New Forum

[ShotJon]

I am going to say that I like the new forums. It has a lot of fancy stuff, although also a lot of unnecessary stuff. Alas going back to old forums now would be a bit silly in my opinion. That said Wes, not all people reads notices, Kyle's problem is a real problem. GMs often wants to send pm to their plot-group and use it a lot. That needs to be worked out.

 

[Wes]

Style Updates:

• Star Army: Black style has been updated to be less intensive on browsers
  
  • Background image is much smaller file size
  • Background-attachment:fixed property removed from background for smoother scrolling
  • Content area background is now a dark blue

 

[Wes]

Style updates:

• Notices no longer make your eyes bleed in the nebula styles. Changed their background to Star Army Navy blue.
• Removed gradients from Star Army Black

 

[Abwehran Commander]

I like that the code command has been fixed color wise. But is there anyway to engage word wrap on the sucker?

 

[Wes]

I like that the code command has been fixed color wise. But is there anyway to engage word wrap on the sucker?

It's for code. The word-wrap is disabled by design so it doesn't mess up the code. I don't plan to make it wrap. Note that it didn't wrap on the old forum, either, it just stretched the page out.

 

[Abwehran Commander]

Noted, though I could have sworn it word wrapped before. Thank you.

 

[Wes]

Installed our first add-on! It randomly generates avatars for people that never picked one.

 

[CadetNewb]

Well, from my perspective, so far so good. I'd like to point out that at the top of the page, the "Mark Forums Read, Search Forums, Watched Forums, New Posts" are more difficult to see and have reduced visibility in the "Emerald Nebula" style. If the random avatar generator isn't an optional feature, I think it should be made to be optional rather than mandatory - I think that's what gave Fred a little grief, but I'm not sure. I also want to ask, is the "New Posts" the same in functionality as "Active Threads" we used to have? It may just be me, but it 'feels' different for some reason that I can't put my finger on. Also, other than wishing the Conversation system was expanded on to have more users involved, the new forums appear to be going well to me.

'Appear' and 'From My Perspective' being the key words of course.

Fred, you're seeing something that I'm not. Could you lay them out for me? I'm not sure what you're referring to in regards to a "Newsreel". Though, in hindsight, those may have been the bubble things X'd out of soon after reading. And I'm also not privy to any potential problems the new Conversation system which replaced our old PMs could give either, and would like to know more.

 

[Doshii Jun]

Could we actually darken that Star Army blue background a touch more? Maybe #000022 instead of ... what, #000033?

Also, how are we determining site supporter status?

 

[Wes]

Could we actually darken that Star Army blue background a touch more? Maybe #000022 instead of ... what, #000033?

Also, how are we determining site supporter status?

For which style? The Ghost Nebula? Background of what, the page?

Site Supporter status is automatically granted to anyone who uses the "forum upgrade" option in their user profile to purchase a $10 monthly subscription to Star Army. I can also add it manually to people who are donating using the older donation buttons or for people who spend most of their free time and money on the site (*cough*me*cough*).

 

[Doshii Jun]

Ah, Nash fixed it for me. And Star Army Dark.

 

[Fred]

If the random avatar generator isn't an optional feature, I think it should be made to be optional rather than mandatory - I think that's what gave Fred a little grief, but I'm not sure.

I dislike having to put an avatar at all. This forum forces you to. And now I have this horned-cube stick-figure-arms-and-legs thingie. I won't pretend I'm pleased over this.

Another incentive for not putting avatars - even though I am aware they are 'relatively' light - is to reduce system load. As is, I'm experiencing a lot of trouble (read: chuggy/laggy performance) using my Firefox browser with multiple tabs at work, and the culprit is this forum... the moment I close the StarArmy tab, all of a sudden everything runs better - whereas the previous board didn't have me experience this problem. It's pretty bad.

New Posts function:
I'm annoyed that I don't see the threads I replied to in those. I could see this before, and it makes it more annoying for me tofollow discussions I've involved myself into.

Quotes:
As a heavy quotes user, I'm chagrinned to see them restrain themselves to size before offering a 'click to expand'. It's really annoying, and I'd like that to go away.

Fred, you're seeing something that I'm not. Could you lay them out for me? I'm not sure what you're referring to in regards to a "Newsreel". Though, in hindsight, those may have been the bubble things X'd out of soon after reading. And I'm also not privy to any potential problems the new Conversation system which replaced our old PMs could give either, and would like to know more.

