[Admin]

We are excited to announce that we are live on our new forum platform!

It’s been a long time coming. Let’s face it. Sometimes older forum technology lags behind other parts of the internet. Although seeing the same format for a long time is comforting, the member experience shouldn’t include dealing with outdated, unsafe, slow software.

The transition to a new platform will never be 100% smooth but the days of dealing with out of date forum software are over. We have teams dedicated to building a world-class community for you. The development has been steady with regular software releases since May 2019. Asking members for feedback and coming up with ideas for improvement is what we want.

Speed and Reliability Are Key
No one should have to wait for information. This site has been built to be much faster and more reliable, period.

New Homepage Experience
Our algorithm will serve a personal customized feed based on your prior engagement with content on the site. If you’ve liked and or commented, or are following certain topics that are of interest to you, similar content will appear at the top of the homepage.

Search
We have introduced new search algorithms, powered by an industry-leading AI platform, to help you find information faster. We plan to roll out new features to continue improving search, and to power many additional areas of the forum.

Due to the volume of content, our search platform may take some time to complete indexing over the first few days after migrating. During this process, you may see a limited number of posts until indexing has been completed. We appreciate your patience.

Finding Your Way Around
We have made the design clean and simple to use. Near the upper right-hand corner of the community, you will see navigation icons.

The first icon is for what’s new on the site.

Clicking on it, by default, will take you to new unread posts. On that page, you can click on additional tabs as well, such as Popular, if you prefer to view active topics.

Clicking the list icon next to “NEW” will bring you to the full forum listing.

Clicking your avatar will give you a drop-down menu for all things related to your account.

You can also navigate more by clicking the 3 vertical dots.

Dark Mode
We have introduced Dark Mode. One of our favorite features allows you to access the site with a power-saving, and easier on the eyes dark mode. You can access it in the drop-down menu under the 3 vertical dots.

Save Bookmarks
Now you can save your favorite discussion threads and posts! Bookmarks are a handy way to remember and easily find great content or stuff you want to read later.

We also wanted to make it easier for new users to understand the lingo of forums. We have cleaned up various language to more commonly recognized phrases including:

• Following - Thread subscriptions, and Watched are now known as Following
• Conversations - Private Messages or PMs are now conversations and can be accessed from the user avatar drop-down in the main navigation
• Showcase - Showcase is designed for users to "showcase" items/projects through the use of uploaded images, text descriptions and custom content categories. It’s a way to visually and textually provide detailed information on the content you wish to share. The showcase would be similar to a catalog, whereas the gallery would be like a photo album. It can be accessed from the drop-down menu with the 3 dots.

Take a tour and look around! Check out the Help section for some quick FAQs about the new platform.

Please keep all feedback, questions, concerns, requests for help, etc. regarding the new platform right here in this Feedback thread. This will help us make sure not to miss a request for help and also let us pass along your thoughts to our Product team. The Admins and I will be here to help along the way taking note of your comments.

- Community Management Team

 

[Admin]

I will be here during your transition to the new platform, to help with any questions, help with navigation or how to do things, and to listen to your feedback so please don't hesitate to holler at me. I want to help. You can also check out our FAQs.

I do want to take a moment to introduce myself. My name is Cricket. When I was born, my father told his friends I was the ugliest baby he had ever seen, and that I sounded just like a cricket (I was born with the hiccups.) so yes, I have been Cricket for a very long time now. I live just outside of San Antonio, Texas. I spend most of my free time out in nature and exploring the back roads. During late autumn when it starts to finally cool down, I disappear from the world for a bit for camping trips and hiking.

Please don't be afraid to explore and test out things to see how they work on the site.

Although you can certainly use the "insert image" icon to upload an image to your post, you can also just drag and drop it to the text editor or even copy/paste it into there!

You can easily share videos just by adding the URL directly into the text editor!

Gif links from sites like giphy.com will display automatically just by adding the gif URL directly in the text editor. Try it!

I am a huge fan of the dark mode for the community. What is your favorite feature?

The new forum software is still a work in progress.

We will be seeing regular updates which are largely fueled by community feedback. While that doesn't mean we can action every request, it does mean we will be actively listening to the feedback and sharing it with the developers. We do ask that you keep any questions, thoughts or feedback about the new forum software here in the Community Feedback thread to help us keep all the information together so we don't miss anything.

