Forum Changes Incoming

Meta
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Just an FYI for folks - the upstream Discourse team is making some changes to navigation.

They will be removing the legacy “hamburger” navigation button (usually on the top right if you’re viewing this on a desktop):

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We will have the option of using a new “Header Dropdown”:
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Or the newer “Sidebar”:

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I haven’t decided which to use just yet, although I’m leaning towards the new “Header Dropdown”.
I just wanted to give everyone a heads up that some changes will be coming so it doesn’t surprise anyone. :smiley:

I hope everyone has had a wonderful New Year so far!

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Happy New Year Pat!
I vote for the Header Dropdown - I feel like the sidebar would change the feel of the site, visually, and there doesn’t seem any need for it. Just my 2c. :slight_smile:

I notice there’s a couple of visual changes this morning, and I seem to have a flurry of (I think) past notifications. I presume there was some sort of update.
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Thanks for the heads up, Pat. A couple of questions:

  • Do you know of any existing sites using either of these new options?
  • Are the same changes coming for mobile?
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The mobile site is the same. You can see the new hamburger menu thingy already

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Yep! The meta site for upstream discourse uses the sidebar right now:

(Note that the sidebar is collapsible using the hamburger menu at the top).

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Happy New Year! Does it have to be one or the other? Is there an option for the user to select which one they like after logging in? Personally, I prefer dropdown.

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Thanks for the link. What I am seeing there is:

  • The “legacy hamburger navigation menu” is gone.
  • There is a new “non-legacy hamburger navigation menu” on the left side, which serves only as a toggle for the left sidebar navigation menu.
  • Most of the stuff, other than categories, that you could access via the old hamburger menu, are now in a “more…” item in the new sidebar.

This is covered in the page linked in the OP, but it’s kinda lost in a debate about whether the hamburger menu should be called a hamburger menu. Getting hungry here now.

This post shows the dropdown menu option. I don’t know whether this represents the current design, since the post is over 1.5 years old.

Personally, I see these new options to be change for the sake of change. After users acclimate to the new locations of items, the usability will be about the same as the present design.

My eyes plead for this site to not do the upgrade until there is a dark theme for the new design.

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I’m not here often enough (yet) to care but I wish people kept phone UX/GUI/ETC stuff to phones and exploited the extra real estate on desktops for nicer nav/layout/features that don’t get hidden and require extra actions/clicks lol

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