It's almost impossible for me to use the site like I used to. I use either my phone or iPad I'm always using it when I'm on the go. Now it takes so long to find anything that I won't be using the site much at all. It involves too much scrolling and too many clicks to find things that were perfect before. It feels like someone took the only things I used and hid them so I would have to look at other stuff I am not interested in. Basically, the entire site is ruined for me.

Hi Clint,

Have you tried customising your home page so that everything you want to access is available through one or two clicks (or taps)? You can also add custom shortcut links to the top navigation bar. The change does take some getting used to, but please give it a chance. Dave is very responsive and I'm sure will be able to fix any bugs that you may come across on your iPhone/iPad.

I will have to try that on my other computer. That feature doesn't work on my iPad. You can't move anything with the touch screen.

Clint, that issue has been noted by other Ipad users -- if you have access to a computer you can customize your home screen to your own preferences. (I moved almost everything into the "available for use" box, made the "thread watcher" the most prominent thing, and have just a few other items showing on my home page.)

Clint,

Your not alone friend.

I'm in the same boat. I timed it.

It takes 90 seconds and sometimes more for this sight to load a new page.

I know it's not my internet because other sights are speedy fast. As much as I enjoy looking up plant info... it has become difficult to navigate at all.

Also I have to touch the "like" button several times before it responds. Maybe that is just slow also. It's faster for me to scan 5 other sights for the info I'm looking for than to wait for the next page to upload. Sometimes my cell actually shuts off and locks while I'm waiting.

When I finally get in I make 1 post and leave. After my expected plants arrive I think I'll just sit it out most of my days. 😕

It took me this long to even want to try to get into the site talk forums to see if others were struggling.

Customizing my page would be fun but I don't have 6 hours to do it...

6 hours because I have to wait a couple minutes for the sight to respond...



There was a few moments there that I actually wondered if someone didn't want me here and had initiated settings that would hinder my navigation. But I know now such a silly assumption is incorrect.

I figure eventually things will get sorted out so maybe I can return in the Spring.

It is kind of humorous. Just jokingly I say my plants will grow and be ready to have another photo posted by the time I get the first images in.

I was just looking at the site on my iPad. There is a huge photo of a pumpkin on top and a story about making them last longer. However, all I want to do is check the forums I read. They are way down at the bottom. It's almost like Gardenweb now. There is another article to the right about garlic. I don't even grow garlic or pumpkins. I only visit the forums about plants and flowers. The site seems to be about gardening for food now. I also see huge rows of photos on the first page that go way down. It makes you have to scroll even more. Can we delete all of that and just keep our forums when we customize? I work full time and am exhausted when I get home. This just adds more work for me to do.

This is such a sad shame.

clintbrown said:I was just looking at the site on my iPad. There is a huge photo of a pumpkin on top and a story about making them last longer. However, all I want to do is check the forums I read. They are way down at the bottom. It's almost like Gardenweb now. There is another article to the right about garlic. I don't even grow garlic or pumpkins. I only visit the forums about plants and flowers. The site seems to be about gardening for food now. I also see huge rows of photos on the first page that go way down. It makes you have to scroll even more. Can we delete all of that and just keep our forums when we customize? I work full time and am exhausted when I get home. This just adds more work for me to do.

Hi Clint,

You can indeed remove these when you customise the home page. From a laptop or desktop PC with a mouse, click on "Customise your homepage" at the bottom of the homepage. On the Customisation page, you can either clear everything (using the "Clear your dashboard and start over" link at the bottom of the page) and add just what you want, or just to start with, remove all the content in the first row ("Main Article" and "Announcements and News", I think) by dragging it from the row boxes into "Available for Use" box on the left.

Hope that helps.

I replied in your other thread.

Joshua, that Customize Home page link is now also in our profile settings/preferences.

@clintbrown - if you only visit the forums what you can do is bookmark the alphabetical forums list (click on the link below and then add to bookmarks). You do not even need to go to the home page, I've always gone straight to forums and not the home page:

http://garden.org/forums/

If you activate the bookmarks list in Safari then a bar will appear down the left side and you can easily switch back and forth between forums, threads, and the full list. Screen shot to show this below. This is on iPad Air. You can see I have a bookmark for "NGA Forums" on the left. This also pushes the forums away from the left margin which some of us prefer: If you do want to go to the home page for any reason you just select the little house at the top



SpringGreenThumb, I do not have fast internet but the site loads quickly for me so I'm not sure what is causing your problem.

While it is fine for me now on iPad, I do find the site harder to use on my iPod (iPhone without the phone) than it was before, so I'm working on customizing the home page on my laptop so that I just get the forums list (unfortunately not the alphabetical one which isn't available for that) so that I have less scrolling on the iPod. I now have the forums list at the top of my home page, just need to figure out how to remove most of the rest of the stuff so that I'm not using lots of data downloading pictures along with it.

Clint I customized your homepage for you, to try to make it a little closer to what you seem to want it to be.

I can't imagine why pages would be taking so long to load for SpringGreenThumb, who said "It takes 90 seconds and sometimes more for this sight to load a new page" ... they switch instantly for me, no different than they ever were. Would this be a browser issue? Maybe clearing the cache would help?

Weedwhacker said:I can't imagine why pages would be taking so long to load for SpringGreenThumb, who said "It takes 90 seconds and sometimes more for this sight to load a new page" ... they switch instantly for me, no different than they ever were. Would this be a browser issue? Maybe clearing the cache would help?

It worked great for me befor the new changes. I use the same browser, same cell, same everything and I closed everything unnecessary.

Here is proof. I have taken screen shots of myself coming to this thread. The clock time is in the photo...,

Going from one page to the next...
I sent messages the first day asking associates the first day of it was going at a snails pace for them and they said it was not.

(Which is why I started wondering if someone didn't want me here and messed with the settings. I'm certain that didn't happen.). Something is just not synchronized with my kind of device I believe.

Now I'm in preview in the first photo with the time on it. and the second photo time I have posted the above comment and I am ready to begin this one. I don't know why either.

It's a mystery to me.

dave said:It's a mystery to me.

Oh well... am I not the one guilty of claiming I was spending too much time?

Must be that God is exacting his judgement...

Now I have PLENTY of time for in depth thought and sanctifying my words BEFORE I post. :
Happy Gardening Dave.!🌺😉

dave said:It's a mystery to me.

Thanks! That's perfect!

I think I now can relate to your problem, Clint -- I almost always use my laptop for accessing NGA, but we also have an Android tablet (a Lenovo Ideatab) that my husband mostly has custody of, and I decided to bookmark some videos from the Learning Library that describe building of a PVC greenhouse so he could watch them. That was a definite no-go for me... got totally kicked out of the site a couple of times, and, in between that happening, things were just taking a painful amount of time to do anything.

Clint, what sort of device are you using?

I use my iPad or iPhone.