New forum software

[sloan]

might not be a bug, maybe just a size problem but some of the posted pics aren't fully showing up in posts such as:

viewtopic.php?f=4&t=27280

cheers!

The images have completely disappeared from the For Sale thread for the Holton Collegiate. I now see HTML instead of images.

I see the pics of the horn below the ad. They are pretty big and maybe that's why they're below the text.

Yes - they are back now. I don't know what changed, but all now appears well.

[WoodSheddin]

I think that there four things that bother me about the appearance.

Good ideas. All make sense. Spacing should be easily handled int he Style Sheet along with colors and the like. Column widths might require some template tinkering though, but I agree. The user info on the right is pretty wide. I "think" that is to accommodate larger default avatars.

So let me ask. Would people prefer larger avatars or more text space?

[GC]

Personally, I prefer text space.

The little Online banner is a neat idea, and the User Control Panel is a definite improvement.

[Rick F]

If it can be done, I'd also prefer seeing the user name, avatar, icons on the left side.

Just my...

[bort]

Doesn't look like the system time is updated for daylight saving time...

[Rick Denney]

I've benefitted from the tweaking you've done to respond to the early complainers. The font is fine, and the color is fine. I have no trouble on my laptop distinguishing between posts and background, between posts and other posts, and between text and background. The font size is fine, even on my laptop screen which is small with very high resolution.

The layout is different, but fine. I'll get used to it. I have no problem with the poster information being on the right, or with the reply/quote buttons being in different places.

My first reaction to the new layout was that it was easier to read than before. Again, I'm seeing it after you made some of those changes. I see less well than most of those who were having trouble, so the improvements you made must have been good ones.

Attachments are cool.

Rick "no complaints" Denney

[WoodSheddin]

Doesn't look like the system time is updated for daylight saving time...

Change that in your User Control Panel

[WoodSheddin]

Attachments are cool.

Rick "no complaints" Denney

You can also post up YouTube stuff as long as people don't abuse it.

[Uncle Buck]

I'll get used to the new appearance. I've only used a few of the new features, but I like what I've seen so far.

Just the addition of the "Search Within" feature in an advanced search makes searches a LOT more useful. I'm sure as I use the new site more I'll learn more of the new features.

[WoodSheddin]

Just a few of the new features

Save Drafts for later posting
Alert moderators of problem posts
Friends and Foes lists
Attachments
Jabber integration (I have not implemented yet)
Hugely versatile rights management for mods/admins
Advanced search has more controls over searches
Logs, warnings, temporary bans
Admin control panels have much more depth

[Uncle Buck]

Just a few of the new features
Friends and Foes lists

Now that sounds interesting . . .

[Tom Holtz]

Agreed, 10pt font is pretty darn small, unless that's throwing a bone to the folks with small monitors. I like the larger sizes, and the larger default as well. I'll be using the 12pt on the laptop, 14pt on the desktop, and the 16pt will make several of our regular members VERY happy. Did you tweak the colors as well? This seemed a lot, well, bluer this morning. Maybe it's the different monitor...

Scroll bars on the humongous pictures is a very welcome improvement. I've been guilty of attaching overlarge pics myself.

I also had to mod my signature, the HTML I was using in the sig line was no longer rendering. I got the same results in my sig with BBCode, so no big loss there, but there'll be a few other clever sigs that don't work now. All told, a tiny price to pay.

[Tom Holtz]

I'm finding that the widths of each forum are not consistently filling the screen. The forum selection page is the proper width, but everything else covers only about 2/3 of my screen.

Once you scroll down past the point where the Google ads are on the far right, the rest of that space underneath the Google ads is empty, all the way to the bottom of the page. With the avatars/personal stuff on the right, it gives the impression that there's more wasted space than the previous version, but I think it's about the same.

For those with the small monitors, the new format means the meat posts will show up all the way to the left, on the screen, and the extra stuff will get pushed off the right, not part of the posts. You'll still have to scroll down A LOT. Those of you with new widescreen monitors are in the same boat. Those things are great for watching movies, crap for surfing or working on documents. There's always been a lot of vertical scroll on TubeNet, and software ain't helping that.

