A Fresh New Look for HomeTheaterForum.com (1 Viewer)

[Jonathan]

Hello Everyone,

I hope this message finds you all well.

Over the past several months, our team has been hard at work behind the scenes to bring you an updated, user-friendly, and visually engaging experience on our platform, specifically focusing on hometheaterforum.com's homepage and other non-forum sections of our site. We're excited to give you a sneak peek at our progress.

Please visit this link to see our fresh new design: https://htf-demo2.solmati.com/

Our goal with this redesign is to make your experience on our site even better.

If everything goes as planned, we're hoping to have the new design live later this evening!

We should note that we're still refining things, so expect a few more tweaks before and many more after the launch. Also, rest assured that the forum you've grown to love will stay mostly the same. Any changes you may notice would be minor ones such as color palette adjustments and a potential logo update.

We greatly value your opinions as part of this vibrant community and encourage you to spend a little time checking out the new design and sharing your thoughts with us. Your input will help shape the final look and feel of our platform.

Lastly, I want to extend my deepest gratitude for your constant participation and engagement in our community. It's your enthusiasm and passion that truly make our forum a unique and wonderful place to be.

Looking forward to your thoughts and feedback. Exciting times ahead!

 

[jayembee]

Quick impression (it's dinnertime...)

It's very different; might take some getting used to.

One specific thing, though, noticed in passing. On the "4K UHD Review Archive" page, second item: "Cloverfield" is misspelled.

 

[John Sparks]

How does that saying go, "Don't fix it if it ain't broke!"

 

[Baenwort]

If it has a dark style I'm all for it.

 

[EricSchulz]

Just poking around after a very long day, I see one big improvement and one fail. I am viewing this on my iPad so it may look different on my Mac…

BIG WIN:
Overall, the site just looks clean.
My absolute favorite is showing my followed threads at the top of the Forums page! I could never remember how to search for older followed threads that I might want to comment on.

BIG DISAPPOINTMENT:
The pictures for review threads are buried under the type. One the current page the graphic is big and eye-catching. Again, this may be the way it looks on my iPad but not my Mac.

 

[TonyD]

Link isn’t working for me

 

[DaveF]

I like the aesthetics of the current view better.

This new design is more cluttered and harder to read for me: smaller title text on top of graphic image with lower third translucent is more busy and I don’t know what to focus on.

That said, I primarily use Forum List view, and rarely look at front page.

 

[Colin]

I like the aesthetics of the current view better.

This new design is more cluttered and harder to read for me: smaller title text on top of graphic image with lower third translucent is more busy and I don’t know what to focus on.

That said, I primarily use Forum List view, and rarely look at front page.

Definitely appreciate the feedback! The good news is that rapid iterations will be much more possible with the new theme. But any and all feedback is helpful!

 

[uncledougie]

Apparently there’s no way to comment like before after RAH’s A Few Words About…? And previous comments on existing posts are no longer accessible presumably. I must say the dark blue background and white text is a bit of a chore to read as opposed to when it looked like regular forum posts. I thought the HTF site was glitching when I first happened upon the new format. I presume getting used to it will help, but initially a bit disoriented. Not clear on the rationale for it, other than change for its own sake, unless someone complained about the former graphic design and I missed it. Certainly it won’t deter my accessing the forum. I don’t think.

 

[Todd Erwin]

Reviews currently showing at the top of the page in the right column are old (from 2020), with more current reviews further down the page.

 

[EricSchulz]

Are things still being worked on? I get the new login/homepage but as soon as I click on the Forums link it’s the old format. Just curious.
count me as one who loves the prominent “Threads I Follow“ display with ALL the followed posts easily accessible.

 

[Jonathan]

Thank you all for your patience and feedback on the changes we're making to the site.

@uncledougie, we are aware of the issues with commenting and we're working to fix it. I'm sorry if this has caused any trouble. Regarding the color scheme, we'll take your feedback into consideration as we continue to refine the design. We understand that change can be disorienting at first, and we appreciate your willingness to give it a chance.

@Todd Erwin, thank you for pointing out the issue with the reviews. We'll look into this and make sure more relevant content is shown there.

@EricSchulz, we are still working on a tweaks to the site. The forum is slated to have only minimal styling changes, which will hopefully be completed within the next week or so.

We appreciate all your feedback and we'll continue working hard to improve the site. If you have any other questions or suggestions, please feel free to share.

 

[EricSchulz]

A minor thing I’ve noticed…the only way I can see that I have notifications is to open the Forums link. I’m pretty sure the number of notifications was visible on the homepage before.

First world problems, I know!

 

[Museum Pieces]

I'm not a fan of radical change when I hardly have ever had any problems with the design here. I come to the forum to read thread titles, as many as I can in one glance. I don't come here to have my screen cluttered with giant photos. I wish you good luck all the same.

 

[uncledougie]

I was going to post a photo example but it seems I can’t just go to my phone photos anymore and choose the photo to use. But anyway on the dark blue background with white lettering on reviews, the right side has the ends of words cut off by one or two letters when they are up against the right hand margin. It’s usually easy enough to make the word out in context, but thought I’d point it out. And now the change in how to post photos is perplexing.

 

[John Sparks]

Just a thought...how about some new moderators, since the site is basically new and some new mods might be what it needs...flame suit on!

 

[BobO'Link]

Something happened between early this morning and now - headers and associated text are so close to being the same color that you can't see the time/date stamps or thread number/indicators on posts without highlighting them.

Also the notification bell is now grey instead of red if you have a notification.

 

[dpippel]

Something happened between early this morning and now - headers and associated text are so close to being the same color that you can't see the time/date stamps or thread number/indicators on posts without highlighting them.
View attachment 189570
Also the notification bell is now grey instead of red if you have a notification.
View attachment 189571

I'm seeing this as well.

 

[Robert Crawford]

Also, you can't copy any post or thread to the clipboard now!

 

[TonyD]

Oh boy. That’s brutal