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We’ve tweaked the HfP forums – this is what is new

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Thank you to everyone who signed up for the new HfP forums. We have had over 2,500 registrations so far which is great, and the daily readership exceeds the readership of the old chat thread.

We have rolled out a few changes today in response to your feedback. More tweaks will follow but we wanted to get these live before Christmas.

To see these changes you may need to refresh your browser cache.

On a Windows PC, this is easy – press CTRL and F5 together. On an iPhone you need to go to Safari in the settings menu (don’t open Safari itself), then Advanced, then Website Data. Type ‘headforpoints.com’ into the menu box and swipe right on the result to delete the cached style settings.

For Android, go Settings -> Site Settings -> All Sites -> [search for headforpoints] -> Clear & Reset.

You can now toggle between the forum index and Recent Topics

A lot of people seemed to miss the (admittedly small) button marked ‘Recent Topics’. This lists all of the forum topics in order of when the last comment was made.

It is very useful for people who don’t want to cherry pick just one board, such as the British Airways board, but are keen to see what is active across the entire forum.

You can now easily toggle between the forum index and recent topics.

The text swaps over instantly without reloading the page, making for as slick an experience as we can manage.

We have added links to the latest news stories to the forum page

We have inserted links to our three latest news stories at the top of the forum.

This means, for people who are more interested in the forum than the latest miles and points news, you can set headforpoints.com/forums as your entry point to the site. You can be sure you won’t miss out on the latest news.

What is important to us is that there is a good flow between the news part of the site and the forum. We will soon add a direct link from the mobile home page to the forum for the same reason, to avoid you having to go via the hamburger menu.

We have also added, underneath the forum, links to the posts with most comments from the previous week.

You can mark a thread as a Favourite

To help you keep up to date with conversations you’re interested in we’ve also enabled a feature that lets you mark a topic as a ‘favourite’. You can do so by clicking the top right button at the top of every thread.

To view your favourites, simply go to your account page and select favourites. This will display a list of all your favourited topics.

You can just as easily unfavourite a topic.

Conclusion

Thanks again to everyone who has been leaving feedback both here as well as on the forums. The new changes should improve the usability of the forums further. If you have not already registered then you can do so here.

After Christmas we will do a further round of minor tweaks so please do leave any further feedback you have.

Category

General

Comments (94)

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

  • TimM says:
    22 Dec22 December 05:09

    …and on a Mac (who still uses Windows?) open Safari -> Preferences -> Privacy tab -> Manage Website Data then select headforpoints.com and remove it.

    • Rui N. says:
      22 Dec22 December 08:44

      People who use computers for work.

      • WearyTraveller says:
        22 Dec22 December 11:21

        I’m a software engineer and have many software engineer friends who work in various companies. All use macs.

        I think mac users on a forum like this are considerably more likely as mac usage is often associated with higher income levels. With all due respect to windows fans out there 😅

        • Rui N. says:
          22 Dec22 December 12:36

          Yes, there’s many people making lots of money who don’t do any work. We’ve all seen it.

        • Magic Mike says:
          22 Dec22 December 13:56

          Not getting higher dynamic pricing because your phone or laptop marks you out might be a good reason to stick to Windows!

        • SueLoder52 says:
          22 Dec22 December 22:20

          You are beyond belief. Pitiful in fact. Consider what you have written and be ashamed

          • Mikeact says:
            22 Dec22 December 22:51

            Don’t get so upset….it’s a genuine comment..you may well not agree, but that’s what forums generate.

          • kitten says:
            23 Dec23 December 12:25

            Be consoled by the “More Money than Sense” characterization of iPhone users SueLoder52.

            TBF though, some Macs have been OK.

    • Mike says:
      22 Dec22 December 08:52

      er normal people

  • ringingup says:
    22 Dec22 December 06:52

    You really shouldn’t need to ask users to refresh the cache. The way you release should make that happen automatically.

  • stevenhp1987 says:
    22 Dec22 December 07:38

    When will comments be fixed on mobile?

    Not sure about Apple but they look horrendous on Android. Any thread with comments is impossible to follow!

    • stevenhp1987 says:
      22 Dec22 December 07:44

      Also, could of bugs (tested on Android):

      1. Choose “recent topics” tab. Hit any article. Go back in browser. Your presented with the main forum screen, not recent topics.

      2. Choose “recent topics” tab. Go to page 2 (or any page really). You’re presented with the main forum screen. Clicking the “recent topics” v does present you with page 2.

    • Andrew J says:
      22 Dec22 December 07:56

      Agree, all the quoting back makes it an impossible and unenjoyable read. I miss the general scrollability of the old daily chat – RIP daily chat, was a real USP for HFP.

