Comments on the New Forum Software

[johannhowitzer]

I'll try to say everything I can think of in this one post, to keep the mods' scrolling to a minimum. Why don't we all do the same?

First off, this new software is very familiar to me - though they use a different theme, Squaresound Forum uses the same software, so a lot of the features are the same. Despite that, I'm finding myself VERY lost.

Part of this, I realize, comes from being used to viewing YCF in a different way, but there are a lot of factors that contribute to the disorientation and hopefully can be changed.

+ The icons on the left, especially in the subforums, are not helpful in figuring out at-a-glance which threads have new posts. The old forum's icons were much more helpful... even Squaresound was easier to sort out in this regard, though they've since switched software as well. Icons at left should be simple and very different from each other. I am adapting to the new look, but some members may not do so as well.

+ The whole site seems too wide on the screen. There are no margins on either side, and on some pages, it's wide enough to warrant a horizontal scroll bar on my 1024x768 screen.

+ There appears to be no cap on avatar size. For one, user Adam_sts has uploaded a nearly full-screen avatar, and it displays at full-size, even in threads.

+ There is no immediately-tangible dividing line between stickies and regular threads. If the stickies have been read, this further complicates the problem of figuring out which threads contain new posts.

+ Just a minor inconvenience... for threads longer than three pages, "Last Page" simply appears, there's no indication of how long pagewise the thread actually is. Of course, the number of replies on the right does alleviate this a bit.

--------------

Now, for the positive differences I've noticed:

+ It is possible to view a summary of who's posted how many times in each thread, allowing more experienced users to avoid threads containing posters who irritate him/her, and to look for threads containing posts by his/her friends. I'd imagine there are other ways to do these things, too, and it isn't terribly useful, but it's still nifty.

+ Rather than subtitles, each thread now sports its creator's handle underneath. The subtitles were fun but not necessary; this allows us to see clearly who's responsible for creating each topic - it's especially helpful in the submissions threads. Also, it'll make it immediately clear when a member has flooded the forum with new threads!

+ The old smileys are still around!! I can't describe how happy this makes me. Of course, we do have different "post icons," but I must say, those good old YCF smileys are the best, most versatile set I've ever seen. Plus, changing the smileys with the software would mean changing the smileys in all the old posts, and thus possibly changing the meaning - perhaps dramatically in some cases.

...On that note, do any of you know how I might make this nice smiley-pack work with my AIM client program? I like the AIM smileys, but being able to use these with AIM would make me very happy.

Any of these problems that can be fixed should be, especially the width issue. When SSF used this software, they had margins that were quite substantial, but didn't make things feel crowded.

Compliments to the admins for making this software transition so smooth! There've been bumps in the road, sure, but they have been small and quickly resolved. Things could have been a lot worse, and thanks to your expertise, they weren't! Let's all hear it for our YCF ADMINS!!! *massive applause*

[Mike]

By the icons on the left, are you talking about the ones that denote whether or not a forum has unread posts in it? If so, I can probably improve them.

Will alter the margin in a sec.

The giant avatars are a side-effect of the conversion.

[johannhowitzer]

Yes, I did mean those icons. The ones we have now work, but they're hard on the eyes and distracting. Any icons would be an adjustment, but these are very poor.

The icons SSF used were:

+ For the main page icons, a graphic-equalizer "bars" readout thing. Read subforums were grey, unread were colorful.

+ For the topic lists, they used an envelope motif... however, the forum had a black background, a dark-grey interior look, and the envelopes were dark-blue. Thus, when an envelope was open, showing a letter inside to indicate an unread topic, the white of the letter really stood out.

+ For hot topics, there were three little red lines coming off the upper-left corner of the envelope.

+ I don't remember what they did for polls. I think maybe three uneven vertical bars.

[Mike]

Just so we're clear, you're talking about this:

and this:

Right?

[johannhowitzer]

Also these:

(and the other two I was kept from posting)

I like that the "poll" designation is separate, though.

The margins, though better, still feel very wide. Could this be made an option for users to edit for themselves, I wonder? From what I can tell, 3/4 inch to 1 inch margins should feel much more comfortable.

