this is the worst site possible

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Had the same Yesterday Nick, I sent Darren & Andy this screen shot and a video

 

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi JasonB, thanks for your video, that is exactly what I had, and confirms I’m not quite bonkers yet.

Regards Nick.

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

I’ve also noticed it with your posts Michael with the actual image showing up some time later. But as you tend to post more images than others it could simply be that rather than your images being slow.

As you’ve obviously noted, I was posting lots of images, both screenshots and conventional photos, as experiments and as explanations of problems.
I occasionally had images go missing or delayed; recently on the hot water tap topic. #701480/701483
The image originally showed when I posted it, I then went away for a little while, only to find the image replaced with a filename and icon.
It was outside the edit window time when I re-visited, more than ½ hour later, so I added the screenshot in a subsequent post.
Some time later, the first image re-appeared in the original post.

It’s only happened to me a few of times, but seemingly at random.
I’ve not been able to replicate the problem on demand, so maybe it’s just a priority thing with different internal tasks in the forum software.
I also have a note in my faults spreadsheet of #687008 & #687435 from 5th Nov. & #688359 from 7th Nov.

Bill

[Anonymous]

It occurs to me that by far the largest user of time for me is not site access delay (decently acceptable in my case). It’s that when I click on the the latest post listed, I have to spend a long time scrolling through messages seeking the last message that I, personally, read. This completely swamps any other site tardiness. Being in a different time zone exacerbates the problem since, by the time I get on, UK members have been at it (as it were) for hours. Going to the last post in a thread is not normally useful.

I can of course click on the topic column (on the latest posts page) but that just takes me to the other end of the thread.

IIRC it was like this on the previous site too. I do realise that saving specific thread statistics for every member would be a sizeable task.

[Peter Greene]

On Peter Greene Said:

It occurs to me that by far the largest user of time for me is not site access delay (decently acceptable in my case). It’s that when I click on the the latest post listed, I have to spend a long time scrolling through messages seeking the last message that I, personally, read. This completely swamps any other site tardiness. Being in a different time zone exacerbates the problem since, by the time I get on, UK members have been at it (as it were) for hours. Going to the last post in a thread is not normally useful.

I can of course click on the topic column (on the latest posts page) but that just takes me to the other end of the thread.

IIRC it was like this on the previous site too. I do realise that saving specific thread statistics for every member would be a sizeable task.

Peter, I may be wrong but I don’t think that its the site needs to save details, I think its the sort of thing that cookies on your PC do. I’ve no idea how complicated it is to incorporate into this particular forum and/or whether it was ever in the specification of the upgrade.

Not knowing the location of the participants is another missing feature of both the old and the new forums, all we know is that you are not in the UK timezone.

Ian P

[websnailParticipant @websnail]

Well, I have trouble with the fonts, colours and brightness of the site.

The first thing it needs for me is a dark mode, until it does, it’s unusable foe me.

I’ll just check in every couple of months.

[TomfileryParticipant @tomfilery]

websnail,

I think it’s your browser which needs dark mode, not this site.  I’m using Firefox and can enable the Add-on “Dark Reader” if I need it.  Similarly, ublock origin hides the ads.

Regards Tom

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Do people not use other sites with a predominantly white background such as Google? or complain to Google about the amount of white?

[Ian PParticipant @ianp]

That’s a bit of an odd reply Jason😉

For me, all the text on a Google page is a readable size and colour. on this site though some text is unreadable without changing zoom level and in some places the colour difference between the characters and its background is so similar that its hardly visible at any magnification.

Your Google screenshot like most screenshots (of this site) that are included as part of a participants post are generally blurred and have very small text so are unreadable.

Ian P

 

 

[Ian P]

On Ian P Said:

That’s a bit of an odd reply Jason😉

…

Agreed, Ian

Part of the problem, of course, is that Jason’s screenshot is small on the forum, but also pretty low resolution as well … so clicking it doesn’t help much.

To appreciate how much better the Google presentation is than these forum pages we need to see it enlarged [hopefully, image re-sizing by this forum will not mask my point too much].

The choice of font and line-spacing is so much better:

.

.

The problem here is not all about the amount of white space … it’s also about the crass way that information is presented on that white page.

 

MichaelG.

[Maurice TaylorParticipant @mauricetaylor82093]

Hi, this screenshot was taken with an IPad 2nd generation (2011)

All of the forum is clear and readable on my iPads .

Maurice

[Maurice Taylor]

On Maurice Taylor Said:

Hi, this screenshot was taken with an IPad 2nd generation (2011)

 

All of the forum is clear and readable on my iPads .

