New Look

[jason udallParticipant @jasonudall57142]

just tried zooming out…..if i zoom out far enough..the tabs in the black line heder no longer run into one… so I guess website design 201 will be done later.

[Hi Speed ScrapParticipant @hispeedscrap]

Meanwhile the people on my right, I'll bet are enjoying the extra advertising area.The level of

importance of forum users is decreasing as the revenue from advertising increases.

The next change will be the advertising column will be the width of this column and

the forum column will be the width of the one on my right.

Now where's that random smilie?

Dave

[I.M. OUTAHEREParticipant @i-m-outahere]

No problems here although i have noticed the page is larger vertically and the Avertisements are not visible unless i scroll down the page .
Not that it worries me though !

All up i think it looks good and i'm sure once everybody gets used to it and there is still a big chunk of blank space at the bottom of the page for future additions .

Ian

[modeng2000Participant @modeng2000]

Katy, I have a confession to make, I use Adblock Plus to remove the anoying flickering side adverts which I find very distracting. It would seem that the clickable items at the top of the page are part of the headline banner and are being removed by Adblock as well as any advertising. This is a change from the previous headline settings and seems to be the answer to my query.

While I do not like this I guess I'll just have to put up with it if I want to continue to contribute to this forum.

John.

Edited By modeng2000 on 01/10/2013 07:21:28

[ZiggarParticipant @ziggar]

any news on why my account has been tampered with ?

[Katy PurvisParticipant @katypurvis79544]

Not yet I'm afraid. I have emailed the subscription company and I'm waiting for a reply. I'll email you when I get an explanation. I'm sorry there isn't anything else I can do at this end. Your account hasn't been tampered with here. I don't know why the status is set as deleted in the subscription database.

[Jim GuthrieParticipant @jimguthrie82658]

Sadly still no 'first unread post', though….

That is one feature which would help reading this forum no end. It's a feature common on other forum software and saves having to trawl down a thread to try and work out where your first unread post might be.

Jim.

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Looks crisper; have accessed my 'Albums', 'digital copies', 'Messages' ok so far, but! … when I left 'reply box' to go back to another page 'Messages' what I had already typed was deleted & had to start typing again, is there any way that the reply box can keep what you have already typed i.e 'auto save', there are many other forums that do this, surely it is simple enough to include 'auto save' command into the programme/template?

Previously I have had to 'copy & paste' what I have typed into a word doc, leave the page to go to another then return to a 'blank' reply box, copy & paste from the saved word doc to get back to my previous typed content, finish off what I was typing then 'add posting'

Regards

George.

[JAParticipant @ja]

Change for change's sake – OK with me. It seems to work OK with SeaMonkey (a Mozilla product) and I don't get upset about colours for links, adverts and lay-out in general.

However the list of "Latest Forum Posts" is too short. Ideally it should be two days long. Think about it – How often do you look at the list and do you want to be up to date with the postings?

JA

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Posted by mechman48 on 01/10/2013 10:34:12:

Previously I have had to 'copy & paste' what I have typed into a word doc, leave the page to go to another then return to a 'blank' reply box, copy & paste from the saved word doc to get back to my previous typed content, finish off what I was typing then 'add posting'

You only need to copy your text. You can then paste it when you get the blank edit box – no need to paste into Word.

I admit it can be a bit frustrating though.

Russell.

Edited By Russell Eberhardt on 01/10/2013 11:15:47

Edited By Russell Eberhardt on 01/10/2013 11:16:08

[Katy PurvisParticipant @katypurvis79544]

Russell, John Coates, John Stevenson, Jason B, Thor, thanks for your comments and help, I have increased the contrast on the thread colour changes. I have also increased the number of latest posts. The old side pod previously had 5 entries, this hadn't changed, but I've increased that to 10 this morning

Old Elan, I'm sorry a 'latest unread' is beyond the scope of this layout change, and in all honestly is not likely to be implemented. This would require us to store information every time a user views a post, and maintain a lot more data. The database would probably crawl to a halt accessing and processing that information for all the users on all the MTM forums.

Ian P, 'My Friends' isn't new, it is just a way of seeing when people you know are online, but you don't have to use it now if you didn't before, it hasn't changed.

modeng2000, I see from your later post that this may be sorted now

DMB, you are correct, this issue is from whenever the MEW info was last updated, which is not part of this layout change, but I corrected the mistake anyway.

Macmarch, Graham Meek, Sandy Morton, sorry, not much I can do here! If you have specific complaints that it is possible for me to solve, I'll try.

Jason Udall, I see you had problems later, I'll come to those on the next page, thank you

Peter Tucker, I think the latest posts page itself is more useful than the one on the homepage myself, but I take your point

OMG, I am struggling to replicate your problem, I think it may be to do with using Text Zoom rather than full zoom. The archive page you mention was the same before the layout change, but I don't think anyone noticed. However it was out of date, so I have replaced it. This is also a content issue, and rather out of my remit though.

Sorry if I've missed anyone

 

Edited By Katy Purvis on 01/10/2013 11:58:01

[Russell EberhardtParticipant @russelleberhardt48058]

Thanks for changing the thread colour changes – that works much better for my old eyes

Russell.

