A new poll entry has been added:

Do you think the new Baanboard.com site is better?

* Yes
* No
* I am not sure
* I do not care

Hi Pat,

to be honest, I think it is a big step backwards or sidewards, I am not sure!

In the past, the purpose of the baanboard was clear. It was a forum to raise and discuss baan related topics. Which topics were raised was mainly driven by users, which had concrete problems. Answers came from other users, which had the problems in the past or from some experts with some deeper insight.

Now the forum is somewhere on the side. The new focus is more like a portal, where advanced users can post blogs as a form of self marketing to find jobs.

So while the old forum tried to attract end users in need of help, the new forum seems to try to attract freelancers in search for a job?

Certainly the baan environment and market changed over years and maybe now a "different" baanboard is required. But it's the forum, which made the baanbaord strong. We should not put it on a backburner.

Regards

Markus

P.S: the new layout is such a drastic change from the old, that it took me honestly a couple of minutes to find even the forums, which I am responsible for!! From a usability point of view it is not advisable to make a top-level menu (Main-->Forum) clickable, but it leads somewhere completely different, than its submenus!

Hi Pat.

First I've been trying some of the new things which look nice.
But then I tried to find what I've been doing for year before: "What's new" and Quick links / "Mark forum read". Where is it now?

Günther

Hi Markus,

Though I understand your concerns, let me try to put your mind at rest. There is no way in the world that the forum will take a place on the back burner. The idea is rather to bring information in a better and more integrated way in which the forum still has a #1 role.

Please consider some of the following thoughts:

The forum is still located at the same location as before. So people using bookmarks, direct URLs etc will have no problem finding back their information as before. If you consider the old site as a forum with a static front page - which was a bit boring after a while - you can now consider this site as one with a dynamic front page which pulls information from various internal & external sources. The forum itself - apart from the CMS specific fora - has not been changed at all. We still have the same structure, sub-fora etc.

Some of new features (like blogs, weblinks etc) are free to be used or left alone. In any case they will not be in 'anybody's way'. Jobs & resume postings have been moved out of the forum because I believe such content is better placed where it is now. In the end it will make recruiters & job seekers find each other easier IMHO (and not just for contractors!!).

The navigational elements are pretty straightforward once you get used to them. At least now you can navigate around the site from almost any location to any location. Whether or not top-level menu's should be click-able is up for discussion. But in our case, it's standard Drupal functionality and not easily changed AFAIK. But if you believe navigation can be improved by a different menu structure, more/less links then by all means please let me know.

As to layout I can say that there has been no or little change to the graphical and/or style elements we used before. And this was a deliberate choice even though this upgrade would have been an opportunity to restyle the whole site. But I believe keeping it 'as it was' makes the transition smoother and thus the right decision in the end.

So in conclusion I would say: take some time to look around and to get used to certain things. Where improvement is possible and/or needed I am definitively willing to consider it. But I think once the "shock" factor has passed and the in-born resistance of most people to change has subsided, the new site will be seen as an improvement (I hope :))

Hi Gunther,

To find new posts, in the navigation panel:

Forum Menu> What's New? > All Unread Posts

To make forums read, in the navigation panel:

Forum Menu > Quick Links > Mark All Forums Read

I voted yes, but it will take me a while to get use to where everything is. It is going to take me a while to get use to everything on the right colum. Have to play some more, but I think it is better.

Good job Pat!

Hi Mark,

Thanks! FYI: if you find the left-hand navigation column too cluttered, you can switch off some of the individual blocks by going into your account settings:

My Baanboard > My Account > Click 'Edit' on the top line > Go to 'Block Configuration'

Hi Pat,

the new look is good, as alway it will take time for people to get used to it as soon as the teething problems are solved, such as : The Forum submenu does not open when already in Forum. It opens when one is in Frontpage etc.

So to Mark all Forums read one must leave the forum first. This was surely not intended.

Hi Vahdani,

Thanks. Regarding your menu problem: are you using IE 5.5/6.0? I have seen this behaviour with older, non-standards compliant browsers. It will work fine with Firefox, Opera and IE 7.0 for example.

Hi Pat,

you are right. I use IE6 which seems to show the odd behaviour. Checked again with Firefox and there was no problem! Thanks a lot.

Hi,

I feel change is a part of life, and it is for good only ...

So I voted YES, and expect even more functionalities and features in future ...


