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BIG Thumbs down for new format


Coco
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I've tried and I've tried and I've tried.  Now I realise why I have always come back to LF when I've visited other Forums.  They are all in this style and it is NOT AS GOOD (imho) as the old layout.  I only have a dial-up connection, adsl, broadband etc etc haven't reached this part of rural France yet.  And this new layout is SOOOooooo frustratingly slow that I am about to give up.

If a thread has more than 2 pages I don't even bother to look now because instead of being able to just scroll down the page you have to wait for each new page to load and that takes forever.

I don't believe it is just teething problems either because thinking back that is why I have never stuck with TF or other similar forums, they are just too slow.  It's not just the cost of being online for longer, it's the frustration of thinking that I have better things to do with my time.  I used to be able to spend 15 minutes scanning the forum and seeing if there was anything that interested me.  Now it takes me that long to look at a couple of sections.  I'm afraid I have more important things to spend my 60 hours a month on.

Unless it speeds up I shall have to stop using this forum which I have enjoyed since it's inception.

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I have to agree with you coco, sorry to be so thick but,I don`t know what connection we are on ,so cant help there.As you say ,if there are more than a coupleof pages on a post and are not sure which you have read it can take forever!

I am also experiencing difficulties signing on...have informed the powers that be...the only way I can sign on is really long winded, first I go to my e-mails for the link that we were given with our passwords,once i have clicked on that I am fine,but cant just go streight to LF! perhaps it is because mr o has another e-mail address and his own log on name...and that print! do LF have business connections with a well known opticians

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I also find the new format frustratingly slow and am tempted to give up using the site. (But I won't .) I've timed LF from being on he main menu to going into a forum and the time taken is 16-18 seconds. Then to a topic 5-8 seconds. The same things timed on TF give 4-5 seconds for both.  So it's not just the format What is wrong? Pat.
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I feel the same way as you do about the new format, as no doubt you've seen in various postings. I know some people have already left because of the frustrating format, and I was going to myself, but I knew I would miss the contact with people on here. It is so difficult to find like minded people - or at least if we don't all agree on things, it's good to have people to "talk" to who at least understand what you are talking about.

The way I see it is that we all need to make our points as clear as possible.

Over the last year, there have been people who moaned about the old format. But now look - most of the regulars are moaning about the new format and I'm fairly certain that the people who moaned about the old format were not as regular as the people who are moaning about the new one.

If we all just drift away, we'll lose contact and either so few people will use the website that it will close, or perhaps it will just be taken over by people with super duper computers that can get by this sluggish system, or people whe have the patience to watch paint dry.

So, let's just try to get the old system back, and failing that, get a new one set up which enables proper discussion as the old one did.

Alternatively, perhaps there is a regular user who has the know how to set up something along the lines of the old forum????????? If so, please see what you can do and send us all a private message so we can talk more directly to each other again.
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As you know I am very low tech - but what I understand is that we cannot have the old format back because it worked in a different way to the rest of Archants (the site owners) web presence.

Not only that but I can tell you that forums with the old format are difficult to find, believe me, James searched, the mods searched......but the IT dept chose this.

As you can tell this certainly has problems and unfortunatly James, Forum Admin has had his holiday, so its been difficult to make progress.

There was a thought that this provider would write a format like the old one, that would fit the perameters required, but frankly I think there is a way to go with getting this right before they start that!

Hope you followed that

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Coco/Jill and everyone else, I really do feel for you as I had the same problems, ironically, in the early days of the Forum when I had a very old, slow PC and an unreliable Internet service provider.  One night in three I would give up in disgust and log off frustrated at waiting first to log on, then to read a post, then to be able to post a reply.  My machine also had a tendency to "die" whilst moving between postings, something I hope none of you experience for it's maddening.  However, one small tip, on long threads I found it quicker and easier to print the topic off and read the hard paper copy than read from the screen. 