Maurice

and does that include the thread titles that have pink background?

As in the latest replies when the thread or poster is blocked I think

Ian P

[Maurice TaylorParticipant @mauricetaylor82093]

Hi, I can read those on my 12 year old iPad and my new iPad . The one I read was from 20 December.

Maurice

[duncan webster 1Participant @duncanwebster1]

It’s actually a lot better than when it first started. However, it’s running off the right hand edge of my phone screen, android, so I can’t see whether I’m logged in or out.

Edit, having just submitted that and gone back to the top, it now shows ‘log out’ on 2 lines, before the ‘out was just not there and the display looked cropped

[SillyOldDuffer]

On SillyOldDuffer Said:

Umm, wish I had more time to investigate.

Two days ago I set up Wireshark to look at the network traffic between my Browser (Ubuntu Firefox, both up-to-date) and noted that the initial page load appeared ro be cached locally, ie read from a copy stored on my computer not retrieved from the server.  May be a false conclusion because Wireshark takes careful setting up.   After logging in, I got server  updates.

Just tried again and it looks as if a major change has been made at the server end.   Two days ago, my Browser and the server communicated in standard HTTPS (web pages) and TLs (encryption set-up and refresh) both TCP.   The network connection is IPv6. (old network used IPv4).

Different today:  still IPv6, but the protocol has changed to QUIC not TCP.   QUIC is faster than TCP, but not everything supports it.  It means behind the scenes the new forum is doing a more complicated job than the old.  Nothing to do with look and feel, but it’s switching how it connects to individuals/  Presumably anyone with an ancient Windows-7 box gets an old-school IPv4 /’ TCP connection, whilst those with up to date hardware and software get a different service.  Both are risky: ancient because out-of-date software gradually becomes obsolete, whilst brand-new technology tends to be bleeding-edge – buggy!!!

Therefore individual experience could vary significantly.   Results depend on our hardware, the software it is running, how it is configured, our router, what our ISP supports, and a similar stack of dependencies at the host end, plus the performance tuning needs of a largish database and account management system.  The host end is more likely to be up-to-date.

Mortons were forced go live before the forum was fully debugged and are now struggling with a difficult IT problem, which is debugging a live site.   In development mode, there are no external host, network or client problems: bugs can only be due to the forum software, and the developer can experiment with solutions freely to find a fix.  Now the developer has to identify where in a very complex environment the bug really is, and there’s a high risk of causing new problems by changing the configuration experimentally.   Nasty, and applying fixes takes much longer.

From user end, there are two false views:

• Those who experience the worst think the whole thing is beyond redemption.  They’re wrong.
• Possible for occasional users not to notice there is anything odd going on.  This is wrong too.
• The truth is the forum is poorly – not delivering as intended, and fixing it has proved difficult.   A serious engineering problem,  and a hard slow slog to get it ‘just so’.  No doubt some annoying cosmetic problems haven’t been touched yet because the developer is embroiled in difficult stuff.

At the moment, I think suspect two or more bugs are interacting:: initial login, cache(s) not being refreshed causing old data to stick in the system, posts appearing in threads, or disappearing, and sluggish performance.    It’s possible all are cache related.   Simply put, if data hasn’t changed since the last request, use a local copy, i.e a cache.  But this only works if the cache refreshes correctly when the source data is changed.  Quite complicated to configure, and it can go wrong, causing peculiar misbehaviours!

Out of time, have to hit the road  – hope this makes sense.

Dave

 

I hear what you say Dave, and I can understand that because of your background and skills you would want to have time to investigate yourself. But isn’t this wheel already invented? I subscribe to other forums  which have changed over time and I’ve never seen quite  such a mess as this. Even the HMRC self assessment site (in Beta for the last two years at least)  works better!

For sure it’s a complicated problem, but it has been solved elsewhere. What I don’t understand is why Mortons hasn’t adopted the tried and tested forum software which has been around for a while.

Kudos to the mods on this site who have obviously put a lot of work into trying to improve things, but (despite the generally self-reliant    ‘can do’, just give me a bit of string and a Myford and I’ll fix it ethos of the site) you really shouldn’t have to.

Robin.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Bill, my question was about the Brightness of the site, prompted by Websnails comment.

To me this site actually has a darker background than the Google site which is near enough pure white whereas this site has a similar area of blank down the left that is off white so noyt as bright.

I would also say that the Google Font is not a black a sit is here both in the editor and the posted reply. Yes the snipping tool is low res but that does not affect the brightness or otherwiseof teh background.

