I tried a search on the new home page. It was unsuccessful (not too surprising) and now Google has told me it was unsuccessful at least a dozen times...even after I left this site and started viewing another.
Advice to all. DO NOT SEARCH!!
ChuckAllen, TX
Sunnyland: We'll continue to post links to the forums in the weekly e-mail newsletter. We couldn't this week due to the timing coinciding with the upgrade.
-Matt Quandt Online Content Editor Kalmbach Publishing Co.
I wonder if maybe you were using something different than the "Reply" link at the top of the posting, like maybe you used the "Quick Reply" at the bottom. I see the same tool bar using the bottom link so it should work this way too. I'll mess this paragraph up and see if it does.
Looks like it does now, do you see the colors and font changes when it gets posted?
Semper Vaporo
Pkgs.
CANADIANPACIFIC2816 Why am I limited to only 1 size of font and 1 shade of color when I post anything here? My first post with "On This Date in Railroad History" is what I am talking about. I would have included my monicker name in maroon lettering had I been able to do so, but no!
Why am I limited to only 1 size of font and 1 shade of color when I post anything here? My first post with "On This Date in Railroad History" is what I am talking about. I would have included my monicker name in maroon lettering had I been able to do so, but no!
On the page where you type your reply you should see a 2 line tool bar just above the space you type in and on the upper left there should be three drop-down selection boxes. The first one is where you define the Font you want to use (it says, "Font family" now) and next to it to the right is one that is labeled "Font size" and if you click on the downward point triangle/arrow you can select a new size (from 1 to 7). To the right of that is one that says "Paragraph". I have not messed with that so I won't attempt to explain it here. But, next to that is an icon of the letter "A" and another downward pointing triangle/arrow. If you clck on it, a box will open up where you can pick a different color for the text.
I find it best to type all I intend to do, spell check it, verify that it looks pretty much like I want it to, including line spacing, and then I highlight the text I want to be in a different font, size, color or bold/italic/underlined and then use the tool bar icons to set the text for those attributes. Here, I'll copy this paragraph and alter the copy using the icons now (just to test it and see if my blathering is right!)
Looks like it works now... here is hoping it works when I post it.
K. P. Harrier CShaveRR (9-1): How did you get a space line between paragraphs? I sure can't!
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)!
dakotafred You know, God himself said "good enough" after only six days. Maybe the Web designers at Kalmbach should follow his example.
You know, God himself said "good enough" after only six days. Maybe the Web designers at Kalmbach should follow his example.
Haven't you heard of those religions where artists will produce some "perfect" object (clay pot, stained glass window, etc.) and then deliberately damage it so that they do not become like a god for having produced perfection? Yes, they don't realize that "man" cannot ever produce something that is actually "Perfect" but they have this silly fear that they might.
Anyway, it sure seems that some programmers have converted to that religion and thus must inject flaws in their software so as to not chance becomming a god.
Actually, the problem is often because the programmer, as well as the beta-tester, is often sitting very near the main computer server where the program that is being tested resides. Thus they are not subject to delay times caused by intermediary servers and transmission machinery. Also, the software group often has the latest, greatest, wizz-bang hardware on which to do the development and thus does not see that routines they have written are inherantly slow on the "average" hardware that the software will actually run on.
There is also the fact that often the software is tested using a very small database to work against. What works with the "test database" may seem quick and responsive to the tester, but suddenly becomes a drudge when the program is mated with a "working database" that is 10's of 1000's of times larger.
I have been a programmer for nigh onto 45 years and I have run into those problems MANY times. My neat-o program that is nimble and agile becomes a lumbering dinasaur when unleashed on the user community -- for all those reasons listed above.
I tried, where I worked, to convince management and my co-workers that the programmers and beta-testers should have the oldest, beat-up equipment to develop programs, but my co-workers would not hear of it! (I got in big trouble with many of my peers.) Even management failed to grasp the problem and just kept buying newer and better hardware for the rank and file users so they could become effecient using the bloated software my co-workers turned out. They also didn't like it if I spent a day "tweaking" a piece of code to shave a few milli-seconds off the run time, not realizing that the routine might be run hundreds of millions of times per day and thus actually save many minutes for users per day that would otherwise be sitting waiting for an answer to be display on their computers. Multiply that over the 3 or 4 year lifetime of the software and my one day translates to many days of improved productivity (heck, I know of some programs I wrote 18 years ago that are still running on a dozen computers; And with the new quad-core hardware they are on now are REALLY responsive to the user!)
I see similar things happening here (as is seen whenever any forum decides to update the software); the programmers are now scratching their heads in wonderment that us users are discovering flaws that they never thought could exist. Things that were added to the code suddenly are being shown to have broken things that were thoroughly tested and debugged long ago. Words are being spoken, like,
"That should not have affected this other area of the code."
"We will have to rewrite that section of code, but since it kind'a works now, we will have to do that after we fix this other thing."
"The guy that wrote that section quit last week and we will have to rewrite it because we can't figure out what he wrote. He was not a very good programmer anyway."
"That is part of the purchased code and we can't change it, but we could write a work-around after we get this other stuff working right. Maybe by then the original developer will have corrected it... we'll turn in a bug report to the vendor, but he says he is busy with some other program right now and can't get back to this one for a few months."
"There is a new vendor that is selling this really great new Forum software, it would be a lot easier for us to maintain it. We should think about buying it and get rid of this old buggy stuff where we have little or no control over how it works."
ChuckCobleigh Well...at least us Safari users can have the full edit tools suite again without having to lie and say we are running, say, FireFox. At least a little progress. In other respects, it just takes a little getting used to the changes, I guess. BTW, I haven't noticed any particular slowing the two or three times I have been on this afternoon/evening, so things might be getting back in order in the Trains Mag Bat Cave.