Oh, it's those bubble thing you talk about, except they come back after clicking the Xes, or some don't have the Xes at all. Like, say, the reminder that I need to go pick my avatar. Thank you, nice-troublesome-forum, but I don't need you to do my thinking for me.

As for the loss of Private Messages? It's probably my biggest complaint.
You start a conversation? You're stuck with it until all participants leave it.
I attempted to leave all the conversation I didn't want to keep - lo and behold, the hundreds+ of them are all still there.
Does that mean that all participants have to leave the conversations for them to vanish from my inbox? Really?
If I wanted PMs to be deleted, I'd know they'd obey like the good little PMs they were.
If I wanted to PM my plot's usergroup to give them notices I know would probably give them an e-mail nudge "you got a PM at StarArmy", I could. But now, no usergroup addressing can be made like that. I'd have to start a conversation, whom would have a less conveniently selectable and more limited audience, and after that, I'd have trouble cleaning up my inbox to boot.

PMs were convenient. They were like letters: I write them, send them, they end up in an inbox - and there's no further fuss and commitment required by them. If the other person wants to return the favor, there were handy quote/reply button.

Conversations, by contrast, are a lot more bothersome, and don't realy meet my GMing needs. Hence why I grit my teeth when I have to use them and mutter impolite words when their finickiness goes in my way.

 

[raz]

New forum is definitely cool. I think it'll help attract and retain more new people (and, if not that, won't discourage them). Merging the oldest forum accounts is p rad, too. Thanks for the hard work getting us updated and stable, admin team!

 

[Moogle]

Actually, Fred, on the New Post alerts thing, I think it only starts counting threads you have posted in since the move. Could be wrong, but it SEEMS like that's how this works.

 

[Fred]

I think I'm being misunderstood.

ex.:
1. I come to the forum, and hit the "New Post" link.
2. On the ensuing page with the search result for new posts, I post this thread, "New Forum", and click on it.
3. I read Moogle's post. Then I reply to his post. I post my reply.
4. I hit the "New Post" link again, and the ensuing search doesn't include my latest post.

The thread I just posted doesn't figure in the search. I'm sure there's a rationale to not needing to see a post you just posted into, but I find it very annoying. I still want to see that thread nd not have it disappear just because -I- am its most recent contributor.

 

[raz]

"New Posts" turns to "Recent Activity" when you click the "who is online" button. It seems more useful. Is there a way to make "Recent Activity" appear all the time or have both?

 

[Wes]

One option is to check the profile option to watch any thread you post in, and then use the watched threads link. That's what I do.

 

[Moogle]

Ah, well, now I gotcha. Xenforo doesn't include threads in the "New Posts" list that you have ALREADY CHECKED. Unless I misread your post, you read this thread, posted, and then clicked "new posts" expecting to see your new post.

EDIT: Xenforo updates real-time if you use the quickreply option.

 

[Wes]

4. I hit the "New Post" link again, and the ensuing search doesn't include my latest post.

If you just visited that thread, it's no longer new.

Here, I made you a little home page on the wiki that has a direct link to the recent posts search where all recent threads, read or not, will appear. If you don't like the page, you could just bookmark the search perhaps? I use a wiki page like this as my homepage and just keep the tab open. I linked mine to all the pages I use most.

Avatars: I really like seeing unique avatars for everyone, even if they're just poorly-drawn aliens. With avatars being features so prominently in this forum template, we really needed something to eliminate everyone having identical blank question mark avatars and this was a creative and whimsical solution. Maybe once I get a classic "Star Army Blue" template up, I can make a version where avatars don't show, which you can choose?

Notices: The "no avatar notice" can now be dismissed. Fred, when are you seeing the notices reappear? I haven't seen any that I've closed come back. I even had to make a new one for myself just to see the colors when I was fixing them earlier.

PMs/usergroups/convos: I get that you want a way to prod your players that reaches their email inbox regardless of whether or not they choose to watch your forum with email notifications. I'm looking for a good way for you to do that. As admin I can email a certain usergroup so if you want to send me something to mail, I can do that.

 

[Kyle]

Fred when I looked into the firefox problem for you I found that it seems you are not alone. Some people who use the latest version of Firefox are reporting problems with slow-downs involving Xenforo. Browers such as IE, Opera, and a few others aren't experiencing slowdowns. My suggest is that until this problem is fixed (which I can't say whether its a browser problem or a forum problem) you might want to use a different browser for Sarpy browsing for the time being.