[Mike]

The old forum had zero margin and padding too. Have you felt like this for a while, or are you just using the conversion as an opportunity to air your concerns?

And yes, we could probably create a second skin with a different margin if it came to that.

I'll probably desaturate those icons a bit, they are quite bright.

[leightwing]

The giant avatars are a side-effect of the conversion.

Yeah, mine was about 10 times too big. The fix was to delete it and re-uploading it.

Many people might not want to, or be around to do this. For some of the very large ones, you might want to send their owners a PM notifying them that you will delete it after a certain number of days or something like that.

[johannhowitzer]

No, I didn't know the old forum had such wide margins. I'm just communicating how this update feels to me - take it or leave it, it just feels much wider. I think I just figured out why, though - instead of putting the poster info at the side, it's at the top, above each post! It'd go a long way toward fixing the feel if those mini-profiles were back at the left side where they used to be. :laugh: There, mystery solved! SSF had them at the left, so you should be able to make the change easily.

As for my avatar, I had no problems because the file I uploaded was one I'd manually resized to the requirements. :D

[Mike]

Yeah, mine was about 10 times too big. The fix was to delete it and re-uploading it.

Many people might not want to, or be around to do this. For some of the very large ones, you might want to send their owners a PM notifying them that you will delete it after a certain number of days or something like that.

Problem is, it might be fiddly to bring up a list of everyone who has an oversized avatar. I already dealt with one, I suspect most of the other mods will if/when they encounter them.

No, I didn't know the old forum had such wide margins. I'm just communicating how this update feels to me - take it or leave it, it just feels very wide.

It is wide, I agree. But the problem is that changing the margin will make the forum look out of place within the context of the rest of the site. So, it's either change the rest of the site to conform to the new margin, or find a fix for the zeroed-out margins that won't cause anyone browser problems. I guess in the end it's up to the other Michael (the owner), but I have to say, I probably agree with you, especially considering you've reported a horizontal scrollbar glitch.

Just about to update the post icons, by the way.

[Mike]

OK, status icon images updated. They're a bit easier on the eyes now.

What would you like to see done to the forum read/unread icons? Less purple? Less brightness?

[Guest JohnGalt]

OK, status icon images updated. They're a bit easier on the eyes now.

What would you like to see done to the forum read/unread icons? Less purple? Less brightness?

I find them to be nice right now.

Actually, I think I found an issue. The text cursor isn't showing up for me in these text boxes until after I click and type in them.

[Mike]

I was just addressing Jonathan, as he expressed dislike for them on the previous page and I'm curious as to specifically why.

[Guest JohnGalt]

Refresh and read what I added, I think I found an issue and just edited it into the post.

[Mike]

I assume you're using the rich text editor?

I believe what you described is a bug Firefox experiences with all rich text editors. For this reason, I'm now going to update everyone's account to use the standard editor if I can. You can of course change your own choice back to the RTE.

And after that, I'm going to bed, because my brain is totally fried right now and I can barely string words together. :laugh:

[Guest JohnGalt]

I assume you're using the rich text editor?

I believe what you described is a bug Firefox experiences with all rich text editors. For this reason, I'm now going to update everyone's account to use the standard editor if I can. You can of course change your own choice back to the RTE.

And after that, I'm going to bed, because my brain is totally fried right now and I can barely string words together. :laugh:

Actually, I use plenty of RTE's on various sites with Firefox. It just seems to be this site.

[Mike]

Really? I don't see how that can be. I haven't altered anything at all to do with the RTE. On those other sites, if any of them use vB, do they have that setting enabled where you have to click "Quick reply to this message" before the editor becomes active? Maybe that's the issue.

In any case, I'll look at this in more detail tomorrow, as I'm all burned out.

[Guest JohnGalt]

On those other sites, if any of them use vB, do they have that setting enabled where you have to click "Quick reply to this message" before the editor becomes active? Maybe that's the issue.

Actually, yes, they all do.

[johannhowitzer]

The main site's icons could stay the way they are, I see no real problem with them. As for the thread icons, they're much better, but the main problem that remains is that HOT topics stand out to me as UNREAD topics. The orangey color sets them apart a little too much, I think. Also, the purple arrow that indicates if you've posted in a topic is a bit distracting. The little white corner-piece from the old look was much more helpful there. EDIT: The white arrow that appears instead on hot, fresh topics is a bit better.

