Here's a study in contrasts that illustrates my point about what I call "vertical efficiency." First, the old forum:
Now, the new forum:
The old forum shows eleven threads in one window; the new, five and a half. And this latter is with a thinner heading. The reasons for the difference are:
Font size: the new forum uses a slightly larger font.
Space between threads: the new forum sets off threads with boxes, separated by a space, rather than by a thin line.
New posts indicator: the new forum always indicates unread posts on a separate line, rather than by boldfacing and shading the background.
In short, the new forum wastes a lot of vertical space that could better be used by presenting more threads in one eyeshot without scrolling.
However, I will say that things are improving:
There's now a visible link for Mark All Viewed -- thanks!
The Categories column is back on the left where it belongs.
The Parallax logo background is now white instead of blue, so you can actually see the X now. But it's beyond me why the X has to be a different color. All white letters on the dark blue background would be a much better rendering.
I think the color scheme of the old forum was more inviting without being garish. A little more color in the new forum would be more visually appealing.
And what about the search functions? We were using an embedded Google function, except it seemed to favor a different means versus by date. Why not a more generalized search method?
I don't know if this issue was already reported before. It looks like that the discussion overview don't show avatar and time stamps on Firefox 78.5.0. The same on Safari works fine.
In a discussion thread avatar and time stamps is shown on Firefox. But the editor get stuck after some letters typed in. This is quite annoying and not usable. Also the editor is eating much CPU time using with Firefox. After two lines of comment Firefox was not responding and I must have to kill it.
Wuerfel_21's adjustment above is better for sure, but I would go a smidge more on that, Especially when you click one of the more discussions links to see a page of just one categories threads.
Firefox 3.6.28 does not work at all now. All pages are blank. 10-year old browser, but it worked until the end of last week. I had FF set as a mobile device, spoofing iPhone OS 9.3.5.
Any solution? If not, that's the end of the road for the Parallax forum on Win98SE - pity.
EDIT:
Really dislike the new look, which I think will impact productivity in a negative way.
Something wonky with posting. Part of text from earlier post showed up instead of new text. May be related to forum update message popping up while typing comment.
I mean that's a pretty good run. I assume most other sites stopped working a long time ago :)
Relatedly: One of those thoughts that crosses my mind every odd solstice is to write a command-line frontend to the forum, such that you could telnet into it from a Propeller with an ESP or wiznet attached. Although hooking that up with the new rich text input might be tricky.
There is a number one rule for a developer/user: DON'T TOUCH A RUNNING SYSTEM!
After reading all these issues with the new forum app, I wondering why there was this switch? There's only one reason which I would accept and that is for security. But I don't think this was the case as the app is not working smooth and at many parts not as expected. (I feel the editor is also slow with Safari after some lines of comment. And that's not much. NOT USABLE!)
And it looks like that the new forum app was not tested before the switch. I thought Parallax would have other important tasks than changing the forum app.
In my prior post, I was hoping for the images to render much larger. But when I clicked Insert Image on the uploaded thumbnail, nothing happened. So I right-clicked on it and selected Copy Link, which I then pasted into the text. But all I got was the thumbnail.
One other thing that leads to vertical space inefficiency is that the avatars are displayed much larger than in the old forum. I can think of no good reason for this.
Yes- Security and well beyond end-of-life status, both for the forum version and other underlying software, such as the OS, PHP, etc.. etc.. The usual stuff, which when you change one starts a ripple of necessity to update everything. Time was of the essence, forced by some other network software that demanded version updates by a short deadline. The old system could not stay operating beyond Jan 30.
People will always have different opinions about the themes and styles. Some prefer large fonts, some white background with dark fonts, others may like small fonts with more crammed in, or dark themes with white fonts.
The main thing is that we now have a modern stable platform which can be kept updated. I'm happy to look to include any css scripts that anyone wishes to share. And we will be updating to the Vanilla v4 once it's released (maybe another month), in which the editor will improve.
I hope everyone understands that we can't be supporting multiple and old browser versions though (unless someone wants to present tested CSS code). We have what we have, and yes, we will seek to make it better, and yes we are listening to all ideas and hope to include those that fit.
There will be a few little tweaks tomorrow that are left on the prior list, and then the next update will be with the v4 Vanilla release.
Here's another thing that reduces blank space on the category pages: It makes the small links to the thread pages inline. Not quite as nice, but this is how it was in the old design and I don't think it bothered anyone there. Ideally, it could be inline but also aligned to the right, but I can't get that to work.
How do I properly enable the editor? Their site insists that to do so, I should go to my profile and look for that there. It is not. And regarding Markdown, I confess I am more familiar with HTML/SGML markup expressions than Markdown as it is used on GitHub for example.
