So far I don't like the new layout. I guess I am one of those if it aint broke don't fix it guys. The forum was not broke why did they FIX it?
Pete
I pray every day I break even, Cause I can really use the money!
I started with nothing and still have most of it left!
maxman I'm surprised that no one has commented on the little sexual icon that comes up under the post count under some of the avatars. Wonder why that was necessary. Maybe it's a reminder for those of us that are so old that we've forgotten.
I'm surprised that no one has commented on the little sexual icon that comes up under the post count under some of the avatars. Wonder why that was necessary.
Maybe it's a reminder for those of us that are so old that we've forgotten.
Yeah I see that "male sex icon" under the avatars on some posters as well.
I did not think MRR and trains.com was THAT kind of forum!!!
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
A no gripe post/test/make sure everything's cool with my stuff post.
Yep, all good.
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
HaroldA I went right to the MR forums and didn't see where anything had been intermixed unless I am missing something.
If you just go to the forums then they are all mixed. If you log out and then log into the forums they are not structured. If you enter a specific forum, then go to the breadcrumbs at the top of pane you can navigate to just the MR forums. I also went to the links to change profile, etc. etc. and there was no eay obviious way other than the back button to navigate back to the forums.
What I don't like is the box below the reply which says 'Email me replies to this post.' It seems that is a good way for clogging up my email so wish it was an option.
It is optional, you can uncheck it. But they need to make unchecked the default.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
galaxy maxman: I'm surprised that no one has commented on the little sexual icon that comes up under the post count under some of the avatars. Wonder why that was necessary. Maybe it's a reminder for those of us that are so old that we've forgotten. Yeah I see that "male sex icon" under the avatars on some posters as well. I did not think MRR and trains.com was THAT kind of forum!!!
maxman: I'm surprised that no one has commented on the little sexual icon that comes up under the post count under some of the avatars. Wonder why that was necessary. Maybe it's a reminder for those of us that are so old that we've forgotten.
I got it now! If you go to "profile edit" for "gender" you can opt for "not set" "male" and/or "female". If you opt for "not set" it won't show a sex symbol under the avatar space {default}. If you set it for "male" it will show the male sex symbol under the avatar, and assumeably the female sex symbol if one opts for "female" setting.
I guess it is their way of giving us the opportunity {probably mostly for the females among us} to display who you are. I don't know WHAT happens to a screen name that belongs to a couple as there is no "couple" option!!
howmus Have any of you noticed that the advertising and "info" bar on the right is wider and the forum contect area appears thinner??? I guess that Is what was meant by "New and Improved"....... For most products, new and improved" almost always means smaller product, made cheaper, and more expensive.........
Have any of you noticed that the advertising and "info" bar on the right is wider and the forum contect area appears thinner??? I guess that Is what was meant by "New and Improved"....... For most products, new and improved" almost always means smaller product, made cheaper, and more expensive.........
I must agree with Howmus on the ads point. My initial impressions of the new forum are that, firstly, there is distinctly more vacant/blank/wasted spacing on the new pages, while the ads side bar has been further expanded. At the same time there appears to be considerably less actual reader input/content/postings per thread page, situations that have advanced with each of the major forum revisions in recent years. I wonder, too, if perhaps the font size, or contrast, of the postings' type has been slightly altered some way, since I find posts suddenly a bit more difficult to read now (could this be due to all the additional white space on the page?).
CNJ831
Ads? What ads? I suppose I should not post publically how to make them go away. Of course instead of ads I get a huge blank grey space now. I actually made the ads go away because on the main site I was reading a news item that had a picture, and when I clicked on the picture to expand it, the ad ont he left plopped itself on top so I was only able to see part of the picture - I guess that's the real bug, the images should not appear under the ads!
The big bummer is the forum space is fixed in sixe - it does not get any bigger even if you make the browser window bigger. I have a wide screen monitor and usually size browser windows to a little over half (since very few sites use anythign larger than 1024x768). I can understand this is done to insure some continuity of content for all users, but it would be nice of the frame was not anchored.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
I hope they have a new forum software, I had to use Google Chrome as every time I loaded a page in Firefox it took forever, images/ text/whatever, would time out, quit loading, I keep hitting reload, and blah, it was cumbersome, innefective, Chrome somehow fixed that but not perfect, but pages loaded better. If the cache can hold all the images I don't have to reload/download the page content on every refresh, it loads the page faster on the cached content. But instead, everything HAD to reload/DL down. Horrible trying to do replies, etc (56k). I'll try Firefox later, doing this on Chrome, but on Chrome the text formatting got fudged up and all my spaces, carriage returns thrashed everything into continuous lines of text without paragraphs, etc. sooo
THIS should be a brand new line, if its skewed back into one long text paragraph, it doesnt work.
THIS should be 2 lines down.
We shall see. BTW, did the NMRA get the magazine index going?