[Katy PurvisParticipant @katypurvis79544]

Nicholas, NJH, Slotdriller, Russell, thank you

Ian P, yes, the missing emails were my fault, I fixed it last night, sorry. We can't stop the smileys though, it is just generally accepted that if you type something like semi-colon right bracket, you get a smiley. I've made 5558 forum posts on Popular Patchwork, and never posted an accidential smiley yet! I don't like smileys myself, but a common complaint on the other forums is that there aren't enough of them, so it could be worse

CoalBurner, Hi Speed Scrap not sure what is required here in practical terms

Roy Entwistle, please see increase in number in latest forum posts, and link to top of post so you don't need to scroll down as far

Jason Udall, Zooming in or out works fine for me, apart from Text Only zoom, which can't always be guaranteed to preserve the layout properly. Which browser are you using, and what zoom? I will see what I can do

ModEng2000, Thanks for letting me know, not sure if I can work round that or not, but I will have a look

Jim Guthrie, please see earlier reply to Old Elan

MechMan48, I'm sorry, we can't implement an autosave with this text editor. As Russell says, you can just copy your own text before you post, and paste it in the editor

JA, I personally use the latest posts page at least once every day to see what has happened when I first log on, and use the side list during the day, when I have already caught up. I don't know if that would work for you, but it works fine for me (I am the webeditor for Popular Patchwork, and have been reading all our forum posts every day for 6 years or so)

[modeng2000Participant @modeng2000]

Katy, if you can work round that for mei I'd be pleased but you probably have enough to do just now.

John

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

Katy/Jason,

Thanks for the response / tip re. copying text.

George

[Grizzly bearParticipant @grizzlybear]

Hi Katy,

You have done a good job.

Engineers are used to adapting.

Keep smiling.

Regard, Bear..

[BubbleParticipant @bubble]

Hi Katy

My access to the archive is also blocked, my subscription is until march2014

but the site tells me I am not a current subscriber

and yes my subs number is on my profile

Jim

[Katy PurvisParticipant @katypurvis79544]

I'll have a look, I'll probably have to email the subs people again, but I'll email you if I f find anything before they do, and when they do

[Katy PurvisParticipant @katypurvis79544]

Hi Jim

It should work now, you needed your surname in your details so you could be matched up with your subscription.

Thanks

Katy

[NJHParticipant @njh]

Oh Katy!!

"(I am the webeditor for Popular Patchwork, and have been reading all our forum posts every day for 6 years or so)"

Now you've done it!!

My wife is a patchwork & quilting fanatic and I was foolish enough to point out your posting to her. " Oh I've not seen that site – wow send me a link " she says. Now I will never get her out of the sewing room and away from the computer so I will have to revert to a diet of marmite sandwiches!!

Thanks for increasing the number of " Latest Forum Posts and for all your efforts to address the issues raised here. With that interactive approach I can put up with any other little differences which, I'm sure, will soon be accepted as the norm.

Regards

Norman

[Gray62Participant @gray62]

Posted by Katy Purvis on 01/10/2013 11:56:47:

CoalBurner, Hi Speed Scrap not sure what is required here in practical terms

Hi Katy, I have no idea where you got the above from. I have only made one post in this thread, the content of which I have copied below;

Change for the sake of change! without actually addressing any of the long standing issues with basic functionality.

Cluttered, clumsy, unweildy, homepage overburdened with unnecessary images, too much whitespace wasting valuable screen real-estate.

Apart from that I hate it

regards

CB

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

Posted by Katy Purvis on 01/10/2013 11:56:47:

Nicholas, NJH, Slotdriller, Russell, thank you

Ian P, yes, the missing emails were my fault, I fixed it last night, sorry. We can't stop the smileys though, it is just generally accepted that if you type something like semi-colon right bracket, you get a smiley. I've made 5558 forum posts on Popular Patchwork, and never posted an accidential smiley yet! I don't like smileys myself, but a common complaint on the other forums is that there aren't enough of them, so it could be worse

Katy

Thanks for the reply, and thank you for fixing the emails.

I'm not sure what you mean by 'its generally accepted' that semi-colon, right bracket inserts a smiley. I have opnly evers seen this 'feature' on this forum.

Like you I am not a fan of them. That leads me to ask whether you put the one in your reply deliberately?

Ian P

[Katy PurvisParticipant @katypurvis79544]

Hi Ian, Yes I did put it there deliberately. Typing those key combinations in a text editor in an awful lot of websites would produce a smiley. Maybe the frequency of the combinations is more evident with the type of posts you make here, I'm not sure. But on facebook, and blogs and other forums etc, the key combos would usually work, even if their isn't an explicit button for them as there is here.

[richardandtracyParticipant @richardandtracy]

It's different. I have no problems with the changes. It looks clearer than it was.

It would be nice to jump to the latest unread post when you're logged in and are looking at a thread list in a forum. But that is a 'Would be Nice' rather than a killer.

Regards,

Richard

[MadMikeParticipant @madmike]

Katy I am a regular visitor to this site, but only a very occasional contributor. The new webpage format and the increased area for message text, added to the increased clarity of the whole page are a vast improvement on the older version. Clearly you are on top of resolving issues at an almost macro level at this stage and for this you should be congratulated. Changing the format on a site like tgis is no mean task and IMHO it has proceeded extremely well.

People who claim to be engineers and yet then go on to admit that they are resistant to change forget that it was engineers who created the massive changes in materials, techniques and machines that created the rapid and successful development of this nation and indeed the rest of the world. Engineers led the way, it was the luddites who resisted them…………..and failed.

Keep up the great work…….oh yes nearly forgot, Popular Patchwork is a great site

[Author]

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