Am I the only one not liking ATS design?

I am fairly new and I find the site horrid for navigation.

For example I dont know how to access the list of forum topics without visiting on another popular thread advertised.
Tabs like Memcenter missing in many parts.
I think MyATS my profile and memcenter should all be under one link.I keep wondering where I should go to edit some preferences.
When I want to post something I often do not know if I should go to below, above or politics
Or how do I access abovetopsecret when I somehow ended up in below or politics? I dont see ay links and I hate having t retype the address each time!
and other little issues making it unfriendly.

I understand ATS has a tons of features and options, but I hope they make it newbie friendly!


[edit on 19-12-2007 by TheOracle]

Yes I am having trouble finding things like my old favourites. The design is good but too dark looking and wish it was the option for the dark look was te otherway around. I prefered it if you signed in and you had all areas of access, but to sign into BTS you have to log off ATS too or log in both at the same time.
It gets confusing sometimes.

Also I must add that it is never clear when I receive u2u in my inbox. It doesnt say how many new and unread messages.

New and unread messages will be in bold in your inbox.

As for navigation, I find it easiest to go first to the Recent Posts tab when I come on, and look over the recent ones, to see if there's been anything new on threads I'm participating in.

You can also go to your MyProfile page, click the Posts or Threads link there, and see what's been happening on threads you're involved in.

Give it some time, I was used to PhP boards when I joined and found it a little confusing, but now I prefer ATS.

Well there we have it the Oracle has spoken.

oracle |ˈôrəkəl|
noun
1 a priest or priestess acting as a medium through whom advice or prophecy was sought from the gods in classical antiquity.
• a place at which such advice or prophecy was sought.
• a person or thing regarded as an infallible authority or guide on something : casting the attorney general as the oracle for and guardian of the public interest is simply impossible.

HAHA!!

The gods don't like the layout!!

Monkey



[edit on 19/12/07 by ChiKeyMonKey]

Originally posted by MajorMalfunction
I find it easiest to go first to the Recent Posts tab when I come on

Agreed. That's a fairly usefull approach. The "board" tab/link will show you a directory of all topics regardless of replies, but the recent post tab does tend to be the most useful.

That's how I stalk MajorMalfunction anyways.

reply to post by TheOracle


I much agree. Has been my main frustration from the beginning.

Rather the opposite of my other favorite place, probably the easiest and cleanest place to navigate on the web:

WWW.FREEREPUBLIC.COM...

But the powers that be seem to be very entrenched in what is. Tweaks now and then . . . but major overhaul is highly unlikely IIRC.

I'd be happy if we could just select background color options or some such. Dark blue would be a lot better to me than the black and grey.

I think I changed a setting in explorer once for the background . . . messed a bunch of other things up . . . so I just put up with it.

But it does cause me to come here less than I might otherwise.

And, I suspect a bunch of newbies try it a few times and give up because of complexity, navigation, clarity, ease of use issues.

I'd suspect that ATS might have another 20%+ more users if that were not such a problem.

reply to post by dbates


Ha! I knew it! You just can't get enough of my atheistic disbelief, can ya?

reply to post by TheOracle


i just have ATS.PTS and BTS as fav
that way i dont have to go to the crappy page but directly to the forum

I find that to come to BTS I have to login as a seperate thing to ATS.
I do the usual Recent posts look and MyATS to keep track of things but some things seem more complicated now and I can not find posts from Last year as in 2006 or 2005 that I saved.

Originally posted by The time lord
I find that to come to BTS I have to login as a seperate thing to ATS.
I do the usual Recent posts look and MyATS to keep track of things but some things seem more complicated now and I can not find posts from Last year as in 2006 or 2005 that I saved.

Use this link to trim your subscribed threads list.

Additionally, there's a button that says 'go light' at the top left corner of the page to turn the interface into a lighter mode (in response to your complaint about the site being too dark).

[edit on 19-12-2007 by Beachcoma]

they need a drop down menu system for each board.

The presentation of this site is fantastic, the navigation however is a different story.:shk:

Originally posted by tombangelta
they need a drop down menu system for each board.

Forget drop down menus. That's sooo last century. I'm waiting for an AJAX version of the site.

Here's an example of AJAX technology being applied to a news site:
technology.physorg.com...

More info here:
www.ajax.org...

Originally posted by TheOracle
I am fairly new and I find the site horrid for navigation.

You seems to be more popular now.

When I want to post something I often do not know if I should go to below, above or politics

You'll get used to it, I'm sure, it takes a while.

Or how do I access abovetopsecret when I somehow ended up in below or politics? I dont see ay links and I hate having t retype the address each time!
and other little issues making it unfriendly

You really don't have to retype, they're on the most top right.

I understand ATS has a tons of features and options, but I hope they make it newbie friendly!

The search could use date stamps.
New posts (since last visit) in myATS subscriptions should be in bold.

reply to post by Beachcoma


I stand corrected.

ive seen a couple of sites with that function and it does work.

I liked it fine until they added the function to "make" you look at the top flagged threads first. I suppose one should look at those but I liked the old style where you could see about twenty of the most recent posted topics over on the left side of the board. I think I posted in a lot more different forums when it was like that? But hey, do what you want too, don't shoot. I'm just sayin.

The ATS design takes some time getting used to. As a newbie, I learned to work around certain areas:

-- scroll right to see more of the column that my 15 inch monitor cannot accommodate;

-- click the back button twice to find the thread where I want to enter a post after loging into my account;

-- do endless searches on how to use the button options and smiley features, post external sources and images and other stuff.

-- save the weblink to the most recent posts into my favorite folder instead of clicking on those various icons/categories found on the main website(s).

-- other rants not included here.

Overall, I don't like the dark color and more especially the light color. So I had to revert back to the dark color version.