[09-23-2025] Community Modernization - Communications, Updates & Discussions

[Tarek_K]

Hi all,

as discussed in the previous topic here we wanted to start a new thread to keep everything sorted and clean, so it is easier to follow and helps transparency. 

Overall, you will find in this topic community identified issues or improvements asks listed, which can be provided either as a post through this topic, or through the feedback form (or both if you want, but then please be so kind as to indicate in the post that you also submitted the feedback form). If you are reporting things here in the thread please make sure to provide a clear description of the behavior or issue, with screenshots (full browser screen, please, as this is always better) or video to help understand what you see and why to be able to reproduce.

EDIT:  Adding here that as we work through some of these issues, and suggestions and post that they have been resolved or added, through the monthly Blog Posts from our Product Team (listed below), keep in mind that it is always a good practice to clear your cache / cookies from time to time, as not doing so may prevent things from working even after they have been "Fixed".  PSA.  Thank you! (8/15/25 - CGBenner)

In addition to that, you will find here the consecutive list of all blog posts linked when it comes to platform updates around the community! We also will keep editing this topic with new blog posts released for convenience having it all in one place 🙂 

Navigable list of community issues or improvements mentioned including status:

Listing of all the blog-post regarding updates to the community and modernization in order oldest to newest:

• Community Redesign - Updates Since Launch - 12/06/24
• Community Redesign – New Releases & Office Hours Recap For This Week. – 12/12/24
• Community Redesign – Final office hours for the year – 12/20/24
• Community Redesign – Modernizing the Autodesk Forums – 01/10/25
• Community Redesign - February Release - 02/11/25
• Community Redesign - Update on Progress for Reported Issues - 04/04/25
• Community Redesign - April Release: Industry Hubs are live! - 05/07/25
• Community Redesign - May Release: We´re making important behind-the-scenes updates to the Autodesk C...
• Community Redesign - May Release: Migration Updates and what to expect this week - 05/22/25
• Community Redesign - May Release: Final Migration Round and what to expect this week - 05/28/25
  
• Community Redesign - June Release: Upcoming Improvements to the Community Experience - 06/26/25
  
• Community Redesign - July Release: Autodesk Community Platform Updates - 7/17/25
• Community Redesign - August Release: Improvements to the Community Experience - 8/8/25
• Community Redesign - September Release: Updates to Community Experience - 08/29/2025
• Community Redesign - September Release: Faster Community Experience and a Sneak Peek at Customer Ins...

Additional Notes:

Also, people you will see engaging with you in this thread will be @CGBenner and myself @Tarek_K. So please feel free to add us if there is something super urgent or elements you want to highlight. We are also highly proficient community users, but don't have the ability to fix things on the fly (where we can we will. :D) but we make sure that internally all goes into the right venue, will be looked at and discussed so you will see elements mentioned in the update blog-posts and also in the updated list above. 

So, let´s keep this new thread a single source of truth for the discussion moving forward - all from the old topic you should see reflected in the list, which we regularly update. 

If you have questions, or you think I should add something to this post let me know! 🙂 Thanks a lot for your support, patience, understanding and working together! 

[pball]

The little unread button is cute and all. But the main thread title link doesn't go to the last unread message any more. I really liked that feature and was happy it came back some time recently after the forum upgrade removed it. Now I'm sad to see it gone, well moved but it might as well be gone with years of muscle memory of clicking the main thread title.

Hovering over the main title

Hovering over the unread button

Disabling my custom CSS does not change the behavior of the links.

[a.laasW8M6T]

So According to the release notes you can click on the "Unread" button and it will take you to the latest replies.

If you just click normally on the thread it starts at the first post

On thing I do miss is that the thread title was bold when there were new replies or it was a previously unread thread.

Now If you have read it and there are new replies its no longer bold and we must look for the X Unread to see if there are new replies.

Will take some getting used to.

As for the mobile, you can now click on the ... to expand the collapsed part of the bread crumbs.

