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  • Member since
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  • From: upstate NY
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Posted by galaxy on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 9:18 PM

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.

-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.

  • Member since
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Posted by Allegheny2-6-6-6 on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 9:16 PM

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.

Just my 2 cents worth, I spent the rest on trains. If you choked a Smurf what color would he turn?
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Posted by rrinker on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 8:27 PM

rogertra
How 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.

                                    --Randy


Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's

 

Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.

  • Member since
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  • From: Shawnigan Lake, BC
  • 406 posts
Posted by rogertra on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 8:13 PM
How do I change the font size? It's so small, I can only just read posts.

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/

  • Member since
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  • From: Western, MA
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Posted by richg1998 on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 4:00 PM

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.

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.

  • Member since
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  • From: Western, MA
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Posted by richg1998 on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 3:54 PM

After I got some cheese to go with my Whine, I think the change is ok.

Rich

Tags: Cheese whine

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.

  • Member since
    February 2010
  • From: Colorado (the flat part)
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Posted by Colorado_Mac on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 11:56 AM

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?

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

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  • From: Bedford, MA, USA
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Posted by MisterBeasley on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 6:51 AM

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...

It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse. 

  • Member since
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  • From: Bedford, MA, USA
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Posted by MisterBeasley on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 6:47 AM

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. 

  • Member since
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  • From: Charlotte, NC
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Posted by Phoebe Vet on Wednesday, September 1, 2010 5:46 AM

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.

Dave

Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow

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Posted by EM-1 on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 11:36 PM

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.

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.

  • Member since
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Posted by rrinker on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 11:30 PM

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 > &nbsp; < / 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!

 

                                     --Randy


Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's

 

Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.

  • Member since
    August 2008
  • 357 posts
Posted by EM-1 on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 11:20 PM

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.

  • Member since
    August 2004
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Posted by dinwitty on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 10:56 PM

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?

 

 

  • Member since
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  • From: Reading, PA
  • 30,002 posts
Posted by rrinker on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 10:56 PM

 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.

  • Member since
    April 2001
  • From: US
  • 3,150 posts
Posted by CNJ831 on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 10:49 PM

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.........Wink

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

  • Member since
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  • From: upstate NY
  • 9,236 posts
Posted by galaxy on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 6:13 PM

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!!!

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!!    Whistling

-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.

  • Member since
    September 2003
  • From: Omaha, NE
  • 10,621 posts
Posted by dehusman on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 6:12 PM

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

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  • From: Big Blackfoot River
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Posted by Geared Steam on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 6:02 PM

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/

  • Member since
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  • From: upstate NY
  • 9,236 posts
Posted by galaxy on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 4:30 PM

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!!!

-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.

  • Member since
    December 2007
  • From: New Hampshire
  • 660 posts
Posted by sparkyjay31 on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 4:26 PM
Works fine on my Apple with Safari. Nice new look. Well done. No complaints.
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Posted by locoi1sa on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 4:24 PM

  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!

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  • From: Finger Lakes
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Posted by howmus on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 4:19 PM

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.........Wink

 

Lucky Ad blocker still seems to work.....Whistling

 

73

Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO

We'll get there sooner or later! 

  • Member since
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Posted by Colorado_Mac on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 3:39 PM

superbe

 ...thankfull that MR provides one. 

Good point, Bob.  Although I have already found other annoyances - which I'm not going to bother complaining about yet, it's not like we are paying for this site.  The advertisers are, and they are not the ones using the forums. 

It might not be a bad idea to pick a couple of the larger companies shown to the left ----->

and shoot them an email saying the area where Kalmbach is displaying their ad is not up to snuff...

Sean

HO Scale CSX Modeler

  • Member since
    February 2007
  • From: Shenandoah Valley The Home Of Patsy Cline
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Posted by superbe on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 3:35 PM

I want to be positive but as of now I haven't seen much to be positive about. Maybe it's the learning curve and the resistance to change.

On the other hand there are some things I'm unhappy with. In the topics section I miss the lines separating the posts. In addition I have trouble with the blue print on the white background.

As of now I'd like to return to the old site but I'm willing to learn and thankfull that MR provides one. 

Happy Railroading

Bob

  • Member since
    February 2010
  • From: Colorado (the flat part)
  • 607 posts
Posted by Colorado_Mac on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 3:35 PM

howmus

I also don't care for the extra page that comes up after you post where you have to click to go back to the thread....  I think most of us DO want to go back to the thread to see and check out our posts.

 

 

I think that page is lame, as well.  The designer's thinking is that people will use the preview button on the reply page to check their message before posting (I forget - did the old one have that?) so they don't necessarily need to return to see it.  But it only makes sense to me that if one is replying to a post in the middle of the thread, which is the most likely scenario, then one would want to return to continue reading.  Things like that are one reason I made big bucks designing interfaces.

Sean

HO Scale CSX Modeler

  • Member since
    February 2010
  • From: Colorado (the flat part)
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Posted by Colorado_Mac on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 3:30 PM

Hamltnblue

...Loading time is longer but it might speed up after some time.

 

Coming to a "new" site, web browsers will save images and pages locally in a cache to be retrieved more quickly the next time the site is accessed.  This should at least slightly improve load times after a couple of visits.

 

Okay, let's see how this posts.... (fingers crossed)

Sean

HO Scale CSX Modeler

  • Member since
    December 2004
  • From: Finger Lakes
  • 10,198 posts
Posted by howmus on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 3:18 PM

One annoying thing I see is that when you write a message in the reply box, there is a space between paragraphs, but in the post itself there is no space.....

Like this......

 

I also don't care for the extra page that comes up after you post where you have to click to go back to the thread....  I think most of us DO want to go back to the thread to see and check out our posts.

 

73

Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO

We'll get there sooner or later! 

  • Member since
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Posted by Hamltnblue on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 3:06 PM

The look is a little different but ok. Loading time is longer but it might speed up after some time.

 

Springfield PA

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Posted by jalajoie on Tuesday, August 31, 2010 2:58 PM

Just testing, looks Ok to me.

Jack W.

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