TheK4Kid

I'm done with these forums, going over and staying on MRH

I liked it the way it was. MR really messed it up this time!!!

Their magazine is good, but this new website is ridiculous!

I'm not going to waste my time on this ridiculous  site anymore.

I am saying goodbye to a lot of great model railroad fans

MR had a good thing going with the way the forums USED TO BE!

 

I'm gone!

 

The K4Kid

 

 

Model Railroad Hobbyist site

Ok, um..bye?

I mean geeez... it's new software. Give Kalmbach a few days to iron it out.  And even then, all new forums take a day to get used to.  No big deal.

My daughter who designs web sites and forums says too many designers make it for other geeks and not the average Joe Blow. She has even sent me some to critique especially ones she is trying to revise.

That comment is backed up by a step son who also does some of this kind of work and is working for a major silicon valley company. 

Thank you for pointing out that 'Edit' is a different link than 'Public Profile'!


BTW the Profile now allows links (not just raw HTML) to be added to the Signature and the Biography.
Thumbs up on this feature.

Another new 'feature' is that Quick Reply is now Slower than the regular reply using the Editor. After five minutes the Quick Reply dialog didn't finish downloading (no buttons) so I had to reload the page. WTH?

@ blue streak 1 - You are absolutely right about web sites are designed to impress only those that are in competition for who has used the latest and greatest (their opinion!) widgets in the newest versions of whatever is in fashion at the moment.

...Hope this works.  I'm not sure about anything on here now.

Woe is us, non super accomplished Geeks.

My email has been flooded with posts from here.....and it took 2 days to find I had to click on {Edit}, and not "Public Profile"...

Same clarity {about annually} to try to work with each all strange rearrangement.

     Now that I have *conversations* instead of PM's, a couple of weird things popped up.  Old, deleted PM's came back to life (!) (?) ......which lead to this:  I can't seem to delete them ( It's alive!!! ).  I try checking the box, and clicking delete, but no luck.  Can anybody help me out?  ( Talk to me like I'm 4 please. )  -Thanks

Bucyrus

Semper Vaporo:

Hmmm... you don't see this?

You say you have only one line of tools... are any of them like what I show above... I circled the general area of interest...???

 

I agree that Verdana is somewhat better for text display but there are those that will argue with us about that.  And apparently the person in charge of this forum selected whatever this is (I think it is maybe Arial), or maybe they just left it as it happened to be when they created the code.

 

As for the text size, it is already 10pt. which isn't too bad on my laptop monitor sitting, of all places, on top of my lap!  I do have a second (identical) laptop computer on a couch next to me that is running some video surveilance software and that is just a wee bit too far away (about twice the distance) to read the text in the size that the surveilance software has selected (which I believe to be 10pt.)... I have to squint to see which camera I want to pick from the list of cameras to be displayed on the main window.

 

Wonder why you don't see the entire tool bar (or at least a different one than I do)?

 

 

No, I don't have that top tool bar that starts of the left with font family.  I used to have it with the previous forum, but now all I have is the second tool bar that starts with bold, italic, and underline.

 

As far as fonts go, I don't mind if the forum has a default font of something I would not use as long as I have the option to change it to my preference.  Also, 10 pt. Verdana is considerably larger than this font. 

 

As far as individual preferences go, I know everybody has their own.  But I want to use the one that I believe communicates the best.  But apparenly there is a toolbar problem, a browser problem or whatever.  Many things about the fourm operation seem really squirrely today.  For instance, my preview pops up in a little window of its own underneath the forum display. 

I just noticed something...

There is a text area with an orangish background between the quote of the thread you are doing a reply to and the area where you are typing your reply (just above the part that I made an image of to paste into the above reply) and it has some words about a "Default Content Editor" that can be set or updated from your profile and it provides a link to click on to do so.  It goes to the same page that clicking on "(Edit)" next to Public Profile on the right does.  About 1/2 way down is a series of 3 selectors for the type of editor to use.  Mine is set to "Enhanced" ... See if yours is set to that and if not click on it and then click the "Save Profile" button at the bottom of the page.

I hope you can read the orangish text area as on my PC the text runs off the right side and I seem to lose some of the text under the right advertising bar.

Here is stupid bug that the programmers should be able to fix.