There is still some work going on behind the scene so you may notice some changes as we work.

• It can take 24-48 hours for the site to finish indexing so it may take a bit for search results to return proper results, including showing all your threads/posts under your profile.
• We will continue to clean up the order of the sections on the full forum listings page so you might see some stuff move around.
• We are reviewing permissions and special permission sections so let us know if you notice any issues so we can look into them.

I have worked with our community support team for 7 years. I have worked with forums for closer to two decades. I won't always know the answers to your questions, but I can find someone who does, as needed.

- Cricket

 

[Matt1981CJ7]

Are we really going to have to click on every pic attachment to see it in a reasonable size?

Edit: Never mind. The first thread I clicked on was showing pics in thumbnail size, but the others are showing full sized pics, thankfully.

 

[acabtp]

is there any way to go back to the old format? did the forum get sold?
the new format is much harder to scan through the topic lists, super busy and visually cluttered

 

[Admin]

is there any way to go back to the old format? did the forum get sold?

The community has not been sold.

We announced the upcoming changes (November 8th) in the following thread.

ANNOUNCEMENT: New Forum Software Coming to jeepforum.com

Dear Community Members, Over the past year or two, there have been updates to the environment that have introduced challenges in usability and performance. Efforts to improve the technology, user interface, and the site performance have revealed weaknesses in the platform and outdated software...

www.jeepforum.com

It may take a bit to get used to the changes, but give it some time.

- Cricket

 

[acabtp]

the new URL structure is terrible. please go back to the old URL format.
in the old format URLs for threads in the WK/XK forum for example used to begin with jeepforum.com/forums/f67/
this allowed searching through the forum with google by including "site:jeepforum.com/forums/f67" and what one was looking for. with the new URL format that is no longer possible. no forum software's built in search will ever be as good as google's is because of the ridiculous "you must wait XX seconds" before another search and no search terms shorter than 3 characters, etc

this upgrade is a huge step backwards in functionality

 

[mark1305]

I can't stand the look of this format and can't find any alternatives to change to. Also all threads start from the beginning when you click on them. And none show activity more recent than two days.

This may spell the end of my participation.

 

[Admin]

the new URL structure is terrible. please go back to the old URL format.
in the old format URLs for threads in the WK/XK forum for example used to begin with jeepforum.com/forums/f67/
this allowed searching through the forum with google by including "site:jeepforum.com/forums/f67" and what one was looking for. with the new URL format that is no longer possible. no forum software's built in search will ever be as good as google's is because of the ridiculous "you must wait XX seconds" before another search and no search terms shorter than 3 characters, etc

this upgrade is a huge step backwards in functionality

It will take a few days for search to work properly while everything is indexed properly.

How To Search The Site

Near the top of the community, you will see a search bar.

Enter a search term or phrase and click enter on your keyboard or click the magnifying glass.

Advanced Search

To narrow down search results, click on “Advanced Search” after clicking the search bar.

This will allow you to choose to search titles only, add the member username who posted it or even select a specific forum to search from.

Enter your search criteria and click “Search “ at the bottom.

You can also access advanced search by clicking the 3 vertical dots near the upper right-hand corner of the site and selecting “Advanced “Search”

Search Specific Forum

If you want to search a specific section, navigate to the forum section before entering your search term in the search bar and then select the option.

Search Specific Discussion Thread

If you want to search a specific discussion thread, navigate to it before entering your search term in the search bar and then select the option.

- Cricket

 

[Admin]

I can't stand the look of this format and can't find any alternatives to change to. Also all threads start from the beginning when you click on them. And none show activity more recent than two days.

This may spell the end of my participation.

It will take a bit for the software to learn where you left off within a thread. Once it does, clicking the title will take you to that point.

Navigating Thread Listing

• Clicking the thread title will take you to where you left off, the 1st unread post.
• Clicking the timestamp below the title will take you to the 1st post of the thread.
• Clicking the timestamp above the last poster user takes you to the last (newest) post.

- Cricket

 

[acabtp]

It will take a few days for search to work properly while everything is indexed properly.

How To Search The Site

Near the top of the community, you will see a search bar.

Enter a search term or phrase and click enter on your keyboard or click the magnifying glass.

Advanced Search

To narrow down search results, click on “Advanced Search” after clicking the search bar.

