Forum Maintenance 8/6/2021

[Molly B.]

1 hour ago, Talonap said:

That's because there are no colors! Want my backgrounds back! 😢 And my stars are sqished. (I know you guys are working hard on this, just yanking your chains a bit. ) :-)>

 

 

the squished stars make me sea sick . . .🤢

[EdDinIL]

I don't recall seeing a committee hearing where we could file witness slips for these changes!

 

I don't recall seeing a committee hearing where we could file witness slips for these changes!

 

Purple 1 vs. Purple 2. 

[mikew]

For best results have a square avatar.

 

If your avatar is taller than wide, it will get cropped to be square.

 

If you must have an avatar that is not square, pad your image with space (whatever color you want, maybe even transparent) in order to have a square image.

 

[EdDinIL]

I guess this is a good place for feedback as any.... I assume the "popular" and "unanswered" questions tabs under Illinois Carry Licensing Process are intentional.  I'm not a fan, because now the pinned threads are below those tabs.

[mauserme]

5 minutes ago, EdDinIL said:

I guess this is a good place for feedback as any.... I assume the "popular" and "unanswered" questions tabs under Illinois Carry Licensing Process are intentional.  I'm not a fan, because now the pinned threads are below those tabs.

Those have been removed.  The Illinois Carry Licensing Forum will act just like the others now. 

[mauserme]

12 minutes ago, EdDinIL said:

I don't recall seeing a committee hearing where we could file witness slips for these changes!

 

I don't recall seeing a committee hearing where we could file witness slips for these changes!

 

Purple 1 vs. Purple 2. 

We asked the speaker for advice on how to handle this.  He told us to let him worry about those details.

[EdDinIL]

6 minutes ago, mauserme said:

Those have been removed.  The Illinois Carry Licensing Forum will act just like the others now. 

 

Thanks!

 

Other than that, I have no real complaints.  It's both different and the same.  Functionality is mostly identical. The extra space doesn't bother me much, but if you managed to squeeze everything back down for PC users, I certainly wouldn't argue against that. 

[mauserme]

31 minutes ago, EdDinIL said:

 

Thanks!

 

Other than that, I have no real complaints.  It's both different and the same.  Functionality is mostly identical. The extra space doesn't bother me much, but if you managed to squeeze everything back down for PC users, I certainly wouldn't argue against that. 

Just out of curiosity, do you know if you're in Expanded View mode which shows topics with a preview of the opening post?  The toggles are to the left of the Start New Topic button.

[Euler]

FWIW, I use "condensed" mode (no previews) and could still do with less empty space.  The empty space and bigger buttons for people who use their fingers to poke the screen. Those of us who skilfully use specialized tools fit for purpose (i.e., a keyboard and mouse) just have to accommodate ourselves to a world where more advanced people refuse to use more than their bare hands. It's the same everywhere.

[EdDinIL]

I'm in Condensed Mode.  I didn't know Expanded View was a thing.  I just tried it and had an instant hate reaction to it.  It's likely the IC filters wouldn't let me type my reaction.  In general I'm not a fan of preview modes in anything, and that definitely applies here.

 

9 hours ago, Euler said:

FWIW, I use "condensed" mode (no previews) and could still do with less empty space.  The empty space and bigger buttons for people who use their fingers to poke the screen. Those of us who skilfully use specialized tools fit for purpose (i.e., a keyboard and mouse) just have to accommodate ourselves to a world where more advanced people refuse to use more than their bare hands. It's the same everywhere.

 

I'm in the keyboard-and-mouse crowd.  The scroll wheel on the mouse beats the heck out of swiping or using the page up/down keys.  

 

To be fair, I never really looked at IC on my phone, but when I did I thought the interface was a little cumbersome.  I'll have to check it out to see if that's improved.

[TRJ]

Oooh. Imagine my surprise when the page laoded and the format changed. Looks great! And it's a HTTPS now!

