I'm starting to think that maybe the community should have been consulted over this before making such a drastic change to the software. If I had known that this would have been changed, I would never have asked for the upgrade to 3.1.2. I also had no idea that so many IPS Clients were expressing the same concerns over this problem. I just hope that they can restore the vital feature of the ACP before too long and hope we don't have to wait months before it's finally addressed.

I hope they can fix it soon...

I think the nail is being driven home. ;)

Here's one extra vote to get the System Statistics back as it was because as a administrator/site owner the most important part is what happens on ones site/forum and not whats important for IPB and sure its just a little extra click away but the paying customers = we ;) dont like that but to remove the news completly I personal disagree with because not all people do actually visit the forum on a daily base and getting basic update info is crucial in my view even if thats normaly always sent out through the mail aswell.


/Mrigloo

The member search box doesn't need to be put back in place. Everything is accessible from the search box in the ACP header. ;)

The member search box doesn't need to be put back in place. Everything is accessible from the search box in the ACP header. ;)

That I can agree with but its the other info that needs to be put back as it was.


/Mrigloo

I think the best is to have 2 or 3 different choices for the Dashboard...

1.- The old one
2.- The actual one with blogs and IPS news
3.- A new one with other statistics or only links to the most important ACP things

It's only my opinion...

I find useful things in the old one and useful things in the actual one... my choice would the third with more direct links because blog and news I have a private forums where I RSS them and I read there... and the online users I can see when I check for new messages, for me the best would be only direct links and one or two small things more...


Thanks v

The old design for dashboard must return, it was a very useful function and I don't understand this stepback if you're trying to improve your system.

Put your IPS links at the top if you want, but at least recover lost links and stats.

Regards

The point of the change not to turn the dashboard into an advertising platform but mainly because the dashboard had so much information before, that important warnings (like, for example, your software is out of date) were being lost in the noise.

The new design was intended to remove extraneous information and make important notices more prominent and noticable.

What I would prefer to do rather than bring back the box completely is introduce dashboard warnings for important information. For example, you'll notice if there are any accounts pending admin validation, you'll see a big yellow box alerting you to this.
Particularly what statistics do people miss? As Michael mentioned, total members, posts, etc can be viewed on the board index - and the big one (pending admin validations) has been moved to a notification.
To anyone who watched their ACP for changes in those numbers: particularly which numbers were you looking at? We can create notifications for them.


We're of course not out to make anyone's life difficult. The change was intended to make a useless page useful, and ensure that everyone was aware of important information (you should always be running the latest version, for example). We're happy to make adjustments though :)

The point of the change not to turn the dashboard into an advertising platform...

Like it or not, that is what has happened.

...if there are any accounts pending admin validation, you'll see a big yellow box alerting you to this.

...and the big one (pending admin validations) has been moved to a notification.

Having validated a number of new accounts since the change was made I have yet to notice a "big yellow box". I guess my eyesight must be worse than I thought.

The change was intended to make a useless page useful,...

The entire point is, that it wasn't useless... and the number of people responding to this issue is indicative of that.

The Dashboard gave an instant overview of the state of the community, with handy links to appropriate ACP pages. It no longer fulfils this function.

Like it or not, that is what has happened.

Having validated a number of new accounts since the change was made I have yet to notice a "big yellow box". I guess my eyesight must be worse than I thought.

The entire point is, that it wasn't useless... and the number of people responding to this issue is indicative of that.

The Dashboard gave an instant overview of the state of the community, with handy links to appropriate ACP pages. It no longer fulfils this function.

+1

I agree everything except big yellow box (not tested)

And talking about Support and Stats tab. I don't know if this bug is only in my forum or it's common



Spammers name is missing.

The point of the change not to turn the dashboard into an advertising platform but mainly because the dashboard had so much information before, that important warnings (like, for example, your software is out of date) were being lost in the noise.

The new design was intended to remove extraneous information and make important notices more prominent and noticable.

What I would prefer to do rather than bring back the box completely is introduce dashboard warnings for important information. For example, you'll notice if there are any accounts pending admin validation, you'll see a big yellow box alerting you to this.