I just want to say, "Thank you!" for listening to our complaints/concerns/suggestions and acting upon them quickly. When I saw the first iteration, I thought, "Oh, no! It's August, 2015, all over again!" That was not a pretty picture, and I'm afraid my initial comments reflected some of the latent bitterness that that transition engendered. By contrast, your response has been heartening and sensitive to the Forum's users, and I appreciate it very much.
This may have been mentioned already, but I can see no profile pics. I’m using edge on iOS. Also I am typing and watching letters appear at less than one letter per second. Seems to be lagging my phone hard only when typing a post.
Something like that might happen only on phone browsers. As for posting to a forum via those browsers, I can attest that it does happen, just not to this one, for something I'd asked about on the Adafruit fora, and got an interesting response.
Ideally I'm still not thrilled with how this editor works, and it'll take me a lot longer then usual to get used to it. As for comparing it to what happened, then, Phil I agree. Now? Just an ordinary update.
The editor is totally unusable. I feel like time-travelling 30 years back when I sat at the university in front of one of the VT100 terminals and all of them shared a single 4800bd modem line to a VAX in the next building. It is so slow I have to wait 10 or even 20 seconds until a character I typed finally appears on the screen.
Firefox complains about the website slowing the system down and it asks me to close it.
Comments
Can't you just disable the file extension whitelist entirely?
Here's a study in contrasts that illustrates my point about what I call "vertical efficiency." First, the old forum:
Now, the new forum:
The old forum shows eleven threads in one window; the new, five and a half. And this latter is with a thinner heading. The reasons for the difference are:
In short, the new forum wastes a lot of vertical space that could better be used by presenting more threads in one eyeshot without scrolling.
However, I will say that things are improving:
I think the color scheme of the old forum was more inviting without being garish. A little more color in the new forum would be more visually appealing.
-Phil
Hello!
And what about the search functions? We were using an embedded Google function, except it seemed to favor a different means versus by date. Why not a more generalized search method?
---
Mascot asleep.
Yeah, loads of padding/margin everywhere. Here's the front page before/after applying this CSS (also affects the category pages to a similar extent):
.DataTable tbody { border-spacing: 0 6px; margin: 0; } .DataList .Item, .DataTable .Item td { padding: 7px; margin-bottom: 8px; } .DataList .Item .Title { margin-bottom: 0px !important; }I don't know if this issue was already reported before. It looks like that the discussion overview don't show avatar and time stamps on Firefox 78.5.0. The same on Safari works fine.
In a discussion thread avatar and time stamps is shown on Firefox. But the editor get stuck after some letters typed in. This is quite annoying and not usable. Also the editor is eating much CPU time using with Firefox. After two lines of comment Firefox was not responding and I must have to kill it.
Hence, this was written on Safari with no issue.
And here's some more to fade out read threads:
.Item.Read { opacity: 0.6 !important; } .Item.Read .Title { color: #6787AF !important; }Agree with everything Phil stated.
Wuerfel_21's adjustment above is better for sure, but I would go a smidge more on that, Especially when you click one of the more discussions links to see a page of just one categories threads.
Firefox 3.6.28 does not work at all now. All pages are blank. 10-year old browser, but it worked until the end of last week. I had FF set as a mobile device, spoofing iPhone OS 9.3.5.
Any solution? If not, that's the end of the road for the Parallax forum on Win98SE - pity.
EDIT:
Really dislike the new look, which I think will impact productivity in a negative way.
Something wonky with posting. Part of text from earlier post showed up instead of new text. May be related to forum update message popping up while typing comment.
I mean that's a pretty good run. I assume most other sites stopped working a long time ago :)
Relatedly: One of those thoughts that crosses my mind every odd solstice is to write a command-line frontend to the forum, such that you could telnet into it from a Propeller with an ESP or wiznet attached. Although hooking that up with the new rich text input might be tricky.
(Junk post so I can see what gets sent over the wire when I post, out of interest related to the above)
EDIT: seems to be not that bad, for plaintext at least.
There is a number one rule for a developer/user: DON'T TOUCH A RUNNING SYSTEM!
After reading all these issues with the new forum app, I wondering why there was this switch? There's only one reason which I would accept and that is for security. But I don't think this was the case as the app is not working smooth and at many parts not as expected. (I feel the editor is also slow with Safari after some lines of comment. And that's not much. NOT USABLE!)
And it looks like that the new forum app was not tested before the switch. I thought Parallax would have other important tasks than changing the forum app.
In my prior post, I was hoping for the images to render much larger. But when I clicked Insert Image on the uploaded thumbnail, nothing happened. So I right-clicked on it and selected Copy Link, which I then pasted into the text. But all I got was the thumbnail.
-Phil
One other thing that leads to vertical space inefficiency is that the avatars are displayed much larger than in the old forum. I can think of no good reason for this.