On the main Trains.com home page (and several other pages associated with this site) there is a banner across the top that has the Trains.com name on the left and images of the 5 Kalmbach magazines on the right.  Just above this banner is a menu bar that has a link to the home page on the left and on the right are 4 dropdown listboxes ("Trains.com sites", "Resources", "Shop" and "E-mail Newsletters") that if you hover your mouse over them they drop down a list of links you can click on... Unfortunately, you cannot click on them because the aforementioned banner has a higher priority in the display and the drop-down lists appear BEHIND the banner!  Only one of the top menu entries drops down a long enough list to see any of them lower on the screen than the banner, but there is no way to move the mouse to them because moving the mouse to the banner causes the list to disappear.  Same problem trying to go around the banner!  Note that some of the list is also hidden by the Search and Help/Contact us areas below the banner.

To err is human, to really foul things up requires a computer.

Semper Vaporo

K. P. Harrier:

CShaveRR (9-1):

How did you get a space line between paragraphs?  I sure can't!

 

 Sure you can... ya just gotta hit the Enter key TWICE to get it to happen.

I now see THREE lines between my "sure you can" line and this one, but when it displays to you, you will see only one.

I now see SIX lines between my 2nd line and this one because I hit the Enter key THREE times.

It used to be called, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), but now it is WYSINQWYG (What You See Is Not Quite What You Get)!

Semper Vaporo:

What you and I see on the computer may be different.

All the previous posts have all been altered for the worse with the new upgraded forums, at least on my computer.

The following temporary photo (of a reply to CShaveRR) is what I see on the computer:

But, to print out the display, the following results:

What you say about adding a line makes very much sense, Semper Vaporo, but I believe the above photos show an inconsistency.  And, adding a line NOW in a composition is fine, but it doesn't solve all the old posts having been altered for the worse, at least on my computer.  Nobody seems to have brought up such an alteration.  Is my computer the only one where all the old posts have been change with paragraphs kind of running together?

K.P.

PS:  As seen above, adding a line still hasn't solved the problem.

Semper Vaporo,

*

Yes, thank you, that did add the missing toolbar.  I had found a workaround yesterday, but this top toolbar will help.  I usually never compose a message directly in the message composition box because it can self-delete when you hit post.  So I have always composed the message in Word, and then copy/pasted it into the forum message box. 

*

However, this seemed most reliable when the message was composed in Word, using 12 pt. Times New Roman font, and then changing to the desired forum font from the forum message box.  Also, any undersocre or bold face should be added in the forum box rather than being pasted in with the Word document.  The forum message composer can lose its formatting if you paste in some bold face font. 

*

It will also lose its formatting if you copy/paste anything from a PDF file, which can be highly proiblematic.  If I copy/paste from a PDF into a Word document, it looks fine there.  If I copy/paste from there to the message box, it loses all formatting and everything runs together like one long sentence upon preview, and in posting.  This happens with the entire text body, not just the PDF portion.  In fact, if I delete the PDF portion from the Word document, the rest of the text remains corrupted format that show up as such when previewed from the message box.

*

I have never know whether this is something particular to PDF files, or if it is a problem with the forum software.  As a test, I have typed this message in the message box, and found it would not preview the entire text.  There is a basic problem with creating paragraphs by multiple "enter" commands that can be flaky.

*

P.S.  When I posted the above, formatted in triple spaced paragraphs, 10 pt. Verdana, it displated with no paragraph spacing, and 8 pt. Verdana.  I have edited a few times to add more paragraph spacing.  I have also found that the forum seems to consistently reduce the text size by one step between preview and posting.  This is being composed in 12 pt., and it will post in 10 pt.

*

P.P.S.  I have made several attempts to get this to format with spaces between paragraphs to no avail.  So I tried a technique that I have used when fighting to get PDFs to format.  This message has always previewed with the format, but loses it upon posting.  It also previews with 12 pt. font, and posts with 10 pt.

All,

Software updates are nothing new, and shouldn't be confusing. They should transition smoothly, but often times don't or have bugs that drive people nuts. As an example, I paid big bucks to get Microsoft Office 97. Then I bought a computer with Vista and discovered Office 97 was not compatible. I had to purchase Office 2007, and if I may say so it is a very poor replacement.

I also moderate an aviation forum, and it seems that every upgrade we install brings new problems. That is not intended to fault the programmers. They think they have it right when they release it but it is bound to have a few bugs.

I don't see that this programming is much different than the old one and works pretty well for me. Let's give the techies a chance to get everything right.

All things considered.....what would be so bad about using the seeming standard of the forum world PhPBB forumware.

Simple, straight forward.  All the continual reinventing of the wheel does is keep geeks employed and thinking they are the saviours of the byte world.

One other thing....after making a post I have to hit another button to be taken back to the thread I just posted in.  Ridiculous!

BaltACD

One other thing....after making a post I have to hit another button to be taken back to the thread I just posted in.  Ridiculous!

Right on:

Well I have to click backspace twice 1st time I get message "web page has expired" then next backspace gives page am replying to but still have to back space twice more to read other posts.

