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kenoxite

List of issues with the new forums engine

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Yeah, that was indeed useful. Looks like we've just lost plenty of functionality. Or is this just the base-version of this forum software and things can be added back in the form of plugins/modules or what not?

Seeing how you can't adjust how many post you wanna have per page and that this is a deliberate decision/tradeoff, I somehow doubt this software has its priorities straight.

We'll see, I guess... :|

 

Nevermind, I've found the "You have N unread posts."-button. It's called "View New Content" now and seems to work similarly. Though I scrolled through a few pages and suddenly got a "there is no new content" even if it said there were two or three more pages. Also, in a forum where users present their mods and missions the word "content" has a somewhat different meaning. At first I thought this button would show me new user generated content (which would be a cool functionality) until I noticed it was showing threads from Editing, Offtopic etc. as well.

 

And the performance seems to be a bit worse. When I enter the forums I see the guest version with the login button for a second or two before it automatically logs in. But that might be related to my crappy connection right now.

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A problem might be that I'm using the same e-mail address and password for both accounts which could result in inconsistent data in the respective database(s) if the account identification happens by the combination of e-mail and password.

Added.

 

Yeah, that was indeed useful. Looks like we've just lost plenty of functionality. Or is this just the base-version of this forum software and things can be added back in the form of plugins/modules or what not?

One more issue:

  • Please increase that limit for the number of quotes you're allowed to make per post.

    Or just get rid of this nonsense alltogether. When has anyone ever posted "too many quotes"?!

...oh, and the default set of smilies sucks goose balls.

Gib me the old, silly stuff back. Pretty please. 8)

 

 

Unread messages: it seems it's now located in the "VIEW NEW CONTENT" button, found in the top left of all pages. There it will display by default a list of your unread threads. It also has other options to fine tune the displayed list further.

 

EDIT: But there's no way to finetune the list of unread threads of a specific subforum. So, added this to the list too.

EDIT: Nevermind. Turns out there is a way to do that. The option found at the bottom left: Filter by Forum. Still, somewhat hidden when IMO it should be one of the top ones, if not the very top one.

 

Rest added.

 

 

Each time I do that and there are more than 2 pages, if you click to view page 3 with new content it will show you a new page with the new content but the pagination changes to only 2 pages, while I am viewing page 3. Its maybe bugged? (phun intended.....)

 

Added.

 

I have the problem that I don't get emails on new posts in followed threads (since all my subscriptions where deleted (-,-) I needed to subscribe to all the over 100 threads.) Before the update I got around 30-50 Emails a day of thread activity. Now I don't get ANY.

Yes I have subscribed to the threads and Yes I set them on "Instantly" or what ever the option says!

Added.

 

But why is the board a strip down the centre of the screen, which seems very reminiscent of the really old transition period from CRT monitors to the flat screen variety (higher res widescreen), which did happen a while ago.

Does anyone play on a screen that this board fits. Because on mine, I have soo much wasted space down each side of the screen, I'm wondering if it was a bad idea to move over to a flat panel widescreen monitor, years ago. ;)

Added to the first post.

 

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Yes, It's happened to me also, when replying to another thread.

Or at least you'd think you're logged out. Turns out that if you go back to the main page it says you're still logged in... :huh:

 

No everytime l leave forum and come back im logged out. In old forum i could check 'Remember me' so my login was kept.

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For the record, I have noticed some improvements today (using my desktop). The font is now black (good) and I am no longer kicked back to forum frontpage if I scroll before the page is completely loaded.

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The new font contrast is definitely an improvement.   :)

 

I would welcome a bit more compact post display style: Move the name in the left box (above the avatar) , and the share button can go a bit lower (right of the "posted today")

Additionaly, the LIKE THIS button, and the likes, can go (all the way) left of the quote/multiquote buttons. 

 

I made a side-by side comparison with some simple CSS hacks: http://imgur.com/JlwfvOK

It's to get the idea, a lot can still be improved!

 

 

Another nice solution would be to have the page be fully responsive to screen size (without a max as it is now!). 

