Comments (constructive) on the New Forum Software

[Roger ClarkParticipant @rogerclark]

I find I get incredible eyestrain from reading through threads of interest and therefore now limit myself on the length of time I spend on this forum, as a ex-leading developer on page layout I do find the readability of this site is way down on the old site. I would say to revert to the old forums until this one is fit for purpose but bridges burnt etc!!!

I think I will only use this ssite if I’m desperate for help rather than for the meeting of like minds just for the companionship I used to enjoy.

BTW is there a shpelll checker on here? and no emojis? deliberate or missing?

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

Spell checker function is usually provided by the browser so you need to check that it is enabled. Emojis can be had by typing the appropriate punctuation marks form the keyboard ie.:-) will give you 🙂 provided there is a space both sides.

Don’t  think you can add the full set of available emojis though as there is no button to bring up the selection screen. The current editor is neither the latest Gutenberg editor from WordPress nor the Classic editor but appears to be a subset of the of Classic editor.

John

[Roger ClarkParticipant @rogerclark]

Thanks John, never ever went there, and emoji keystrokes are ok but limited to those who remember them from the old days!

 

[Peter Greene]

On Peter Greene Said:

On Michael Gilligan Said:

On Peter Greene Said:

On Michael Gilligan Said:

Two images posted … how many can you see ?

First a .png screenshot [drastically cropped to 874×865]
.

Just a fwiw (which may be obvious to all except me), the site presented both images (including the png) as jpg. …

That’s not altogether surprising, but it is interesting to know … thanks

MichaelG.

Btw, Michael – absolutely not being picky (please believe) but I think it’s important in a discussion like this – did you actually mean “cropped” up there or resized?

…

Feel free to be picky … but I know what cropped means, and that’s what I did.

The original screenshot  .png was cropped in Apple’s own Photos App

… my screenshots are 2048×1536 px

Then it was converted to jpeg in an App called CropSize.

P.S. ___ CropSize could have done all of it, but I am reporting what I actually did.

MichaelG.

[Mike CrossfieldParticipant @mikecrossfield92481]

Latest Posts, which for me and many others used to be the most used feature of the site, is now virtually useless. I log in and click Latest Activity only to get a message saying I need to log in! It worked briefly for me last week, but not for several days now. And when I could view Latest Activity it was hopeless. Two parallel lists of posts with different headings, most of which were duplicated, and I could only see the most recent 8 or 9. With the old website one had the ability to browse all the latest posts covering all the different forums without any need to log in, and to go back over many days (weeks?) if need be. This is the case with all the other forums I belong to. Why on earth was this changed?

If the website developers are trying to discourage both old and new members from viewing the site, this is a great way to do it. The old website had a few clunky features, mainly to do with photos, but was generally pretty good. The developers have cut and shut it so much that it is now like Frankenstein’s monster, and unfit for purpose.

I used to check latest posts two or three times a day on the old site but I only access the site infrequently now, mainly to see if it has been improved. It it doesn’t change soon I will stop looking altogether.

[JAParticipant @ja]

I almost successfully stayed away from this topic, thread (or what ever it is called) for a week.

Let’s be honest, the problems with the forum are not being solved. It is just a mess and a very poor advert for Mortons. I do have a few constructive comments to make, like re-instating the line showing the number of postings a “participant” has made, but why bother? We cannot view our own profiles except to edit them.

JA

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

On Peter Greene Said:

On Michael Gilligan Said:

On Peter Greene Said:

On Michael Gilligan Said:

Two images posted … how many can you see ?

First a .png screenshot [drastically cropped to 874×865]
.

Just a fwiw (which may be obvious to all except me), the site presented both images (including the png) as jpg. …

That’s not altogether surprising, but it is interesting to know … thanks

MichaelG.

Btw, Michael – absolutely not being picky (please believe) but I think it’s important in a discussion like this – did you actually mean “cropped” up there or resized?

…

Feel free to be picky … but I know what cropped means, and that’s what I did.

The original screenshot  .png was cropped in Apple’s own Photos App

… my screenshots are 2048×1536 px

Then it was converted to jpeg in an App called CropSize.

P.S. ___ CropSize could have done all of it, but I am reporting what I actually did.

MichaelG.

Michael,

I normally use Apple’s Photos App but I’m wondering now if I need CropSize!? Is it easy to use?

[Brian Baker 2Participant @brianbaker2]

Hi, on the old Forum I was Brian Baker1

despite doing all the things I was told to do, saving this & that, do this, I could not log in and carry on from where I was, I am now Brian Baker2

I feel a little neglected!

Regards

BB

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

Mike Crossfield (two posts up),

I can view “Latests Posts without logging in by the following method:

First, I leave a tab selected and connected to https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/ so that it always displays the latest posts page.  Refresh the page.

