Plans for updating the archaic forum?

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Didn't this forum change change a few years ago? I seem to remmeber a format with a coumn of adverts or something on the left as well as right of the thread. I guess there was oots of moaing then too.

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

I hope the album feature can be fixed by the 1st April when it looks as tho the new format will be upon us – tho not personally affected many of the albums give a good sequential flow of images in some build

Edited By Frances IoM on 13/02/2021 11:33:04

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Re: white text on black background.

This is what I use on my desktop. Deliberately. No fancy pictures. No real colouring because it seems that for my chosen scheme, Linux icons are mostly monochrome. And that's how I like it. Plain and easy to read.

I do use different schemes elsewhere, eg I have a DOS based database which uses black lettering on a pale gray background. But it also uses a few colours as well – red frame, yellow highlighting, green showing where the cursor is. All plain simple colours. Whilst experimenting, I did end up red headings, pale blue highlighting and brown cursor line. And frankly, it's hideous, but I can't be bothered amending it.

But, in general, I want a non-existent background upon which the data, whatever that data may be, stands out.

Just my 2-pennorth.

Peter G. Shaw

[JAParticipant @ja]

It strikes me that this posting is rather like the outside world: It is full of suspicions, possible half truths, conspiracy theories, mutations and it comes in waves.

On a more serious note: Surely it should possible to change the way a forum is made. Instead of keeping it unchanged for years why not make small changes frequently, keep the ones that work and scrap the ones that fail. It is called evolution.

JA

[Frances IoMParticipant @francesiom58905]

Firefox has a very useful ‘read text’ icon that strips out all the extraneous ‘junk’ from a page leaving it very easy to read – my 1st click on many websites as it gets rid of most adverts etc – might well be worth checking out what this does to the new format – in older browsers I’d generally click ‘no style’ as this too greatly simplified the flow of text.

on a different tack tho unlikely to ever see the real traffic of this site my guess is that if the photos on the main page were reduced somewhat in size that one of the many hosting sites could handle it for about ?600-700 per year which is covered by maybe less than 100 people taking out subs

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

If being a simpleton is a crime, I am going to spend the rest of life behind bars.

Someone said that the world would beat a path to the door of the inventor a better mousetrap.

But is that still true? The old style of trap kills the unfortunate mouse just as effectively as one that delivers an intravenous injection of cyanide.

Almost all the computer speak that has gone before is over my head, but you wouldn't enjoy my flaunting my very limited knowledge of injection pressure, hole sizes and hole lengths; so I don't.

i am not against change, but if it does not greatly enhance things, for me, selfishly I don't need it.

150 Gb/sec broadband may help someone using it for a living, but but being retired, don't need it. Mostly, the only time pressure is when the grim reaper will come calling.

This Forum is about a hobby so does not need all the bells and whistles necessary to control a multi station transfer line or print line.

"improving" the Forum might have an adverse effect on a Forum for some other title

The Forum works for me. OK it may not be the latest whizz bang program, and obviously greatly annoys some..

(But folk thought that Thalidomide was a good idea! ) .

OK, I am a Luddite. A black spanner tightens a nut just as well a shiny chrome plated one. May not look or feel as nice but works just as well, which is the object of the exercise.

What irritates me?

Loosing the text if I change pages or enlarge a photo

I can just about manage to put a photo into my Albums, but probably not into a thread. Lack of knowledge / skill on my part, but to me, tolerable.

Some of the other posters..

I can live with those things without throwing my rattle out of the pram. Being locked in, and missing all my Engineering related meetings is boring and frustrating, but tolerable, so far. The Forum is a good distraction and entertainment. Not least watching so many going figuratively hot under the collar! Worth a giggle!

Howard

VACANCY for a proof reader!

