Freeper Help Thread (Ask Any Questions For The New Format)

[Texaggie79]

Ask any questions you have about the new forum here.

[Focault's Pendulum]

I kinda like the new format....except for the fact that when I logged on this morning with the Freeper notification button....I had 759 New Posts to Me. That woke me up real quick without any caffeine!

I took a deep breath before going into self search....then I figured out what had happened.

[mercy]

I suspect it's about bandwidth me boy. Works like the new (almost new) post/thread format where only a set number of posts show up on any one click. Makes more server space or somethingerother. ?????????????

[Blueflag]

I agree -- This is prettier, but it is less intuitive, slower, more cluttered (the functions seem to be all over the place) and change for the sake of cosmetics.

Now, having ranted a little... tell me why, from a design standpoint, this new format is better for the user than the old one? Why, as a user, is this format better for me?

p.s. please don't tell me it's better because I can personalize the interface.

As always, I still love FR, once I can find what I'm looking for again ...

[Hajman]

The only other restriction I can think of is by author.

Actually, I agree with SarahW. User search only restricts the users by the From field. I also want to be able to search who wrote to a user, not just what user wrote what. I can't figure out who answered my posts. And the self-search is almost painful to wade through (and I still can't figure out who answered my posts).

-The Hajman-

[Twodees]

My only question is:

When are we going back to the old new style? This one takes my dialup way too long to load a page.

[SarahW]

I'm not sure I understand you - is there another search box? Is that a new parameter?

I;m accustomed to using standard database search parameters like "by: username" and "To:username"

[SarahW]

I just want to be able to do at least as many searchtypes as I was before.

[Hajman]

BTW, I like the new format. But it seems a bit over-engineered with a bit more then a comparable loss of user-interface efficiency and easy of functionality.

-The Hajman-

[EggsAckley]

Please don't make this site inaccessible to us poor szhlubs who can't get anything but dial-up service. I would pay for something else, but it's not available. And what IS available only delivers about 28K to my 56K modem. (old phone lines.) Remember, not EVERYONE lives in a big city; many of your members are in the same boat as I am, stuck with dial-up.
Sadly, I have a feeling I'm going to be missing Free Republic a lot........and very soon. Not happy about that.

[Texaggie79]

No, you used to could search threads by the article author. You can only search by poster now, by searching by user. But I don't see anything else lacking in the search.

[Libertina]

For instance, the balkanization of the forum concerns me greatly
While you incorrectly labeled Sir Gawain a newbie, you are right on target about the "Balkanization" of the forum. Rather than a big US, the FR community, we now choose even which TYPE of news to "subscribe" to... hmmm, do I want breaking, state, front page, foreign, local? It seems that the word news should cover it all. Although the new page format looks pretty, it is less functional. Plus, what any design teacher would say is that the home page of FR and the post pages match, while the new page design even uses different fonts. The blue color/left sidebar seems as if a page from a different web site has just popped up.

[Bella_Bru]

How do I subscribe to a topic? I don't understand that thing about adding topics to a sidebar.

[Hajman]

Unfortunately, that still only gives me all the posts From me, not all the posts To me.

-The Hajman-

[Texaggie79]

read #16

[Bella_Bru]

BTW, what happened to the stalking feature? I mean.....Find in Forum?

[hole_n_one]

I just now added Self Search to my browser tool bar.