Technical Issues After August 13, 2012 Maintenance

[babefluff]

The link is to another interest of mine.  Does it look familiar?  Kalmbach publishes Astronomy Magazine as well.

http://cs.astronomy.com/asy/general_discussion/f/27.aspx

 

Scott

[Penny Trains]

On dial-up internet everything looks the same....SLOW! 

[steinjr]

riogrande5761

Yes, there is resistance to chance but sometimes it isn't a ratty shirt, but something isn't broken and doesn't need fixed, just maybe.

 What makes you believe that the old version wasn't broken and didn't need to get fixed?

 Ever noticed performance issues with the old version?

 Ever noticed that new people using the newer versions of Internet Explorer couldn't edit posts without first setting IE in backwards compatibility mode?

 Ever noticed that lots of people never understood that e.g "edit post" was hidden behind "more"?

 Ever noticed that there was a photo gallery (where you could upload images) feature in the old version? Did you ever find a good way of finding the image if someone announced that they just had uploaded a photo to the gallery?

 I am sure there are dozens or more changes from the previous version to the current version where things have been improved, either in the user interface, or on the performance or management side.

 Obviously there are also things people have gotten used to doing in some specific way in the old version which no longer work the same way (or hasn't been implemented in the new version at all).

 Some people then start exploring the new user interface, figuring out how to do things - by e.g. the simple expedient of just plain looking at the screen in front of them, observing such things as the icon labelled "help" in their name box in the right margin, or moving the mouse over unfamiliar icons to see the tool tip about what the icon does,or reading through the many threads with complaints - making note of fixes and workarounds others have found).

  Others people just sit down, and keep wailing about how the change "was not necessary". It doesn't matter what you (or I or some third person) thinks was necessary. For whoever made the decision to upgrade to a newer version, the change was necessary.

 It is also immaterial why the person thought upgrade was necessary. Whether it was to fix known bugs, to improve performance, to stay within the terms of a support contract (companies only deliver bug fixes for old versions fro so long after launching new versions) or whatever.

 There is a new version now. So we have to deal with the new version

 Up to you if you want to spend your time figuring out how to make things work, or spend it repeating that you think the change "wasn't necessary"

 The good thing is that model railroaders are a pretty darned resourceful group of people, who are used to figuring things out, and use things in new ways.

 Smile,
 Stein

[simon1966]

A few days in now, and I have to say I really like this new version of the forum.  It is way faster than the old one, and that alone is a huge benefit.  There are a couple of niggles, but nothing that I can't live with.  I have spent more time on here since the change than before!

If I could change one thing, it would be that there would be more threads per page when looking at the main categories.  With fewer threads per page, things will drop off the front page more quickly and so are less likely to be responded to.

Other than that, I really don't see anything to get too worked up about?

[rluke]

I don't see the post total anymore. That was a nice feature. Rich

[hon30critter]

OK!

Here is my big beef with the new format! I seem to have to hit the 'back' button two or three times before it responds. Anyone else experiencing this?

Actually, I'm serious. The back button doesn't respond the first time I hit it. No big deal. Any suggestions?

Dave

[Anonymous]

Becky,

            You've got a lot more patientence than I do with dialup.  I've got a short fuse as it is, and underperforming tech (or Ford Probes) come out on the losing end most of the time.  Sledgehammers and sawzalls were created for people like us.

 

I didn't care for the new look at first, but it is slowly growing on me.  I think if the contrast was increased, it would help a lot of users.

[steinjr]

dakotafred

As asked by a previous poster, no 'edit' function?

 Try looking at the screen in front of you. Do you see that icon labelled "Help" four-five lines under your screen name in the right margin? Try clicking on it - it brings up the help page, with quite a bit of potentially useful information.

 Alternatively, just move your cursor over the icons in the lower left hand of posts - e.g. over the icon of a pencil, and see what the "tool tip" says :-)

 (Delete only works on the first post in the thread, and if nobody has started replying to it yet - probably to avoid ending up with posts with database "reply-to" references referring to a post no longer there).

 According to the help page, moderators can delete posts, though - click on "Report abuse" icon (also lower left corner) to get someone to help you delete a post if necessary. Or just think a little longer before hitting "reply" to post something you later feel you should delete :-)

 Smile,
 Stein

[tstage]

Well, It's been almost two years (Sep '10) since we had an upgrade/format change.  I'm not really all that keen about the changes but I'm willing to give it a try.

Just a couple of suggestions to Wade et al/IT department, if I may:

1. Is it possible to have the "EMAIL ME REPLIES TO THIS POST" check box un-checked as the default rather than the other way around?  I prefer not have reply notices sent to my e-mail address if I forget to un-check the box.  There also doesn't appear to be a way to change that in edit mode once you've posted.
   
