Comments (constructive) on the New Forum Software

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

I’ve only just noticed this ‘undocumented feature’

There is an empty “Reply To” pane at the bottom of every page of Posts

… is that intentional ?

[ I am posting this at the bottom of page 13 of 15 ]

MichaelG.

[Peter GreeneParticipant @petergreene36336]

I think it’s just filled in (or out) when you hit the quote button isn’t it? I couldn’t actually insert anything in the “Reply To:” space.

[Peter Greene]

On Peter Greene Said:

I think it’s just filled in (or out) when you hit the quote button isn’t it? I couldn’t actually insert anything in the “Reply To:” space.

That’s interesting … I could, and did.

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Here’s another one, Peter

Written at the bottom of page 14

… but presumably appearing on page 15

MichaelG.

[File HandleParticipant @filehandle]

I am concerned that the main content of the site is now discussion of the new site.
This might be because I am not seeing them now as other than the few that make it to the top of the tend to be about the issues with the site and navigating topics to see if there is anything of interest is a real bind, such that many are not doing it.
It would be a shame if this site disappears.
On a positive side it does appear quicker now, but still room for improvement. Without the list as per the old site I fear that it might very well become so under used that it disappears. It is much less of an enjoyable experience cf the old site.

[Peter GreeneParticipant @petergreene36336]

Sorry Michael, I got myself confused there.

There always was an empty reply pane after the posts on the old site, but I’m not sure it was on every intermediate page (as now)? or just the last page. Was that your point?

Sorry if I seem a bit thick – one (actually several) of those days.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Edit, seems to be working OK here; so feel free to ignore.
Something different occurred when I replied to Tug in his own thread.

Another one for site developers, though it shouldn’t really affect normal members much, unless it applies to hyperlinks other than user names.
I’ve just replied to Tug in a different thread about his user name, amongst other things, and have come across what may be an hyperlink conversion bug when editing a post.

Problems ?

I’ll type my user name, in this initial edit of this post, as well as one which I don’t think exists on the old forum, to see if the software creates one or two hyperlinks automatically.

My real new user name is @peak4 I don’t think peak5 @peak5 existed on the old forum.
I believe that if the forum works correctly, only the former should translate and point to a valid user profile.

—————————————————————————————————–
Everything below the line is now an edit;

@peak4

@peak5

Problems ?

—————————————————————————————————–
Edit 2; it looks like it actually worked OK here, and different to in my original reply to Tug.
I couldn’t make @peak4 into a hyperlink after editing that post, though it worked in the original part.
Oddly, when I now go back and read my reply to Tug in the original post, my hyperlink now shows, so maybe at took a while and a screen refresh to show up; Tug’s however only shows in the second instance, but not the first.

A “Preview Post” button would be really useful for when composing and reviewing a new post.

Bill

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

You will find that Profile shows notifications when anyone uses @peak4 or whoever you are.

I think that is the only place it will show for normal members so unlike Pms you have to go looking or can get email notifications

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

You will find that Profile shows notifications when anyone uses @peak4 or whoever you are.

I think that is the only place it will show for normal members so unlike Pms you have to go looking or can get email notifications

Cheers, but that wasn’t what quite I was getting at, though perhaps I didn’t explain it well, as I was trying to test whilst typing and editing. It wasn’t about notifications.

When you type a full username into a post, incliding the “AT” sign, the forum software converts it to a hyperlink shortcut to the relevant user’s profile page.
I’m typing the following as plain text, not generating the hyperlink deliberately myself @peak4   @peak5

I’ve no idea how that works if you view or write a page with Admin access.

In the case of my reply to Tug, in the screenshot below, I typed his user name in the blue circle in my original reply to him, which you can see is a hyperlink to his profile page (as well as a possible spurious link to ~~~~~1.)
The red circle contains the same text, but added during an edit, which didn’t convert.

Not trying to add to anyone’s workload, and certainly not yours, but the change of displayed results from two similar actions seemed odd.

Bill

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

It’s something that must only got switched on today as the options about what email notifications only got added too. 1st I knew of it was a load of email notifications. so not had a chance to delve into it.

One for the admins to explain as they said they would come onto the site Thursday to answer questions, that’s last Thursday not coming.

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

It’s something that must only got switched on today as the options about what email notifications only got added too. 1st I knew of it was a load of email notifications. so not had a chance to delve into it.

One for the admins to explain as they said they would come onto the site Thursday to answer questions, that’s last Thursday not coming.

This isn’t about notifications, though typing a member’s Username into a post might generate a notification for that user, depending upon their settings.
It’s about when you type the Username, including the “AT” sign, into a post;  the forum’s software converts the final displayed text into a hyperlink to that users profile.
This only shows after submitting the post, and isn’t obvious when the writer is composing or editing a post.
I think the hyperlink auto-convert facility has been around for some time, but folks have only noticed when they started getting notifications, since the default it ON.

This is why I suggested you and neil clicking on my user name, within this post, @peak4 to illustrate how it takes you to my personal details, along with searchable info on threads to which I have contributed, on both old and new forums.