If In doubt split your screen an look at this site and others like this

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, to compare the whiteness of the background, I find comparing pages from different sites difficult, because of different fonts and sizes of the text. I do it by a rubber test, by first making a screenshot of each of two (or more) pages, and then do some rubbing out from top to bottom as shown below, although the top one may not be totally accurate, as it’s a screenshot of a screenshot of a earlier post on this new forum, but you should see that the new forum looks whiter. Both screenshots were edited using Paint.

Regards Nick

[Nicholas FarrParticipant @nicholasfarr14254]

Hi, Another problem I’ve found, is that when I go to Engagements or Forum Replies Created in my profile, the pages are stuck on page 1 and won’t advance, so one cannot view any of your old posts or photos.

Regards Nick.

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

Bill, my question was about the Brightness of the site, prompted by Websnails comment.

 

Jason, I’m not sure if you intended to address this Bill, but since I get a mention. 😉

I was finding the initial brightness, on a widescreen monitor, a bit overpowering/glaring, but now it’s toned down a bit I’m much more comfortable viewing overall; particularly now that adjacent posts show more colour differentiation.

As mentioned by Michael, whilst the Google search screen is brighter, at a full 255-255-255 RGB, it’s still easier to read for me.
I believe that’s down to the linespacing mainly, though font choice may also come into play here; I think this site uses Arial 13.5pt, for the final posted display on my monitor, whereas Google uses Arial 10.5pt; i.e. smaller, but oddly easier to read for me.
One really annoying aspect, is that this site uses Calibri 11 pt font in the composition pane, so the font and layout change when submitted for posting.

I’m in the slightly odd position of being between two cataract operations, which does affect my vision at computer viewing distances, though I’m fine to drive.
I guess I’m seeing the forum via slightly impaired eyesight so may pick up on issues less visible to those with 20-20 vision at this distance.
I’m OK with large blocks of text, if there is sufficient line spacing, but find the close spacing on here hard work to keep my place when changing lines.

I don’t know how this screenshot will come out after it’s re-sized by the forum, but I hope it illustrates my point; I’ve taken a screenshot of a Word document with different Arial font sizes and line spacings.
Personally I find it easier to read, and not lose my place, with the 10.5. font with 1.15 line spacing (as per Google) than the much larger 13.5 font with single line spacing.
Maybe a compromise of say 12 font with 1.25 line spacing could be tried in some sort of a survey posting, though I’m not sure how easy that would be without changing all of the site.

Also, for those of us using Windows, if you have Powertoys installed/enabled, Win-Shift-C enables a colour picker which you can hover over the screen to show both background and text colour, though you need to zoom in to see the latter easily

Eyedropper was positioned over the red circle

Bill

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Are people aware that using <ctrl> and <+> you can zoom in and out, or use <ctrl> and mouse wheel.

I don’t know about other browsers, but in Firefox it remembers what zoom to use for different websites, looking at my open tabs they range from 90% to 133%, I use 120% for this website (I used to use 130% for the old one which suggests I find this one easier to read).

Neil

[File HandleParticipant @filehandle]

I have seen several comments about the site being difficult to read, but have never had a problem since it was changed. I know that there have been a few usability issues, but I often wonder if the main issue is that it is different cf the old site and many people don’t like change.

[Neil Wyatt]

On Neil Wyatt Said:

Are people aware that using <ctrl> and <+> you can zoom in and out, or use <ctrl> and mouse wheel.

I don’t know about other browsers, but in Firefox it remembers what zoom to use for different websites, looking at my open tabs they range from 90% to 133%, I use 120% for this website (I used to use 130% for the old one which suggests I find this one easier to read).

Neil

Whole thread on it Neil, it can introduce other problems so needs using with care.

[JasonB]

On JasonB Said:

On Neil Wyatt Said:

Are people aware that using <ctrl> and <+> you can zoom in and out, or use <ctrl> and mouse wheel.

I don’t know about other browsers, but in Firefox it remembers what zoom to use for different websites, looking at my open tabs they range from 90% to 133%, I use 120% for this website (I used to use 130% for the old one which suggests I find this one easier to read).

Neil

Whole thread on it Neil, it can introduce other problems so needs using with care.

Yes, but maybe not everyone else has seen that?

[Maurice Taylor]

On Maurice Taylor Said:

Hi, I can read those on my 12 year old iPad and my new iPad . The one I read was from 20 December.

Maurice

I have a 12 year old iPad (iPad 2, 64GB) which I was given as a birthday present. Its not been touched for 4 years and I would like to make some use of it but I cannot find any way to download apps from the App store. How do you manage with yours?

Ian P

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Have got an Apple account?

[Author]

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