This will allow you to choose to search titles only, add the member username who posted it or even select a specific forum to search from.

Enter your search criteria and click “Search “ at the bottom.

You can also access advanced search by clicking the 3 vertical dots near the upper right-hand corner of the site and selecting “Advanced “Search”

Search Specific Forum

If you want to search a specific section, navigate to the forum section before entering your search term in the search bar and then select the option.

Search Specific Discussion Thread

If you want to search a specific discussion thread, navigate to it before entering your search term in the search bar and then select the option.

- Cricket

you ignored everything i said and instead of addressing the change in URL format posted a search tutorial

 

[mark1305]

If some changes aren't made to the on screen format I will have to give up this forum. I understand some changes will continue in the coming days/weeks but at this time I find the forum confusing and hard to navigate. The most notable example I've experienced is that I find no clear way or icon to go to the most recent post in a thread. I also noticed no activity shown in the YJ Tech forum for 2 days.

 

[ColdCase]

the new URL structure is terrible. please go back to the old URL format.
in the old format URLs for threads in the WK/XK forum for example used to begin with jeepforum.com/forums/f67/
this allowed searching through the forum with google by including "site:jeepforum.com/forums/f67" and what one was looking for. with the new URL format that is no longer possible. no forum software's built in search will ever be as good as google's is because of the ridiculous "you must wait XX seconds" before another search and no search terms shorter than 3 characters, etc

this upgrade is a huge step backwards in functionality

I dunno, but when I paste "site:jeepforum.com/forum/f309/steering" into the google search box I get back just about all the posts in the WK2 section (forum 309) about steering.

Same thing happens when I paste "https://www.jeepforum.com/forums/wk2-grand-cherokee-forum.309/steering"

Perhaps a temporary thing?

 

[Admin]

you ignored everything i said and instead of addressing the change in URL format posted a search tutorial

Unfortunately, the URL structure is not something I can control.

We will see regular updates that are largely fueled by community feedback. While that doesn't mean we can action every request, it does mean we are actively listening to the feedback and sharing it with the developers.

- Cricket

 

[ColdCase]

I also noticed no activity shown in the YJ Tech forum for 2 days.

The forum has been read only for 2 days, so there wouldn't have been any new posts unless very recent.

 

[Admin]

If some changes aren't made to the on screen format I will have to give up this forum. I understand some changes will continue in the coming days/weeks but at this time I find the forum confusing and hard to navigate. The most notable example I've experienced is that I find no clear way or icon to go to the most recent post in a thread. I also noticed no activity shown in the YJ Tech forum for 2 days.

The site has been down for migration since the day before yesterday, so there might have not been new posts.

It will take a bit for the software to learn where you left off within a thread. Once it does, clicking the title will take you to that point.

Navigating Thread Listing

• Clicking the thread title will take you to where you left off, the 1st unread post.
• Clicking the timestamp below the title will take you to the 1st post of the thread.
• Clicking the timestamp above the last poster user takes you to the last (newest) post.

- Cricket

 

[mark1305]

I have to give credit for the quick and timely posting of the new ways to open the first post, first unread post, or most recent post. A lot of the new stuff is not intuitive and will have to be laid out similarly.

 

[acabtp]

I dunno, but when I paste "site:jeepforum.com/forum/f309/steering" into the google search box I get back just about all the posts in the WK2 section (forum 309) about steering.

Same thing happens when I paste "https://www.jeepforum.com/forums/wk2-grand-cherokee-forum.309/steering"

Perhaps a temporary thing?

that will only work for posts made and indexed before the format change. everything after that will just be all lumped together.

 

[ColdCase]

... Also all threads start from the beginning when you click on them. .

When I click on a thread, it takes me to the most recent post. Perhaps a recent change, or there is a control panel preference that needs updated.

Edit: When I first open a forum, everything is marked unread, so perhaps we need to mark the forum read first, and then there will only be new post and it will take you there?

 

[mark1305]

Still playing with the new style. Some of the threads now go to first unread post when I click the title, but some are still going to the beginning. I'll bear with it for awhile and see how it morphs into better functionality as indicated above.

Also, I found that Dark Mode is more eye friendly and brain friendly for some reason.

 

[Admin]

Also, I found that Dark Mode is more eye friendly and brain friendly for some reason.

I definitely prefer the dark mode.

- Cricket