I’ve set mine away from the default, to prevent getting swamped with notifications, so I only get one for messages, or mentions; I think the latter is when someone types my full username into a post.
It seems to generate a notification, even when I type my own user name within the body of a post.

From what I can make out, Settings > Email in the second screenshot affects both notifications within the forum, first screenshot, as well as emails received on my linked email account.
This might also be an issue to present to the developers.

My own settings are as below;

Bill

[Peter Greene]

On Peter Greene Said:

…

There always was an empty reply pane after the posts on the old site, but I’m not sure it was on every intermediate page (as now)? or just the last page. Was that your point?

…

Yes Peter … it’s now on every intermediate page [and works, for me at least]

Probably no big deal, but it seems odd … because this way someone might not notice that they were on an intermediate page.

MichaelG.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, so why is this page showing as Not secure where the padlock should be on my laptop? Don’t think it’s my laptop, because page 14 is showing the padlock.

Regards Nick.

[Nicholas Farr]

On Nicholas Farr Said:

Hi, so why is this page showing as Not secure where the padlock should be on my laptop? Don’t think it’s my laptop, because page 14 is showing the padlock.

Regards Nick.

Not just you; I also get P15 insecure, P14 Padlock, P13 insecure, P12 and all previous padlock.

I first thought it might be the odd numbered pages, since it was mantioned earlier that they have a reply box at the bottom, but earlier pages seem OK

Bill

[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

Hi all..

Yes, I’ve just noticed the ‘Not Secure’ for the page status.

Anyway, I’ve not much room to comment being so new here but thought I’d add my tuppence worth.

I found posting an update on my mill referb was pretty easy, importing pics was straight forward enough. No ‘smilies’ yet.. not sure if that is going to be added or I just couldn’t find them – it’s nice to be able to imply a bit of emotion sometimes.

Although similar, the layout all just seems to blur into one, I’m struggling with it to be honest. Is it just because it’s different? don’t know but am struggling.

As many others have have said, the brightness and blandness of the page is pretty straining on the eyes (and by some of the comments from people my eyes are rather younger being in their 50’s) but I cant stand it for more than about 15 mins..

I understand the recent posts list will be improving, hope so as the current version pretty .. err .. awkward to say the least.

I use a laptop but have to run with a very basic ad block to cut out the overwhelming ads, tried it without and to be honest, without it I probably would not use the site.. far too intrusive and you only get a small view of the actual forum.

 

The site is newly set up though, a work in progress so shouldn’t moan too much yet and I very much appreciate the work the Mods – Jason, SOD etc have done and are doing in their own time to get this up and running for us and sort the bugs / improvements etc and sorting through everyone’s bug reports and comments.  Thank you gentlemen.

[peak4]

On peak4 Said:

Edit, seems to be working OK here; so feel free to ignore.
Something different occurred when I replied to Tug in his own thread.

Another one for site developers, though it shouldn’t really affect normal members much, unless it applies to hyperlinks other than user names.
………………………………

—————————————————————————————————–
Edit 2; it looks like it actually worked OK here, and different to in my original reply to Tug.
I couldn’t make @peak4 into a hyperlink after editing that post, though it worked in the original part.
Oddly, when I now go back and read my reply to Tug in the original post, my hyperlink now shows, so maybe at took a while and a screen refresh to show up; Tug’s however only shows in the second instance, but not the first.

A “Preview Post” button would be really useful for when composing and reviewing a new post.

Bill

Sorry to mislead people about the apparent failure to resolve a hyperlink when editing.
The bit I’ve emboldened and italicised above is wrong.
Tug’s just pointed out that I added a “y” in the middle of his first name, which would make it an invalid account name, similar to @peak5, and thus not converted to a hyperlink.

Apologies I’ll try and be more careful next time, I should have spotted that; more coffee needed.

Bill

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Well-spotted, Tug … and well-actioned, Bill

You are putting a colossal amount of good work into this.

MichaelG.

[Mark RandParticipant @markrand96270]

For @taf_pembs, smilies are available, they’re built into your keyboard :-).

I suspect that some of the images on some of the pages are coming from an unencrypted web server rather than the encrypted connection used for the main part of the page.

agree with all the comments about the ‘latest activity’ page, it’s nigh on useless. I’m having to wade through each sub-forum to see the recent posts (far fewer than before the move, I guess most people either haven’t re-visited yet or are staying clear until the forum is usable again)

Even phpbb would make a better showing than the steaming pile of excrement that is WordPress. Ok, use that for the main structure of the site,if desired, but run the forum in something that’s designed for the job.

 

[peak4]

On peak4 Said:

On Nicholas Farr Said:

Hi, so why is this page showing as Not secure where the padlock should be on my laptop? Don’t think it’s my laptop, because page 14 is showing the padlock.

Regards Nick.

Not just you; I also get P15 insecure, P14 Padlock, P13 insecure, P12 and all previous padlock.

I first thought it might be the odd numbered pages, since it was mantioned earlier that they have a reply box at the bottom, but earlier pages seem OK

Bill

It’s because the forum is sending a mixture of encrypted and unencrypted pages, which is deprecated.