Then I go down the righthand column and select topics that have been added to, since I last visited. For example, this one:

Then I select the time since last post (6 minutes ago in this case) with the middle mouse button to open it in a new tab (or whatever you have to do to acheive that in your browser)

When finished, close that tab and the original tab still displays the latest posts page.  All without logging in.  Refresh the page again in case someone has posted while you were away reading the other page.  All a bit convoluted, but it works for me and stops being continually asked to log in when there’s no need (unless you want to respond, of course) or you never log out.  Personally, I only log in when I want to add to a thread or post a classified.

John

Edit:  It was two posts up when I started typing!

[Brian Baker 2]

On Brian Baker 2 Said:

Hi, on the old Forum I was Brian Baker1

despite doing all the things I was told to do, saving this & that, do this, I could not log in and carry on from where I was, I am now Brian Baker2

I feel a little neglected!

Regards

BB

Brian, just trying something as a test @brianbaker1 @brianbaker2
No idea what the result will show

edit; as you can see one has just entered as text, the other resolved as a hyperlink to your user name

Your posts from the old forum are still accessible under your new user name

I don’t believe you can change your user name, but you can alter your displayed name; that’s the blue hyperlink directly under your avatar

It’s under Green Bar Profile > Settings > Profile Visibility > Displayed Name
You can also update About Yourself> Biographical Info.
That’s worth doing whilst you’re there, although no-one can see it yet, including yourself, but there may well be embedded text and punctuation codes which need removing.

p.s. check your notifications as well, as it will likely show that I’ve tagged you in this reply

Bill

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Related to posting pictures, but I’ll mention it on the main comments topic, so there is a formal record.

As well as re-sizing and changing the resolution to 96dpi, exif is stripped from uploaded images, or at least it doesn’t download again when you right click “save picture as”.

Might not be important to everyone, but some of us have copyright information stored in the exif.
Yes obviously anyone downloading an image from this forum can strip it out if they wish, but for an unknown person/website deep linking to it, the exif should still be visible.

Bill

[Brian Baker 2]

On Brian Baker 2 Said:

Hi, on the old Forum I was Brian Baker1

despite doing all the things I was told to do, saving this & that, do this, I could not log in and carry on from where I was, I am now Brian Baker2

I feel a little neglected!

Regards

BB

There are two Brian Bakers.  Between you and I the other has become brianbaker26864.

I wouldn’t worry about it.  Most likely reason is a tie-breaker was applied whenever two or more identical names were encountered in the old forum’s list of accounts.   Nothing personal, just business, as we used to say in the Mafia before making a hit.

Would changing to a nickname help?  It’s done from your profile.

Dave

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

On Brian Baker 2 Said:

Hi, on the old Forum I was Brian Baker1

despite doing all the things I was told to do, saving this & that, do this, I could not log in and carry on from where I was, I am now Brian Baker2

I feel a little neglected!

Regards

BB

There are two Brian Bakers.  Between you and I the other has become brianbaker26864.

I wouldn’t worry about it.  Most likely reason is a tie-breaker was applied whenever two or more identical names were encountered in the old forum’s list of accounts.   Nothing personal, just business, as we used to say in the Mafia before making a hit.

Would changing to a nickname help?  It’s done from your profile.

Dave

Dave, I’m not convinced that would help; I’ve just changed my Nickname from peak4 to Bill, and the info below my avatar remains the same, i.e. “peak4” in blue text, shows as my Displayed Name and is a hyperlink to my Profile page.

I think you need to change your “Displayed Name”, rather than Nickname

I can’t remember, but on the old forum, wasn’t “Nickname” the equivalent of Displayed Name on here.
Like you my old forum account name of peak4 was carried over here and just had the @ added at the front to form my new account name (as there were no conflicts with other members, and it didn’t contain spaces or special characters).
My old profile also showed peak4 associated with my avatar, which is where it all gets a bit confusing.
For the time being, to save misleading anyone whilst I’m posting screenshots, I’ve left my Displayed Name as peak4.

Does Nickname, actually have any meaning on this new forum?

This was how my profile displayed on the old forum, I think the circled peak4 was called my Nickname on there.

Bill

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Now this is really really annoying.
I had an edit window open to add further text and explanation to my previous post, all complete and ready to upload.
It took a long time to compile, so when I pressed submit, the ½hour edit window must have expired.
On pressing Submit, it just showed the unedited post and all the work was lost.
It would be so much better if the posting and edit cache were stored on the server, rather than the browser.

Essentially I was examining that my old account was just numerical, as per the screenshot; “94472”
peak4 was my old forum Nickname which is was displayed next to the avatar and provided an easy user friendly link to the account. It’s also more user friendly than just a plain number.
When transposed to the new forum my Nickname became my account name directly without modification, as there were no conflict, spaces, or special characters.

