Website Upgrade

[Kim 7,943]

Hello everyone,

 

We are getting ready to upgrade our forum software and refresh the overall look and feel of the website. The new software will provide more features and better user experience.

 

It should have no effect on users, except for one small change:

 

Display name and login name will be merged, and display name will be used. Some members use different names for Display name and login name. After the upgrade, you will have an option to login with your Display name or your email (other members will still see your display name). If you want to change your login name now to be the same as your display name, please PM me and I will do it for you. If you don't do it now, you will just have to change the way you login after the upgrade.

 

At this point we are looking for volunteers to do some beta testing. As a reward, we will provide a one month free access to all our services (or one month refund) to a tester who will provide the best and most comprehensive feedback.

 

Please feel free to ask questions and provide feedback.

 

April 26 update:

 

We switched to new server tonight, and apparently it is causing some emails to go to spam. If you stopped getting emails please check your spam folder. While we are investigating, please add a filter as a temporary solution.

[Kim 7,943]

The new website is now live. We re-designed the content and upgraded the forum software to IPS Community Suite 4. The forum provides dozens of new features and enhancements to existing features.

 

Some of the highlights of the new website and forum:

• Better and faster user experience.
• Fully responsive design looks great on desktop and mobile.
• A member now has the ability to follow another member. 
• The New Content area shows an auto-updated stream of all content from across the community, with customizable filters.
• A comprehensive search engine, enabling users to find content from across the community. With a wide range of filters available and the ability to drill down by content type, finding relevant content is simple.
• @mentions: Members can now notify other members by typing their name to mention them - the perfect way to ensure a member sees something they might otherwise miss. If you type an @ symbol and then start typing the name of a member, an autocomplete menu shows so you can quickly then click on the user and they'll receive a notification that they've been mentioned.
• Automatic Saving: The editor auto-saves each and every post you write. If you accidentally navigate away from the page, your post content can be recovered, so that if you come back later you can continue right where you left off.
• Two new Notification settings introduced: instant notifications and HTML5 browser notifications. Members can now get pop-up notifications even when not active in that window at the time.

 

 

You can see all new features here.

 

Many thanks to Stephanie Motz who designed the new website, 03E team who implemented it, and our webmaster Daniel Nevo.

 

You are welcome to post your feedback and comments.

[TraderJack 29]

I was able to log in OK with my existing username and password. Looks good, Kim! I'm getting the email notifications too.

[equus 30]

nice to now be able to follow a topic directly in the mobile version without having to switch to desktop. :-)

is it possible now to follow an entire section such as earnings trades discussion (and not have to manually subscribe to each new topic, which can often cause the user to miss the first few posts if they are not quick to subscribe), like some members wanted?

 

 

 

Edited May 22, 2016 by equus

[Gary 20]

Nice update Kim. I like the new look and features and especially how there's basically no learning curve. I can tell this place is run by someone who knows his IT

[equus 30]

Yes, i like the look too. Very clean and spartan. Hopefully fast loading too.

[Kim 7,943]

7 hours ago, equus said:

nice to now be able to follow a topic directly in the mobile version without having to switch to desktop. :-)

is it possible now to follow an entire section such as earnings trades discussion (and not have to manually subscribe to each new topic, which can often cause the user to miss the first few posts if they are not quick to subscribe), like some members wanted?

 

 

 

Mobile version is now fully responsive and much more user friendly.

 

No you still need to follow each new topic. However, since there is now an option to follow members, you can follow me, in which case you will get notifications about all my posts regardless which topics you follow. There is also an options of instant notifications which should be faster than email. If you select it in  Notification settings, you get instant pop-up notification when something posted. it's a very cool feature, try it.

[equus 30]

I just received an instant notification of your last post - very cool!

[Kim 7,943]

This is because I quoted you, and members "Someone quotes a comment or post I made" setting is set to instant notification by default.

 

 

@equus Here is another cool feature: when I mention someone he will get notification as well 

[Edwin 63]

Is there a way to modify what you see when I go to "View New Content"  I just want to see new posts, I don't have to see every user's activity on the forum.

[4REAL 110]

Right under  "View New Content" button  you have "unread content"

 

 

 

[Edwin 63]

I must be blind, I don't see "Unread Content".

[4REAL 110]

should have mentioned it , you have to select "Forums" tab, then you'll see it 

 

Edited May 23, 2016 by 4REAL

[BobS 14]

Really like the sound alert that a new post has been made. 

[bam1960 53]

Nice upgrades Kim. Kudos

[Kim 7,943]

Thank you guys.

 

IPS did a nice job with this release, and we worked hard to integrate it. Not a trivial job at all.

[equus 30]

One thing I'd like to request: please can we have the old formatting back on emails?

