I agree as well.
Also, in case it comes up Mona, I hope the following point can be communicated: this complaint is not trivial.
It can be expected that any change will engender grumbling among the users. I imagine software engineers hear it every time they roll out a new and improved version of any software. I think that in some cases the engineers have a right to shrug off the complaints, as real progress has to involve changes somewhere and complaints about change itself aren't particularly valid. (Customer service reps can't ignore the complaints, of course!)
Please point out, however, that complaints about marking posts read/unread and separating out the new posts from the old are in a different class. This isn't grumbling about a menu item being reshuffled to a different place or a different design motif. This is about actual forum usage. There are thousands of posts on these bulletin boards - if we cannot quickly identify the ones that are new since we last viewed the board how can we possibly sort through them?
Search tools are a non-starter. I couldn't possibly do a date search that would be relevant. First, I'd have to keep track of when I last looked. Second, that wouldn't work either since I don't finish every new post at one sitting. Most of the time I take the new posts in chunks. I catch up on a couple of threads, go do something else, then come back for more. No way I could tailor a text or date search that would take the place of read/unread messages.
Certainly folks have worked hard to preserve the old content (extremely important - thank you), allow for file uploads (equally critical - thanks again), keep the original forum structure (OK), and allow for easier message formatting for those of us non-Gutmans that prefer not to remember HTML tags 
But without the ability to quickly separate the new from the old I would waste way too much time simply deciding whether I did or did not read each particular discussion.
- Guy
Fred Kohlhepp wrote:
Don't feel persecuted; I've been looking for bold type ever since someone said that the new posts were in bold. Haven't seen any yet!
The only way to see it (at least, the only way I have figured out) is to go to the discussions listing using the small icon shown below:
Not exactly obvious I'm afraid!
GuyBeadie wrote:
and allow for easier message formatting for those of us non-Gutmans that prefer not to remember HTML tags
- Guy
I have nothing against a good input editor. But .... one based on scripting is slow. May not be noticeable for someone with a really fast modern machine, but I've got a rather old single core system. The delay is very noticeable, and vey annoying. A Java applet rather than Javascript (or VBScript) would perform much better.
Also, while there are all kinds of word processor formats available, I'm not writing that type of document. The formats I actually used HTML for are mostly not to be found (bold being the major exception). Technical, and specifically mathematical, text without superscripts and subscripts? Superscripts and subscripts (sometimes nested) are my most common HTML tags. Also missing are the named symbols, for Greek letters (I used π a lot) and mathematical operators. A good input editor suitable for generating mathematical expressions is greatly to be desired, but this editor is largely useless. It would be great if I were trying to duplicate Word documents (without special insertions, like equations), but that's not what I do in the forums.
About the only good thing is the quoting facility, which allows nice separation of the quoted text. Even that is limited by its insistence on quoting the entire message, rather than a selected subset.
Guy Beadie wrote:
....
and allow for easier message formatting for those of us non-Gutmans that prefer not to remember HTML tags
But without the ability to quickly separate the new from the old I would waste way too much time simply deciding whether I did or did not read each particular discussion.
- Guy
I'm just back from an external visit. Guy sumarised it well. As did Tom for the editor (sorry can't quote him, I'm only allowed to be replying to one thread when quoting). Yes the script is [too] slow to load. I definately notice it.
You can use the >> icon, which then has a drop down list including 'quote' which insert's and empty quote box, but the rest of thread isn't listed so I can't copy Tom's bit about the slow script.
At the moment I have switched off all my automatic notifications. I now only get those for threads I've posted to, and I trimmed some of those too (especially if very old!).
Good content has good structure. Other wise it is just a sand pile. We are not working in a socially constructed environment, otherwise we'd all be on facebook
😉 😉 😉 [I'm not on facebook...]
The marking seems to be working now.
However, I get a duplicate listing in the recent postings display if the most recent posting is from me:
there is also a difference in the threads displayed between the one above and the Mathcad-specific discussions display:
Huh, it won't let me post two images in the same posting
So, the Matrix to Vector thread is missing, as is the Mark All Read thread
TTFN