 

Edited By Howard Lewis on 13/02/2021 17:20:41

[Anonymous]

Posted by John Haine on 13/02/2021 10:08:29:

This is a test reply to check out the spelyng checker

Just as a follow-up to what I said earlier, John, I did a search for those earlier posts on the SCAYT topic and I think this quote from one of those threads about sums it up (and is why I accept the CTRL-key penalty):

"The problem with the online spell-checker (SCAYT) is that it keeps your added-word list as a cookie on your machine. If you ever lose that cookie (such as when you are trying to solve a computer problem and someone suggests that you – willy nilly – delete all your cookies … ! ) you start again from scratch.

SCAYT isn't particularly good and the best way around this is to turn it off and use the built-in spell checker in your browser (which you can also setup for English language variations if such is your wont). Moreover, the added word list is now available globally for all sites you visit. The penalty for this is that you have to use the CTL-key (on this site or any others using SCAYT) when you click on a mis-spelled word. It appears that this is how you are set up."

[Anonymous]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 13/02/2021 17:18:16:..

(But folk thought that Thalidomide was a good idea! ) .

Many still do. It does a sterling job of keeping their blood cancers under control.

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

Not if you happen to be pregnant woman!

[Anonymous]

Posted by Howard Lewis on 13/02/2021 17:45:44:

Not if you happen to be pregnant woman!

No, of course not. Why would you give a pregnant woman Thalidomide knowing the problems? That doesn't mean it should be denied to others though. I just means that you control it to ensure that women of child-bearing age (not just pregnant women) neither take it nor handle it (unless wearing medical gloves).

[ChrisHParticipant @chrish]

My thoughts are that this forum may not be the best but it's OK and one can jog along nicely on it. It has limitations but nothing too bad that one can't deal with. To me it's fine as is but I appreciate others get upset by it's limitations and there are reasons to change.

To me I find the Model Engine Maker the best forum site to read and follow, I like the way the posts are presented, easy to read and follow, very clear, easy to refer to other posts as they are numbered, putting photos on are a pain, so not perfect. Home Model Engine Machinist is also a not bad forum site, perhaps clearer than this one, not that I post there much.

There has been talk of the RCM&E website, had not been there recently so took a look. Awful.

PLEASE, don't go down the RCM&E website route until it has been improved greatly, if we must go that route, as has been alluded to in previous posts on this thread. Went on there and it was awful, really awful, not at all user friendly. Trying to find your way around a nightmare, a complete turn-off, do I really need a whole white screen between posts, do I really need to scroll down miles to read the next post, and text is not that clear against the background when you do find it. Got so fed up with it I couldn't be bothered to explore it further, too much effort with not enough interest to reward that effort, so binned the site pronto. A site needs to be easy to use to encourage users to use it, the RCM&E site definitely fails in that respect.

And on the subject of text against a background please take into consideration that some people, like me, are partially colour blind. With certain colour combinations of text and background, blues and yellows and reds and greens, all of certain shades, for starters, means we literally cannot read the text, or can only read it with a lot of difficulty and squinting and frowning and concentration, so get put off and bin the idea and go to something else we can read. Colour blindness also means that those with it 'sees' certain colours completely differently to how other people see it, a certain shade of yellow can appear as a shade of green for example as we see it, which further complicates the issue. To assume all can read all colour combinations demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of the abilities of those with less than perfect eyesight.

Chris

PS – I have just been back on the RCM&E website and it has changed since my earlier visit and the posts are much better now, more a more normal look, so I take back some of my earlier criticism, but I am still not liking much of what I see and do I like the adverts between posts -NO!

Edited By ChrisH on 13/02/2021 19:01:03

[Howard LewisParticipant @howardlewis46836]

From the OP's comments they are obviously very well experienced and skilled in such matters.

Can we take it that they are going to volunteer to develop for MTM a new platform with the features that they want and the features that the rest of us all enjoy on the existing Forum?

Howard

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Good news for Howard. Part written comments are persistent if you navigate away, of course this means you have to delete them if you come back later and change your mind.

Lots of things are configurable and David Ashby has been making tweaks to the modelflying website in response to user feedback. Overall, apparently there is more positive feedback than negative.

I have raised advert placement.