[soundguy]

It took days for me to find the site again... my bookmark didn't exist any longer. As a PC and iPhone user, it all seems pretty OK. New and the same as someone else said...

 

Just clicking around a bit  to see how it all works from the PC side.

 

Spoiler

Huh... what's a spoiler? Oh!!!

And there's the edit button - concealed behind three dots, upper right.

 

[Euler]

8 hours ago, TRJ said:

... And it's a HTTPS now!

 

It's been https for a while.

 

 I notice sigs have returned today. It seems odd to place them BELOW the quote/multiquote (footer) controls.

[MagSlap]

Agree'd..

 

 

 

 

[Euler]

  

If you're willing to update the site CSS, I've found the following CSS tightens up the forum list and the topic lists quite nicely, getting rid of lots of empty space. People who poke instead of click shouldn't be disadvantaged by the change.

 

.ipsDataList_large .ipsDataItem_icon,
.ipsDataList_large .ipsDataItem_lastPoster,
.ipsDataList_large .ipsDataItem_main,
.ipsDataList_large .ipsDataItem_stats,
.ipsDataItem_icon,
.ipsDataItem_lastPoster,
.ipsDataItem_main,
.ipsDataItem_stats {
  padding: 5px 0 5px 5px;
}

 

The values of padding (apparently in framework.css, prepended with a massive hex number) is 18px (with some variances). The .ipsDataList_large values are for the main forum list. The ones without it are for the topic lists in each of the forums. The current padding for list items adds 18px on all sides, so this edit would decrease that to 0 on the right and to 5px on all other sides.

 

If you're amenable, I can supply more suggestions as I look around a bit more. The last time I suggested CSS changes (last version) to fix a bug, I got pushback, perhaps because CSS was an alien concept. Let me know what you think.

[Euler]

To better argue my suggestion, here are some screenshots.

 

Forum list without the change:

 

Forum list with the change:

 

Topic list without the change:

 

Topic list with the change:

 

HTH

[mrmagloo]

[MagSlap]

BOOM!!!

DoublePlusGood!!!

 

ETA..Did that include getting rid if the FisherPrice 'bubbles'?

 

[Euler]

4 hours ago, MagSlap said:

BOOM!!!

DoublePlusGood!!!

 

ETA..Did that include getting rid if the FisherPrice 'bubbles'?

 

My suggestion above only shrinks the spacing for those specified lists. There are other changes, including other instances of empty space, that I could suggest. I just haven't.

 

It's possible that there are administrative options to disable some of the things you dislike, which would probably be preferable to editing site CSS.

[MagSlap]

Sorry..I can't help myself... 'Bubbles'...

Something about 'Too dumb to be a feature' really bugs me...

 

[Euler]

4 hours ago, MagSlap said:

... And if I highlight da bubble, it tells me it's a 'post' ... on a forum, on a bulletin board ...

 

That's because you're looking at a "stream," which can also include calendar events, edits to profiles, and maybe other stuff, so it describes the stream item type.

 

Changing a stream list to eliminate the item type would require either changing the program code or hiding the offending elements for everybody. Both are probably inadvisable.

[MagSlap]

Just another lil tip...perhaps?

Save some CPU cycles and just do dis....

 

 

 

Or better yet...ditch that 'feature' and save some space...

(Yet honestly? I'd be curious as to the cpu/db load before/after the upgrade.

 

[MagSlap]

7 minutes ago, Euler said:

 

That's because you're looking at a "stream," which can also include calendar events, edits to profiles, and maybe other stuff, so it describes the stream item type.

 

Changing a stream list to eliminate the item type would require either changing the program code or hiding the offending elements for everybody. Both are probably inadvisable.

 

Bummer...

I'm also having to use a defined 'stream' to achieve a comparable 'new content' equiv from the previous version....

Welp..I guess its 'tard mode' then...

[Euler]

Instead of (23, 126, 201) for theme-main_nav_tab, theme-section_title, and theme-widget_title_bar (CSS names, admin console might use different ones), may I suggest something more like (128, 192, 255).

