psa Forum maintenance and updates (ongoing)

[Steven P. Administrators]

• Alternating row colors in topic lists.
• Guests can now select light and dark mode in the forums (and on the main site).
• All of the forums here: https://www.neowin.net/forum/forum/58-real-world-news/ now show participation guidelines in full at the top of each forum.
• Outdated pinned topics unpinned.
• Relevant pinned topics that were auto-locked -> unlocked.
• Group colors for members in posts are now their correct colors again (thanks @DaveLegg).
• Removed dupe group name (text) from posts under the member badge.
• Enabled ability to post Anonymously in several forums (more on that below).
  • Added a "Restricted (no Anonymous posts)" group in ACP for those who abuse the feature
• Beautified theme switcher for guests:
  
• Fixed link color in Dark mode (see theme switcher menu in above image).
• Fixed our favicon (forums)
  

 

Anonymous posting

I have enabled the ability for members to be able to post anonymously in most forums

 

 

As you can see above I started a thread anonymously, this will be good for a number of reasons, maybe you don't want your account linked with your political leanings, or maybe you want to leak something that shouldn't be traced to your member account, maybe you want to vent about your boss or company you work at without someone linking you to the member account (even though such places can't be accessed by guests). There are a number of reasons, however, do know that all Neowin forum staff will know which member anonymously posted, and it may not be used to victimize or abuse other members, if this happens warnings will be handed out in accordance with our forum rules.

 

Some forums do not have anonymous posting available, such as the entire Technical Help and assistance category, Introduce yourself > movie ratings, or anywhere where topic starters are specifically not supposed to be anonymous. 

 

I switched myself back to the light mode theme because I've been tweaking it a bit. For example, we now have a light and dark mode switch that guests can use, and I've brought back alternating row colors in topic lists, plus it is the default theme for guests, so it must look great!

[+Elі Subscriber²]

Excellent changes, I noticed the dark theme as a Guest the other day while I was browsing the site at work, and it looks awesome, keep up the good work.

[Elliot B.]

I've noticed new Ranks and Badges, too 😊

[Steven P. Administrators]

I fixed a bunch of badge/button colors in Dark mode theme. Will be working on mobile view a bit later.

[Steven P. Administrators]

User menu was updated to the current forum version (adds your current rank at the top of the menu) and the selected theme is now bold

 

Ignore the several test themes we have 😛 I am testing first in Orion (old) before implementing it in the live version.

[Steven P. Administrators]

I disabled anonymous posting for members and subscribers, because the only two times it was used, it was used incorrectly and as an annoyance.

[+Warwagon MVC]

On 25/08/2021 at 09:03, Steven P. said:

I disabled anonymous posting for members and subscribers, because the only two times it was used, it was used incorrectly and as an annoyance.

Was my "Neat'o" 1 of the 2 times? 🤣

[Steven P. Administrators]

Further mobile layout fixes applied to posts view in Light and Dark mode

 

This is guest view:

[+Kyle Subscriber¹]

On 25/08/2021 at 10:03, Steven P. said:

I disabled anonymous posting for members and subscribers, because the only two times it was used, it was used incorrectly and as an annoyance.

This is why we can't have nice things

[Steven P. Administrators]

Fixed mobile nav color. Before and after:

 

 

Also fixed the theme menu for guests that hid the mobile menu, I had it in the wrong spot. That's what you get when you stare at html templates for hours and then come back to them fresh 😛

 

 

Guest theme choice ^

 

 

Hamburger menu (also has a Themes entry).

 

Some people may have also noticed we updated the site favicon. The modern one didn't look great on dark color browser tabs, so we simply reverted to the previous one that we used to use (until around 2016 I think).

[Steven P. Administrators]

Forum menu fixed in Light and Dark mode for logged in members.

 

Before and After:

 

[Steven P. Administrators]

Social icons added, seems strange this was left out of the default forum setup 🤷‍♂️

 

Guests:

 

 

Members:

 

[Steven P. Administrators]

Unnecessary lineheight removed by altering the post highlight badge

 

Before:

 

Now:

 

 

It is also where things like "Solved" and "Popular post" badges appear.

[SnoopZ]

I thought there was a plan to have the notification bell visible on the main page on mobile phone so the user didn't have to make several clicks to get to it, is that still happening?

[SnoopZ]

Also getting to the place where you click Forums could be easier by moving it up the list so you don't have to scroll down when clicking on your profile picture from the main page.

 

Edit

 

Ignore, it's in the hamburger, but clicking the hamburger is I great place for the notification icon too.

[Steven P. Administrators]

On 29/08/2021 at 17:09, SnoopZ said:

Also getting to the place where you click Forums could be easier by moving it up the list so you don't have to scroll down when clicking on your profile picture from the main page.

 

Edit

 

Ignore, it's in the hamburger, but clicking the hamburger is I great place for the notification icon too.

The main news menus are outdated and currently being worked on, but that requires a developer because I can't access the HTML and CSS templates as easily as I can with the forums. Hopefully they will sync up with the forum menus very soon.