I also unclick on each of my posts send no e mail but it is still filling up my mail box. UGH!

K. P. Harrier

Semper Vaporo:

K. P. Harrier:

CShaveRR (9-1):

How did you get a space line between paragraphs?  I sure can't!

 

 Sure you can... ya just gotta hit the Enter key TWICE to get it to happen.

I now see THREE lines between my "sure you can" line and this one, but when it displays to you, you will see only one.

I now see SIX lines between my 2nd line and this one because I hit the Enter key THREE times.

It used to be called, WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get), but now it is WYSINQWYG (What You See Is Not Quite What You Get)!

 

 

Semper Vaporo:

What you and I see on the computer may be different.

All the previous posts have all been altered for the worse with the new upgraded forums, at least on my computer.

The following temporary photo (of a reply to CShaveRR) is what I see on the computer:

 

But, to print out the display, the following results:

 

What you say about adding a line makes very much sense, Semper Vaporo, but I believe the above photos show an inconsistency.  And, adding a line NOW in a composition is fine, but it doesn't solve all the old posts having been altered for the worse, at least on my computer.  Nobody seems to have brought up such an alteration.  Is my computer the only one where all the old posts have been change with paragraphs kind of running together?

K.P.

PS:  As seen above, adding a line still hasn't solved the problem.

 

Yeah, looks like your "display" and mine show the same single blank line between the two paragraphs, but when you print it the extra one I stuck in to make the display right, gets remembered again and shows up.  Another fine example of WYSINQWYG. And yes, it does not fix old posts, and may create another stupidity if they fix it and then all the newer posts (since the anomaly was introduced) by then showing extra space in later viewings.

This an lots of other silly things show me that they just didn't spend much time REALLY LOOKING at the result.  Notice that on the Trains.com home page there is a menu bar across the top that has some drop-down menus on the left, but when you cause one to drop down, it is hidden behind the banner and you can't click on any of the menu entries.  The list of what forum you are in is inconsistant between pages (this is the series of "Home > Forums > Trains magazine forums > General discussions" at the top of the page just below the banner).  Sometimes it includes the "Forums >" entry and sometimes it doesn't, though it should be there (or not... I have never understood the forum list within a forum list the way this site is setup). There are dozens of other oddball anomalies like this in the whole thing... the person/people who put it together didn't have a really good template to use (or maybe there were too many templates and not everybody was working from the same ones).

I figure these things will all be corrected in the next couple of years and will be almost perfect right before they decide to "upgrade" the site again.  Is that no the way of things?

blue streak 1

BaltACD:

One other thing....after making a post I have to hit another button to be taken back to the thread I just posted in.  Ridiculous!

 

Right on:

Well I have to click backspace twice 1st time I get message "web page has expired" then next backspace gives page am replying to but still have to back space twice more to read other posts.

I also unclick on each of my posts send no e mail but it is still filling up my mail box. UGH!

I am having trouble remembering who has done what here...

but did you alter your Public Profile to turn off the automatic selection to send you e-mails? Click the word "(Edit)" next the words "Public Profile" on the RIGHT side of the screen (next to your avatar).  Scroll down to the section titled, "EMail configuration" and click 'NO" on the last option in that section "Send Notifications".

That should change the forum so that when you post a new missive (reply or new topic) it does not automatically select to send you e-mails.

If you decide you do want e-mail notification on any topic after you have done this, you then must click the "Send me notifications" button at the top of the topic, or if you want only replies to a specific reply of yours (and not replies to some other reply within a topic) click the checkbox below the textbox where you typed your reply, "Email me replies to this post."

Hope this helps.

What do you folk think of the "Popular Tags" box to the right of the forum lists?  The one with all the silly oddball random font sizes in it.  I have noticed some other forums using this tactic to gain the user's eye and my personal opinion is that it is just plain stupid... Not unlike what I did here!  Looks like some child discovered the font size menu and decided that if it exists it must be used no matter what.

Semper Vaporo

What do you folk think of the "Popular Tags" box to the right of the forum lists?  The one with all the silly oddball random font sizes in it.  I have noticed some other forums using this tactic to gain the user's eye and my personal opinion is that it is just plain stupid... Not unlike what I did here!  Looks like some child discovered the font size menu and decided that if it exists it must be used no matter what.

Well maybe that is a hot new trend in graphics.  They do seem to have incorporated it into this forum message composition editor as an automatic feature. 

Well, I'm not crazy about this either.  Why do folks always have to change the forums and they almost are never as good as they were before the change?

