I miss the old Zoochat format

Z

zooman

Well-Known Member
15+ year member
Just wondering am I alone in missing the old Zoochat format/layout ?

At a guess it seems like there is allot less postings than before. Is that correct?

I found the old format allot more visually pleasing and very user friendly for non tech savvy person as I am.

The new format seems far more geared towards tech savvy users.

Thoughts?
 
I miss the links directly to a Zoo's facebook/webpage at the top of their respective threads (at least, that's how I remember them)
 
Generally speaking I much prefer the new format to the old format ZooChat. I think that the new screens look better and the software is more intuitive to use.

However, there is one major problem with the new ZooChat; the way that it handles comments made about photos in the gallery.

Previously, the first thing I did when logging on to ZooChat was to check for recent comments that had been added since I last visited the site. This functionality is no longer provided which stifles discussion about photographs. In the past some interesting photos used to generate thought-provoking debates with pages of comments; this now rarely happens with new photos.

I hope that the fix for this is implemented soon.
 
I empathize with your misgivings. Whenever something changes, there is a learning curve. When you first joined the old ZooChat it probably took a little while to get used to it. The same happens here.

However I do agree with @Tim May about the photo threads. Another source of frustration is the inability now to upload a photo into a comment thread without first uploading it to the gallery. This may or may not be changing in the near future. I will say that Sim (the administrator) puts a lot of time and effort into this site essentially for free and I think there are technical reasons why the new software change is advantageous, even if it is not readily apparent to everyday users.

(Disclaimer - this is my opinion as a forum member and not an official response in my role as a moderator).
 
Arizona Docent said:
I empathize with your misgivings. Whenever something changes, there is a learning curve. When you first joined the old ZooChat it probably took a little while to get used to it. The same happens here.

However I do agree with @Tim May about the photo threads. Another source of frustration is the inability now to upload a photo into a comment thread without first uploading it to the gallery. This may or may not be changing in the near future. I will say that Sim (the administrator) puts a lot of time and effort into this site essentially for free and I think there are technical reasons why the new software change is advantageous, even if it is not readily apparent to everyday users.

(Disclaimer - this is my opinion as a forum member and not an official response in my role as a moderator).
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I used to look at newly uploaded photos every day. Now I never do, the new format just doesn't invite it.
 
I like the new format better, except that I would much prefer to see a smaller version of each whole picture in the galleries, rather than the larger central portions only.
 
I agree. The old format made photo uploads and latest comments easier to review. I was able to enjoy and learn so much more from the photo posts in the old format.
 
zooman said:
Just wondering am I alone in missing the old Zoochat format/layout ?

At a guess it seems like there is allot less postings than before. Is that correct?

I found the old format allot more visually pleasing and very user friendly for non tech savvy person as I am.

The new format seems far more geared towards tech savvy users.

Thoughts?
Click to expand...

Hey Stuart - it would be a lot more helpful if you could be as specific as possible about exactly what you miss or what you don't like.

There is a major new release of the forum software coming in a couple of months and I'm currently working on rebuilding the site to work with the new software ... so now is the time to be making suggestions for how you'd like the site to work.
 
Tim May said:
Generally speaking I much prefer the new format to the old format ZooChat. I think that the new screens look better and the software is more intuitive to use
Click to expand...

I'm hoping you'll like the new version even more - I've spent the past few months working with the developers of the forum software to test and improve the new version they've been working on for 3 years now and I think it's working really well now - especially on mobile devices.

Tim May said:
However, there is one major problem with the new ZooChat; the way that it handles comments made about photos in the gallery.

Previously, the first thing I did when logging on to ZooChat was to check for recent comments that had been added since I last visited the site. This functionality is no longer provided which stifles discussion about photographs. In the past some interesting photos used to generate thought-provoking debates with pages of comments; this now rarely happens with new photos.

I hope that the fix for this is implemented soon.
Click to expand...

Yes!