Well...at least us Safari users can have the full edit tools suite again without having to lie and say we are running, say, FireFox. At least a little progress.
In other respects, it just takes a little getting used to the changes, I guess.
BTW, I haven't noticed any particular slowing the two or three times I have been on this afternoon/evening, so things might be getting back in order in the Trains Mag Bat Cave.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
Anyone else wake up with 50,000 emails from trains about replies to threads? Is it a default thing to automatically be enrolled for the emails?
It's been fun. But it isn't much fun anymore. Signing off for now.
The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.t fun any
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- K.P.’s absolute “theorem” from early, early childhood that he has seen over and over and over again: Those that CAUSE a problem in the first place will act the most violently if questioned or exposed.
I'm having trouble with the replies--the message box doesn't appear today. Tweak away, folks!
Perhaps a shaded background (very light shading) for the areas outside the posts would be a good idea, in view of what Zugman has said.
Carl
Railroader Emeritus (practiced railroading for 46 years--and in 2010 I finally got it right!)
CAACSCOCOM--I don't want to behave improperly, so I just won't behave at all. (SM)
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 wonder if anybody at Kalmbach actually tried out this site software before committing to it. I find it hard to believe anyone would see this new forum or the way it operates as an improvement, unless there are many pointy-haired (reference from Dilbert) managers involved in the decision-making process.
In conclusion, if I were to first visit this site today, I would have soon given up on it and probably never returned.
Progress is always change, but change is not always progress.
I agree with schlimm, the order of topics is awkward. I have to scroll to three different places to find the HO topics. Having them grouped by as they were in the old setup would be more user friendly.
Yeah, I've tried twice to edit a post this morning, to no avail. Still get the message that the forum is down, or there is an error.
What happened to the blank line between paragraphs on years and years of past posts?
[Second paragraph] Now all the old post's paragraphs run together!
[Third paragraph] I guess NEW posts (like this one) don't have that problem ...
[Fourth paragraph, as an edit] Whoops ... I guess new posts have that problem too!
Looks like you could scare off some responses to a posting by clicking on that checkbox. I bet you could completely lock a thread in the first posting... blather something and keep anyone from responding to it. Hmmmm... Probably not good.
Well, at the bottom of the previous missive from me, it says "Locked" but if I go to my previous entry I seem to be able to make a post, so maybe it does just Lock a particular entry. Oh well...
Oh well nothin' ventured, nothing gained... I just clicked in the box and will click the Post button at the end of this typing.
I am terribly tempted to click that "Locked: Do not allow replies" box just to see what happens! I assume it is actually for moderators to use to lock a thread, but maybe it is to keep people from quoting a particular comment in a thread.
schlimm dakotafred: Yes. In addition, in replying to a previous post on the passenger thread, I was unable to excerpt just the line I wanted from his post, in the old style. It highlighted OK, but would not replicate in the reply portion. Exactly. I noticed that also, but thought i had done something wrong.
dakotafred: Yes. In addition, in replying to a previous post on the passenger thread, I was unable to excerpt just the line I wanted from his post, in the old style. It highlighted OK, but would not replicate in the reply portion.
Yes. In addition, in replying to a previous post on the passenger thread, I was unable to excerpt just the line I wanted from his post, in the old style. It highlighted OK, but would not replicate in the reply portion.
Exactly. I noticed that also, but thought i had done something wrong.
Yes also happened to me! In addition when editing my own post and hit the backspace key I get a web page has expired message. Never had that happen before. And what is that box that you can check "Locked: Do not allow replies". ?? MEAN??
Well...at least us Safari users can have the full edit tools suite again without having to lie and say we are running, say, FireFox.[:D] At least a little progress.
BOOOOOOOOO!!!!!
If this is progress, sign me up for a shift at the buggy whip factory.
Bring back the old format!
AAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGG!
SHEESH!
This going to take some getting used to!
When I accessed the new site, all the topic titles were in a dark red text color. I read the ones that I found of interest and those titles changed to a light gray color. I then clicked on the "Mark All Read" link and all of the remaining titles changed to a light gray.
There have now been new posts to the subjects and I have not read those new postings, but the title text is still the light gray color.
Other forums that have something like this feature of marking threads that have new content that I have not read change the text color back to indicate that I have not read them.
Is this forum supposed to have that feature (seems like it should given the "Mark All Read" link)? Is it possibly broken?
Zardoz sez:
And I tried (twice) to edit one of my posts, and after about 60 seconds of waiting all I got was an error message.
He's right about that...but once you've given up on it, you'll find that your message has been properly edited.
Folks are right--the "quote" thing doesn't work very well, hence my solution above, done with good ol' copy-and-paste.
Now, we have one problem that may just be mine: every time I'm typing away here, I get stopped cold by a message that says,
SLOW SCRIPT
A script on the page "Reply to Post - Trains Magazine - Online Community: Forums and Blogs" (http://cs.trains.com/trccs/forums/AddPost.aspx?ReplyToPostID=1963500&Quote=False) is making Safari unresponsive. Do you want to continue running the script, or stop it?
I "continue", because it doesn't seem to matter what I say about it--if I "stop", the message just comes up more quickly.
I miss the new forum threads on the Trains e-mail newsletter. I could always read over the news and then drop down to the bottom and see what was posted on forums. This will be a little more confusing and harder to find. Progress and change isn't always easy.
I ain't crazy about this. Way too much white. The messages, the buttons, the signatures are all too blended together in a sea of white. I'm also not crazy about the message telling me that I made a reply when I made a reply. Cause, you know, I kind of figured that out on my own when I made the reply.
Oh well, worth what I pay for it, I guess.
Now I have to get myself some cheap sunglasses.
Eleanor Roosevelt gives it two thumbs up.........
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