The new format is quite hard to read with only about 5-6 words per line. The old format was easier to read with 11-12 words per line.

[Kim 7,943]

@equus  are you referring to desktop or mobile?

[Richard 45]

4 minutes ago, SteadyOptions said:

@equus  are you referring to desktop or mobile?

Kim it could be related only to the trade alert emails which are showing in small font and/or not word wrapped. I noticed this yesterday from my iPhone. See attached pic. Discussion items on mobile are formatted and presented perfectly.

 

 

 

[equus 30]

Mobile. But not just for trade alerts, also the discussions. Attaching an example screenshot from gmail app in Android.

 

 

Edited May 24, 2016 by equus

[Kim 7,943]

The whole point of responsive design is having font which is readable on mobile. Having 11-12 words per line means font which is too small, and in many cases you need to zoom in to read it. 

[equus 30]

The issue is not with font size, which was fine in both old & new formats, but with the wide margins on the left & right. This makes it harder to read because it shoehorns the text into a narrow funnel. Keep the current font but it would be good if webmaster could remove the excessive margins. I attach old format as an example where text uses the whole real estate of the screen. It's a non-trivial issue when you read dozens of posts each day this way!

[craigsmith 357]

20 hours ago, 4REAL said:

Kim,

For topics with multiple pages, in the previous version one could click on button "go to first unread post".

Is there a possibility to add this in the new version ?

thanks

 

@4REAL I finally figured this out because it was frustrating me too. On the "Unread Content" page, beneath the comment is a time stamp (right next to the number of replies). The time stamp is also a link. If you click that link you can go to the last comment. That's about as close as the "go to the first unread post" as I have found.

[4REAL 110]

18 minutes ago, craigsmith said:

@4REAL I finally figured this out because it was frustrating me too. On the "Unread Content" page, beneath the comment is a time stamp (right next to the number of replies). The time stamp is also a link. If you click that link you can go to the last comment. That's about as close as the "go to the first unread post" as I have found.

 

@craigsmith   Thanks for figuring out.

This feature is not entirely the same (especially if there are multiple new posts). But it is close and it saves time.

And since the new version separates the unread and read post with a  blue line (if there are multiple new posts), one can quick distinguish new from read posts. 

 

Edited May 24, 2016 by 4REAL

[Kim 7,943]

Please note that we also added "My Activity Streams" right below the search box. There are few default activity streams, and you can create your own, based on different parameters. 

 

[equus 30]

Writing at the airport with my Galaxy S3.

Here's another comparison of old & new. Old emails were packed with information on the top page - meaning as soon as you opened the email you instantly saw most or all of the content.

With new emails the actual content is not visible on the top page and you have to scroll down each time for the reveal.

The new format has a Steady Options link in a grey box that takes up nearly a quarter of the screen. Since everyone already knows the Steady Options homepage, my feeling is that this is probably not needed.

I loved the old emails for their simplicity and practicality, they were able to inform quickly and efficiently. Hope the new format can replicate all these good points.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Civicguy 15]

Perhaps this is kinda of silly but I wonder if we can remove the "relative dates" and use actual dates in recent posts.

E.g Posted Saturday at 1:33 AM · Report post

Would be nice to be back to the dates that it was posted, rather than relative (i.e Saturday) as it helps when i need to keep records..

But just a small issue

 

 

 

 

[Kim 7,943]

Older posts have the actual dates. And if you hover the mouse over the date, you get the full date and time on all posts.

[Thinkola 13]

20 hours ago, SteadyOptions said:

Yes, we escalated the emails issue to IPS support. Meanwhile I would recommend to enable inline notifications in addition to emails. 

What is inline notifications?

[Kim 7,943]

From my earlier post:

 

Two new Notification settings introduced: instant notifications and HTML5 browser notifications. Members can now get pop-up notifications even when not active in that window at the time.

[BobS 14]

After 3 weeks of using the new website and realizing there are bugs with any system change, I really like the new website. The automatic alerts we get when someone sends a message is great and it is nice not to lose a draft reply if you decide to visit another place on the website. I know there are people indicating they have issues with alerts but the only time I have an issue is when I forget to follow a discussion or trade.

[optionideas 0]

35 minutes ago, SteadyOptions said:

 

@optionideasLooks like you started following the trades forum only an hour ago.

 

 

i just reset all my notifications an hour ago, logged out , set them again, and logged back in.  So I will respond if I don't get a notification on the trade forum.

[Kim 7,943]

56 minutes ago, BobS said:

After 3 weeks of using the new website and realizing there are bugs with any system change, I really like the new website. The automatic alerts we get when someone sends a message is great and it is nice not to lose a draft reply if you decide to visit another place on the website. I know there are people indicating they have issues with alerts but the only time I have an issue is when I forget to follow a discussion or trade.