Particularly what statistics do people miss? As Michael mentioned, total members, posts, etc can be viewed on the board index - and the big one (pending admin validations) has been moved to a notification.

To anyone who watched their ACP for changes in those numbers: particularly which numbers were you looking at? We can create notifications for them.

We're of course not out to make anyone's life difficult. The change was intended to make a useless page useful, and ensure that everyone was aware of important information (you should always be running the latest version, for example). We're happy to make adjustments though :)

Let's talk cars for a minute. What you've done by moving that block of stats is take the speedometer (something you use everyday and is vitally important to the functional operations of your vehicle) off the dashboard and placed it in the trunk instead, replacing it with more prominent notices for recalls, advertisements for the current model year, and other messages from the manufacturer of your vehicle (all of which are important, but not vital to the everyday operation of the vehicle).. They has to be a better way to nag people to upgrade, if that is the intent. To relocate the core functionality (like the speedometer in your car) of the forum admin dashboard to somewhere less prominent was a decision made without considering the user interface & usability.

Yes, much of that information is available on the board index, but not everyone elects to display that information. However that information is always made available to admins on the dashboard. I don't know if you are familiar with driving a standard or not, but just because you can hear the RPMs (and are familiar with the shift points) doesn't necessarily mean that you don't need to or want to know what the engine is actually doing. That tachometer is still functionally important and needs prominent visibility.

The core functionality of that dashboard, like a car, is designed to make administrating that forum (vehicle) as easy and clear as possible with the information readily at hand in sight to efficiently make the appropriate decisions. It is foolish to lose focus of that interface usability concept.

You all completely ignored my question :)

It's all well and good saying it was a terrible idea and you want the statistics back, but specifically which of those statistics were of use to you? We can probably come up with a solution that suits everybody :)

Having validated a number of new accounts since the change was made I have yet to notice a "big yellow box". I guess my eyesight must be worse than I thought.

^

Is that on 3.1.2? I have over 1000 accounts waiting for their email to be validated and about 4 that I need to validate. I have no counter like that anywhere.

You all completely ignored my question :)

It's all well and good saying it was a terrible idea and you want the statistics back, but specifically which of those statistics were of use to you? We can probably come up with a solution that suits everybody :)

I've only been banging on about it since the first post... ;)

To reiterate, that would be the entire System Statistics block as it currently appears under the Support tab.

To reiterate, that would be the [u]entire[/u] System Statistics block as it currently appears under the Support tab.

But do you really need all of that info to hand every time you log into the ACP, or are you just resistant to change? ;)

eg, total members, total topics, total posts and members online (which are all available to you on your forum homepage) - really needed?
Awaiting validation I can understand - they can't use the forum
Locked accounts I can understand - they can't use the forum
COPPA accounts - I don't use COPPA, so I won't comment
Spammers - depending on the action that you have set in your ACP for what happens when someone is flagged as a spammer, then I'd suggest "managing" that list isn't a time critical activity, so probably doesn't need to be in your face every time you log in.

If I were resistant to change, I would (as many are) still be running 2.3.x. What I am resistant to is what has already been repeatedly stated in this thread by myself and others -

1) Making system administration a more onerous task than it needs to be: The job has been made more complicated rather than simplified and the fact that a few items appear on the home page is irrelevant. The same argument applies - it is information that has to be actively looked for instead of being readily to hand.

2) Making the Dashboard little more than an advertising platform: Despite the denials this is now its primary function. I would like to think this is an unintentional side effect of the redesign, but that is the way it is. Placing the IPS adverts information at the bottom of the page and actively useful information (e.g. stats block!) at the top would make for a more pleasant ACP experience. I for one object to paying ongoing subscriptions only to be faced with a block of adverts information every time I log in.

