Personally, I’m not very happy with this new forum?

It looks and feels like we’re all degraded to icons on a white or dark background. There’s just no telling who you’re dealing with and if it’s a senior or someone that just stepped in?

You need to re-enter the signature you had? (Why wasn’t that copied?) And you now have to click on the icon of every single user to be able to see his/her profile. Very, very inefficient in a forum imo. You should see this information instantly.

And what’s the field of the icons between the ‘topic’ and the ‘replies’ field? What’s the point of that? Why is that not named? I see recent posts with 16 replies that display 5 icons. And on the other hand I also see recent posts with 16 replies that display only 1 icon? If the field is there then why not ‘name’ it like the others? Also, the names of the fields should be sticky. Now, if you scroll down, the field names are gone.

The whole point of forums like this is to build a community where people know and help each other out. In the old forum we could instantly see the name and signature and the number of replies to know if we’re dealing with a regular or newcomer. In this new forum we’re degraded to just icons! I don’t see any information of the people posting topics or replies unless I click on every single one of them! And then it depends if their profile was updated? And because their profile probably wasn’t updated I would have to guess if it’s up-to-date? This is very tiring and causing a lot of unnecessary mouse clicks!

So, no! I can’t say I’m very happy with this new forum!

I usually don’t need a whole lot of help myself here so I’m mostly helping out other users.

But this new forum might well be the final showstopper for me?

Too much unnecessary clicking for my taste!

Yup. Totally agree. It’s all modern style over function BLX.

It hides key information and functionality.

Previously you could see an overview of who was replying to you at a glance, from their status and signature. Now you have no idea if the person is brand new or has been around for years and very experienced.

I’m not happy either.

And people keep saying you can use TAG to filter things, only I cannot see any TAGs command thing anywhere to either make them or filter by them.

It’s all a mess, and changes the forums from being a specialised, targetted, efficient data source, to superficial trivia.

I’ve tried the ‘TAG’ option myself but if they deleted all the signature data of all users when implementing this new one there’s actually no data to tag?

I’m an al time user of Cubase since 1990 or so and I’ve been here on this forum for approximately 7 years or so?

And I was always happy to help out other people with questions they might have.
But this new forum takes away my appetite to contribute any further!

I tried to save my preferences to dark but after I restart my browser it’s all back to white again. And I keep seeing posts as unread I know I read earlier!

I know Steinberg support would say “It’s on your side. It’s your browser!”

But I have the exact same issue with 3 different browsers. Edge, Chrome and Firefox.

So I’m all done with this s?it!

Good luck with this Steinberg!

Agreeded here too

Except I don’t think everyone agrees with this. I for example found some sigs to be too large, so that in the past they took up unnecessary space. If a user has his system information in his sig that’s great in order to help that person with troubleshooting, but it’s completely useless when discussing the merits of using several compressors in a row when dealing with dialog for TV, or whatever. So I’d rather access that info when I need it. And as for knowing if you’re a newbie or not it’s not that much work to just click on your sig. I remember your name from past posts so why would I need to see your sig again every time you post?

So at least as far as sigs are concerned it really is a matter of personal taste, or whether or not one values seeing sigs all the time or ‘wasting’ less space.

When I go to the forum I see all “sections” as ‘cards’. I click on Nuendo and get to that section. At the top I have the three ‘boxes’ where the first one is the section I just entered, the second says “all tags”, and the third says “all”.

If I choose the “all tags” drop-down menu I can filter posts by tags. Let’s say I remember that someone had a problem with something, let’s say it was a problem with the export function. Rather than just doing a search on “export” which would give me everything from help requests to feature requests I can now choose “issues” and it’ll show me just topics that are reporting issues. To further narrow it down I can click the search icon in the upper right corner to perform a search, and by default a box is selected next to “Search the issue tag”, meaning that I just type “export” and now all posted threads marked as “issues” will be shown if they also include “export”.

After I’ve done this the result actually shows you the search syntax for executing such a search request too, meaning you can construct the same search without clicking. So if you go back to the first forum page again (with all ‘sections’) you can click on the search icon and type for example;

automation tag:issue

The result is you get all threads with automation in the name that have been tagged “issue”…

When creating a new thread you have the option to pick an appropriate tag, and the options of tags depend on the category you chose. If you’re at the starting page you’ll see all categories (previously ‘sections’) available, and all some tags. Pick a category and the tag options change.