And I know what you mean about never clicking with other Forums, I was the same and could never figure out what was going on on TF.  Now, I'm even lower tech than Gay (believe me, I'm sub-basement level), for example, I'm so technically challenged I actually had to telephone James in the UK on the first day to ask him how to reply to a posting on the new Forum!  But I'm surprised at how easily I've come to find my way around.  Still prefer being able to reply to specific postings rather than have to tag my comments on the end but like the look of the new Forum and the additional facilities.

Let's hope France Telecom speed up the installation of Broadband and that it reaches all of la France Profonde soon.  It would be terribly sad to lose all you nice people.

M

 

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I too find the new format SO SLOW. If only everyone would remember that most of France does not have broadband, and out in the middle of nowhere, where I live, we will never get it. Do we really need all these yellow circle things that also take forever to set up? I have been looking at the forum less and less recently and am beginning to agree that Ive better things to do with my time, which is a shame as it has been a life saver over the depths of winter. Lets simplyfy things.

 

Jane

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"Let's hope France Telecom speed up the installation of Broadband and that it reaches all of la France Profonde soon.  It would be terribly sad to lose all you nice people."

Margaret, I don't think it's France telecom that need to gt Broadband to us, I think it's LF that need to sort out their site.  I don't have a problem with speed on any other sites.  Even TF is faster than LF.  I personally don't like the new layout but I could live with that if I didn't have to spend so long waiting for each page to load

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I agree, I don't think Broadband would necessarily help, as other forums and websites work quickly enough on this computer. I believe that Broadband has reached where I live now (not France profonde and not even England profonde), but we need to look into the complications of how to have two computers connected to it without having to have more than one phone line.

Anyway, it's not just the slowness it's the disjointed discussions I detest. Also, the fact that the quote system doesn't work. Somewhere someone said select the bit you want to quote before you press quote - but it doesn't work. You have to copy it to the posting yourself. Everything takes too long. It just isn't user friendly.

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'most of France does not have broadband, and out in the middle of nowhere, where I live, we will never get it. Do we really need all these yellow circle things that also take forever to set up?'

 

hi everyone,

Message for Toucan - you can avoid waiting for 'round yellow things' to load by going to:

control panel

click forum settings

choose basic options and click update.

this will give you a less fancy box to post your message in. Also allows the cut and paste facility.

I don't like this new format either - very user unfriendly - text too small - tooooo slow - plus it appears that we all have to renew details in our profiles as they seem to have been lost in the changeover.

Sorry to admin for the moans as I don't suppose there is much you can do to make it better - stands to reason you have put a lot of effort into producing site and it's upkeep - seems very ungracious of us members to be ungrateful!!!!

Just wanted to point out that I do have broadband and a very fast machine - the prob is not with my pc!

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Can I say that I actually prefer the forum now. I have no problems with access, speed is ok and I prefer the layout to the old one as you can just go to the later posts direct by page rather than having to trawl through the entire thread to find which ones have been added. 

I think you might just need to let the new site bed in and you yourselves, get accustomed to the new format. I do find using 'quotes' is not there just yet, but is probably something they can fix.

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[quote]What sort of connection have you got Rob ?[/quote]

Gay,

Just ADSL, not broadband, through AOL. Mine works just fine and dandy (touch wood) at present. I've been able to see everything I should and it loads at a reasonable speed. i.e no slower than TF.

 

Rob

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[quote]Can I say that I actually prefer the forum now. I have no problems with access, speed is ok and I prefer the layout to the old one as you can just go to the later posts direct by page rather than havi...[/quote]

"as you can just go to the later posts direct by page rather than having to trawl through the entire thread to find which ones have been added. "

But you do have to trawl through now - with this system, I have to go to the last page and work backwards.

With the old forum you could mark each individual topic as read and when you returned to it, you could see quite clearly which ones you haven't read. With this one, you need to keep a diary note of the date and time you last visited and then scan through the pages until you find the right date, as "recent topics" only works until you post, then the system thinks you have only just logged on.