 

 

And hey, we need the old smileys!

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I agree with others, the new larger font or maybe just more pronounced font, is better.

However, I still think stretching the board out to fit widescreen displays is a must, or even the option to do that. There is no need for these narrow sites anymore, just seems a waste of space to each side. I hope there isn't the intention to fill these spaces down each side with ads, that would be really bad news, if its the case.

 

But there are improvements and that is a good thing. :)

 

Oh, and great just noticed the 'Like This' option has gone from our own posts, another improvement.

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In a true Bohemia's fashion new forums are plagued with bugs on release. 10$ DLC is expected in 6 months. Standalone expansion in two years!

 

like many others, I have the problem that I cannot login as my original account, BUT the weird thing is that I didn't create a new account. Instead seemingly logged in as the BI account I created to be able to play Mini DayZ, plus my original account's avatar got lost somehow.

 

That's actually the main reason behind the change - somehow old forum engine could not share user accounts with other BI services.

 

I've just tried to reply to a private message which took me about 10-15 minutes. On hitting "post" (why's that called "post" anyway, shouldn't it be "send"?) I was redirected to a "You're not allowed to do that."-page. Luckily, I copied the text to my clipboard before sending it and was able to reply again. It worked the second time.

 

From my reconing, it happens with everything you want to do. Seems like it's part of the transplantation process - first time kicks you, but later it works (happened to me with PMs).

 

BTW: quote blocks could stand out a little more - now it's hard to see where's quote and where's the rest of the post.

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can someone have a look over the number of PMs in the inbox. Seems it went down again to like 50 messages, thus i cannot send or receive anything new, although on the former boards i still had a few space. I am sure by upping up this PMs inbox will not grow the size of the database by more than a few megs

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Another thing with the "View New Content"-button: In the old forums, threads I've previously posted in were clearly marked by a differently coloured icon so I could quickly spot them when looking through new posts. Now these threads are marked with a small star in the same colour as the dots used for threads I haven't been posting in. I feel it's more difficult to spot threads I've posted in now, maybe the respecting icons should be marked with a different colour.

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You can still do that through the VIEW NEW CONTENT button. There's an option on the left column reading "Items I've participated in", under Other, that should accomplish that.

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I agree with others, the new larger font or maybe just more pronounced font, is better.

However, I still think stretching the board out to fit widescreen displays is a must, or even the option to do that. There is no need for these narrow sites anymore, just seems a waste of space to each side. I hope there isn't the intention to fill these spaces down each side with ads, that would be really bad news, if its the case.

I created a Stylebot (Chrome only?) profile to make the forums more compact and responsive (widescreen!). Try it and see if it does what you want.  It also makes the quoted text blocks stand out a bit more.

 http://stylebot.me/styles/10800

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Ah, okay. Still, that is an extra click and I'm also interested in threads I haven't posted in yet. The filter options are nice though.

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I still think stretching the board out to fit widescreen displays is a must, or even the option to do that. There is no need for these narrow sites anymore, ...

The reasoning here is that textlines can be too long (from a usability point of view). Hence people fancy to set a max-width attribute on containers with text.

But I symapthize with you: I'm in charge of the size of my browser window (at least on a desktop), and I know what the heck I'm doing. I can adjust the width of the window to my needs just fine, right? Just let it flow and wrap!

 

In the meantime: maybe try to not maximize your browser with a widescreen monitor (who does that anyways? :rolleyes:), or rotate your screen by 90 degrees.

Problem solved. :lol:

 

Then again, I think the waste of vertical space is more annoying (see rundll.exe's post and proposed fix).

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Is it possible to set the normal 24-hour time format, instead of the american version? I can't find such option.

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I created a Sylebot (Chrome only?) profile to make the forums more compact and responsive (widescreen!). Try it and see if it does what you want.  It also makes the quoted text blocks stand out a bit more.

 http://stylebot.me/styles/10800

 

That looks good, but I don't use Chrome. :)

 

The reasoning here is that textlines can be too long (from a usability point of view). Hence people fancy to set a max-width attribute on containers with text.

