for a week). Very disappointing for an upgrade...
I agree, this is not a beta, its more like someone grabbed a commercial package and slapped a few skins together and put it up with all the default settings. Its really more like pre-alpha.
I'm sorry but I'm a web programmer, and I acknowledge that in web programming I am not even close to being an expert, but I could put something together better than this. WotC please read up on proper software development, put some of your managers and project leaders through some classes on the subject instead of doing this over and over and over...
I'm disappointed in the number of features that don't work.
- Previous HTML formatting? Broken from pre-update builds
- Viewing previous posts while posting? Not available
- Quoting takes up a massive amount of space
- etc.
I don't buy the beta argument (there was plenty of time to test the new interface before taking the the old forums down for a week). Very disappointing for an upgrade...
I agree, this is not a beta, its more like someone grabbed a commercial package and slapped a few skins together and put it up with all the default settings. Its really more like pre-alpha.
I'm sorry but I'm a web Programmer, and I acknowledge that in web programming I am not even close to being an expert, but I could put something together better than this. WotC please read up on proper software development, put some of your managers and project leaders through some classes on the subject instead of doing this over and over and over...
There fixed that for you.
Bel
First I'd just like to say "CoC/ToU violation". (fixed it back to what it should be)
Second, this is not the first time they have done this. This is just the latest in a long string of software maladies that go back to 2nd edition software development. I'm no longer surprised, but still equally disappointed.