Cheers ..

Hello Pat,
I know I will sound negative, but I voted NO. This is due, to I´m not feel comfortable with the new interface. I'm was using the new functionality all this week and I still feel a little lost.

With the old interface was very quick to move where you need it. By example, to open a new thread, you need to navigate around 3 menus.

Another point negative, at least for me, is that I have marked as favorites some links on the baan manual, now in many cases, when I click that link a message "Forbbiden" appears.

By the other hand, the search in the board, was pretty improved. Much better than the predecessor.

Regards.

Hello Pat,
I know I will sound negative, but I voted NO. This is due, to I´m not feel comfortable with the new interface. I'm was using the new functionality all this week and I still feel a little lost.

With the old interface was very quick to move where you need it. By example, to open a new thread, you need to navigate around 3 menus.

Give it some time to get used to new interface. After some practice, I am sure it will feel just as easy as the old one.

Another point negative, at least for me, is that I have marked as favorites some links on the baan manual, now in many cases, when I click that link a message "Forbbiden" appears.

Okay, I think I was able to work around this. The old TWiki URL's/bookmarks should now work again. Can you please try?

By the other hand, the search in the board, was pretty improved. Much better than the predecessor.

Regards.

Glad to hear that :)

I do not want to sound negative, but I voted no. Yes there are some improvements but was it necessary to change the front end layouts? As already stated by some users I do not feel comfortable with the new layout. The menu on the left side is not self explainary, so one has to click to actually see what's behind.

Yes it was, there was no way I could have implemented all those new features without also fundamentally changing some of the navigation schemes. You can still get to the forum with one click if you do not care about any of the other stuff.

Perhaps I will consider making a "how-to" on the menu structure but giving the fact that too many people are too lazy to read FAQs, I am not very inclined to do so at the moment. I already spent >150hrs on this project and need a bit of a break...

Hi Patrick

Any way we can change the font size of the menus? To the same size as the titles? Looks awful to have the menu items in a bigger size than the titles, and also takes up too much space! (I hate scrolling... ;))

Also, where can I find my subscribed threads?

Hi Nico,

You can find your subscribed threads in the Forum Menu > Quick Links > User CP > List Subscriptions

Regards ;)

- George

Taking up space otherwise used for viewing useful information.
Maybe better on the right and slimmer without the Advertisements.

It's like Office 2007, lots of menus, no place to type.

I like the changes. I only wish the search boxes were nearer the top of the screen so I didn't have to scroll down to view them. Maybe I'm just lazy.

Also, I notice the "Search Forum (vbulletin)" box disappears after you use it. Say I enter "tiitm001" and search: the vbulletin search box does not appear on the results page, so if I want to do another forum search, I have to hit the browser back button.

Rob

Hi Pat,
I think the site is lot more 'cool' now and has vast improvement in the usability. Agree that it takes a little time to get used to it but it is worth the little effort because now the dashboard looks great.

Evolution of baanboard seems to be inline with the new 'role based homepages' concept coming up in the ERP LN ;) .

Thanks for the change.

Regards,
fm_baan

Hi Rob,

I fixed the forum search box problem, it will now show up after your initial forum search. As to order of the blocks in the navigation panel: I will have a look and see if the order can be made user customizable.

Hi fm_baan,

Thanks! We do have a framework in place now that allows extending baanboard even further in the future.

Bit of delayed feedback . Certainly the upgrade deserves good applause. Gr8 job . The negative comments more are in the nature of UI habits rather than it's structural design .It's just great . Keep it up .

I originally voted No, but, now that I have used it for a while, it is getting easier. Once I finally figured out where things went anyway. I do miss the search button at the top when I go into a forum though, but I'm sure I'll get used to that too.

Hi Marwest,

Good to hear! Note that you still have the options 'Search this Thread' and 'Search this Forum' at the top of each thread cq thread listing.

Hi all,

Since alot of users have been complaining about the size of left navigation panel, I have cut about 15% of its original size. This will give more room to the actual content window.

Thanks for that. Now back to my original question in this thread: Any way we (or you) can change the font size of the (left-hand side) menus? To the same size as the titles? Looks awful to have the menu items in a bigger size than the titles...

;)

Nico,

No, the size won't change. The styling is similar to what is used in the forum. The menu items are the important ones as they are the items you want to click on, not the menu titles...