    • Travel Strong says:
      22 Dec22 December 08:10

      Interestingly, replies *were* nested in the first few hours of the forum – I am sure of it! This layout was perfect for the chat thread, but I assumed it was turned off because for all other threads a traditional forum layout was preferred /sensible.

      • Rob says:
        22 Dec22 December 08:38

        We turned it on, everyone complained, we turned it off. Takes 10 seconds to turn on as it is built in.

        • stevenhp1987 says:
          22 Dec22 December 08:41

          Just need to add the grey background for quotes on mobile. Right now they’re all white, the same as regular text. You cannot see where a quote ends and the reply begins.

          Means browsing the forums is next to impossible!

          • Lady London says:
            22 Dec22 December 11:54

            Italicizing quotes may work too.

          • Rhys says:
            22 Dec22 December 13:48

            Probably because your cache hasn’t refreshed. They should be the same on both mobile and desktop, ie grey background

        • Redeyedonkey says:
          22 Dec22 December 08:43

          The quoting and the way it looks (hard to immediately see it’s a quote on my screen/devices anyway) is the main thing ruining the chat thread for me. I think for that thread nesting is way superior to quoting and so on but for the main forum as noted above it probably makes more sense to have it as is (though maybe with clearer/better formatting of the quoting).

          • Rob says:
            22 Dec22 December 08:48

            I am tempted to allow nesting on the chat thread, but it needs IT work for just one board so we will need to wait until the first week of January.

          • Rob says:
            22 Dec22 December 08:50

            There is something about quoting that is odd — different browsers are displaying it differently. Quotes are meant to be in grey.

        • Jonathan says:
          22 Dec22 December 08:44

          Everyone seems to of missed these first few hours on day 1 (or forgotten).

          Maybe turn it back on for say 24 hours and re-gauge the feedback to decide what to do longer term?

        • memesweeper says:
          22 Dec22 December 10:31

          Well, I’ll complain that it’s gone! Nesting *please*!

          • Lady London says:
            22 Dec22 December 11:55

            Hey memesweeper re your mcol make sure you present, if you can, to outwit them on survivability.

    • Rob says:
      22 Dec22 December 08:41

      You asked for nesting to be turned off so we turned it off.

      • stevenhp1987 says:
        22 Dec22 December 08:43

        I certainly never asked for that.

        Right now it’s unreadable on mobile when there are replies involved.

        • ChrisC says:
          22 Dec22 December 08:46

          Ditto.

          By “everyone” I think Rob meant a few people who shouted very loudly.

          Nesting wasn’t given a proper chance to be used properly.

          Turn it back on and give it a couple of weeks to see how it goes,

          • Rhys says:
            22 Dec22 December 09:12

            Nesting doesn’t make sense on a forum, fundamentally. The whole point is that you are not discussing 50 different topics in a single thread. You have a new thread for each topic.

            Neither does having a chat thread, to be honest.

            If it was up to me I would’ve ripped the plaster off a long time ago 😉

          • ChrisC says:
            22 Dec22 December 09:41

            But the chat forum is still being used to discuss 5O different things!

          • The Savage Squirrel says:
            22 Dec22 December 13:40

            Rob is right, nesting on a forum is fundamentally very silly.
            In fact it is silly even on the chat thread.
            Lets say a chat thread is 12 pages long by the evening. You read it at lunch when it’s 9 pages and come back later to see what’s new.
            Having to scroll through every answer on the entire 12 pages again picking apart every sub-thread to see which topics have new replies by individual timestamp is absolutely CRAZY. Yet this is exactly what people are asking for?!

            Maybe people didn’t do this and just read the last 3 pages? OK, then it means you were missing much (most?) content of the daily thread as afternoon replies to morning questions came in, and the functioning was SO bad you weren’t even aware that this was the case!

            . It’s very hard to construct an argument how replies nesting rather than hitting the end of each thread is ever better.

            It’s hard to think of a better example of resistance to change – even when the thing being replaced is so obviously riddled and flawed. It’s an example of where a bit of “beningn dicatorship” may be necessary to force people to adapt to change, or worst case, lose a few contributors, but gain a load more for whom this format will work much better – not least anyone contributing in the evening – at which point it was generally pointless posting or replying to chat as answers and even new posts would never be seen – just take a moment to think what a HUGE flaw that was! Did it and will it generate a lot of protest – NO as anyone contributing regularly was by definition mainly a daytime contributor – evening ones quietly lost interest and left; and now they will quietly and gradually come back.

            If the quote function is not working properly; then this need fixing – not going back to such a fundamentally flawed system.

  • SteveJ says:
    22 Dec22 December 07:54

    Android is:
    Settings -> Site Settings -> All Sites -> [search for headforpoints] -> Clear & Reset

    • ambient says:
      22 Dec22 December 08:20

      Rob/Rhys, not a complaint just constructive feedback as I think we all know you are doing your best to keep everyone happy, however today’s changes have unfortunately *degraded* the experience on an Android device significantly.

