Is improvement work on this forum/website still ongoing?

[Ian P]

On Ian P Said:

I have not used the new gallery features yet but the ability to drag/drop (even massive) image files into a reply or gallery is a good. It is completely normal for website software (e.g. on forums, eBay etc) to automatically reduce the filesize.

If I uploaded a large image file into the ‘files’ section (if we have one now) then I would expect it to be treated as would a PDF or DXF and not compressed or altered.

Ian P

Our Document Gallery does not accept image files, Ian

Our Photo Gallery does … up to 10MB in size

Silly me … I thought they had done that specifically so that we could store large images when appropriate.

La, La, La

MichaelG.

[Harry WilkesParticipant @harrywilkes58467]

I have and maybe continue to be a critic of this new forum however with nudge from Jason my login/unable to post as for the last few days gone away 🙂

H

[KEITH BEAUMONT]

On KEITH BEAUMONT Said:

Out of curiosity, I have just had a look at Mortons Boating and Flying Forums. Flying is a different format to ME, but Boating is the same as this one. Trying out a few posts, I am ceratain it is faster than this one and there are not many complaints about its performance ,that my brief look showed up.

Keith.

 

That’s simply because the database for this forum is many times larger.

Neil

[Martyn DuncumbParticipant @martynduncumb88863]

Having returned after an unexpected break in my use of the Forum I have been pleasantly surprised by the improvements in speed and response.

I think the general feel of it has much improved and I am nearly (but not quite) enjoying it as I did the old one. Certainly we are getting many more of those useful and/or entertaining posts which seemed to dry up when the changeover took place. It must be easier for members to post now which encourages new topics.

I have not done an in depth survey, just my new impressions, but thought I would say something as the moderators and back room staff must have had to put in a great deal of effort under an umbrella of criticism.

Martyn

[Michael Gilligan]

On Michael Gilligan Said:

On Ian P Said:

I have not used the new gallery features yet but the ability to drag/drop (even massive) image files into a reply or gallery is a good. It is completely normal for website software (e.g. on forums, eBay etc) to automatically reduce the filesize.

If I uploaded a large image file into the ‘files’ section (if we have one now) then I would expect it to be treated as would a PDF or DXF and not compressed or altered.

Ian P

Our Document Gallery does not accept image files, Ian

 

Our Photo Gallery does … up to 10MB in size

 

Silly me … I thought they had done that specifically so that we could store large images when appropriate.

La, La, La

MichaelG.

I looked but cannot find details of what type of files one can upload to a document gallery, have I missed it?

In the same vein, what image formats can we put in photo gallery?

Ian P

 

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Easily missed, Ian … and stylishly presented in light grey text on a very light grey background:

 

 

There’s a similarly informative pop-up for the other one.

Yes .. it’s maybe a bit late in the workflow !

… but we’re sure to learn with practice !

MichaelG.

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

I have just created a for sale advert in the classifieds, it was not easy.

I dragged and dropped pictures easily but had to go through the process about six times because only the top half of my images shows. In my photo editor I moved the subject to the upper half of the image and then dropped the new image, again the image bottom was cropped by the software so I repeated my editing and tried again about three times.

I then gave up, created the text of the advert and tried to submit. I had more than 255 characters, but how many is not shown. I reduced the text by trial and error over several attempts. Why so few characters allowed? and why no character count shown?

Allowing user to upload 10MB files and yet only giving a few bytes for advert description text seems a rather poor show.

Ian P

[Emgee]

On Emgee Said:

Thanks for the link to the Classifieds Michael but don’t think I will bother to bookmak it, screenshot shows why.

.

.

Here’s a seasonal treat for you, Emgee

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/advert-category/for-sale/?display=list

… like much of what’s here, it took a bit of finding; but a tiny little graphic, lurking amidst all the visual clutter, did the trick.

MichaelG.

 

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

… and, predictably enough, its companion is at:

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/advert-category/wanted/?display=list

MichaelG.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

So … with the appropriate device to hand, this is getting to be reasonably convenient browsing:

.

. The two columns being, of course, independently scrollable.

 

MichaelG.

[Jeff DaymanParticipant @jeffdayman43397]

I’ve just logged on after a couple of weeks, to check on improvements if any. Navigation actions do seem to take less time. Opening the forums took about 10 seconds, opening posts in forums about 30 seconds. I do not see a bunch of flashing ads which is good. The layout of the site is clumsy and disjointed still, and not intuitive to navigate.

