Forums: Layout, Issues, Ideas

[Helmi74]

Hi,

i've noticed that this part of the forums has its own style compared to the rest of autodesk forums. This is great as it matches the fusion360 website, learning section, gallery, and so on. I basically also like this wider style with a more modern typography.

Although... maybe someone could have another session with the css files as the typography of the posts is horrible and makes it hard to read posts at all. Text starts right below the meta informations on the top of posts but then there is way too much space between paragraphs.

Here's an example screenshot with the big paragraph spaces marked with red arrows and the tight fit to the meta data (post date, etc) yellow arrows. https://www.evernote.com/shard/s1/sh/44e17af3-a3bb-4d2a-baa7-ca343040c1ef/c6cdcb576b60fe23bc46579975...

Additionally the signatures don't get separated from the posts at all which basically would be okay but often you just think this is content that belongs to the post depending what people write in there - makes it hard to use.

Mabye lines between meta data, post and signatures would help, or different background. Also font sizes could play better - having the post content text smaller than the meta data seem unusual.

Maybe some can fix this - would make me use this forums even more often 🙂 (you may understand this as a warning sign *g*)

EDIT: i know you can set the font size but this makes things even worse - i tried.

EDIT2: had a look at the code and it looks like this ugly editor makes it even worse - it produces empty <p> tags that make the paragraph spacing sooo big.

[lure23]

How many of you others are seeing immense white space, on recent entries.

I'm thinking of going to strike until that is fixed.

[Oceanconcepts]

Yes, I am as well.

White space is great.

But there is such a thing as too much.

There is almost as much scrolling in the forum now as in my Fusion browser. 

Ron

[lure23]

I'm surprised no-one (Kat...!) from Autodesk is commenting on this issue.

It seems partly random - not a matter of CSS change. Some old messages read nice, others seem to get the extra space.

Is there *anyone* who doesn't experience it? (i.e. is it somehow Windows / Mac related) Both Ron and myself use Macs.

[Helmi74]

as said the problem seems to be the editor that insets additional, empty < p >< / p > tags with every new line that make every new paragraph two paragraphs with one empty one.

I'm also a bit surprised of the silence (not only on this thread but also on the complete forums) but well . maybe it's holiday season over in Oregon? 😉

[AndrewSears]

Sorry for the delay.  It was not a holiday but we had sunshine for a week straight and the state made everyone go outside.  🙂

I sent an email yesterday and will follow up today to see what the plan is with the Lithium team.

Thanks,

Andy 

[AndrewSears · Accepted solution]

The design team is aware of this.  The Lithium team currently have a freeze on changes but will look into this as soon as possible.

Thanks,

Andy 

[lure23]

Seems to have been fixed, thanks.

[Helmi74]

Looks much better now - thanks for the relatively quick fix. this helps reading the forums a lot.

Although the meta data below the subject could still be better divided from the post content i think - maybe there's someone around who can continue to improve the details.

[lure23]

Did I miss anything?

http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Autodesk-Discussion-Groups/My-Friendly-List-on-What-Sucks-with-Fusion-...

[lure23]

One Fusion 360 -specific thing:

Why is there no 'Browser' for the IdeaStation labels? I would have used it numerous times.

Mobile? (great, coming up?)

Learning? (what's that for?)

Drawings? (hmmmm... we're going to get some?)

Translation? (ok)

Visualization?

[lure23]

These forums are run on top of a Lithium product (www.lithium.com).

Personally, in day-to-day use, I have found some frustrating usability issues with this, and would like to know if others are also just "biting the teeth" or if it's just me...

Here goes my Top 3 hurts:

- the editing window insists on a horizontal scrollbar, no matter how wide I scale the window. This is a rookie web design glitch, and shouldn't be expected of a product / company named "Visionary" by Gartner)

- Ghostly "New" messages.

Quite often, the main level (list of discussion groups) shows that some group has "X New" messages, but going through there aren't any. I presume that the system has a bug where deleted (unread) messages remain in the 'New' count.

In general, getting to what's actually 'new' in i.e. IdeaStation is like repeatedly looking for the pin in the hey stack. Is there a "this is new" summary somewhere? Haven't found.

Which brings to the third...

- Subscription emails lack pictures

In discussions s.a. these more than half of the message is in the pictures. Why cannot the system send me emails that not only have the new text (as is now) but also the pictures embedded? Bandwidth? Come on... This should probably be my hurt #1.

