I haven’t visited the site in a little while and I noticed that the forum area is totally different. It’s very hard to read now as well as scan and connect on topics in this view. Is there a way to switch it back or get it in a mode similar to what it was?
Hi Jzatopa,
Welcome back!
It is not possible to view the forum in the mode that it was in last year. Basically, the forum was set up around 22 years ago, on what was then state-of-the-art software. But, the software became outdated over time and eventually we had to switch to a new, modern platform. We were actually very lucky to be able to migrate the forum at all, as the old databases and datasets were not compatible with modern ones, and it took the support of some very experienced computer programmers to do the migration.
As you have noticed, this forum is different in the way things are laid out. The categories are all down the left of the screen on a laptop. If you click on any category it will show a list of topics, and if you click on any topic, it will display the posts in that topic. It will automatically go to the last post you read in that topic.
The homepage (click on the yellow OM symbol) will show the latest topics that have been posted in, and show you who made the most recent post, and when. As the migration was only recently completed, you may see some old topics appearing there for a while. This is happening because topics were not marked as read when the migration happened (it was not possible). So, you may see some old topics coming up to the surface for a while. Eventually that stops though, as the queue clears out, and you will only see the actual most recent posts.
If you turn on your notifications in your settings (top right), then you will be notified of whatever you choose to be notified about. Notifications can be on the site, or by email, or via push-notifications to your desktop or phone. This post has more information on how to set these things up and on how to install an AYP forum app on your phone if you wish to.
All the topics and posts that were in the old forum, are now on this one.
Thank you Tristan