I find this very difficult to tap with my finger as its soo small and normally takes me 3 goes to get it, and then the expanded text could have just been there the whole time anyway.

See before / after

Before expanded:

After Expanded:

You can see the text could have fit easily anyway.

I realise this won't be the case for all forums and all mobile devices but it should be smart enough to only collapse it when there isn't sufficient room to display the text.

In any case I think it collapsing the wrong part of the breadcrumb(My opinion)

Really you should be able to see the forum you are currently in, then the next one back, then the next one can be collapsed.

For example, when you are in the "Fusion Manufacture Forum", you would see that, then "Fusion Forums," and "Product design & manufacturing" would be collapsed.

Then when you step back one breadcrumb to "Fusion forums", "Product Design & Manufacturing" Would be expanded.

[kerry_w_brown]

@Tarek_K et al

I'm seeing forum threads that show the 'nn unread'  wigit but where the thread title is not hignlighted. Is this the new normal ??

If so. I'm not impressed.

image added:

 

Regards,

[CGBenner]

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@kerry_w_brown wrote:

@Tarek_K et al

I'm seeing forum threads that show the 'nn unread'  wigit but where the thread title is not hignlighted. Is this the new normal ??

If so. I'm not impressed.

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@kerry_w_brown 

Hello, yes this is by design now.  At the platform level since the new design was implemented, any thread that has been viewed will no longer be Bold Type.  We added the unread widget after receiving feedback that users did not like this, to at least have some indication that a new reply has been added to the thread.  The widget SHOULD open directly to the first unread post in a thread.  If it's not working as such, please let us know.

We continue to get feedback on the Bold / not bold design element, and have been talking about it on our side.  But TBH it does not look like there will be any easy solution if we try to bring the Bold text back any time a thread has new replies.  So, for the moment, this widget is the best we can do.  Anything new that we learn will, or course, be updated here. Thank you for your honest opinion Kerry!

[Tarek_K]

Hi all,

also confirming @kerry_w_brown, that we took in the pagination on the forum level as, yes, it is not on the top there. It is listed in the embedded listing under 145! 🙂 

Though - just a question, so I might strengthen the use case for this improvement towards the internal team a bit: 

In my understanding, when you are on a forum page with all the topic listed, you want to see the top ones in the listing if you have default settings with newest and newest response on top first. Can you help me, maybe, to strengthen the ask with the case to have something that can give me some concrete element why someone would want immediatelly to jump e.g. to page 5 or so. 🙂 

Thanks a lot! 

[kerry_w_brown]

@Tarek_K 

When viewing posts in a thread I ( and many others, I'm sure) prefer to read discussions chronologically, so our configuration is oldest first fot posts.
This helps to keep content in context. 

Currently to navigating to a post thread (from the post title or replies wigit ) the landing location is the top of the first page. This is great if we intend reading the complete thread starting at the first page, however sometime we want to view a known page or go to the last page showing the latest posts.  When doing research and returning to a discussion post we know is on the third of fourth page we currently need to go into a cycle of <end> scroll up find the navigation wigit at the bottom of the page and select the new page required. 

Most decent forums have page navigation at top and bottom of the post listing, and often the option (on the same wigit) to navigate to the top or bottom of the page wigit. 

//------------------

Regarding the (non ) highlighting of the unread or new post titles and relying on users to get eye strain trying to find updated posts.
The people who decided on this functionality obviously have not tried to use the forums productively.
Imagine this : you're active in several forums and you've only been able to look at a few posts in each forum ( those that catch your eye). You have time to re-visit the forums and catch up. How difficult will it be to easily identify the threads and posts you haven't visited and those that have new posts in discussions ?

 added:

I've paid more attention to the forum viewing process today.
What was a 3 step process (look for a highlighted thread, decide if it may interest me, click on the 'unread' button
is now a 4 step process ( look got bold unread button, look for a highlighted thread, decide if it may interest me,  lick on the 'unread' button.

