New Format

[Axeman]

OK...the new format has me....wondering if I've become a curmudgeon.....When did this happen??? I don't like it...it's different....took me a few minutes to figure out how to post a new topic....I miss the blue....what are those mountains all about?? The order of the different topic areas is changed...I had to look around I couldn't just scoot to the places I like.....I don't know if I like the idea that my pseudonym is visible to anyone opening the page but not logged in....I can't believe nobody else has noticed and commented or did I miss the comments....I don't know....the mountains are kinda nice...I guess after a decade or more it's time to freshen things up.....whoever designed it obviously put some work into it....I'm sick of Covid.

[TransAtlanticGoose]

I can completely understand a desire to keep things the same. Perhaps I can fill you in on why things changed so suddenly.
There was a fairly rapid back & forth in post: [Board-related-issues --> Board-shutting-down], where we learned that the existing site hosting was going to be shutdown at the end of the month. I already had a server that I used for hosting other things, so I offered to take on this forum as well. However the existing forum engine was somewhat dated, and I suspected there would be problems in the shared environment that I would be migrating it to. So I opted to try out a newer forum-engine that was compatible and capable of importing the existing database. I managed to get a few board members to help me test it, and it seemed to work. This all happened in about the span of a week.
For the following week I posted a red banner at the top of the old site letting users know of the upcoming change to commence the following week. (Short notice I know!). I'm guessing you missed that window of time, and were suddenly suprised by the change this week. I'm sorry for that.

Hopefully the remainder of the kinks will get worked out soon, but you are not alone in thinking that everything has all happened rather quickly. I just hope you'll come to regard the new look and slightly-different layout with as much reverance as the old blue someday. ;-)

[TransAtlanticGoose]

P.S.I've fixed it now so that user pseudonyms of people currently online / viewing posts are no longer visible to those who are not also logged in.

[Axeman]

Sorry for my initial response...I was caught off guard and was just being a grumpy old guy...I've been trying to fight turning into a grumpy old guy since I turned 50 but that was a pretty short fight.

New site is great -- thank you for doing it and hosting it....the background explanation re: why the change made for good reading...I feel like a dink for complaining. The mountains have overtaken the blue.

[TransAtlanticGoose]

Don't worry, I wasn't offended. - Change is hard. Even those of us who are still under 50 experience that often enough. ;-)
And suddenly discovering that a place you visit so often has suddenly changed, after remaining relatively constant for over a decade, can be a hard mountain to swallow.
But I'm glad to hear that the mountains are growing on you too.

P.S. I wasn't going to include the mountains originally, but they came packaged with the base theme that I had decided to use, and by the time I got around to tweaking the UI elements, they had grown so familiar that the site seemed to loose a bit of character without them...
Also, and maybe this is just me, but staring at them kind of gave me the urge to go outside.

[Axeman]

lol YES....they do inspire going outside.