Comments (constructive) on the New Forum Software

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

 

No idea, they are going to have to get it working on android/chrome surely this must be one of the most widely used combos.

It’s just worked first time now, one of those extremely difficult intermittent bugs.

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

This might or might not help. This morning on my phone I logged in, went to forums, selected latest replies. It came up with a screen with some statistics and the banner at the top had log in, so I assume it’s logged me out. However at the bottom is a panel asking me to accept cookies, so for once in my life I did. Lo and behold I’m in. This is about as in-intuitive as it gets!

While I’m on, can we either have posts latest at the top, or another latest replies button at the bottom so I don’t have to scroll back up to the top every time

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Picking-up on Duncan’s point … it is interesting, and rather bewildering, to compare the presentation of the lists on these two pages:

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/activity-user/

MichaelG.

 

 

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

Picking-up on Duncan’s point … it is interesting, and rather bewildering, to compare the presentation of the lists on these two pages:

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/activity-user/

MichaelG.

 

 

Bewildering to us because we’re used to the old-forum.  Model Engineering is a broad church, and it’s not unlikely a motor-bike restorer will be interested in clockmaking, and both might read posts on AI, Arduinos and Scams.  I guess we’re all suckers for steam!  The old forum was designed to be conversational, that is members saw and responded to ongoing posts in almost any topic.   We want a list of latest posts, and don’t care much what topic they’re in.

Many fora don’t work like that.   Their members focus on particular topics, and aren’t interested in much else. To them a list of posts covering all topics is just noise.  They want Active Topics, as delivered by the new forum, not Active Posts as wanted by our members.

I suspect the subtlety of this difference was missed by the developers despite Jason and I repeatedly emphasising the need for latest posts repeatedly,  We got no joy.  Like as not the developers, distracted by other problems, thought that ‘topic first’ was ‘good enough’, not twigging that it was wrong for this project.

The old forum supported Topics much as the new one does, but members almost always used the Latest Post list.

Dave

 

[Graham MeekParticipant @grahammeek88282]

Whilst the page tone seems to have been toned down I cannot see this forum functioning in this present form, not for me anyway.

I suspect the current format means people will be logged in longer searching and possibly see more ads.

Whilst others have decided to stay away it is something I am now giving some serious thought to.

Regards

Gray,

[peak4Participant @peak4]

Dave, For me, this is about presentation, rather than content.
Latest Activity/Latest Replies, has each entry spread over five lines, all huddled together on the left hand side of the pane/window.
Forums, each entry is spread over 3 lines, uses the full width, and thus involves far less scrolling.

The latter also breaks up the vast expanse of white background, and is less stressful to the eyes.

As an example, and I do appreciate that all forums are different, as well as using varying software behind them, so this is purely regarding presentation of similar information, i.e. Latest Activity.
Also, I do realise that this current blue button is a temporary solution.

This is how similar “Latest Activity” information is presented on another forum I frequent; note that it’s spread over the majority of the screen window, and not huddled together in 5 line blocks to the left.

Like here, each of those entries is likely from a different sub-forum topic, but presented in a very accessible manner.
You can select 24 hours, since last visit etc.
Each line also shows who started the topic, and when, as well as who posted last and when, and also shows engagement stats per topic.

Edit, this is getting silly, when I’ve reviewed this post, the screenshot is missing, although it’s still showing in this edit pane.
This is what’s displayed in the post

I’ll try and add it a second time below here; it also shows in the edit pane, so two copies now.

For MichaelG’s benefit, it seems like it’s not just an iPad issue.

Bill

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

I suspect the new multiline format is to suit mobile phones, which have a tall narrow screen rather than short wide on a desktop. Was a proper specification given to the developers? If so don’t pay them.

[duncan webster 1]

On duncan webster 1 Said:

I suspect the new multiline format is to suit mobile phones, which have a tall narrow screen rather than short wide on a desktop. Was a proper specification given to the developers? If so don’t pay them.

Using the above forum as an example, surely the presented image should re-size, and change presentation when the destination window changes size.
e.g. the screenshots in my previous post were taken from a widescreen monitor, where there is quite a bit of available space to add extra useful info for the viewing member.

It may well be that when our final version of the Blue Button Latest Posts come up, it will be presented in a similar manner.

When the same screen is accessed on my mobile, it presents like this in portrait format

 

But like this if I turn the screen through 90° to landscape.

o

Note that the Mobile version of the site does show Recent Topics but some of the options from the PC version don’t appear on screen; many of them are available from a separate drop-down menu.

Also note how the second topic, about Capture 1 & PureRaw wordwraps, between portrait & Landscape.
It seems to use the available space to good effect to try and give the best viewing experience.

Obviously our Blue Button Latest posts is a temporary solution; we just have to hope that the final version displays in an improved format.

Bill

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Keep up the good work, Bill

I really admire your perseverance !

MichaelG.

.

P.S. __ another little discovery:

In ‘My Profile’ there were 18 Notifications

If I choose to delete one of them, I get an ‘are you sure’ message

If I select to bulk-delete all of them … there is no warning, it just does it

… seems rather illogical to me.

 

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Good Morning … Nice to see you back !!

MichaelG.

.

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[Taf_PembsParticipant @taf_pembs]

I could not access the site yesterday either, every time I tried all I had was the wee whirlygig jobbie but nothing loaded and timed out.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Here’s a marked-up crop of my previous image, for the convenience of anyone with bleary eyes this morning:

MichaelG.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi MichaelG, that connection timed out that you have shown is all I got yesterday evening until a little after 9 P.M. I think it was, but all the latest posts seem to be before 3 P.M. It was niggling end to a not so good day, after having to get my brother to give me a lift to an eye test appointment, and then taking me back to my car, which developed a fault, and then had to call out the RAC and wait almost two hours before they could arrive, but was please with the guy who found the fault and got me home, and to top it off, I had been invited to join my daughter and her family for dinner which I missed.

