Now that’s what I’m talking about… 
Can you imagine the screaming… 
But you do get the data in a compact form.
cls 
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It’s just “hidden” in the time slider. Click on the end date.
There is a reply button at the bottom, at least I can see one.
There are no pages, but you can easily go back to a specific time using the date slider.
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That’s when someone invented screen and later tmux. 
edit: Hmm, multiple consecutive posts are not merged, but on the other hand this makes post specific replies easier to follow.
@ToyKeeper
I never really liked the look of DOS.
What I like is almost as old–the look of the Commodore 64.
That was my first computer, and I just liked the simplicity of the light blue and dark blue.
It brings back fond memories.
For BLF, I wouldn’t mind a theme of light blue and dark blue sort of like the C64. 
Laptop user here - I don’t mind the unused width, but I’d love to see more density vertically when reading a thread. Many posts are just a single line, yet every post is presented with a header line with the username and timestamp, a footer line with like/link/flag/bookmark/reply buttons, and copious whitespace in between. My preference would be to move those elements to the side so that the center vertical area would read from the top-down as a coherent conversation, similar to a group whatsapp thread.
If I’m envisioning this description correctly, this type of screen content modification would make the ‘read’ more fluid, easier on my eyes, and generally more enjoyable, especially on my 8" tablet.
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Implementing the theme switcher component, and allowing user-specified alternatives would be a most welcome thing.
Looking over the various themes, my favorites are Radiant and Sublime. Modest also fits the same vein, mostly, but its lack of contract in the mode selection controls lets it down.
I like the alternating contrast thread listings that Kodular has, and notably, it’s a styling element the old BLF forum had as well, but this incarnation lacks.
If nothing else, the simple sans serif fonts they use are more suited to my taste, more so than the two that have been tried here so far. Again, it’s something where the old BLF was preferable.
But, one of the things I dislike about most of the themes, and probably Discourse in general, is that it does a poor job of providing contrast, and separation between elements, so visually, it melds into a homogeneous porridge of page elements. There’s not enough contrast between the content itself, or in relation to the controls, and any delineation cues present aren’t strong enough to alert the users which elements are interactive controls, and which parts are static content. Chrome vs. content.
I don’t think it’s by accident that a lot of users have missed the presence of the timeline slider, because visually, it’s poorly defined, and gives little to no clue as to its function.
I’m sure whomever wrote the routine that allows the author’s avatar to slide down and remain in view as long posts are scrolled is proud of it, and it is a neat trick, but is distracting, and functionally, it adds very little, and having control elements, like the timeline controller, move around dynamically isn’t a good thing either. I’m afraid these things speak to the mindset that the Discourse UX designers have and favor.
One could argue that infinite scroll has its advantages, and that’s not deniable, but I’m not entirely convinced its as suited to structured forum discussion as it is to a social media feed, or a fancy marketing or presentation page.
I started with CLIs, and have seen the evolution of GUIs from the crude early approximations built with text elements, up to what we have now. Somewhere along the line, chrome became a bad word, aesthetics took priority, and clean looks and hidden functions became the fashion. Which came at the cost of usability and discoverability to users.
The old BLF software was far from perfect, and had its share of issues as well, but functionally, it was in many ways preferable, though in many also anachronistic.
Forum software needs to be functional, first and foremost, and not a hindrance. That doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be pretty as well, but without some work, I’m afraid that Discourse is lacking that balance.
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That’s a nice find. I also would like to re-implement the odd/even “tiger striping” better. But I wonder if Kodular still works when switched to a dark theme. I tried some simple CSS to implement that here but it broke the color theming for dark mode users.
When talking about Discourse’s defaults I definitely agree. But here I’ve made an effort to distinguish the post content in black text, whereas the other UI elements are a shade of blue. Also the typical UX best practices principle of “clearly show which elements are informational and which are interactive” kind of falls apart here, because practically everything is clickable. That even includes the date/time of the first an last posts in the slider, which due double-duty as a first/last shortcuts.
I wouldn’t say that it gives no clue, it obviously has something to do with dates. It’s simply not a conventional or expected UI element that most users would think to look for in a forum. Discourse has a series of first-time UI tips that I enabled for all users, but I can’t remember if it has one for the timeline slider. If not it definitely should.
