1. search is a tiny box taking up a whole area of screen space, can we move this to same line sas the 'show all' drop down box..perhaps just to the right with the seach box and search botton on the same line? Or something so its not taking up so much room.
2. can we make it so if you have no filter, thus showing all posts, that the filter area collapses into a single line?
In the new forum (the forum is in the middle of a rewrite), the search option is becoming a tab itself (like "Simple","Advanced", etc.
As for the auto-collapse option, that's interesting. I'll see what I can do about that. I think it would make sense to autocollapse after something like 3-5 seconds of non-use (no mouse hover).
When the new version is reasonably done, I'll put up a beta version (instead of instantly replacing the old forum), with a link to "Try the Beta Version".