I'm really a nice, non-nagging person in real life. Believe it or not.

How about you others - noticed any pains with the Forums lately? (if not - you're just getting immune)

[kat.ingalls]

Hey Asko! The suggestions you have seem like totally reasonable requests. Personally, I haven't really participated in Forums before Fusion 360 (more of a social media girl), so most of this is new to me. I definintely agree about the horizontal scroll bar! I know that the Lithium platform here at Autodesk is planned to get some revisions shortly. I'll forward this feedback to the team - thanks again.

Do you participate in other forums/discussion groups? Any that  you think offer a great model?

[kat.ingalls]

Hey Asko! Check out our new reply box. Got it fixed for you 🙂 Thanks again for bringing it up! Some more substantial updates coming in the next couple months

[lure23]

There are some obvious bugs in the Fusion 360 program, still. I would like to report those but they don't really fit in the "IdeaStation" forum that is supposed to be for new ideas etc. The role of bug reports is different.

Can we have a completely new forum avenue for this? Alternatively, is Autodesk able to extend access to the internal bug database to community members?

Here's a sample:

In editing design Title and Description fields, normal keyboard shortcuts (Cmd-C, Cmd-V, Cmd-A, Cmd-Z) don't work.

Preparation:

- have a design material created in Fusion 360.

- use OS X (not tested on Windows)

Steps:

- Select More > Edit for the material (note: NOT just the 'edit' - they do different things!)

- Should see this (push 'Add Description' if needed):

- Click in the "Title" text edit field. Try to use Cmd-C (copy), Cmd-V (paste), Cmd-A (select all), Cmd-Z (undo)

Expected:

- all the keys above should work as normal for the system

Actual:

- Cmd-V (paste) works; the others not

Extra:

- Do the same within the 'Description' text entry field. Here none of the four keys work as intended.

Associated:

- Having separate 'Edit' and 'More > Edit' for a design entry (that do widely different things; first opens the design for edit, the second edits its metadata) is misleading. 'Open' would be a better name for the first text.

- When editing the Description text field, the field simply vanished once (no special keys were pressed or anything). All edited text was lost. This can be connected to the time used for editing, or i.e. an autosave event or something. More testing is needed (haven't tried to reproduce it yet).

Versions:

Fusion/Sim 360 1.8.568, OS X 10.8.4

Reported:

Asko Kauppi, 25-Jul-2013

[kat.ingalls]

Hey Asko! Thanks for bringing this to our attention. Always appreciate your feedback!

Our product team (which is handling both bug reporting and the IdeaStation) should be chiming in soon, but personally I think this would be a great addition to the IdeaStation, which isn't just limited to new ideas, but seems to house many of these types of requests.

For instance, this is a request to clear the notification icon in the dashboard: http://forums.autodesk.com/t5/Request-a-Feature-Fusion-360/Clear-Notification/idi-p/4310934

What do you think? Thanks again!

[lure23]

I'm okay reposting (or moving) the entry to that arena. However, the actual work still probably happens in some internal bug handling system you're using. So it wouldn't be really adding much value, I guess.

One reason I'm hesitant to flood the IdeaStation with these (unfortunately there are more) is that when it comes to clear bugs (s.a. this) there's not really that much of discussion about it. Should it be fixed? Yes. What's the priority? That's mainly up to you in Autodesk. So my point is that IdeaStation should be for issues where a larger discussion about what exactly should be done (if anything) is needed. This would also be the difference in focus in the proposed Bugz forum.

Just tell me what to do, and I'll follow that. 🙂

[kat.ingalls]

Hey guys! Wondering if you've had a chance to see the update to the Autodesk community that went live yesterday. Fusion's boards are custom-skinned, but wondering if you like the consistent layout of this site or the new layout on the other boards better?

http://forums.autodesk.com/

[Helmi74]

had a quick look - i like the thread view much more, but the forum overview is horrible, which may also be due to the massive amount of subforums but i think you can't have it much more chaotic than they made this 🙂

[kat.ingalls]

Candid feedback as usual, Helmi! Thank you 🙂 So, it sounds like you're leaning towards keeping the Fusion-customized layout?

For feedback about the forums overall, the larger team will be viewing topics here:

Community Feedback Forum