As an aside and perhaps just to add fuel to the fire, the only information on the Dashboard that I have found to be entirely useless is "Latest Admin Logins". ;)

I rather do love how amajority of people are stating how huge of an "inconvenience" this is, living in a world where 2-3 extra clicks is a terrible thing indeed

I've have just notice if you click on the "Support tab" in your ACP the "System Statistics" has move there i did not even know that to exploring the ACP just now,and to tell truth it's not to hard to find just with a one click :)

[size=2]I rather do love how amajority of people are stating how huge of an "inconvenience" this is, living in a world where 2-3 extra clicks is a terrible thing indeed[/size]

It is indeed terrible, because it is unnecessary! Imagine if every single application that you use had just "2-3 extra clicks" <_<

I've have just notice if you click on the "Support tab" in your ACP the "System Statistics" has move there i did not even know that to exploring the ACP just now,and to tell truth it's not to hard to find just with a one click :)

No, it's not hard to find. I repeat however that it is unnecessary! >_<


If fact, you have both missed the more pertinent issue - The entry point to the ACP which is the appropriately named Dashboard area, should as in the car analogy made by Painted Horse, give an instant overview of the state of the community. With the advent of 3.1.2, it no longer does so.

[size=2]I rather do love how amajority of people are stating how huge of an "inconvenience" this is, living in a world where 2-3 extra clicks is a terrible thing indeed[/size]

Maybe if you have only one site to admin, just only 3 clicks is not a tragedy. But you have multple sites let's do calculation for those clicks. I agree with Hunting insects, IT'S UNNECESSARY!! We need to see really BASIC INFO in the first main window. Lot of times, with this first visit i have enough basic info and I don't need to lose more time clicking in another settings. I usually have opened about 30 tabs in firefox, think about clicking 3 times in each window... 90 clicks with about 1,5- 2 seconds per click is about 2-3 minutes. Time is money, and if if lose time i'm losing money as well

I've have just notice if you click on the "Support tab" in your ACP the "System Statistics" has move there i did not even know that to exploring the ACP just now,and to tell truth it's not to hard to find just with a one click :)

I repeat again, things work very well in the past, this new setting is a stepback, not necessary, and, sorry for this, but it's stupid to change something that's working. Again, there are people like me that we need to control lot of things in our browser, so the basic information in main control windows is essential. ?

I don't understand why we are try to move to fast servers, to improve database access, install php extensions for faster file acces and then, for a caprice of a programmer, we have to lose again time to see things we use to have in the past at the first sight.

NO GUYS, YOU'RE WRONG, WE WANT BASIC INFORMATION AND SHORTCUTS IN DASHBOARDS, TO HAVE IT AT FIRST SIGHT. THIS IS A STEPBACK IN YOUR DEVELOPMENT

I don't want to use search box if I can click in the first window. I don't want to click in a few tabs to see basics if I can see these basics in the very first window without having to do anything more. I have more things to do and sites to admin, so I need my info fast and accesible. Again, Is it so difficult to understand?

Sorry for my poor english.

Regards

heh.. No, I just run 15 sites with multiple platforms and work as Network Engineer that controls 9 data centers...

3 clicks = turrible!

I can see where you guys are coming from, perhaps the information shouldn't have been removed, but it's not like it's been totally removed from the ACP.

How I'm seeing it though, is that you saw the blog entries about it being changed, and then chose to upgrade to 3.1.2 anyway. If it really was that much of a dealbreaker (which, honestly, 3 more clicks isn't) then why did you upgrade? - you're not forced to. The way you're acting you'd think they'd removed the forums application from the forums or something

I can see where you guys are coming from, perhaps the information shouldn't have been removed, but it's not like it's been totally removed from the ACP.

How I'm seeing it though, is that you saw the blog entries about it being changed, and then chose to upgrade to 3.1.2 anyway. If it really was that much of a dealbreaker (which, honestly, 3 more clicks isn't) then why did you upgrade? - you're not forced to. The way you're acting you'd think they'd removed the forums application from the forums or something

I didn't know this new 'unfeature', if I did know, I perhaps never updated

How I'm seeing it though, is that you saw the blog entries about it being changed, and then chose to upgrade to 3.1.2 anyway. If it really was that much of a dealbreaker (which, honestly, 3 more clicks isn't) then why did you upgrade? - you're not forced to. The way you're acting you'd think they'd removed the forums application from the forums or something

You're are missing the point and upgrades are for various reasons a requirement (no point in maintaining a subscription otherwise. :rolleyes: ) and so the argument is spurious.