Hi there, yes, you’re not incorrect. But keep in mind that it’s not a problem unique to this particular forum layout. This little comparison is pretty stark…
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Agreed, this is a challenge across almost all forum sites. And with the changes being made now, I see this as an opportunity to optimize the design even further. If we can make it easier for users to read more of the thread content before replying, then all users will benefit. Even people who don’t mind reading the less dense layout will appreciate fewer questions being repeated and a deeper discussion within threads based on shared background knowledge.
I’m suggesting WhatsApp’s design as the ideal because they handle readability so well:
The additional interaction is handled by long presses and an ellipsis rather than repeated buttons on each post. WhatsApp does a great job densely presenting quoted posts as well:
On a side note, I love what you’re doing as far as engaging with the community and I look forward to whatever the outcome is.
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FWIW, I despise that balloon /text message style of presenting information. Maybe OK on a phone for texts, but I don’t even like it for that.
And functionality is very non-intuitive. As is normal, we find lots of different views on this kind of thing. This discourse format is growing on me as I become more familiar with navigation.
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That’s fine, but keep in mind that contrast sensitivity diminishes with age, and can be an issue for some regardless. One of the UI trends that’s despised most is the lack of contrast, embodied in things like grey text on white backgrounds. Again, it’s putting aesthetics above legibility, and usability, and a myopic approach to design. Those who foist such things upon users will eventually experience visual difficulties themselves.
Nor do the colors address the relative and IMO inadequate separation between posts. Not saying it has to be as severe and inefficient as the old forum in delineating each post, but those screen shots you posted do a good job illustrating how that can affect readability. I can’t say I’m a big fan of Google’s Material Design, but that theme is better in this respect, without verging into looking like a chat UI.
I don’t dislike the timeline, and in some ways, it’s superior to paged section breaks, if not necessary to navigate an infinite scroll paradigm.
But the proof is in the pudding, with people not picking up on what it was, and how it functions. I think more could be done to how improve it appears, and give better clues that it’s functional control.
Unlike many, if not most, I am the type to RTFM, but I also recognize that an interface that requires the user to is not the best kind. Discoverable elements should be a bonus, not a basic requirement for usage.
Don’t get me wrong, I understand that familiarization, adaption and refinements will take some time, with both the users and the software, and a lot of the concerns will abate.
But I will not shy away from providing what I hope is taken as constructive criticism, based on my perspective over many years as a user, and some participation in crafting a UX.
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Totally agreed, same here. I’m a Linux user, and most flavors of it have gone to more modern default themes with terrible color contrast. I went to the trouble of coding my own variation on a theme that forces pure black fonts. But the very fact that this problem exists for you and me shows that most users don’t particularly care. Some even dislike it, as we’ve had a lot of complaints about the default theme here being too stark.
I would like the sidebar links and the timeline slider to have better contrast. That I can probably improve on. I just can’t drastically change the design or behavior of the controls, at least not without breaking something else or creating something fragile that will break soon.
Yep, I understand. I hope that I can take into account users’ reasonable requests and preferences, while also balancing my time and development limitations.
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I am on mobile. I haven’t gone on the desktop yet. I have to say the interface is faster then traditional UI. Habits can be changed but it’s still a lot different from forum such as Redflagdeals which spent $$ researching what works best. They are owned by a publicly traded company advertising company. They made changes before and changed back. It takes 21 days to change habits so everyone here is changing their habit for BLF. It’s a risky move.
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@story
I’ve only used the desktop/laptop version, and threads load quite a bit faster on Discourse than Drupal.
It’s good to know that it’s similar on the mobile version. 
Try zoom level 175%.
Content zooms and expands, sidebars do not.
On a high-res desktop display, layout is reasonable at 175%.
On chromium-based browser.
SB (admin) made some changes today so I guess that we’ll get used to this.
Now margin size or “thread reading width” is same like on Old BLF forum.
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Not sure what my zoom level is. Yesterday I did the CNTRL/scroll to make it a bit bigger. But today it is pretty much full screen in the window size I am using.
Thanks for giving it an honest attempt, I appreciate it.
Note that there is also a font size option at https://budgetlightforum.com/my/preferences/interface.