I also don't like the fact that I get threads from every forum post.  I think I disabled this, I don't want to read what every one else is saying and getting e-mails on it.  My Inbox gets enough e-mail without all of this coming through. 

I hope I've fixed this problem.  If I want to check out a forum and post a comment, that's OK, but I don't want 100 e-mails telling me what else has been said.  I liked the old way better.  I also liked the fact that discussion threads were found in the Trains e-mail newsletter at the bottom and not have to search around to find what I want to comment on.  Maybe I'll get used to that way, but I don't want a bunch of e-mails telling me what everyone has said.

I miss the last post detail that was at the top of the page on the threads instead of the #of replies and followers.

...

Sunset Route Two-Tracking Updates

This post has 1,042 Replies | 23 Followers

Semper Vaporo

blue streak 1:

BaltACD:

 

Right on:

Well I have to click backspace twice 1st time I get message "web page has expired" then next backspace gives page am replying to but still have to back space twice more to read other posts.

I also unclick on each of my posts send no e mail but it is still filling up my mail box. UGH!

 

 

I am having trouble remembering who has done what here...

 

but did you alter your Public Profile to turn off the automatic selection to send you e-mails? Click the word "(Edit)" next the words "Public Profile" on the RIGHT side of the screen (next to your avatar).  Scroll down to the section titled, "EMail configuration" and click 'NO" on the last option in that section "Send Notifications".

 

That should change the forum so that when you post a new missive (reply or new topic) it does not automatically select to send you e-mails.

 

If you decide you do want e-mail notification on any topic after you have done this, you then must click the "Send me notifications" button at the top of the topic, or if you want only replies to a specific reply of yours (and not replies to some other reply within a topic) click the checkbox below the textbox where you typed your reply, "Email me replies to this post."

 Thanks I checked it tuesday and did not work but now it appears to be working. Guess that was fixed rather quickly. Now if they can just get it to go to the thread after posting this it will be better!

Hope this helps.

Going from thread to thread, or waiting for a post to be accepted using IE8...It seems like the post is acted upon and displayed rapidly....right up until one has to wait for the 'activity block' to fill....it will take upwards of 15 seconds for the IE8 'activity block' to fill and signify the completion of computer activity for that post.

Well, there is more evidence that someone is working on the software, I thimks.

I put two "enters" between the top line and this one.

I put one "Enter" between the above line and this one.

Notice that all those posts were I (and some others) were putting in 2 "Enters" to get at least one blank line between paragraphs are now displaying with the extra line showing.  I told ya that would happen!

OOooo the Smellies have changed too!

zardoz

Pages are still incredibly slow to load. Seems like sometimes the site freezes up. Takes about 20 seconds for the page to load and display.

I tried to post something on Monday but did not check to see if it actually posted.  My mistake.  On Tuesday, it had not yet appeared but magically, on Wednesday, a half-finished, unedited version magically showed up, much to my embarrassment.  Very strange, very strange.

John Timm

Anybody know why a photo will display on a preview but will not display in a post itself?

     What used to be my PM option(?)  is now headed "Conversations".  It shows Conversations (16).  What exactly does the 16 signify?  When I open that area, there are 80 conversations ( what used to be called Private messages).  These go back as far as March, 2007 (!) (Huh?)

     Does anyone have a good understanding of this feature yet? 

-Thanks

While we are at it, I will admit that I do not understand the difference between the "General Discussion (Trains.com)" forum and this "General Discussion" forum for Trains Magazine.

The former carries the notation that  it is "a place for other discussions. Note, this isn’t the Trains magazine forum section... railroad discussions should happen over there."

That said, there are plenty of "railroad discussions" going on there all the time, leading me to think that I am not the only person who does not understand its purpose.  Bottom line: why two forums with bascially the same name and, by default, the same function?

John Timm

desertdog

While we are at it, I will admit that I do not understand the difference between the "General Discussion (Trains.com)" forum and this "General Discussion" forum for Trains Magazine.

The former carries the notation that  it is "a place for other discussions. Note, this isn’t the Trains magazine forum section... railroad discussions should happen over there."

That said, there are plenty of "railroad discussions" going on there all the time, leading me to think that I am not the only person who does not understand its purpose.  Bottom line: why two forums with bascially the same name and, by default, the same function?

John Timm

Excelent Point!    My thoughts exactly.

Of Course, not having been privy to any of the reasons or rationale as to why the FORUM needed to be changed, all we can do is to speculate. .

 I kinda feel like one of the residents of Nagasaki or Hiroshima. Envolved as a user of the facility, but unknowing as to the ultimate effect of the announced change. (I seem to recall that the USAAF dropped leaflets on Japan warning them of impending change).