I see some folks have fathomed how to highlight a post they’re replying to. How d’ya do that?
Remember the environment the old boards were created in, in the mid 90s: 28.8 dial up connections and first gen Pentium processors, at best. The boards had to be simple, because that is what the technology supported. As you said, designers sit in their echo chamber thinking up new features, which they understand, because they created it, and the newer technology can handle, without thinking “is this complexity really necessary?”. I’m presently using Win 10. A few months ago, a little picture thing appeared in the search bar at the bottom of the screen. Why? It brings up a pop-up menu that is entirely redundant.
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Hi! Just select the text in the post you want to copy and you’ll see the word quote over it…click that and it will paste it into the compose box for you, along with the name of the person you are quoting.
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The boards had to be simple, because that is what the technology supported.
Many of the apps I use today, on iphone & computer, are simple, not because of 28.8k modem limit, but because I like using simple apps. Many people do. If a simple solution completely solves a problem - great! My calendar app on the mac hasn’t changed much, the ‘sticky’ todo notes app etc. Simple, clean, works.
Email for example, still chugs on, and it predates TMF by quite some number of years.
A few months ago, a little picture thing appeared in the search bar at the bottom of the screen. Why? It brings up a pop-up menu that is entirely redundant.
It also looked ridiculous and annoying on printouts of the articles… it also moved around randomly while scrollinig on the screen 
Again, if you have ADHD, even a single little ‘distraction’ like that can be quite a nightmare when you’re trying to concentrate on reading complex arguments and ideas.
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I have not had that issue, probably because I do my best to ignore that thing in the search bar, rather than provoking it. Same thing with the news popup in the system tray. The only time the news popup opens is when I accidentally move the cursor over it. On top of that, the local weather conditions it reports are often wrong, reporting a temperature 5-10 degrees off and reporting sunny conditions at night…but someone in Microsoft’s development department thought it was cool, and he could do it.
Steve
I thank you. As usual, easy when someone else shows you how 
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Oops, not that easy 
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Is there a good way to log off from this new system? I found if I click on my profile picture in the top right corner, then down at the bottom icon for Profile, I can Log Out. But when I do that, it just gives a blank screen. There is no confirmation that I actually logged out. Then, if I use my browser to go back to some other TMF board, it appears I am still logged in.
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I find this software to be much more “social media” oriented, as so far the tags and categories and etc elide one of my favorite aspects of my previous MF experience – having a club with people I know. Instead, it feels more like a mash up that splatters info but makes conversation more complicated.
Sticking nevertheless.
david fb
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Why log off anyway? There are none of your bank account numbers or material connections here.
I typed into discussion.fool.com and the macro-trends etc for the board to have the URL bring me here directly. Then adding “discus…” fills in the URL automatically.
I am learning quickly I love editing my stuff.
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Another way I’d describe it is ALL NOISE, no FIDELITY.
This is similar to every other technology I’ve seen deployed where designers forgot the K.I.S.S. principle and simple deployed everything. Less is more.
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Adding to what UMassHoops has said.
I think this system is flexible, feature-full. But that doesn’t imply practical; because practicality is always tied to what your users want to do and how they want to do it.
It is possible for a platform & transition to it, to be a highly competent, technological tour de force, yet drive away customers because it just isn’t especially pleasant to use for common tasks.
I have the feeling many of the posts here are about ‘surviving’ this interface. That is not a great place to be at, in terms of user experience.
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I like the new editing functions. Yay!
What I miss is the ability to scan a board for posts, look at subject, author, and number of recs, and see what I wanted to read. It was faster and I didn’t have to read every post, as it seems now.
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I have 7 unread posts for the threads I am in. It is in blue next to the “macro economics trend… 7 un…” under Categories. If I click on Macro Economic Trends…I think I get to the full board for other threads. Or at the top if i click on the category I get the full board.
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Correct. One of my frustrations with new cars is everything is run through a single, central screen. Things that I can do on my 8 year old car with a push of a single, physical, button, now required stepping through two or three menus on a touch screen.
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That’s what I’ve been doing : old boards (from My Fool) Favorite Boards > “go to new site”
So long as the old board listings remain…
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There is a second way as well. Click “reply” and then it the text box you’ll see a cartoon balloon bubble in the upper left corner to the left of the “B”
When you click this you get the entire post you are replying to; which you can go edit.
You can click it again and you get a second copy (which I just did, but then partially deleted
Mike
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I see you can also add boards to the sidebar “Categories”, through navigation and clicks. It would help if it said “add” rather than “save changes”, which could mean many things. But, okay, now it’s tolerable.
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The main issue isn’t screen versus buttons per se but rather there used to be 20 or 30 things you could “do” and now there are 200 or 300 things you can “do”. So it’s impossible to represent all 200 or 300 things on buttons anymore, so a screen has to be used instead.
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I think overall, the conversion / migration went well - except that it took 64 hours instead of the projected 16 hours. Congratulations to the team that made this happen! Thank you!
I would say that I’m not sure why our favorite boards were not automatically created as categories and tags with default notifications set so that the new platform could more or less resemble the old platform. I’d say that is probably the biggest miss. If the folks at HQ could have done this, I think a lot of angst would never come up.
Just my 2 cents -
'38Packard
– I’ll learn the new interface and adjust accordingly - hope others do as well
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