Different, yes. Improved? Yet to be determined. The last time I browsed this site, I found a locked forum that carried a considerable number of suggestions about real improvements for the people rewriting the software. One suggestion I was especially interested in was many commenters felt that it would be a great improvement to enable people to upload photos directly from their home computer without the inefficiancy of going through a separate hosting site. I am on over a dozen other hobby sites, and this is the only one that makes posters do this. Every other site allows a direct insertion of a file from the poster's home computer via browse and upload. I can't understand why this site can't implement this improvement.
dinwitty I hope they have a new forum software, I had to use Google Chrome as every time I loaded a page in Firefox it took forever, images/ text/whatever, would time out, quit loading, I keep hitting reload, and blah, it was cumbersome, innefective, Chrome somehow fixed that but not perfect, but pages loaded better. If the cache can hold all the images I don't have to reload/download the page content on every refresh, it loads the page faster on the cached content. But instead, everything HAD to reload/DL down. Horrible trying to do replies, etc (56k). I'll try Firefox later, doing this on Chrome, but on Chrome the text formatting got fudged up and all my spaces, carriage returns thrashed everything into continuous lines of text without paragraphs, etc. sooo THIS should be a brand new line, if its skewed back into one long text paragraph, it doesnt work. THIS should be 2 lines down. We shall see. BTW, did the NMRA get the magazine index going?
You get new lines. When you hit enter there is an extra blank in the editor windows that does not actually show up, And multiple enters just makes space in the editor that does not show. I've discovered it;s really more of an HTML editor. If you want a true blank space withotu extra enters, edit in HTML and where you want a blank line put (no spaces): < p > < / p > Two enters makes a blank space, a dozen doesn't seem to do anything.
At least, it works. And behaves exactly like when I edit my web site in Dreamweaver. If you create an html page in notepad, and just whack enter a few times to get blank lines - you don't get blank lines!
Also, I just tried to edit this post, and I didn't see it get back to the original posting. Also, everything seems to be slower.
Let's not confuse sex and gender.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
OK, I used the "Photo Gallery" down at the bottom of the page to upload a photo yesterday. Let's see if it shows up here:
It's awkward to have to post the photo one day, wait for moderator approval, and then be able to use it the next day. For now, I'll stick with my Rail Images photo gallery.
As for the silly "Are you a boy or a girl" icons, how about re-purposing that part of the forum code to "steam" or "diesel," with an option for "electric" if they put in "third gender" hooks?
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
OK, the "Resources" link at the top, which does not seem to work on the Stone Age browser that we have to use at work, is OK at home on Firefox.
I still don't like the extra step of "Your message has been posted successfully" instead of just going back to the thread. This is one of those "hit count" things, isn't it? Phoo.
And now, let's see if they've fixed "Edit" yet...
MisterBeasley ...As for the silly "Are you a boy or a girl" icons, how about re-purposing that part of the forum code to "steam" or "diesel," with an option for "electric" if they put in "third gender" hooks?
...As for the silly "Are you a boy or a girl" icons, how about re-purposing that part of the forum code to "steam" or "diesel," with an option for "electric" if they put in "third gender" hooks?
Love that idea. But one thing I've noticed all over this "improved" site is that they are using a forum toolkit and for the most part have left everything at it's default. I imagine there is the opportunity to change these defaults (as in your suggestion)in the future, but it hasn't been done yet. Even the FAQ is very generic and not specific to this forum on this site. At least it was yesterday.
Sean
HO Scale CSX Modeler
After I got some cheese to go with my Whine, I think the change is ok.
Rich
If you ever fall over in public, pick yourself up and say “sorry it’s been a while since I inhabited a body.” And just walk away.
Phoebe Vet maxman: I'm surprised that no one has commented on the little sexual icon that comes up under the post count under some of the avatars. Wonder why that was necessary. Maybe it's a reminder for those of us that are so old that we've forgotten. Let's not confuse sex and gender.
When I log into the BLI forums, I am asked, "Are You Human" or, "Say Hellow".
At least they keep it non sexual.
Cheers
Roger T.
Home of the late Great Eastern Railway see: - http://www.greateasternrailway.com
For more photos of the late GER see: - http://s94.photobucket.com/albums/l99/rogertra/Great_Eastern/
rogertraHow do I change the font size? It's so small, I can only just read posts.
Click on 'Edit' next to where it says Public Profile on the right. There are to sizes larger than the default available, as well as one smaller(!). I guess if I ran 640x480 on my big monitor I'd need smaller.
I just wish the message area frame would either scale with browser window width or would be permanently wider, the 'tanspace' on the left is way too big.