[BopEuph]

I think this is a good move.

TubeNet was the first web forum I joined. Before that, it was the Yahoo! Groups mail forum, where all messages were sent directly to my inbox. This took a while to get used to. Then, when I started joining other forums, formats were different all over the web, and I had to get used to them, too. Give some of the new visuals some time, and they will grow on you. It is hard to make changes like these, but when it comes to forums, you usually have no choice.

Nick

[ThomasDodd]

Agreed, 10pt font is pretty darn small, unless that's throwing a bone to the folks with small monitors.

That all depends on the graphics settings. If your video card and monitor are set correctly a 10 point font is 10 * 1/72" = 0.139" tall or just over 1/8".

The problem arises because the Windows default resolution is wrong (so is the mac default). The default is 96dpi and that is very inaccurate for moder monitors (not the the 72dpi default of the Mac is any better).

My 20" LCD at work is 411mmx311mm (16.18"x12.24"). I run it at 1600x1200 which means it has a resolution of 99x98 dpi. So when windows decide it needs 13 pixel for the font height (96/72 * 10) it only displays 0.131" high (13/99). Everything needs to be 3% bigger.

My laptop's 14.1" display at 1440x900 is actually 122dpi, so that 10pt font would only be 0.106" tall. Everything needs to be 27% bigger. Or you could say everything looks 21% smaller that it should (I think I got the math right). Maybe a more familiar way of looking at it is the different in setting the zoom to 78% instead of 100% in a word processor.

So the smaller the screen and the higher the resolution the more effect it has.
That's why points is a bad choice for web use.
http://hsivonen.iki.fi/units/
http://webdesign.about.com/cs/typemeasu ... 42803a.htm

Since I have my systems configured with the correct DPI (my wife is a graphic designer and need 1" on the screen to be 1" when printed) 10pt fonts look fine (as do 8pt fonts).

The new sizes actually look very large to me.

Compare the Thread title in these two screen grabs.

tubenet_old.jpg

tubenet_new.jpg

and that's the smallest setting.

[PWtuba]

I really don't like the colors, and visually the board is not nearly as nice as the most recent one. I have a hard time figuring out where everything is, but I suppose I'll get used to it.

The only thing I really don't like is that the profile information is to the right of the posts. It's not as noticeable.

[ThomasDodd]

I should add. It's not the webmaster's fault. And it would be asking a lot of him to "fix" the problem.

#1 the themes should not be using point sizes in the CSS.
The theme should use the browser's default font sizes, so each user can set that as appropriate. So I could have "8pt" as my default and all the text in a post would be 8pt. Someone with poor vision could set it to 16pt and all the text would be 16pt. We'd both be happy then.

For larger or smaller than the default size percentages should be used, or the HTML tags like <big> or <font size="x"> should be used (or the CSS small, medium, large names)


Here's a good paper discussing it.
http://style.cleverchimp.com/font_size_ ... rvals.html

Poor theme design is at fault, and the theme designers should fix it.
I don't expect the webmaster to be a CSS expert nor recode a theme, especially the default theme that comes with the application (phpBB in this case).

[WoodSheddin]

I should add. It's not the webmaster's fault. And it would be asking a lot of him to "fix" the problem.

Academic.

A LARGE percentage of the web uses font size declarations. So is it a "problem". No. It functions and is fully supported by the major browser implementations. Is it part of the W3C recommendations. Perhaps not. Either way it is a discussion for another day.

I ain't recoding an entire software package.

[Yosef: Tubist]

personally..
At first I didn't like the text on the left of the screen.. but recently reading posts, I've realized that the forum is a bit easier to read, and has more flow...

As for the colors, the colors don't seem all that different to me, I think its just the layout, and the rounded corners with no borders that some people don't like.

But I say, give it more time!! I like it

[WoodSheddin]

personally..
At first I didn't like the text on the left of the screen.. but recently reading posts, I've realized that the forum is a bit easier to read, and has more flow...

That's also my take on it. The thread becomes more about the ideas instead of the personalities behind the ideas because your eyes are tracking the words much moreso than the names and avatars.