I'm glad you like it. We put a lot of effort into it. The IPS forum software considered one of the best on the market, and the new version is better than ever. Their support is very good as well, as indicated by the speed they resolved the latest emails issue (which was non trivial at all).

[4REAL 110]

Kim, 

Got no TRADE alerts in the last days by e-mail.

in fact last TRADE alert I got was ORCL, Thursday last week (June 9)

 

E-mail alerts for the discussions I follow come through.

 

Could you look into this ?

thanks 

[Kim 7,943]

You are not following the trade topics.

 

ALL MEMBERS, PLEASE MAKE SURE YOU ARE FOLLOWING THE RELEVANT FORUMS AND TOPICS BEFORE ASKING FOR HELP.

 

THANK YOU!!!

[4REAL 110]

Kim,

What do you mean " you are not following the trade topics" (see screenshot)

Since I am member (almost 2 years) I follow the trades topics from start and I NEVER changed it.

 

 

 

Edited June 15, 2016 by 4REAL

[Kim 7,943]

You need to follow each new topic to get updates from that topic. As mentioned in Welcome to SteadyOptions and Frequently Asked Questions :

You will need to specifically follow each forum you want to get updates from. When you follow the forum, you will get an email about every new topic in that forum. If you are interested getting emails about new posts in that topic, you will need to follow that topic.

 

[zafh 2]

Well I can personally confirm as long as you follow @SteadyOptions you get the trade updates.  I took the risk on the ORCL trade and didn't follow the post but got the update.  Great for anyone that want to cut out the noise and not get an email every time someone replies in a thread.

[4REAL 110]

@zafh  and @optionideas  Thanks.

As Zafh suggested I started to follow @SteadyOptions

 

 

 

  

[Kim 7,943]

Following a member is one of the new features that I mentioned at the beginning of this topic.

 

There are few other nice features, and I recommend that members review the full list of features to take a full advantage of the new software.

[optionideas 0]

On 6/16/2016 at 1:16 PM, zafh said:

Well I can personally confirm as long as you follow @SteadyOptions you get the trade updates.  I took the risk on the ORCL trade and didn't follow the post but got the update.  Great for anyone that want to cut out the noise and not get an email every time someone replies in a thread.

 

 

doesn't this mean you'll get everything steadyoptions posts, even if he's replying to someone else?  Just curious

[zafh 2]

Yes, but IMO that is better than getting everything everyone posts on topics you follow, ends up with too much noise. Also if you forget to follow a trade you still get the update when KIM posts.

[equus 30]

I've been away for a while but am now starting to spend more time on the new website. I'm observing that the website is difficult to use on my laptop because even before i start scrolling down 25% of my screen is wasted with a deep banner at the top (and one which remains ever present even when you scroll down). 

A question I have for the designers: what is the benefit is using up so much screen real estate with what is essentially white space? It might look good on a huge monitor but on a portable laptop with 800 or so vertical pixels as a user you end up scrolling, scrolling, scrolling all the time.

I've taken a couple of screen shots and used red to try and illustrate the vast white space that seems to be inefficient use of space. As a user i am not so interested in how pretty the screen looks, much more important is readability and ability to access the information quickly and easily.

 

[equus 30]

[Kim 7,943]

This is what I see:

 

 

Not sure why you see a different screen. In any case, it is not different from different version of the forum and I don't understand why this is even an issue. You need to have some spaces between the text. 

[equus 30]

On 6/30/2016 at 7:29 PM, SteadyOptions said:

Not sure why you see a different screen. In any case, it is not different from different version of the forum and I don't understand why this is even an issue. You need to have some spaces between the text. 

I'd love to be able to see what you see, your screenshot shows a much more attractive layout than my screenshot, both in terms of colours and use of space. I have tried different browsers (latest Mozilla, Chrome, Opera in Windows 7 both on my desktop & laptop PC) but result is always the same as my screenshot, somewhat unattractive & dysfunctional. How can I see what you see?

I do agree you need to have spaces between the text. My point is that the formatting is showing an excessive amount of space, not just in the top banner but also in between paragraphs, which in my screenshot is double the normal space.

Would be great if your designer could take a look at this.

[Kim 7,943]

I don't know why you see what you see. Can you please check if you see those extra spaces here?

 

What other members see?

[Amos 4]

here is my screenshot on same thread. I am using firefox.

[Kim 7,943]

@equuscan you please check now?

[equus 30]

Now I see what you see, Kim. Whatever switch your developer used, it is now working and also the double-spacing issue is resolved. Thanks, looks good!