Heather Kavanagh Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 I've broken this out into a new topic so it's easier to find later. In @Dominic Thomas's topic (link here, if it works, as it's all but impossible to share posts within the forum here), I mentioned I found various navigation elements a bit clumsy. This first post covers when I first visit the forum web site. Here's the main landing page. Obviously, it covers the three forums and main brands of Hornby Hobbies. You can scroll down the page to get a précis of the Airfix forum and gallery sections, but I wouldn't know that when I first arrive. Instead, I tend to hit either the big Airfix button in the centre, or the Airfix link in the top bar. Which gets me here. My browser and Mac are ancient and apparently cannot render the Gannet hero image at the top. So much for open web standards, eh? Anyway, where do I go now? There's a box of recent topics on the right there, and recent posts below it. Fair enough. I don't use those, obviously, because I'm awkward. I head for the links at the top of the page that I've circled. Let's visit the Forums. Ah, now I can see the forum properly. I'll cover the question of why there's a second Airfix Forum in the Airfix forum in a minute. Scrolling down the page reveals any new posts in a sub-forum by the little icon on the left being solid red and the heading in bold. So far, so normal. The Airfix Forum sub-forum is where a previous version of the forum lives. The most recent post is November 2018. Perhaps this archive forum should be shifted down to the bottom of the sub-forum list? I'm not entirely sure it's much use six years on, and you can guarantee all the image links will be broken anyway. Right, let's assume there's a new post in the Aircraft sub-forum… If I change my mind, having got here, I can hit the browser Back button, hit Forums in the navigation at the top, or follow the breadcrumb navigation up a level or two. Let's go into a topic here. As we would expect, at the bottom of a topic page, we find the breadcrumb navigation on the left to go up a level or three as required. On the right, I can mark the site as read and see other Unread Content. Let's have a look at that. Oh dear. We're back into Hornby Land again. I'm seeing all the unread content from all the main forums. To get back to Airfix, I have to go through the various loops I started out with. In the next post, I'll look at making a customised stream to see if that helps. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heather Kavanagh Posted May 29 Author Share Posted May 29 (edited) In order to see all the new activity in the Airfix forum in one place quickly, I was advised that I could set up a custom stream. It took me a few minutes of hunting to discover where the option was. I first headed to my profile menu, but it's not in there. If you've already burrowed into the forum itself, like I had, you're not able to set up a custom stream. You access the menu and options from the main forum landing page. I've made my own Airfix stream already. To make a new one, the Big Red Button that says Create New Stream is where we go. And then we get this. Again, it was not obvious what to do next. It turns out when you tick the Topics box under Content Types, there's a nearly hidden drop-down picking list that lets you select the forums you'd like to see content from. Give the new stream a title, and away we go. This is what I get when I choose my stream. Okay, I can live with this. At least it only shows the stuff I'm interested in, and nothing from the other two forums. To be honest, as traffic here is quite light I will probably continue to navigate the forum the clumsy way. I think the biggest problem the site developers have is there are three forums which have little in common. Keeping all the forums separate but under the Hornby Hobbies banner is non-trivial. I expect we will have to just put up with the clumsy navigation that occasionally drops us into a different forum. Thanks for reading this far. Comment away! Edited May 29 by Heather Kavanagh 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RB51 Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 Thank you @Heather Kavanagh, nice complete and well illustrated post. Good idea to separate it out. For the time being I have locked this thread so that when Hornby/developers get a chance to read it there will be just your content and no other to absorb. If there are further thoughts, from anyone, please hold onto them until we get a steer from the powers that be on the way forward. R- 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RB51 Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 Thanks for such a detailed post @Heather Kavanagh. Details have been sent to the developers. Update will be posted on this thread when available. Thread is now unlocked. R- 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dominic Thomas Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 It’s really interesting to watch the evolution of a system. I do hope some of the earlier supporters of the site continue to persevere. I would really like to know who RB51 is ….. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
96RAF Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 35 minutes ago, Dominic Thomas said: I would really like to know who RB51 is ….. He is a moderator on the Hornby forum. The new platform allows any brand forum moderator to interact on any other forum. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dominic Thomas Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 Unusual to get feedback from other Fora but good to see a supportive and coordinated approach. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Sailorman Posted May 29 Share Posted May 29 https://community.hornbyhobbies.com/forums/forum/5-airfix/ I have saved this link as a bookmark and it takes me straight to the various headings .... Aircraft, ships etc and unread thread / posts are indicated in Red. Very convinient. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RB51 Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 @Heather Kavanagh, I am told the issues you have raised have been addressed. Could you have a look when convenient and confirm or otherwise? R- Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dominic Thomas Posted June 5 Share Posted June 5 Not sure what has been addressed, but here’s some feedback from iPhone use. From this main page hitting the Airfix logo takes me to this :— Now, there’s nowhere here that I can get directly to the Airfix Forum I have to hit the small fonted blue ‘Menu’ in the top left to get to this … where hitting’Airfix’ gives a list of Forums No easy, just a fiddle Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Heather Kavanagh Posted June 5 Author Share Posted June 5 3 hours ago, RB51 said: @Heather Kavanagh, I am told the issues you have raised have been addressed. Could you have a look when convenient and confirm or otherwise? R- The most obvious one, the breadcrumb "unread content" link now works in that it only displays unread content in the forum I’m looking at. 👍 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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