Changes to the forum's layout and navigation

It’s not possible to turn it off on an individual basis, it can only be turned off at the site level. I plan on leaving it there for at least another week because it can take some time to learn new workflows and tools so I don’t think a few days of frustration or confusion is enough time to give it a fair evaluation. Personally, after some initial fumbling around, I find it better than the previous layout, but we all use sites in such different ways that if anyone has specific issues or questions, it would be helpful for us to discuss them here. I suspect we can still do most of what we’re used it, it just has to be tweaked a bit. If anyone has specific questions or concerns, please include whether your using a mobile device or a computer, and please share screenshots.

Click on the hamburger icon (three lines) in the upper left-hand corner to close the sidebar.

Discourse is removing the old notification menu by the end of April, so we might as well get used to it now. I suspect the sidebar will be mandatory in the future as well.

I basically never log out of sites, so I’m curious as to what the impetus is for wanting to log out? I’m not saying you shouldn’t want to, I’m just trying to understand the use case as it’s so different from my own.

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It has become a habit - after reading that staying logged in, is when malware or whatever gets access.

Plus with our loadshedding (focuses my mind on using the least electricity), I switch off my laptop at least twice a day - which forces me to login again to iNat anyway. Weirdly the forum can stay logged in even when I switch off.

PS thanks - the greyed out hamburger was the one thing I didn’t ‘see’

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Well, sure.

  1. We can get used to less screen space available for reading, but that makes it hard for people with poor vision to make our adaptations. For my part, my vision is as corrected as doctors can make it; but it is not very good, especially for reading.

  2. We can get used to using more clicks and more scrolling to do the same things.

Sure. We can get used to it even if it it is a less efficient UI and less adaptable to poor vision.

Anyhoo, you asked for feedback, so there it is.

Discourse is removing the old notification menu by the end of April, so we might as well get used to it now. I suspect the sidebar will be mandatory in the future as well.

It sounds like there’s no choice in the matter, after the next month anyway.?

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And here I am annoyed that I have to log in every time I go to iNaturalist, even though I have never logged out. The forum doesn’t do that to me.

The Keyboard shortcut (list is in the sidebar at the bottom) for logging off is Shift+z Shift+z = Log Out
so, Shift and z twice

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Thank you for pointing this out! It looks useful …

Edit: … for the iPad, which has a keyboard attached. Not so good for the iPhone, though.

It would be helpful if this could be more prominently displayed in the sidebar so one does not have to scroll down and down and down to reach it. Indeed, the information in it could be part of the sidebar, under the Messages section.

Is there a keyboard shortcut that opens this key to Keyboard Shortcuts? I thought it would be Keyboard Help = ?, but that opens the topic search bar, I think?

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This shows the result when I use “?”. Is that what you would expect?

Paper and pencil list for me - until my muscle memory is retrained.

Sigh. Thanks @bobmcd
I looked at the mobile vs laptop icons, and presumed - this is where you flip to mobile view. Which IS what the mobile icon means - tick.
But the laptop icon counter-intuitively = keyboard shortcuts.

That’s odd. I never have to log back in to iNat unless I shut down or restart my computer.

there’s a Guidelines item in the new navigation menu, and it seems to lead nowhere:

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Should be fixed now, sorry about that.

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Not sure if it matters since the change will be permanent soon, but I checked out the hamburger menu and have no use for any of those items. I miss the "return to iNaturalist link I used from my profile pic. It took me forever to find the link way down at the bottom. It is very inconvenient.

I use a Macbook Pro to access iNat and the forum. I might try opening a tab for iNat and another for the forum as you suggested. Sounds like the best fix.Progress. Sigh :)

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Link is still there, with 2 clicks, if you click your name, then the embedded iNat link.

Is “your name” my profile pic? If so, I don’t see a link.

Yes, but the other one. When you make a post your profile icon appears to the left of it; click that, then the link to your iNat profile. If there isn’t one, you can add it in your forum settings.

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Ah, I see now. Thank you.

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