When the internet started everything was unencrypted, but that’s not acceptable for anything that has to be secure or private such as banking or online shopping.

To provide strong security an encrypted version of HTTP called HTTPs was developed.  HTTPs does exactly the same as HTTP except it’s protected by a cypher and key management system.

The internet has gradually been transitioning to HTTPS for years, but there’s still a lot of plain HTTP on the web.   As mixing HTTP and HTTPs is dangerous on a website that must be secure, like online shopping, Browsers issue a warning by changing the padlock symbol in the address bar.  My advice, have nothing to do with a broken padlock site that takes money. 

However, this as this forum doesn’t take bank account details or store sensitive information, mixing HTTP and HTTPS is low risk: I’m still here!

Been reported as a security issue.  Basically, all content generated by the forum should be HTTPS, which can be done. However, part of the problem is the many older links referring to external plain HTTP content.  These have to be fixed by their owners.   Broken padlocks will be with us for some time yet.

Dave

[Graham MeekParticipant @grahammeek88282]

“Clicking” on the “Not Secure” button says “Attackers might use the entries etc”. Maybe the spurious goings on are a sign/result of this activity?

For my part I shall be limiting access to this site until things are more stable.

Also I was reading the last post without logging in, (naughty I know), but decided to Log-in to make a comment. Only to find I had to reload this particular thread from the front page. I am not sure, but I think this did not happen with the old site. Once logged-in you were returned to the post you were reading. Can anyone else verify this?

Regards

Gray,

 

 

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

Well-spotted, Tug … and well-actioned, Bill

You are putting a colossal amount of good work into this.

MichaelG.

Unfortunate that various obvious bugs, glaring white space, jerky performance and missing ‘Latest Posts’ panel have dominated the launch.

Good to see that members are making the forum work and that Bill has found one of the new features.  Being able to tag members is moderately useful, and I expect we’ll all be doing it when the dust has settled.

Dave

 

[JAParticipant @ja]

Four days ago I said that I would not post anything on this thread for more than a week. However I have been trying to follow it.

It would be nice if someone in authority would publish a list of comments/suggestions made, their status and closure. Surely such a list exists.

JA

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

On Michael Gilligan Said:

Well-spotted, Tug … and well-actioned, Bill

You are putting a colossal amount of good work into this.

MichaelG.

Unfortunate that various obvious bugs, glaring white space, jerky performance and missing ‘Latest Posts’ panel have dominated the launch.

Good to see that members are making the forum work and that Bill has found one of the new features.  Being able to tag members is moderately useful, and I expect we’ll all be doing it when the dust has settled.

Dave

 

Dave, it’s not just the ability to tag members, so they get a notification + email, amongst other things, it’s that you can click on a tag/members-username and access their profile page; similar to your pwn profile page, but more limited.
From there you can search for their posts, in the same way that you can search for your own under your own profile page.
i.e. The “Topics Started”, “Engagement” tabs etc work on a different members profile page as well as your own.
Try it on mine. @peak4 either from this link within the post or the hyperlink next to my avatar.

It’s a reasonably quick reporting a result for those members without a huge amount of posts, but when I tried it on Jason’s profile it took a long time.
It might be that it’s quite processor intensive on the server to compile the list(s) for each tab

The difficulty, since we can’t access a members list, is finding a user name to click on .
If possible it would be good to have a members list searcheable both on “displayed name” and “user name” as the two might be unrelated.
i.e. my old forum user name and displayed name  was peak4
My new forum displayed name is still peak4 (as it carried over) with a new user name peak4 preceeded by the AT symbol (since there were no spaces, capitals etc, it stayed the same as the old forum)
At some point in the future, I’ll likely change my “Displayed Name” to Bill Williams, so it would be good for others to be able to search for either the member, or their user name.

Note that within this composition/reply/quote pane my user name shows as plain text, rather than a blue hyperlink; that seems to get resolved when the page is submitted.

This page incidentally, whilst showing https in the address bar is still showing as  “not secure”.

Bill

[JohnFParticipant @johnf59703]

Apologies if some of my comments have already been mentioned, not been on the new site much as yet and not had time to read all the posts herein but first thing I noticed is its very slow !  Our broadband is full fibre with download speed of 450 to 500mps but still seems slow to respond, far slower than the old site and others I visit.

My Profile — there is a message “you do not have the required role to view this user list ”  Whats that mean?

At My Profile & View tab there is nothing showing ?   I can only see my profile using the Edit tab ?

There is nowhere in your profile for your location or am i missing something?  I believe at least general location can be useful when answering certain question on the forum.

Regards to all John

P S A back to top button would be a good feature I think !

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

I’ve only just noticed this ‘undocumented feature’

There is an empty “Reply To” pane at the bottom of every page of Posts

… is that intentional ?

[ I am posting this at the bottom of page 13 of 15 ]

MichaelG.

Hi MichaelG, I sure there was an empty reply box at the bottom of every last post on the old forum, but this one has “Reply To:” > the name of the topic or thread, or whatever it is called now, that we are on.

Regards Nick.

[Author]

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