Any Comments of New Layout and Name of the Forum?

I guess I just don't want to see profile avatars while I'm trying to scroll and read text. Can I turn people's pictures off, including the default "no picture" icon? It's distracting!

UGLY layout

I don't mind the layout, the first thing I did was test the options, which gave me the opportunity to make the forum look like the old one! Once I discovered how to do that, I'm now back to the new layout to try it out.


The problem that I have identified so far is that before if I clicked on the "last post" column against a thread, it will take me to that last post straight away. I don't think it is working at the moment, the system takes me to the first post in the thread, which then takes another click or two to locate the last post in the said thread!

rio

Brilliant update, Small suggestion, a more orange colour for the main headings would be good to match the Alpha Colour so that it lines up with the forum.

Dan C

It is a shame that DPReview didn't consider widening their page layout when doing these redesigns, especially since they continue to allocate so much real estate to the items in the right frame.

It seems like the layout is still catering to monitors whose horizontal resolution is no higher than 1,024 pixels. Their framed contents are only around 982 pixels wide with around 60 or more of those pixels being just black spacing between objects. Most of today's monitor's are widescreen with resolutions of 1400 pixels or higher (laptops included). That's a lot of real estate being wasted. Even many of today's phones and tablets have a resolution width have 1280 pixels or higher. Of course the phone's are usually directed to a mobile version of the site which has been adjusted for smaller sized screens (except last I checked, DPReview's forums did not have a mobile layout).


While I wouldn't expect them to stretch out their layout that far, they could have at least widened them closer to 1,000 pixels or designed the site to have a dynamic layout that adjusts to the user's monitor resolution (like Wikipedia, Microsoft, etc.). They could have also maybe allocated less space to the items in the right frame. While I enjoy the design scheme DPReview is heading towards, the limitations in width size makes the site feel claustrophobic and requires a lot more scrolling in the forums when viewing in flat mode (even more so now with the "comment bubbles" design).

winedarksea said:

winedarksea wrote:

Second, the second message panel, showing the message as it will read when posted, has been eliminated. I always thought that this was a great and very important feature that no one else had.


--
Dulaney

Click to expand...

I also liked this feature and will miss it for awhile. As I write this, however, I do like having the post I'm responding to displayed.

Jack

Trying pushing the Control button and the + or - buttons to remove the black space.

That doesn't solve the problem. That only zooms in and zooms out the page, making content larger or smaller (including the text) but having little to no effect on the layout. My complaint has nothing to do with a vision deficiency requiring larger icons and text, it has to do with them not making the most of your screen real estate.

By making it larger via Control + it does not increase the amount of content visible on the screen, it only enlarges the same layout and actually makes less content viewable on the screen. Plus it makes the text so large you are now worse off than you were before, with the original goal being to fit more readable content on the screen with less scrolling.


Using Control - to decrease the size allows more on the screen vertically but wastes even more horizontal real estate since width is being sacrificed even further. There is now more text on the screen that reduces scrolling, but it becomes too small to read comfortably. The current text size is what I would like to keep, I just want to be able to have more of it on the screen with less scrolling. The only way to fix this is for either DPReview to update their site to dynamically adjust based on the user's monitor or to widen their current site.

Other than the 'top poster' and 'most bookmarked' not pertaining to this specific Sony forum, I can live with it.

I'm sure I'll get used to it. The only thing I really don't like is that half my screen is just dark gray. What a waste.

I haven't figured out yet how to see the threads with new posts - both since logged in and since last logged in.

TF

What's the dif between 'Start a new thread' and 'Ask a question'? - TF

The My Threads button is now at the bottom of the screen and I an sure it used to be at the top.


This means if you open a thread and are not interested in it having read the first post you have to scroll all the way down if you want to jump to "My Threads".


The other thing I noticed is the top level forum opens expanded by default and I prefer collapsed (as it used to be).


Anyone spotted a way to change the default behaviour?

acdtech said:

acdtech wrote:

I just discovered the new layout of DPReview and the forums. Will take getting used to. Also noticed that the forum has been renamed to Sony Alpha SLR/SLT Talk?

Click to expand...

As with the various IT projects I do, change always faces resistance and only time will tell whether the change is good or bad...For now, I am ok with the changes although I do agree with another poster that Sony Forum should have further been split into FF vs APSC (now that we have several models in FF too)

Amateur Sony Shooter said:

Amateur Sony Shooter wrote:

I noticed that too. While I think SLR/SLT is a good title, I just hope they add Sony FF forum, because right now Sony has 5 FF models (A900/850/99/RX1/VG900).

Click to expand...

I thought the RX-1 was explicitly stated to cyber-shot model by Sony built by trhe cyber-shot division (despite the fact it is also FF) so doesn't that belong in the cyber-shot forum?

I am sure i am going to get used to it,even though it looks pretty strange at present. Like the previous poster, I would like the option to select my preferences for appearance.

At least the buttons for flat and threaded view have been moved so I dont click and change format when I am hurrying through a thread

tom

Yeh, lose the avatars as they take up far too much space between the posts.

well the forums are a lot easier to read on a mobile device. but being able to post is completely broken on Android.

Ha!! I almost busted a gut I wasn't even going there when I posted that, but it does fit doesn't it? Lol!!

Cheers!