      The new article summaries are malformed, this is unfortunately knocking out the alignment of everything else and making everything difficult to use. And somehow the “next page links” (the numbers are at the bottom) are linking you back to the forum homepage.

      I have taken a screenshot of the misalignment problem if you’d like to see it and let me know how I can send it to you.

    • Alan says:
      22 Dec22 December 08:35

      Yep, pretty much the same as iOS 😂 Windows wins for ease here!

    • AJA says:
      22 Dec22 December 08:47

      Thanks for this. On my Samsung android phone it’s slightly different and a lot more clunky.

      I clicked on settings. Then searched for “sites and downloads” which brings up a sub menu titled “Internet settings” and a button beneath it called “sites and downloads” Scroll down until you find “Sites and downloads” again. Then click on “Manage website data”. Then scroll until you find headforpoints.( I can’t seem to search.) Then click the radio button and finally the delete bin!

    • Lady London says:
      22 Dec22 December 12:00

      Chat forum/thread (should be one and the same) would be better nested.

      The rest, the subject-specific topics, will have a very long life in some cases. So quoting makes sense.

      Rob already knows there is a task to do to consistently ensure delineation and containerization (eg by font/italics/possibly positioning/possibly color) across devices.

      Hint : Android is growing faster than i-things and Microsoft. Mobiles/tablets are growing faster than pc’s.

      That is my totally biased feedback.

      • Harrier25 says:
        22 Dec22 December 17:33

        Which is fine until you want to do something slightly more complicated than surf the web or read emails, then you need a Windows laptop because phones and tablets suddenly become totally useless !

  • SueLoder52 says:
    22 Dec22 December 08:17

    I have to say that on my Android phone the Forum page looks terrible. The little square pictures overlap with the text and below that two sections of text overlap each other! Looks like a very amateur first attempt at a Web page, I’m afraid.

  • ambient says:
    22 Dec22 December 08:25

    Please ignore above. Second attempt at clearing cache has improved things somewhat.

  • Danny says:
    22 Dec22 December 08:26

    “We’re not sure about Android phones ….”

    So you have and paid for IT support for this project and they can’t help with this simple statement, a bit slapdash!

    • Rob says:
      22 Dec22 December 08:35

      Was meant as a joke, since stats show that very few people read HfP on an Android device due to our demographics.

      • dougzz99 says:
        22 Dec22 December 09:29

        Branding over functionality is your demographic 🙂

      • Ladyshopper says:
        22 Dec22 December 09:57

        Oh dear, I’m buggered then! Read the forums on an Android phone and use a Windows PC.

        Almost feel like I should apologise for reading the site!!

      • Mikeact says:
        22 Dec22 December 10:22

        I for one, have been on Android since day 1.
        Is that really true ‘Very few people use Android on here.’ ?
        If so, I am amazed.

        • Rob says:
          22 Dec22 December 10:34

          It goes, in order (I won’t give exact numbers): Apple, Samsung, Google, Huawei, OnePlus. Samsung is the only Android brand to have 3%+ market share with our readers. Even Google Pixel is sub 3%.

          In the last 7 days, out of 128,000+ ‘sessions’ on the site from a mobile device, a grand total of 7 were done from a Blackberry and 10 from a Windows phone.

      • Sundar says:
        22 Dec22 December 17:45

        Come on, Rob, I use an Android phone 🙂

        Yes, the grey/comments inline is a bit off but not the end of the world…Forum is a great start and the topics covered are quite diverse/wide, yet focussed because of the forums. So great going there !

        Is there a “Follow” option or is Favourites a way of doing the follow ? Likewise, is an email trigger enabled for a follow/any post in a followed thread ?

        • Rob says:
          22 Dec22 December 20:36

          Emails are currently disabled. We will think about it when things settle and we have a feel for the volume.

  • memesweeper says:
    22 Dec22 December 08:45

    “To see these changes you may need to refresh your browser cache.“

    This is not necessary and 99% of readers won’t do it.

    To avoid this have the site (and forum) scaffolding CSS *either* in files with short cache-controls set or (better) a new file name on each CSS change. Use ETAGs to limit the impact of short cache-controls on server load (although a decent CDN will handle that for you). @Rhys if this sounds like white noise, pass this comment to your IT guy who will ensure it happens.

    • memesweeper says:
      22 Dec22 December 08:49

      Sorry 99% is an exaggeration… I meant to say 99% of iOS users won’t. Quiet a few PC users are habituated into ctrl+F5 / shift+refresh to try and fix things …

This article is closed to new comments. Feel free to ask your question in the HfP forums.

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