I found my original registration email from back in 2012 where forum generated emails used an account number, rather than name.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

This may already be blindingly obvious to everyone else, but just in case:

I have just opened the new forum, in all its garish style, on my Mac

Then found that, by the simple expedient of narrowing the window, … the right border, with all its distracting adverts is not visible.

For the avoidance of doubt: this does NOT re-scale the forum column, it just puts the forum in a sort of ‘till-roll’ format …. leaving plenty of on-screen space for another window to be open.

.. let there be peace and tranquility on-screen.

MichaelG.

[S KParticipant @sk20060]

Can we please remove the requirement to log in merely to see the “latest activity”? (Even then, having just given in and logged on, I was amazed at how nearly-unreadable the result looked, especially on a smaller screen.)

I appreciate the good intentions of the switch, but it can’t be sugar coated: the site’s readability and usability is now so awful that it’s just not worth the effort to visit.

 

 

[Neil AParticipant @neila]

I have just tried to see the “latest activity”, the system seems to think that I am not logged in when I am. Another little hiccup in the system it seems. Most irritating, as has been said, almost not worth the effort to visit the site as it stands. You had better hurry up and sort this out before I give up completely.

Neil

[speelwerkParticipant @speelwerk]

Always checked several times a day the “latest posts” to see if something of my interesed turned up, but now “latest activity” is not working even if you log in.

Sadly a fine working forum is no longer and I will not try again.

Niko.

[Neil A]

On Neil A Said:

I have just tried to see the “latest activity”, the system seems to think that I am not logged in when I am. Another little hiccup in the system it seems. Most irritating, as has been said, almost not worth the effort to visit the site as it stands. You had better hurry up and sort this out before I give up completely.

Neil

On speelwerk Said:

Always checked several times a day the “latest posts” to see if something of my interesed turned up, but now “latest activity” is not working even if you log in.

Sadly a fine working forum is no longer and I will not try again.

Niko.

Latest Activity facility is a temporary solution in its current format, has been reported, and we await a more useable solution from the developers.
I find it works OK, but there is a variable delay before the screen refreshes, which seems to alter depending on how many new posts there are.
As I type now, a little after 10pm Sunday, it’s taking 10-15 seconds for the screen to refresh, though when everything is more active, I’ve waited anything up to 45 seconds, which is certainly quite frustrating when there may not be any indication of progress.
It seems you must be logged in  to use the Latest Activity button and get meaningful results, other than just being presented with forum stats.
I’ve found that if I try using the button when I’m logged out, if I subsequently try using it again after logging back in, there is a bug; pressing the button logs me out again, in an endless circle.
Clearing my browser’s cache and cookies relating to this site seems to cure it.

I can log out, and log back in again, without issues, provided I don’t hit the button whilst logged out.

Edit, just tried again, and it took 25 seconds for a “Latest Activity” screen refresh
Submitting my initial reply also took a similar length of time.

Hang on in there
Bill

[peak4]

On peak4 Said:

Latest Activity facility is a temporary solution in its current format, has been reported, and we await a more useable solution from the developers

I find it works OK, but there is a variable delay before the screen refreshes, which seems to alter depending on how many new posts there are.  …

Dare we even contemplate the possibility that it is searching through all 48k+ Registered Members, to see if they have posted anything recently ??

MichaelG.

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Vanishing post (and Member)??

Can any mods/admin explain this one please?

Anonymous member with no name etc.
Is this a post by someone who’s then deleted their account?
If they are a longer standing member, have all their posts, moved over from the previous forum, disappeared as well??

Bill

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Look at the date, it was resurrected by a new reply. Howard has been going through a few old ones and posting replies which is bringing them back onto latest Activity.

I seem to remember it was a spam thread, Possibly someone taking a short cut and not dealing with it properly just did not approve the members post rather than completely deleting their account which would have removed the now blank topic.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Mmmm … a novel approach to ‘Data Cleansing’

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

I am posting this [crop from a recent screenshot] to draw attention to the non-intuitive ‘directory structure’ that we currently navigate :

The referenced post, by me, was on Robert Butler’s ‘vote of thanks’ Topic … but that simple fact is not visible on the path shown.

… not sure how, but this needs tidying-up

MichaelG.

 

.

 

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

Look at the date, it was resurrected by a new reply. Howard has been going through a few old ones and posting replies which is bringing them back onto latest Activity.

I seem to remember it was a spam thread, Possibly someone taking a short cut and not dealing with it properly just did not approve the members post rather than completely deleting their account which would have removed the now blank topic.

Cheers, I did look at the date, but since that post was only just before the forum shutdown, by a couple of months, I’d no way of knowing if it was an old post from a long standing member, which was now resurrected, but that member had now deleted their account, taking all their posts off old & new forum in the process.

Hence asking a mod/admin to look into it, since we have had a number of members suggesting that they would be deleting their current accounts on the new forum.

I was wondering if the post showed empty and anonymous when Howard replied, and if he could remember to whom he was replying.
Bill

[Author]

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