I can confirm that this functionality has been provided in the next version coming soon - it's still not quite where I'd like it to be and I've been giving feedback to the developers about exactly how I think it should work, so I'm hopeful we'll make some significant progress here soon.

Even if we don't get the layout exactly right for the next release, I'll do some customisation myself.

I'll start a new thread discussing this new functionality when I get a chance.
 
FBBird said:
I used to look at newly uploaded photos every day. Now I never do, the new format just doesn't invite it.
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I agree. Lots of work required here - I've been putting a lot of pressure on the developers to improve the media gallery functionality.

It seems that we are one of the heaviest users of this functionality and a lot of the things we're asking for, the developers simply hadn't even considered. Most sites who use the media functionality don't tend to have much discussion around their photos.

I'll keep pushing for improvements.
 
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Simon Hampel said:
Yes!

I can confirm that this functionality has been provided in the next version coming soon - it's still not quite where I'd like it to be and I've been giving feedback to the developers about exactly how I think it should work, so I'm hopeful we'll make some significant progress here soon.

Even if we don't get the layout exactly right for the next release, I'll do some customisation myself.

I'll start a new thread discussing this new functionality when I get a chance.
Click to expand...

Excellent; that's good news. Thanks.
 
gentle lemur said:
I like the new format better, except that I would much prefer to see a smaller version of each whole picture in the galleries, rather than the larger central portions only.
Click to expand...

I agree. While the "square" images are more visually pleasing when arranged in a grid, they do reduce usability because you can no longer see the full image at a glance.

I'm a little frustrated at the way this has been approached by the developers and have been giving them feedback. I just went and posted a more detailed suggestion for them on this specific topic.
 
Simon Hampel said:
It seems that we are one of the heaviest users of this functionality and a lot of the things we're asking for, the developers simply hadn't even considered. Most sites who use the media functionality don't tend to have much discussion around their photos.
Click to expand...

That's quite interesting. I wonder what makes us different. I would have thought any group of enthusiasts would have a lot to say about at least some photographs.
 
I only skimmed through these so I apologize if someone already mentioned this. What I miss most was the ability to find news threads linked to the zoo's respected gallery, and vice versa. Back when every zoo had it's own forum of choices between it's many subject news/other threads and an immediate link to the gallery. As others have said and as Sim has told me many times that this will be resolved, I've lost interest in searching through the site ever since the recent comment section was taken away. I also am not a fan of the galleries' chronological orders. It was much more interesting on the old site when the most recent comment caused a photo be bumped up to the top of the gallery. This gave people the idea of "That photo" must show the most interesting thing about the zoo. Without the recent comment section or the order idea I just mentioned, this causes less and less discussions in the gallery. As someone said as well, I have never once gone into the new media section since the new website went up.

What I do like is the mobile friendly structure. It was always a pain to constantly zoom in to reply to a thread on my phone. The zooming wasn't the issue, but the page would always jump around in the process. I also love the notifcation bar. The red number actually gets me excited and makes it a mystery of what your notification is. The Like button was also a great addition. It's my way of telling someone they took a great photo without actually having to tell them. The most important thing that I'm grateful about the newer site is the ability to upload clips and lengthy videos to the gallery. I have no problem with the overall structure, but I do very much miss the small things that made Zoochat better.
 
There is a way to change the media view to display in order of recent comments. It is not the default (like the old site), but it is just a button click away.
 
Arizona Docent said:
Yes.
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I think the only way to fix this would be to move to having full discussion threads for photos instead of the very limited "comments" functionality.

I've already made some quite detailed requests to the developers for this functionality (threads instead of comments) and quite a few other users of the software agree with my suggestions. Unfortunately this would constitute a fairly large change to the system and so isn't likely to be built in the short term - right now they are focusing on migrating their software to their new development platform for XenForo v2.0 (feature parity - not much in the way of new functionality), and significant new functionality won't start coming until at least XF 2.1, which I don't think we'll see before next year.

If I don't get a concrete commitment from the developers about adding the functionality I will investigate developing it myself - which is basically what I had to do for the old site, I customised the software myself.
 
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