This process is extended if there happens to be threads that we've bypassed in recent days; the 'unread' buttons are more difficult to find is not as visually identifiable as the highlighted thread title.

 @Curtis_Waguespack  has previously addressed the concept of the cognative overload caused by web design 

I have no further comment.

//----------------

In fact, I give up. I won't be posting here again, because I feel that somehow I am sanctioning incompetence.

Stay well.

[CGBenner]

Hi everyone.

The latest release and blog post dropped last week while Tarek and I were in Nashville for Autodesk University 2025.  Sadly we did not get this thread updated until just this morning by adding this latest post to the list at the top of this thread.  I'm adding it here as well for visibility.  Thank you for your patience.

Community Redesign - September Release: Faster Community Experience and a Sneak Peek at Customer Ins...

[CGBenner]

I am adding an enhancement request today based on feedback from several people in this thread and in other forums.  I am requesting that the color of the new "#of Replies" button be made red, and the text be made Bold so that, at the least, this button will be more prominent and easier to see.  This is being added to the table in the opening post and the request will be submitted shortly.  As with all of these, you can follow the progress here in this thread. 

Thanks Community!

[CGBenner]

Hello group.

We've recently been made aware that when replying to a post, some of the tools in the Reply toolbar are not working, such as the text formatting tools.  We have a fix for this in the works and it should be deployed soon we hope.  In the meantime we have found that canceling the reply and starting a new reply clears whatever is broken and those tools work again.  I will update here as soon as the fix is in place.  Thank you!

[CGBenner]

@kerry_w_brown @a.laasW8M6T @pball @Cadguru42 

The text formatting menu items in the Reply feature are now working again as of this morning, thanks guys!

[pball]

@CGBenner Making the the # of Replies button stand out more is nice and all. But it doesn't help that clicking on the main title of a thread will no longer take you to the first unread message under some circumstances. I feel this change in behavior is an issue.

Could you please add a request to have the main title link of a thread jump to first unread message?

[CGBenner]

@pball 

I can check to see if this is already on the list or not, yes.  In the meantime I discovered that, hidden in plain sight, the "Latest reply by:" next to the thread date stamp WILL take you directly to the latest in the thread..... however, not the latest UNREAD post.  That's where the new "1 unread" bubble will take you.  Is your head spinning yet?  Mine is.

[NachoShaw]

Hey Site Team

Please can you sort out the @links to members and either prioritize or remove the many spam / spurious names? At the very least, Autodesk team members should be at the forefront ant prioritized but they are not so it makes it really difficult when you want to tag someone. Not everyone knows the explicit username and you dont provide an easy lookup system

Chris Benner @CGBenner 

doesnt come up until we get to @CGBe

Johnson Shiue @johnsonshiue 

doesnt come until we get to @johnsonsh

Curtis W @Curtis_Waguespack 

doesnt come up until @curtis_wa

Along with others, important stakeholders within this scope. The current tag system requires you know exactly who to search for else they impossible to find and it needs to be easier. Autodesk tem members & Expert Elite Members should be priority seeing as they the go to members who resolve many threads.

Ironically, i wanted to tag in the site team but i dont explicitly know the name and its impossible to find

Thanks

[ChrisRS]

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@CGBenner wrote:

@pball 

I can check to see if this is already on the list or not, yes.  In the meantime I discovered that, hidden in plain sight, the "Latest reply by:" next to the thread date stamp WILL take you directly to the latest in the thread..... however, not the latest UNREAD post.  That's where the new "1 unread" bubble will take you.  Is your head spinning yet?  Mine is.

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I may have mentioned this before:
I HATE DISCOVERABILITY!!!

[kerry_w_brown]

@ChrisRS ,

Yes! As well as the uncertainty and confusion involved, there is the issue of economy.

If 100,000 users spend 5 minutes in wtf mode,  that's 138+ hours that is blown away forever. 

Regards,

code reference:

''' "WTF Per Minute" (WTF/m): A metric for code quality that measures how often a programmer encounters something that makes no sense and needs to be figured out '''