The biggest improvement I wish would happen is to reinstate the “ignore member” function we had on the old site. There are a few individuals who post that I frankly would rather never hear from and the ignore member function enabled this. Can we get this function back? (third time asking, with no response from mods or site techs)

There sure doesn’t appear to be much posting going on of builds in progress, which I used to enjoy. The electronic leadscrew article in ME 4725 (part1) caught my interest but I think some mention of cost comparison of the various kits available would have been helpful. As far as I know there is no discussion of this article on the forum, searches yield no posts that I can see.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

ELS Thread and I even found it using the new site’s search function. There is another ELS one near the top of the appropriate forum section.

My builds are still under Stationary or IC engines.

[Jeff Dayman]

On Jeff Dayman Said:

…

(third time asking, with no response from mods or site techs) …

I would doubt if it’s very high on the priority list, Jeff

1. There is a lot of work still needs doing
2. Very few of the vast number of members are actually posting anything at the moment

MichaelG.

[Keith LongParticipant @keithlong89920]

In post #701051 in the “Lathes DRO” topic JA refers to a problem that he is seeing where posts do not show up unless he is logged in. This sounds very similar to what I am seeing now – and only since we’ve had the “”Consent Preferences” icon in the lower left corner.

Yesterday I was convinced that the site had been taken off-line as from approx 14:45 I could not get the “Latest Replies” to update at all – I was NOT logged in, as generally that is how I view the site, only logging in if I wish to make a posting. I had the same experience on the Model Boats website, but on none of the other websites that I have open on my machine, so it looks as though it’s yet another “improvement” that has been carried out that has gone wrong! As it was carried out on the last working afternoon before the Christmas break it brings back all the apocryphal stories about Friday afternoon cars etc. – and how.

If I was a paying advertiser on this website I would have walked away long ago to avoid getting tarred with the same brush of incompetence. Morton’s obviously don’t care much about the image of their company to have let this very sorry saga drag on for so long.

Will the site get fixed and working properly? On the evidence so far I have severe doubts, or is it a ploy to let it get so bad that the only cure is to finally kill it off?

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Thanks Keith, I have made admin aware though from the automated reply I got looks like the main man is off until 3rd Jan

Does seem a bit daft to introduce something new then go off on holiday!

[Keith LongParticipant @keithlong89920]

Thank you Jason

[Graham MeekParticipant @grahammeek88282]

Trying to Log-in or even post today has been a real pain. The whole process is too boring to even write it down. My New Year’s wish is for a working platform in 2024, ( I thought I had better say which year).

Regards

Gray,

[John HinkleyParticipant @johnhinkley26699]

I thought it was particularly quiet!  I’ve been trying all day to get an updated page of “Latest Replies” to no avail.  Then I had a rethink – I logged in and tried again.  No luck; it told me to log in.  So, I tried again, only this time with the “remember me” radio button selected.  Hey, presto. It worked, but I still had to refresh the page to get it to show the very latest pearls of wisdom.

It’s a bit of a conundrum, isn’t it?  You don’t see the updated pages until you’re logged in and refreshed, so this message and those above dated today won’t show until you’ve worked a way around it to see them!  You end up chasing your tail until you disappear up your own sump plug.

No doubt it will all change again on or after 3rd January.

John

 

[File HandleParticipant @filehandle]

It is weeks ago since I had the same issue. But I do stay logged in. The only thing that I have noticed is that the reply list can be outofdate after I have looked at one of the comments. very recent replies that were on the list disappear.

[bernard towersParticipant @bernardtowers37738]

Againwhats with this stupid blue vertical band that appears for about 1 second!

[bernard towers]

On bernard towers Said:

Again whats with this stupid blue vertical band that appears for about 1 second!

Another one that was supposedly fixed a few weeks ago but I’ve still been getting it all the time, even sent admin video and screen shots of the problem.

[Mike HurleyParticipant @mikehurley60381]

And now I appear to have permanent icon on the bottom left of my Android phone. It’s to do with cookies, even though I have agreed and saved my ‘selection’ the thing won’t go away. What with the clutter of other adverts and white space this is just another bl***y distraction.

 

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Thought the site was down for hours as I only got yesterday’s posts. Perhaps from cache.

If you do get to see this, I sort of found going up to the URL and adding a ? at the end of the line and hitting return gets today’s data but hit and miss as to whether it thinks I’m logged in.

Trouble is if this persists over Xmas I might have to go do something instead of sitting in front of the fire which is the only heat within half a mile.

[Bazyle]

On Bazyle Said:

Thought the site was down for hours as I only got yesterday’s posts. Perhaps from cache.

 

The Chrome browser seems to be very prone to doing that. One of the reasons that I don’t like using it.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Been showing the correct latest posts on my Chrome & W10 setup from the start. But seems the log in/not logged in problem is back for some since Friday which may be one of the reasons there is not a lot of activity

[Author]

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