New forum software - need your help testing & input

[WM-300]

Steve;

Thanks for all the work your doing !!! The Gray is better, but with my eyes needs to be a little darker. The red was to bold, hurt eyes, with the gray choice, the screen is almost to bright. Just my . 02 cents with old eyes.



WM-300

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

I've tried going to a one point larger font sizes on almost everything and also gone to a darker grey that I was using on that version. I also made the border between the edge of the outside box and the inside tables smaller.

 

[rbattelle]

Steve,



Version 3 certainly has some enhancements! Now, I think I've asked for this before here, but is it possible to provide a way to show all pages from a post in one long string (other than going to print mode)? They have this feature at the diesel stop and I like it (I know, I said a bad word... "diesel stop").



Also, I agree there's way too much red. Light gray would be easier on the eyes.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Originally posted by rbattelle

but is it possible to provide a way to show all pages from a post in one long string (other than going to print mode)?

It doesn't look like it although there may be a hack out there for that. Remind me in a couple months after I've recovered and I'll look into it. They use ubb on thedieselstop and that's a feature that hasn't made it's way into vB yet. There are a couple of new thread views in this version - pull down the display modes menu on the right and you can see the other two.

 

[benhall]

Steve, I like the way the forums are laid out in the new style, but like the others, that red hurts the eyes. Granted that red is a little easier to read when your in a dark room, but I'm not nocturnal, and need a light to make life easier. I like the current set up with how the forums are listed on one page and not in one drop down menu. Even though I'm still a "young one" I like the kiss (keep it simple stupid) method of doing things.



Just a couple of thoughts.



Ben

 

[CarlJensen]

I see what everybody is talking about with the color. It's not that it is any brighter but there is a lot more of it, distracting you from the body of the message in the thread. In old format headers only are red, new format has a complete border of the color. Will the color preference selection change all color or border only?

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

It changes the red background that you can see. It's easy to change - just scroll down to the bottom of the page and change the style on the lower left.

 

[Gypsyman]

Any chance of gettin the alternating background color back in the thread posts? It breaks up the threads and makes them easier to read in my opinion. The larger font size is a HUGE improvement along with the darker gray option!



-Richard



Again, great work!

 

[John - K5AWO]

comments

Steve,



played around some here at the house now that I can see all of the screen formatting on a good monitor.



The vertical bars on each side of the screen don't do anthing intelligible (for me) and use up screen width. I would prefer to see that go away.



i would hope that you can offer more screen colors than the current two that are now offered. Things along the line of ocean green/blue, lighter pastels.



The heavy color bands outlining the blocks of info. I feel they should be a lot thinner. Again my perspective is it's using up too much screen space.



I made several test posts and they went well. Then I made one that included an image and some smilies. I got an error from Microsoft VB that said the executable would die away, and it did. Killed IE. I'm not sure if that is related to the forum software, or if my PC had a sudden glitch. Didn't reboot, just restarted IE (6. x) and all is well so far.



I am going to have to use it more than just 15 minutes to decide if I like the extra blocking with solid colors. Although I realize the extra info being presented has to be segregated somehow without being overly pretentious.



The extra editorial options are going to be a joy to use.



Some of the menu links are broken, but that is just a lack of time on your part to get the package finished. The basics are there and they are working great.



It's past my bedtime and I can't think very well anymore. More tomorrow.



Great job Steve,



John

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

What menu links were broken John? There shouldn't be any broken links that I'm aware of.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

I fixed the wide image problem tonight. If you link to a picture in a thread via an html img src or a vB img tag that is over 560 pixels wide it will automatically resize it to 560 pixels and provide a link to the full size image. This will keep the messages from going wide and creating a horizontal scroll bar forcing you to scroll back and forth to read the posts. In vB2 it would only make the one post go wide, in vB3 because of how it's formatted it caused all the posts on that thread to go wide.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Originally posted by Gypsyman

Any chance of gettin the alternating background color back in the thread posts? It breaks up the threads and makes them easier to read in my opinion. The larger font size is a HUGE improvement along with the darker gray option!



-Richard



Again, great work!

No, there doesn't seem to be any option for an alternating color in the posts. Not that it couldn't be done but I'd have to dig into the code to make it happen. That would be a ways down the list.



As to color options for the background. Give me some options and I can make a style sheet for it. I'd need the html color code - a good chart I use is here: http://www.visibone.com/colorlab/



I reduced the size of the white border down to 5 pixels (it was 10). It looks different when that purple band isn't there. The purple band is just there for the test site to TRY and get peoples attention that they are going to lose anything they post there. From many of the posts there I'm quite sure a bunch of people didn't read it.



Only 16 users have visited and logged into the test forum of the 1,946 that have checked into the tdr since the announcement yesterday . I REALLY need you guys to check out the test forum and give your input NOW. Now is the time to test this out and make changes. It's a much bigger hassle for me to make changes after it's gone live. Now is your opportunity to get your input in on this - take advantage of it PLEASE.

 

[Joe Mc]

Like the ability to change style from red to grey. Seems as if there's some buttons missing on the top, where the TDR Home Page, Discussion Forums etc. are.



Have to check it out more later on tonight - need coffee.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

All the buttons are there Joe - they are pull down menus.

 

[HeavyHauler]

Steve - looks very nice; clean and modern looking. However, something isn't quite right with the contrast. It's much harder to read the posts now. I like the old color combinations better. Maybe it's the red that jumps out at me.

 

[DCaswell]

Font is too small, ol farts like me need glasses to read it, much prefer what we have now

 

[Jdonoghue]

So far, everything works for me. But the top of the page, the buttons overlap some text and part of the TDR logo. It might be my browser, though. I'm using Konqueror on Mandrake Linux 9. 2.
There's a screenshot of it here
(that image is big, 1024x732)

 

[apkole]

Pull down menu's are great. I can deal with the red borders, but they do seem to eat up some screen space.



Color options for borders would be cool, but not a deal breaker for me.



I'll try to play with this later today. Got to get ahold of my password so I can post over there.



Later



Andy

 

[Yo Hoot]

Steve... I like the dropdown menu as opposed to the old style. Much cleaner. Some people will have troble at first even knowing they exist.

 

[nickleinonen]

Originally posted by Steve St. Laurent

Did you click on the link to the test forum in the first post or are you looking for the changes here? Because there is a LOT of new stuff in the new version of the software and the look is completely different.

nope... silly me... . went to the new link, and it is alright... . but i am use to the present version and am happy with it... when the change over happens, i'll get use to the new one i guess...