John, I see what you mentioned, and it happens to me too. Thing is, with the way the old site was set up, you had to click a button before the text box even became available, so I didn't even notice that you now have to click in the box to type, because I already do.

[Guest JohnGalt]

Avatar resizing really needs to be on.

The time limit on editing needs to be removed, or if it is intentional, reevaluated.

Will there be any support for private password-protected subforums in the future?

Also, will User Groups be implemented?

And the list of users browsing particular threads?

[CaltechViolist]

Ooh, I like the icon for infractions... I don't know if non-mods can see it, but it's a picture of a yellow and a red card. :)

[montpellier]

Ooh, I like the icon for infractions... I don't know if non-mods can see it, but it's a picture of a yellow and a red card. :)

Because of trouble returning last night almost all the icons have gone, not that it makes a lot of difference. It's partly to do with cache so they'll return eventually.

Otherwise the functions I use don't seem different except in fine detail.

I like the new hierarchy of moderators. Die Herrn Obermoderatungen...

[Mike]

John, just realised the behaviour you are describing of the text boxes not being in focus until they are clicked is intentional. Last night I misunderstood you and thought you meant that the cursor failed to blink when you selected the text box.

Anyway, onto the rest:

Avatar resizing really needs to be on.

It's already on, but it doesn't work retrospectively.

The time limit on editing needs to be removed, or if it is intentional, reevaluated.

Thought I turned this off when I completed the conversion yesterday, but I'll have another look.

Will there be any support for private password-protected subforums in the future?

Subforums for what?

Also, will User Groups be implemented?

You mean public joinable groups? Depends on whether or not we find a use for them.

Now back to Jonathan's edits he made to the original post:

+ There is no immediately-tangible dividing line between stickies and regular threads. If the stickies have been read, this further complicates the problem of figuring out which threads contain new posts.

Yeah, I agree with you here. I'll try to do something about it, even if it's only bolding the word "Sticky" for now.

+ Just a minor inconvenience... for threads longer than three pages, "Last Page" simply appears, there's no indication of how long pagewise the thread actually is. Of course, the number of replies on the right does alleviate this a bit.

I'll see what I can do, but this is probably going to be a fair bit more complex to implement than all the other suggestions.

Compliments to the admins for making this software transition so smooth! There've been bumps in the road, sure, but they have been small and quickly resolved. Things could have been a lot worse, and thanks to your expertise, they weren't! Let's all hear it for our YCF ADMINS!!! *massive applause*

Say thanks to me for doing the conversion, and thanks to the other Michael for digging deep into his pocket to bankroll it all in the first place. :) By the time we get the friendly forum URLs up and running (some time today possibly), what you see before you will be the product of somewhere in the region of $200-300 worth of spending, with yet more to come. In the realms of the internet, where everyone expects to be able to do everything for free, it's easy to forget that running a good website requires an owner willing to invest big time as well as human resources.

Coming next: the social networking software. I think Michael's going to do the brunt of the work for that though. :P

[Guest JohnGalt]

John, just realised the behaviour you are describing of the text boxes not being in focus until they are clicked is intentional. Last night I misunderstood you and thought you meant that the cursor failed to blink when you selected the text box.

No, you understood me correctly. Even after clicking, my cursor does not appear.

[Mike]

I see. Well, with the vBulletin licence, we also get priority support in their forums, so a little later I'll raise this with them and see what they say. It's only really a minor issue though.

[Mike]

OK, think I've worked out what happened with the avatars.

While the converter was converting the user tables, if it encountered a member with their avatar set as a URL as opposed to a previously uploaded file, it downloaded the avatar from that location and saved it onto the YC server without doing any image dimension checks or anything like that. In contrast, if you set an avatar from now on within vB, it'll obviously go through all the appropriate checks and be resized if necessary.

Any old avatars that weren't remotely linked didn't pose a problem size-wise as they had previously been uploaded within IPB, which obviously resizes avatars when necessary just like vB does.

EDIT: Nico, we're going to make efforts to improve useability over the next couple of days.