Community platform updates

With this new platform we believe we are building the foundation for a great and growing community for years to come, but we also recognise that there’s room for improvement. This platform is different from the ones it has replaced, and will never function in exactly the same way, but contrary to the previous platforms we will be able to optimise and make improvements over time. We’ve received great feedback, and as promised, we intend to communicate transparently about what we can and can’t do to improve the community in the weeks and months to come.

This topic will be the place where we maintain a list of upcoming changes that have been asked for and where we post updates when something is implemented. We also want to point out changes we have requested but where feasibility is not yet certain, as well as areas where we know we won’t be able to make changes in the near future. We will be looking for more feedback on some areas as they are being planned, so we’ll keep you posted on that.

Confirmed changes - the first areas you’ll be seeing progress

• Make it easier to find and view new topics - the forum overview pages will show how many topics have new posts since your last visit, and allow you to click directly to the latest unread post in a topic.
• Make it easier to track unread and read topics - in the forum overview unread topics will be bold, and will change to regular font after being read. You will be able to ‘mark all as read’.
• The reply box will be re-sizable.
• While we won’t change to a completely different design, we will be doing a review in order to improve structure, readability and navigation. For example, the amount of whitespace, adding pagination at the top, more visible question checkbox when creating a new topic, icons for questions and answers, etc... This is an area where we will be looking for more feedback from you.
• Other smaller changes, optimisations and text string changes (more consistency).

Changes we’ve requested - but need to be scoped and assessed, feasibility and timelines not known

• Formatting buttons (instead of BBCODE).
• Option to include private message and post content in email updates.
• Being able to like on mobile.
• Improve the RSS feed to include more detail.
• Advanced search options.
• Time zone options.

Changes that we know won’t be happening any time soon

• Adding favourites, post editing and other features on mobile (the development of a responsive mobile design is in progress and takes priority - with it the mobile version will be full-featured).
• Preview mode.
• Search within a topic.

Thanks again for all the feedback so far.