 

Black text on a dark blue background is not a good idea.

 

You could change the fonts to something light, but then theme-text_light will have difficulty being visible against theme-page_background (235, 235, 236).

[soundguy]

 

As a sorta older guy with average sorta older eyes and vision, I am happy with the new look. It reminds me of a spread sheet or Word Doc and other forums I visit. I also am comfortable with the white type on black over at the 1911 Forum.

 

I don't like change any more than the next guy... this one was pretty easy to adapt to.

 

[richp]

27 minutes ago, soundguy said:

 

As a sorta older guy with average sorta older eyes and vision, I am happy with the new look. It reminds me of a spread sheet or Word Doc and other forums I visit. I also am comfortable with the white type on black over at the 1911 Forum.

 

I don't like change any more than the next guy... this one was pretty easy to adapt to.

 

Couldn't have said it better myself.

 

Rich Phillips

[Euler]

 For those who used to use BBCode and miss it, the old forum used to store posts as BBCode (exactly like MediaWiki stores articles as wiki markup). However the new forum stores posts as HTML. With a little playing around, it appears storing posts as HTML provides us with a little more flexibility, at the cost of some extra pain.

1. Compose a new post in HTML in a text editor, like Windows Notepad.
2. Save the HTML and open it in at new tab/window in your browser.
3. Copy from the browser and paste into the "new comment" dialog in IPB.

As a sort-of benefit, [pre] didn't work in the old forum, but <pre> works as HTML in the new forum. Also, editing HTML in Notepad (etc.) allows access to all the data fields in IPB quotes.

 

For example:

<!DOCTYPE html><html><head><meta charset="UTF-8"/></head><body>
<blockquote class="ipsQuote" data-ipsquote-timestamp="1628997661" data-ipsquote-username="Self-reference">
<p>blah blah blah</p>
</blockquote>
</body></html>

 

Produces:

4 hours ago, Self-reference said:

blah blah blah

[Euler]

The search function appears to search only active topics. Is there a way to search archived topics? In the old forum, we could specify that we wanted to search archives.

 

For example, searching for "g2 research" fails to come up with Optimal expansion or optimal penetration.

[Euler]

  

On 8/13/2021 at 2:04 PM, Euler said:

  

On 8/13/2021 at 1:24 PM, ScopeEye said:

...

Maybe all my inappropriate post's  have not been counted

...

 

I've been wondering if the number is the post count in active threads only (i.e., ones that haven't been locked or archived).

 

The true total number is still stored somewhere. My profile tells me I get the 4th star in 130 more posts. It can't tell me that if it doesn't already know.

 

As for the "k" notation being "lighter," you can still see the full number if you hover over the "lighter" number, because the full number is written into the "title" attribute of the HTML element. A page may be "lighter" to view, but it's heavier on the network.

 

5 hours ago, Euler said:

The search function appears to search only active topics. Is there a way to search archived topics? In the old forum, we could specify that we wanted to search archives.

 

For example, searching for "g2 research" fails to come up with Optimal expansion or optimal penetration.

 

I've found another error with archived content.

 

The URL https://illinoiscarry.com/forum/?app=core&module=system&controller=content&do=find&content_class=forums_Topic&content_id=69814&content_commentid=1170491 (link) should result in the URL https://illinoiscarry.com/forum/index.php?/topic/69814-optimal-expansion-or-optimal-penetration/page/2/#comment-1170491 (link), but it doesn't.

 

I believe that posts/threads that were archived before the upgrade were not indexed by the upgrade. That would explain all the above errors. That post count is wrong is slightly annoying, but we can probably get over it. We should, however, be able to search for text/titles in archived content and use database links to archived content. Otherwise it's like archived content has been deleted/hidden. It's possible that threads that get archived from this point on will remain indexed, so the question is how to re-index the database to include the posts/threads that were already archived.