Incidentally, I do sympathise with any of you who have a bigger, more modern screen. I'm trying this out on my husbands computer and the screen is bigger than mine and is really quite blurred on the forum (but not for other things). It is really making my eyes ache.

Also, it is just as slow on this computer as on mine. His own forum is, he tells me, quite fast.

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"With ADSL here in France the new Forum is appallingly slow - with dial-up it must be impossible.

What are the benefits?"

The main benefit is that this forum is compatible with Archant's new servers, the old one, and many other forum programs, are not.

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[quote]I've tried and I've tried and I've tried. Now I realise why I have always come back to LF when I've visited other Forums. They are all in this style and it is NOT AS GOOD (imho) as the old layout. ...[/quote]

"Unless it speeds up I shall have to stop using this forum which I have enjoyed since it's inception."

I have to admit when I first read your post, Coco, I thought what's she on about it isn't that bad for speed, no worse than previously. But the last few days have been absolutely diabolical and I don't think I can work up the enthusiasm to post another message ever. It all takes far too long. I'm in the stone age so far as computers are concerned, Windows 95 and IE5 but I don't know why I should have to go out and buy a new computer just because software writers can't get things sorted. I accept that access to web sites may be a bit slow for me, but I'm not in any great hurry, and I don't have this problem with other sites.

Generally I quite like the look of the new site although I find many of the butons hard to read. Maybe I need new glasses but those bluey ones are very faint. Also I can't get into the Control Panel and hardly any of the features eg spell checker and search, as has been noted elsewhere, work. Oh well, I suppose it will get sorted eventually.

I was trying to do a 'quote' by the way and I don't think I've got that right! I've just had a look at the preview screen and see what happens - not quite what I expected.

Liz (29)
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[quote]"With ADSL here in France the new Forum is appallingly slow - with dial-up it must be impossible. What are the benefits?" The main benefit is that this forum is compatible with Archant's new serv...[/quote]

Dear Bill,

Thanks for your reply - presumably tongue-in-cheek as the new Forum has no benefits for the user other than the ability to have pictures and status attached to the number of posts - which only attracts postings irrelevent to life in France.

Can anyone explain why the new Forum is so slow - with a 2mb (most of the time) Broadband connection it now takes longer to change pages than with a 56k (sometimes!) dial-up connection on the old Forum.

And why on earth when posting a reply (unless it is just me) does pressing the return key add a whole new double-spaced line rather than moving down to the next line.

We now have a beautiful 10 week old Golden Retriever puppy and I think that she is probably not the only 'dog' around!

I have just discovered - you need to do Shift and Return - of course!

Kind regards,

Bob Clarke
http://perso.wanadoo.fr/grindoux                                                                                                                             

 

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I have dial-in with On-Speed (which I shall renew as it works) and I actually find this new forum faster than the old forum.

I don't like the fact I have to go from page to page on a long thread but I used to find long threads even more annoying on the old layout so - in balance - I can live with this.

We have no choice, we either get used to this, go to TF or just stop posting.  I can live with this if it means I still get all the help I got before.

As someone else posted, this is free and if we moan and groan long enough we may not even have this...

I own and run a small forum and trust me posts like this do nothing for the people who are making the changes (after all the previous moans and groans) and really do make those who pay in time and money to keep forums like this running think that it is all a waste of time.  Someone has to pay James' salary, pay for server space and for the software (even if it was free which I doubt there was the installation). 

Sorry folks, keep moaning and you won't have to go anywhere else by choice, this fantastic resource will not be here.  Personal opinion.

Thanks LF for not shutting this down when you had to make a decision and for keeping it up and running.  You HAD to change the software and we either live with it or ??? but please can we stop moaning about something we can do nothing about.

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Di,                                                                                                       

I totally agree with your comments. But I also feel certain that as some of the teething problems get sorted out, we will see an improved site and many of the previous moans will be a thing of the post.

James has done a great job so far and it is great to see his comments as it should assure everyone that when time prevails he is very hands on.

Baz

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