The FastDay Forum

[Moogie]

Hi all, it's that time of year again where we're approaching the anniversary of the forum. Can you believe we'll be 2 years old in January? We've been FastDay for close to a year now as well! Where does the time go?



For me this last year has not been the best, but I'm not here to bore you with my health issues! So as I wish good riddance to 2014 I say hello to a fresh new year full of new and exciting things for FastDay. Not only will we be launching our online courses for new 5:2ers (currently doing well in our trials) but we've got some fab updates in store for existing members too!



An updated Progress Tracker

You may or may not remember, but around this time last year I started work on a load of Progress Tracker enhancements and fixes, based on almost a year of feedback & bug reports This ended up being put to one side due to my ill health and I thought it was time to pick it up again at last...

...but we've decided to do better than that! We've got such a great tech team together at FastDay that it seems silly for me to bodge something together with my shoddy coding ability, lol. Our team has started work on a fantastic new tracker - and let me tell you, I'm most impressed by what I've seen so far! We've had some feedback from our Brainstormers groups (thanks to all involved!) and have been discussing various aspects of it for some time now to make sure we get it just right.

For many of you this news will be met with a sigh of relief as you've been avoiding using the tracker during maintenance - it was never really built to deal with that phase of the fasting journey properly. When I first built it I did so for such a small group of us, I had no idea the community would become as large as it has and my poor old code has been choking on the sheer volume of data it now has to handle. Other among you will simply be glad to know that there are going to be more options for tracking and better handling of imperial/metric measurements.

I also recognise that for some of you the idea of a new tracker is actually quite daunting! Please let me assure you that it is really going to be so simple to use. The team has been hard at work planning how best to organise things to make it not only more easy for the community to use, but also for the team to be able to add features. So, the ability to track more measurements such as hips, neck or even more medical things like blood pressure, blood sugar etc may not be far off. You'll be able to use as many or as few of these mini trackers as you like, so your screen won't be cluttered with information & inputs which aren't of interest to you. Yay!

Speaking of cluttered screens, the existing tracker was never designed with mobile screens in mind... yup, you guessed it - the new one has been built with this in mind from the onset. It will scale beautifully to fit all manner of screen sizes, while keeping viewing & entering of data simple and clear.

I can't give you a set date as to when the new tracker will be available, but the team is beavering away and making progress much quicker than expected. Rest assured that it will be sometime in the early part of next year and that you'll be able to port your existing tracker data over to it so nothing will be lost.

If any of you have any particular concerns about this, please do let me know either in a reply here or by messaging me and I'll be happy to raise these issues with the team and come back to you with a response. We want you all to love the new tracker after all!



Goodbye Yellow! It's time for a face lift!

When we launched the FastDay site our focus was on getting the content together & organised. We tried to ensure the site was user friendly and stuck to the brand colours selected by the team... unfortunately we found the yellow didn't go down well with the community and it's been a bit of a 'marmite', love it or hate it. Some of you find it so bright and cheery, others have to browse the site with a blindfold!


We'd really love to give the site a bit of an overhaul with a new colour scheme. I know the old look was pretty popular and while we won't be reverting to it as such we may go back to similar colours. I did like the muted blue, green and red


Last time we made the mistake of making these decisions without the community being involved in them. I'm sorry about that, this year has been anything but normal for me and I'm grateful to the team for getting things done while I was not really able to be involved. This time we all feel it's best to consult with the community for some feedback.


It's important we get some balanced views about our new design ideas so we'd love to take on a group of you as volunteers for us to bounce ideas off. We need some of you who hate the yellow and some who don't. We want to find a look which pleases the majority instead of splitting opinions down the middle. We'd also love to have some feedback from folks who are concerned about the changes as we want to be sure that everything is still usable and is basically just more lovely to look at. We don't want new fasters coming here and half of them being put off by the colour scheme or characters, and while I know we can't please everyone I'm sure we can do better than this with the great team we have together now.


FastDay wants YOU!

We want to know what you think about the above ideas. Don't just butter us up, it's every bit as important for us to know what you don't like, what you're worried about and also any ideas you might have which you think everyone would find useful.


I for one can't wait to welcome lots of new fasters on board in 2015 and making it easier not just for them but for all of us to track our progress! I really must tip my hat to the FD team for all their hard work - much of it goes unseen by the community, behind the scenes tinkering while also planning and developing future features. Next year is going to be an exciting one! Roll on 2015!

Hi Moogie ..i cant comment on Tracker coz have never used it..but wd welcome no more yellow,if only that it wd make a pleasant change! I wish i could always click on tag etc without the banner often getting in the way.
I dont like the cartoon figures. Other than those small points,i think the forum is pretty much hunky dory..loads of info and great members x

Hi Moogie,
I've got used to the yellow but I look forward to something different. I know I've said this before but I find the blue font difficult to read, when I look through the topics, the black writing stands out but I have to really peer closely to see words written in blue. I don't get on with the search facility either, it always points out that the words I'm looking for are too common, it would be good to be able to find the name of a topic which I'm looking for instead of the words highlighted in every single message. Sorry to criticise so much but just one more thing, moving from one page to another is still very slow.
One thing I like though is the little 'view first unread post' icon, it saves trawling through the comments which I've already read. As for the tracker, I'm used to that now but I'm sure that any changes you make will be good.

Hey!Thanks @coffeetime i wasnt even aware of the view first unread thing! That IS useful..thanks Moogie x

As a new member, I find navigating all the conversation threads quite daunting and some have 3/4000 posts. Not sure if there is a better way to access into conversations though. For example, I put a post on an old thread with the appropriate title for what I wanted to ask about but because it was quite old, no-one replied. Perhaps it's just me needing more experience at navigating the sight but I don't want to comment on these large threads in case I'm (likely) to be repeating someone else??? RE the colour, I think the colour initially attracted me to the sight as it means business (and I think I associate it with another diet sight??) but after a while a softer olive/living green may be good??