-Phil
Here's some more front page condensing code
.CategoryBox+.CategoryBox { margin-top: 0px; } .MorePager { margin-top: 0px; } .DataList { margin-bottom: 8px; } .CategoryBox .H { margin-bottom: 0px; }Yes- Security and well beyond end-of-life status, both for the forum version and other underlying software, such as the OS, PHP, etc.. etc.. The usual stuff, which when you change one starts a ripple of necessity to update everything. Time was of the essence, forced by some other network software that demanded version updates by a short deadline. The old system could not stay operating beyond Jan 30.
People will always have different opinions about the themes and styles. Some prefer large fonts, some white background with dark fonts, others may like small fonts with more crammed in, or dark themes with white fonts.
The main thing is that we now have a modern stable platform which can be kept updated. I'm happy to look to include any css scripts that anyone wishes to share. And we will be updating to the Vanilla v4 once it's released (maybe another month), in which the editor will improve.
I hope everyone understands that we can't be supporting multiple and old browser versions though (unless someone wants to present tested CSS code). We have what we have, and yes, we will seek to make it better, and yes we are listening to all ideas and hope to include those that fit.
There will be a few little tweaks tomorrow that are left on the prior list, and then the next update will be with the v4 Vanilla release.
Here's another thing that reduces blank space on the category pages: It makes the small links to the thread pages inline. Not quite as nice, but this is how it was in the old design and I don't think it bothered anyone there. Ideally, it could be inline but also aligned to the right, but I can't get that to work.
.DataTable .Title.Title { display: inline; } .DataTable.DiscussionsTable.DiscussionsTable .MiniPager { display: inline; }Okay now a for real bug:
How do I properly enable the editor? Their site insists that to do so, I should go to my profile and look for that there. It is not. And regarding Markdown, I confess I am more familiar with HTML/SGML markup expressions than Markdown as it is used on GitHub for example.
----
Mascot away.
Is there a point & click way to get to the Parallax Store?
How do you start & end a multi line code block?
How do you enter a web link?
Can I change double spacing to single space?
Thanks
Tom
Is the forum posts timestamping based on a 12 or 24 hour clock?
Both at my PC (W8.1, Firefox 84.0.2) and Android (Samsung Internet Browser) it appears to be 12-hour-based, but lacking the am/pm differentiator.
Can't be happening only with me...
Good catch, happens for me, too.
VonSzarvas:
I just want to say, "Thank you!" for listening to our complaints/concerns/suggestions and acting upon them quickly. When I saw the first iteration, I thought, "Oh, no! It's August, 2015, all over again!" That was not a pretty picture, and I'm afraid my initial comments reflected some of the latent bitterness that that transition engendered. By contrast, your response has been heartening and sensitive to the Forum's users, and I appreciate it very much.
-Phil
Well said @Phil Pilgrim (PhiPi) ! Ditto from me too @VonSzarvas!
This may have been mentioned already, but I can see no profile pics. I’m using edge on iOS. Also I am typing and watching letters appear at less than one letter per second. Seems to be lagging my phone hard only when typing a post.
Hello!
Something like that might happen only on phone browsers. As for posting to a forum via those browsers, I can attest that it does happen, just not to this one, for something I'd asked about on the Adafruit fora, and got an interesting response.
Ideally I'm still not thrilled with how this editor works, and it'll take me a lot longer then usual to get used to it. As for comparing it to what happened, then, Phil I agree. Now? Just an ordinary update.
----
Mascot away.
I use mobile a lot and am not getting lag. Android 9, Chrome, Firefox latest.
Edit: Some minor league lag, 150 to 300ms ish ? Sometimes on Firefox.
Nothing I would be seriously bothered by. Quora can be worse.
The editor is totally unusable. I feel like time-travelling 30 years back when I sat at the university in front of one of the VT100 terminals and all of them shared a single 4800bd modem line to a VAX in the next building. It is so slow I have to wait 10 or even 20 seconds until a character I typed finally appears on the screen.
Firefox complains about the website slowing the system down and it asks me to close it.
IMHO the editor for posting comments just took a major leap back into the 90's :(
Where did the editing boxes go? The bold, italic, strikethru, add a link, etc?
Thanks for working thru this @VonSzarvas . I know it's probably not easy, and the 5yo one we've been putting up with has always been broken.
BTW just noticed while typing it went on a holiday for many seconds.
I'm about to fix the "holiday", plus the items on the list on the previous page. Just warming the coffee and preparing for fun !
@VonSzarvas
Just so you’re aware, those delays occurred in my last post, so this wasn’t a big post problem.
Probably also related, it’s taking many seconds to load the first forum page from clicking the link. Same applies when going back in the browser.
Doesn’t matter which browser, Chrome W10, Safari iPad and iPhone.
Looks to me like a hosting problem.