So if anything that’s what probably will be developed over time - the available tags when we create new threads/topics, and the actual use of tags by users as they create new topics.

All I can say is that dark mode worked for me. As for read/unread go through your preferences again. I think there may be some time limit or something that determines what you see.

PS: There are some benefits to this user interface on mobile in terms of usability.

Except I don’t think everyone agrees with this. I for example found some sigs to be too large, so that in the past they took up unnecessary space. If a user has his system information in his sig that’s great in order to help that person with troubleshooting, but it’s completely useless when discussing the merits of using several compressors in a row when dealing with dialog for TV, or whatever. So I’d rather access that info when I need it. And as for knowing if you’re a newbie or not it’s not that much work to just click on your sig. I remember your name from past posts so why would I need to see your sig again every time you post?

So at least as far as sigs are concerned it really is a matter of personal taste, or whether or not one values seeing sigs all the time or ‘wasting’ less space.

I realize that things change and this new format is going to take some time to grow on me, but… This is the most God=Awful layout and format I’ve ever had the displeasure of using. To be honest, I’ve never seen this format used anywhere else, and I think I know why.

@Easto- not sure why we need another thread ? - merging with the existing one

That’s fine.
I realize there is going to be an initial “getting used to” period, but I have to say that this format takes up too much screen real estate. Why do the dates scroll up and down in the right-hand pane of a thread? Why not just put the posted date where it belongs?

In the top right corner of a post there’s a time indicating how old it is.

The right hand scroll thing is like a zoomed-out version of the window scrolling function and allows you to navigate far longer threads faster I suppose. Imagine someone responding to a post of yours in a long thread with “I wrote a review about this in this thread back in November last year”. Now scrolling is easier as opposed to in the old format.

@Easto I think everyone agrees that it’s not perfect , nothing ever is- and yes I think there is too much wasted space - the tagging system isn’t quite right yet and I hated it at first.

BUT

I do think the advantages outweigh the disadvantages and there are LOTS of advantages - why not stick around for a bit and see how you feel about it in a month or so.

I have yet to see any advantages.

Seriously, can someone please tell me what is better about this format? I’m not trying to be an ass here. I just don’t get it …

off the top of my head-

• Pasting images directly into a post
• Notifications work
• Real time indication when someone is typing into a post you’re reading
• Search works
• Possibility to view responses to individual posts within the larger thread

Easy formatting using Markdown, html or bbcode. Markdown is amazing

Neither am I but sometimes it just happens!!

Yeah, I guess those could be considered “pros”. They just don’t outweigh the “cons” for me. Oh, well. Not like I can do anything about it. It’s probably just going to take more of an adjustment phase for me than I was expecting. It’s just so hard to revisit and easily see what is new since my last visit since there is no “mark all forums read” type action.

By the way, I love you steve (in Chicago still?). You are my all time Steinberg forum hero. Ass or not.

Well that made my freaking day! Thanks buddy! Yeah, still here, but I removed my location from my name for safety.

I actually was not a fan of spacious page styling and hidden elements, and I agree that less blank space here would be better. But I’ve observed some interesting social effects - the design- I think it has a mellowing effect- well sometimes - and the forum is designed from the ground up to encourage civility.

While it could seem condescending at first, (like the bot that congratulates you upon earning a badge) it does seem to work.

Also, from a moderation standpoint the tools are fantastic. We have been able to go from requiring 1st posts from new users to be manually approved by hand, to it being completely automated- this means no one waits more than a few seconds for their post to appear. On phpBB it could take days and days if a couple people were out sick or busy. Now, there are a bunch of different ways to communicate directly with members about their posts, a way to slow down posting if a topic is turns into a flame war, and other functions that appear to be designed by people with a lot of experience in running forums. The whole thing is more friendly.

Finally, Steinberg IT is not responsible for every little detail of the implementation and maintenance, which previously they were, so if something breaks, it will get fixed sooner, by the Discourse people.

This post got longer than I meant it to when I started it. I guess being loved makes me loquacious!

Well, I might not be the smartest man in the world. Anyway, thanks for teaching me a new word! Always nice to add to the vocabulary. And thanks for the forum insight. You are truly a realistic and understanding kind of guy and I appreciate that greatly. I wish you nothing but the best!

I will sit here quietly and then one day I will hopefully come back and I will eat my words.

@Easto - I hope you will too