Regards Nick.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Looks like Nigel managed a post, just as it was limping back:

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/topic/help-alibre-changing-part-size/page/2/#post-687076

… but I was ‘in the land of nod’ by then

[ I’m keeping funny hours these days! ]

MichaelG.

[Thor 🇳🇴Participant @thor]

Hi Michael,

So I wasn’t the only one that couldn’t access the ME forum yesterday. It has happened to me before so it seems Morton is still having problems with the new software and it is still slow.

Thor

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

I let the Mortons guys know as it was down when I looked just after 3pm yesterday, Darren was looking into it.

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

Just wondering in the run up to the new format members were asked to volunteer to test the new format I volunteered but was never asked to participate did anyone actually participate ?

H

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

We kept asking them to use the beta testers but they never did.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Yesterday, I kept getting “Timed out” until late in the evening.

Still very slow, and to my mind, less good than what it replaced.

The pale blue text is not an advantage, why not increase the contrast, to make it easier to read for the predominantly mature users (If there will be many left!)

Howard  Hopefully no more typos visible

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

We kept asking them to use the beta testers but they never did.

Got so many bug reports from us, especially you Jason, that they may have thought we’d found all of them!

My guess is the developers were swamped early on by data migration and technical issues and didn’t have the manpower needed to look at user-facing problems.   Typical of IT projects! When things go wrong during delivery, everybody forgets user requirements in the commotion.  Most unfortunate, because the whole endeavour is bust if users reject it.

Dave

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

I let the Mortons guys know as it was down when I looked just after 3pm yesterday, Darren was looking into it.

I did wonder if I was the one who killed it, as the site keeled over as I was moving messages between “inbox” and “sent” and back again in an attempt to replicate what Michael found earlier
That was about 15:18 according to my Cloudflare screenshot, though that may have been after a couple of attempts.

I’ll save the Messages exploration for another post.

I was able to log back on much later in the evening, and “Latest Replies” still displayed as previously, with each entry spread over 5 lines huddled to the left.
This morning I was surprised to see the new version of of it, looking much more like a re-ordered “Forum” display, over most of the page width; and showing as a time ordered list below the full “Forum” display.
This is something I’d touched on with Dave in my first paragraph on This Post

Sunday afternoon would be an odd time for unannounced deliberate downtime, but the change in formatting of Latest Replies seemed to occur during the night, after the forum’s initial re-appearance.

Edit; well this is odd, if I go to Forums (on the green bar) > Latest Replies, I get the time ordered list of replies displayed directly below the full forum list, and in a similar format, but the display jumps directly to the Latest replies display on the screen; this seems to be a good thing.

When I typed this reply, before this edit, and submitted it, I could scroll to the top of my screen and stay within this 24 page topic, but see a Latest Replies button above.
When I hit it from there, it still displays a Latest Replies list, but it shows at the end of this page of this topic, rather than below the Forums list.

N.B. This is not a time ordered list as previously, despite the title; methinks I’ve found another bug.

Bill

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

On JasonB Said:

We kept asking them to use the beta testers but they never did.

Got so many bug reports from us, especially you Jason, that they may have thought we’d found all of them!

My guess is the developers were swamped early on by data migration and technical issues and didn’t have the manpower needed to look at user-facing problems.   Typical of IT projects! When things go wrong during delivery, everybody forgets user requirements in the commotion.  Most unfortunate, because the whole endeavour is bust if users reject it.

Dave

Was there a ‘call to arms’ message on the old forum that I missed?

Did Morton’s or the developers put up a clear message asking for beta testers or was it Morton’s that you (Jason?) that was asking to use beta testers?

It’s all getting less relevant by the day.

I appreciate all the good work being done by the moderators but as long standing user of this forum all I see looks like tinkering round the edge with no improvement to the basic underlying structure. I SERIOUSLY cannot forsee the developers getting this forum back to the old usability, let alone improving it (from the user’s perspective) over the old one.

I know we dont pay to use the forum so have no rights as such but what we have now is trying the patience of a lot of people, all of whom want it to continue and succeed.

Ian P

[peak4Participant @peak4]

This is now getting sillier, I’ve just viewed my previous reply regarding the way the blue button works, or doesn’t.

Previously when a user clicked on an image, it would show an enlarged version, from the displayed 800 pixels to a more readable 1200pixels, which seems to be the maximum re-sized image stored on the forum.

No, nothing happend when I click on that screenshot, so no larger view.
Right click and Open Image in New Tab shows this.

The URL in the address bar is this; I’ve replaced the http & www with stars to break the link, as this composition pane would not accept the address,

*****model-engineer.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/hm_bbpui/temp/2unpk7h65l6g0ms8xqtrnqln34dw9ku8.jpg

it immediately tried to resolve it to an icon

The meaning of this icon isn’t clear from this composition pane, as we don’t have a preview button; I’ll show it as a screenshot below

Bill

[peak4Participant @peak4]

For crying out loud; If I now click on the 404 screenshot in my previous post, I do get an image in a separate pane.

In my previous post however, the screenshot which displayed fine earlier, both in edit and after submitting is shown as an icon with the image missing.

 

This is something I explored previously in the latter part of a different post and still seems to be an issue

Bill

[peak4Participant @peak4]

This was the errant image that started off some of this and shows the Latest Replies, which is anything but actual latest replies.

The italicised text, above the screenshot went missing from the composition pane after submitting, and didn’t show in the original post; what on earth is going on here?

Bill

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