The weakness with this site is that the 'mobile' version doesn't work very well and when you zoom in to make the posts readable the ads are all hidden at the right anyway and may as well not be there.

Invision does 'flow' better on a mobile. I have given feedback on advertising placement. The difficult bit is that on a proper mobile website everything is in a single column. This will limit where ads are placed (look at other mobile sites) and a new approach may be needed.

Obviously we need ads to 'pay' for the forum but we also need to avoid them being so obtrusive they spoil the experience. A circle that will have to be squared.

Neil

[JourneymanParticipant @journeyman]

The problem with catering for mobile use is, as you say, a narrow column width. This is usually OK with posts but the adverts either end up all at the bottom where there is no click through or between posts which creates a very poor experience for the user. Some forums, HMEM for example, turn off the adds between posts if you are logged in, a possible solution perhaps.

I thought that the RCME site and others linked to were quite acceptable, nothing that can't become familiar with a little use. Benefits of upgrade/change probably outweigh the drawbacks.

John

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Neil, are the MTM back room boffins able to analyse their data to see how many visits they get from mobile devices and how many from PC/desktop as it would be a bit pointless making the forum suit mobile users if that only accounts for 10% of the users?

One only has to look at the near zero activity on ME's Facebook, twitter etc sites to see there is little demand for that form of access.

[VicParticipant @vic]

Posted by Frances IoM on 13/02/2021 12:13:28:
Firefox has a very useful 'read text' icon that strips out all the extraneous 'junk' from a page leaving it very easy to read.

Safari has had this feature for many years but it doesn’t work for all websites. Not surprisingly it doesn’t work with this one. I’m guessing the software is too ancient …

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Neil Wyatt on 14/02/2021 14:21:32:

[…]

A circle that will have to be squared.

Neil

.

… as easy as Pi

MichaelG.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, well if this one ends up like RCM&E, I'll probably not bother using it anymore, (some may jump for joy perhaps) looks like your reading through a letterbox, with the writing on a back wall and the words too grey, made it hard for me to read and gave up.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 14/02/2021 17:08:58

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Nick, I've just looked at the RCM&E forum and I get plain black text on pure white background filling the whole screen without adverts on the side. Perhaps it is different in another operating system or browser. Seems quite clear if a bit stark without the green name/date/time bar separting each post.

[Anonymous]

With people here checking out the RCM&E forum and many (presumably) creating new logons to do so, the owners of that site might conclude that their new look is having highly positive results!

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Bazyle on 14/02/2021 17:32:01:

Nick, I've just looked at the RCM&E forum and I get plain black text on pure white background filling the whole screen without adverts on the side. Perhaps it is different in another operating system or browser. Seems quite clear if a bit stark without the green name/date/time bar separting each post.

.

… and lots of posts dated October 1, 2019

MichaelG.

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi MichaelG, yes it is a white background as Bazyle has said and mostly the width of the screen with pale blue margins each side and the same pale blue band between each post which makes them all look like letterboxes to me and the writing is small, so with all that brilliant white background, makes the writing look grey, a matter of contrast I suppose.

 My browser in MS Edge in Win 10.

Lots of dated posts 1 Oct. 2019, maybe lots of people have got fed up with using it already.

Regards Nick.

Edited By Nicholas Farr on 14/02/2021 18:41:58

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Posted by Peter Greene on 14/02/2021 17:38:07:

With people here checking out the RCM&E forum and many (presumably) creating new logons to do so, the owners of that site might conclude that their new look is having highly positive results!

Hi Peter, didn't create a new login, just clicked on Ketan's Link.

Regards Nick.

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by Nicholas Farr on 14/02/2021 18:30:19:

.

Lots of dated posts 1 Oct. 2019

.

Yes, that was the totality of my observation … the rest was just quoting Bazyle.

I don’t have enough interest to bother checking, but I suspect that date is erroneous.

MichaelG.

[BazyleParticipant @bazyle]

Sorry, Nick. My mistake I read your "back" as "bLack".

[Author]

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