But I symapthize with you: I'm in charge of the size of my browser window (at least on a desktop), and I know what the heck I'm doing. I can adjust the width of the window to my needs just fine, right? Just let it flow and wrap!

 

In the meantime: maybe try to not maximize your browser with a widescreen monitor (who does that anyways? :rolleyes:), or rotate your screen by 90 degrees.

Problem solved. :lol:

 

Then again, I think the waste of vertical space is more annoying (see rundll.exe's post and proposed fix).

 

I always have browser on widescreen. There again at my age, all text needs to be larger to get read. Still, I can get the reading glasses out I suppose. :(

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Is it possible to set the normal 24-hour time format, instead of the american version? I can't find such option.

 

Right now there doesn't seem to be that option. I guess that should go into the list, then.

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we will look into the subscribed threads list > followed threads list conversion for sure ...

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For the record, I have noticed some improvements today (using my desktop). The font is now black (good) and I am no longer kicked back to forum frontpage if I scroll before the page is completely loaded.

Strange, I get bumped back to forum frontpage with early scrolling again, problem was gone earlier but is now back

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Strange, I get bumped back to forum frontpage with early scrolling again, problem was gone earlier but is now back

Weird. I don't get that anymore.

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Thank you kenoxite for starting this thread and thank you to everyone for providing your observations and feedback. As you can tell by the changes, the Web team have been hard at work solving issues and making updates. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

Best regards,

BohemiaBeck

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Every time I click on a link from google to this forum, it goes to the specific page or thread, then auto-refreshes a second later to the main forum page. I know it says SOLVED for google link stuff, but I'm still experiencing difficulties with Chrome.

 

The search function also just "searches" forever for me and never comes back with any results. Might just be me, I don't know.

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Thank you kenoxite for starting this thread and thank you to everyone for providing your observations and feedback. As you can tell by the changes, the Web team have been hard at work solving issues and making updates. Thank you for your patience and understanding.

 

Well, thanks for stopping by again. Yes, I've been aware of the changes and I've tried to update the first post accordingly. There's still a long way to go though (my personal pet peeve is all the problems with the PM system right now).

 

I think we can all agree that all this overall frustration most of us are feeling could have been avoided with either more thorough or actually proper testing before performing the change or with some kind of beta phase where all these bugs and glitches could have been ironed out.

 

Regardless, now it's too late for that. Seeing that things are getting fixed is really a good sign, even if it isn't in the order or with the speed some of us would prefer (but, well, it's a weekend, and a hell of one for all you I guess).

 

Keep fixing and improving and, for the sake of what you hold dearest, please avoid transitions like this in the future. I'm sure both your families and our sanity will be thankful for that.

 

But, like that guy said: that's like... my opinion, man.

 

 

Every time I click on a link from google to this forum, it goes to the specific page or thread, then auto-refreshes a second later to the main forum page. I know it says SOLVED for google link stuff, but I'm still experiencing difficulties with Chrome.

 

The search function also just "searches" forever for me and never comes back with any results. Might just be me, I don't know.

 

IIRC it was reported already elsewhere that links to specific posts still don't work properly. No idea bout all the rest of your problems TBH.

 

Maybe I should change the links entry status to IN PROGRESS instead?

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Another problem with PMs (I bet that Invision Power guys would proudly call that a feature): when you're deleting some messages from your inbox/outbox, they're automatically deleted also from recipient/sender account. This is firstly very weird, and secondly annoying especially in community which is based on permissions.

Link this with impossibilty to archive PMs (sending them to e-mail account is the worst possible solution), and we can expect problems when trying to prove to the mods that we don't steal stuff from other's.

 

BTW: I'm curious, does anyone from BI webmasters have some past experiences with IP.boards? I don't have any, but those IP guys seem to break simplest things!

 

EDIT: yeah, I know - it's not possible to fix it, apart from changing the engine once again.

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The PM limit is really annoying, my inbox is full and I don't even know about it. Why there is a limit at all? Only 50 messages is ridiculous.

Anyway good work with the forum so far, I'm starting to like it.

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