2. Is it possible to have the Use rich formatting option as the default?  It is for a new post but not for a reply.

Lastly, what happened to the preview post option?  It was a nice way to check to see what your post looked like before posting it.  [Edit: Found it.  It's a folder tab located above the text box.]

Tom

[sakel]

One thing I noticed was that thier was more options, and loads VERY fast on IE9. It's free.

DISCLAMER: I have no affiliation with microsoft, just stating a fact.

[steinjr]

 (Edited 2012-08-20)

 1) When reading a thread in a forum, there is a screen button labeled "New Post". It does not actually create a new post in the current thread, as might reasonably have been expected. Instead it starts a new thread in the current forum.

 Either a) remove button from page template. re-label it "create new thread", or change what function is called when the button is clicked, so it actually creates a new post in the thread

 2) Adding or removing signatures. Signatures are added via the Community Settings link in the user box in the right margin. a) When a signature is added, there ought to be a dividing line added automatically between the main text of the posts and the signature. b) when trying to remove a signature by deleting the contents of the signature edit box and click "save" on the community settings page, the signature is not removed. Seems like the code to insert a new signature cannot handle a NULL string. Signature can be mostly hidden by leaving just a single space in box before clicking on Save

3) Icon "Delete post" which only is available to normal users when starting a new thread that so far contains only one post (your own) - might possibly better be labelled "Delete thread" in the "tool tip" - I suspect people will be more understanding of not being allowed to delete a thread than in not being allowed to delete a post

4) Redirects of old URLs to new URLs are missing.
Old URLs were on the form cs.trains.com/TRCCS/forums/p/205846/2257556.aspx
New URLs are on the form cs.trains.com/trc/f/2/t/209276.aspx
Meaning that favorites, links and search results e.g. from google isn't working.
Don't know if you can do a redirect, but try.
And make a note for the checklist for next time - this was also forgotten on the last major update.

Smile,
Stein

[richhotrain]

steinjr

Motley

 And could they please have the Username and this info stated, listed on the left? Like every other forum on the internet? I've never even seen or used a forum, where the Usernames are in the middle of each post. 

 Btw - to identify someone as a new user - click on user name, look at Activity. If there is a "joined forum" activity recently, then it is a new user. If there are pages and pages of posts, it is not a new user.

Stein, you must be a newbie - - - there is absolutely no Activity shown for you.   :)

[steinjr]

richhotrain

steinjr

Motley

 And could they please have the Username and this info stated, listed on the left? Like every other forum on the internet? I've never even seen or used a forum, where the Usernames are in the middle of each post. 

 Btw - to identify someone as a new user - click on user name, look at Activity. If there is a "joined forum" activity recently, then it is a new user. If there are pages and pages of posts, it is not a new user.

Stein, you must be a newbie - - - there is absolutely no Activity shown for you.   :)

 I disabled activity logging for my account. Community Settings | Advanced Options. Maybe when activities came, during the last major upgrade - in an attempt to get rid of the silly facebook look of "friend's activities" that was introduced in the last version.

 I believe I also declined all "friendship requests" in an attempt to get the list of forums at the top of the landing page http://cs.trains.com. Personally I found the attempt at turning a decent web forum into a social media thingy by grafting on silly things like relabelling "personal message" to "conversations", and adding "activities" and "friends" both silly and annoying.

 If you want to see how the activity list currently looks for a user who hasn't deliberately disabled activity logging, try just about anyone else in this thread, and you will see activity.

 Someone who joins the forums _now_ (i.e. a newbie) will very likely have a recent "joined forum" activity. Most newbies probably doesn't go into "Advanced Options" to disable activity logging as the first thing they do.

 After they have run through all the old posts, you will also get number of posts back - either in the form of an actual post count somewhere, or in the form of "badge" icons by your usename in post lists, which gives you an idea about roughly how many posts someone has made. Like the "stars" they had several versions ago.

 Don't hold your breath waiting for it, though - last major upgrade it took months before all old posts were back in the post history. Someone mucked up and did things in a horribly inefficient way - maybe forgetting to turn of running indexing of the user table before recalculating post things by looping through the posts one by one or something. Hopefully it will be much faster this time.

 Smile,
 Stein

[baberuth73]

Hey,probe, try the low tech approach to dealing with high tech toys- an AXE. That's how I dispatched my only N scale layout and it felt soooooo good. This little notebook I'm using will someday meet the same fate.

[simon1966]

Dave, is the browser "back button" you are referring to?   What browser are you using?  I use IE9 and don't have this problem on this site.   Occasionally I have this issue on other sites, but usually this is because of a script embedded in the web page to block going back and keep you on the page.  Such scripting does not appear to be present on this forum.