Well as of right now I don't like it at all. I personally didn't see anything wrong with the old one other then the archive search being a little challenging. Maybe it's just me but it appears to have .a very stark appearance, probably just a poor choice of back round colors I guess. Well by the time I finally get used to the way things are now they will go and change it again. I guess they never heard of If it ain't broke don't fix it.
rrinker I just wish the message area frame would either scale with browser window width or would be permanently wider, the 'tanspace' on the left is way too big. --Randy
I am positive they hope to fill that "tanspace" with lots of advertising to help keep the site free and the updated forums comming forth.
It's certainly interesting, I think I'll survive with it though.
James, Brisbane Australia
Modelling AT&SF in the 90s
I agree with many others about the changes. Page loading is exrtemely slow, The initial "Forum" index is a long mixed list of all catagories, the stark with/ contrast to the small font is tough on these older eyes, No line? separations to individual posts and after all the changes even previous reworked Forum, I can't believe that no top of page or forum jump exists at the page bottom. Have to scroll to top to jump or return.
But MR does offer this to us Free of charge, so what am I whinning about............Oh Well
Modeling B&O- Chessie Bob K. www.ssmrc.org
bogp40 The initial "Forum" index is a long mixed list of all categories
The initial "Forum" index is a long mixed list of all categories
If you go in from Model Railroader Magazine (http://mrr.trains.com/) and clicks on "Community", then "Forums", you come directly to this list: http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/default.aspx?groupid=8 - which is the Model Railroader forums.
You might want to bookmark that last link if you want to go directly to the model railroader forums when you access the site.
Also, you get a list of the forums, organized in an okay manner, at the bottom of your normal personal start page: http://cs.trains.com/trccs/ (under the PMs and Friend's activity - scroll down).
But I agree that the page http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/ (which many probably have bookmarked) is poorly organized, and should be reorganized in a similar matter to what you get at the bottom of the page http://cs.trains.com/trccs/
Smile, Stein
Couple of extra points to perhaps help lower the stress of change-over a little:
bogp40 Page loading is exrtemely slow
Page loading is exrtemely slow
Possibly due to the database running flat out while all old posts are being reindexed for searching. Very annoying for a couple of days, but (IMO) better than waiting 4 months for old posts to be searchable, as we did the last time.
Or it could be an error. In which case Craig probably will do a stop/start of the web/app server, and then there possibly will be a flurry of complaints about people having to log in again :-)
Give it a week or so. If it still is being annoyingly slow after that, then people can start flashing Craig (who asked us to "bare" with him in another thread :-)
bogp40 the stark with/ contrast to the small font is tough on these older eyes,
the stark with/ contrast to the small font is tough on these older eyes,
Font size is configurable under user profile settings. Left side of screen - Public Profile (edit) - click on edit, select a bigger font size.
bogp40 I can't believe that no top of page or forum jump exists at the page bottom. Have to scroll to top to jump or return.
I can't believe that no top of page or forum jump exists at the page bottom. Have to scroll to top to jump or return.
Hitting the [home] or [End] key on your keyboard should quickly take you to the top of bottom of screen in most web browsers running under Microsoft Windows. [Ctrl] + [Home] and [Ctrl]+[End] should also work - e.g while inside an editing window.
You can navigate between forums using the grey links at top of screen, showing you where you are in the hierarchy -e.g. "Home - Forums - Model Railroader Forums - General Discussion (Model Railroader)" - just click on e.g. "Model Railroader Forums" to go back up to e.g. the Model Railroader Forums.
None of those are new, btw - same as previous version of forums.
Btw - I have no inside knowledge of what is going on with the servers. I am not working for Kalmbach or any such thing - the above is just educated guesses.
Smile Stein
The new format looks and works fine for me. If you think you're too old to change, that actually means you're too young. Just wait til you reach my age. I can hardly remember any differences.
- Harry
They have eliminated my favorite path into the forums.
I used to go straight to the forums and to the block on the right that showed the most recent posts.
I hope this is a work in progress and not the finished product.
Phoebe Vet They have eliminated my favorite path into the forums. I used to go straight to the forums and to the block on the right that showed the most recent posts. I hope this is a work in progress and not the finished product.
You mean this: http://cs.trains.com/trccs/
Works for me. lLthough I find that page useless, always have. I post in too many threads to list there. I just go to modelrailroad.com and hit community,forums to get here. After I finish perusing any new news items and whatnot.
Editing's fixed.
Hey Stein. I'm glad to see you remembered my name from beta testing
My hope is that some of the slowness issues will go away as the site continues to index itself. The software that we use is very cache heavy so as more and more posts get indexed pages should start to load faster since those posts will be in memory and the servers will be able to retrieve the data faster. Theoretically that's how it should work anyway
Keep in mind too that the Trains community as a whole is extremely large. Close to 2 million posts with a little over 68,000 members. That's a lot of data that needs to get filtered through by the system. It's been going for a couple days and seems to be moving along pretty well but it will probably be another week or 2 before the entire site is cycled through completely.