Hi Moogie,

I love this thread. I love this forum. I love the yellow. I love all you and the team have done especially with you having a crappy year!

Having being around since the launch on and off, I would like to be involved in the team of "bounce ideas off-ers" if you are looking for a group of testers

Here's to a wonderful 2015 for all fasters, especially Moogie :*

JB x

Updates to the tracker... GREAT!
Getting rid of the yellow... GREAT!
Getting rid of the silly cartoon characters... EVEN GREATER!
Interesting that these are my biggest (maybe only) complaints about the site, and are exactly what you are now going to be dealing with. I'm happy to offer my specific and more detailed opinions if you could use them.
THANKS!

Hi @Moogie and team!

I know it is quite a job reviewing a site and hard to please everyone. I have actually got used to the yellow!! I am happy to be on a review/ test team for the new site.

These are some of the things that it would be great to fix:
- a way to increase the font size on iPads
- having a link to the most recent post (for a topic) as we used to have
- when you thank someone, having a quicker refresh and being returned to that post, not the top of the page
- have the hotlinks (to active topics etc) at the bottom of a page as well as the top
- whenever you click on a hotlink, ditto the tracker, have it open a new page rather than replace the current one - this happens sometimes but not all the time
- restricting the space that the signature area takes
- making tagging easier - I don't think it works if you just type @ before the name, but it would be good if it could
- rethinking what information about a person is available without opening the cog - I would rather know the BMI than date joined for example,
- getting rid of words such as 'gender' 'location' which are obvious
- is there a need for quick reply and full editor - why not just the later
- making it easier to review previous posts when writing a reply
- reconsider the order of the icons available in reply mode, so that the most used ones are easy to locate

I sent other comments when the site changed before, many of which would still apply - but some things I got used to (such as the columns for number of views and number of replies being switched!)

Finally, I should say that the site does have lots of features that I like, which is one of the reasons I am still here!

Thanks for all your work

Thanks for opening up this discussion, and may I join in with the others in hoping you have a MUCH better year this coming year!

I would also like to go back to the old system where people's stats show up without having to click the cog. On my tablet that is a pain, and I often read the forum on my tablet in the evening.

Also, if you could move the "report abuse" link somewhere away from other links it would be very helpful. On my Nexus 7 tablet it's too easy to bring up the "report abuse" link when attempting to click the "reply with link" link.

I agree that the cartoons don't get across the quality of the site for new visitors and they take up much too much valuable screen space. Making the first screen people see very rich in information and with links to all the valuable resources on the site would probably get more people clicking through that come to the site.

Finally, the sign in procedure still does not respond in a way that lets people know that they've signed in. The little face silhouette shows up in the corner, on some devices, but if you were new to the site you might not realize that meant you were signed in. Some kind of message that comes up and confirms that you are now signed in would be very helpful.

Happy thoughts Moogie, for the new year to come

The yellow banner is not like Marmite, I hate Marmite with a passion it makes me sick just thinking of it 20 years later, the yellow stuff leave me with no emotions at all, much better, much much better

On the other hand, there is one big improvement I would love, to be able to go on the forum from my phone, which I can't, because of the banner, the fact that there still are some security issues (the pages are stick on https which create a conflict) and I can't access the login page. Well, it's not true, I can access it, just can't write my name or password on it as nothing happens when I try.

I would like to see a change in the tracker, because it keeps congratulating me on my minute weight loss, though I am trying to maintain. 0, 03 g weight loss average per week or something like that...
The yellow is OK. The cartoon characters liven up the otherwise long text. Visually very important. The many information sites available are truly impressive!
I wish I could use the system a bit better - is there a tutorial for that?
I love the site.
Keeps me going. BMI 20.3 at the moment, which I am very happy about.
Thanks.

Thanks very much Moogie.
The tracker sounds great. I'm almost at maintenance - I did like the easy access to BMI's / progress tracker as a newbie as I could find members on a similar journey to mine and found it really encouraging and informative. Agree about moving the report button, I nearly pressed it last night by mistake. I'm in love the yellow camp, but happy to go with what ever fits the majority and happy to help if you need me. Is it possible for the save draft button to keep the draft on the screen rather than put it a draft folder that you then need to go and resurrect. It would help us from loosing our messages so often if we could press the button as we go along and keep drafting. All for now - are you bringing out your Xmas hat this year? I was a newbie last Xmas and your hat was a welcome cheer!

[Moogie]

Thanks all, I'll try to chat with some of you a bit more specifically about things over the next week.
I don't know if we'll be making a lot of tech changes to the forum itself at this stage as the team is busy with the tracker updates which I feel are more important, but we would like to give the site a simple facelift! I do appreciate the feedback though and will of course bear as much as I can in mind when we decide what to go ahead with in the next stage

Thanks @Lizbean for reminding me about my Christmas hat! I have now donned it!

All the best for you in 2015 Moogie

Re changes I am one if the ones who find the yellow is too bright and I did prefer the earlier forums motifs and colour scheme. Agree with others As the current characters no so appealing

The tag button needs fixing as it pulls down the yellow band and obscures the tag altogether if you tag a few people

All up appreciate the forum when I can get to it

Great to see you back Moogie. Looking forward to seeing the changes. I will be another one glad to see the back of the yellow banner and the cartoon characters. I too loved the old colours and I thought that the old pizza and salad pictures said it all; no foods are off the list

Thanks to everyone for making this a good place to be. I am happy to volunteer as an interfering busybody if you have room for me. Thanks. Oh and so happy to see that hat on again x