New forum software - need your help testing & input

[Farmall Hauler]

Hello Steve,



I wanted to drop you a quick line, and let you know that the password reset function works excellent. And, my screen reading software has no problems with the user control panel!



Thanks again for all of your hard work!



Mark

 

[fest3er]

Been there. Done that.

The forum 'section' titles should be a slightly larger font, to make them stand out a little better from the forum titles.

The BG color? I don't particularly care for *any* of the colors. They're all too bright. Perhaps a forest green (197500), or maroon (660000), dark blue (000066), dark cyan (005252), or most any other color along those dark lines. It really wants to, if you'll pardon the expression, fade into the background and be unnoticed. But the default color likely needs to approximate TDR Red .

Something that may not be possible: the arrow icon thingies - it would be nice if the 'clickable' area around them was larger and easier to target with the mouse.

That's all I have this go-round.

Good show, Steve!

N

 

[jcbrown]

Fine Lines and Drop Down Boxes...

• Increase line width or make same color as background. Not easily seen on a LCD monitor.



• Make text for drop down boxes have color background.

 

[John - K5AWO]

Steve, I agree with jcbrown.



Even on a quality monitor here at the house, the white menu backgrounds make me have to study too hard to figure out where the menu is and the extraneous part of the page material is.



Older eyes no longer pick things out easily. We need contrast to focus on.



On the drop down menus Steve, do you remember Word Perfect 5. 0 and earlier versions? I always liked the dark blue background with the yellow text for sub-menus. Is that possible? Does V3 give you the option to set menu colors globally? Would be a pain if each one has to be encoded separately.



I for one really appreciate your time on this thing. I wish I could help in this endeavor, but Michigan and Arizona are a "fer piece apart"



Even at the low pay of $30/hour for programmers, your personal effort has now far exceeded the equal of $6,000 bux. I hope all who use this forum really appreciate what is involved in such an undertaking to convert to more modern software.



I like the color choices offered, but would like the blue to be more of a "baby blue" or "sky blue" as Ford called it on their '82 Lincoln Continental. You have six choices available now, that seems to be a good number of options. My tired eyes like the cyans and pale blues best. The dark green looks "Kelley" green to me, but is cool and no eyestrain. No bad choices so far.



I've played with all the colors for a bit now... . and I have settled on the "dark green". Seems to just "feel better".



Personal info on left side of screen for each post:

... Is the multiple box format hard encoded? I would prefer a single box without the individual boxes. "too busy". I'm betting though that it is "fields" and you can't control it.



Love that "Download This Thread". You just eliminated 3 steps for me. Highlight, paste into Notepad to get rid of the VB stuff, suck it out, format in Word, send to PJ in email ( he don't have time to surf)



I just did a vote on a thread. I don't see where that result showed up at?



John

 

[sarj]

looks pretty good



one small thing that may or may not be a problem on improving navigation of threads... A few other boards I use has a feature to invert the viewing of posts when you click on the thread so that you can view them for newest first. This is useful on threads you revisit often in terms of navigation. I don't know how much trouble that would be to add to a drop down menu after you click on a thread.



I really like the addition of the thread "viewing modes". I use it on a technical site I'm on, and if guys learn that they can respond to an individual post on a thread and it shows up in the navigation outline, it makes it easier to see who is responding to who. I don't think it'll catch on though, because evryone is used to the quick quote function.

 

[Kimber]

Maybe a "members only" drop-down tab for those sections only??... might have a cleaner look. Everything looks great... . I'm with everyone else on your huge effort to upgrade

 

[John - K5AWO]

Originally posted by sarj

I really like the addition of the thread "viewing modes". I use it on a technical site I'm on, and if guys learn that they can respond to an individual post on a thread and it shows up in the navigation outline, it makes it easier to see who is responding to who. I don't think it'll catch on though, because evryone is used to the quick quote function.

Kimber,



I love that viewing mode change up also. i almost always use the quote feature because it makes it easier to determine who an answer is being directed too. Less confusion. I see it being used a lot on TDR, so I don't think it is as bad as you might think on acceptance to new features.



SARJ:



That reverse post feature is already incorporated. click on the underlined word LAST POST at the top of the threads. it reverses the displayed messages from newest to oldest. Exactly what you want.





-John

 

[BGiles]

Steve, is it possible to minimize a section to just the title. Being a 3rd gen, I don't read the 1st & 2nd gen areas.



Just curious.



Brian

 

[John - K5AWO]

SARJ:



That reverse post feature is already incorporated. click on the underlined word LAST POST at the top of the threads. it reverses the displayed messages from newest to oldest. Exactly what you want.





Ummm, Sarg, I just noticed that the reverse sort order only works for titles of threads. I have not found a way to cause the thread itself to display in reverse order.



Steve?



Personally though, I just hit the "new post since last visit" icon and that works for me.



Steve:

A comment ont he quick post box at the bottom of each thread. It currently does not accept text input. Did I read where you said that particular feature will be enabled when V3 goes live?



-John

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Originally posted by BGiles

Steve, is it possible to minimize a section to just the title. Being a 3rd gen, I don't read the 1st & 2nd gen areas.



Just curious.



Brian

Yes, on the category line on the right there's an up arrow - click on it and it'll close that window up and change to a down arrow (which you can use to open it back up). Before you close it up if you don't want to see messages in those forums when you do "view new posts" or other searches (by default) click on the grey S in a circle and it'll turn red with a slash through it - that'll remove that forum from default searches (this feature we have now).

Originally posted by sarj

one small thing that may or may not be a problem on improving navigation of threads... A few other boards I use has a feature to invert the viewing of posts when you click on the thread so that you can view them for newest first. This is useful on threads you revisit often in terms of navigation. I don't know how much trouble that would be to add to a drop down menu after you click on a thread.

There no way to do that on an individual thread right now but you can change it for all threads in the user control panel under options.

Originally posted by John - K5AWO

A comment ont he quick post box at the bottom of each thread. It currently does not accept text input. Did I read where you said that particular feature will be enabled when V3 goes live?



-John

The quick reply works differently in vB3 - click on the last icon on the right in one of the posts on a thread (the one that looks like a piece of paper with an arrow swooping out of it). When you click on that you'll be taken to the quick reply box and it'll be active then. That's how it knows which post you are replying to and what makes the threaded view possible.

 

[John - K5AWO]

Additional Comments to Steve

* Search this thread is not working for me.



* Advanced mode- Insert Hyperlink. The action worked, but the display went back to TOP instead of returning to the position where I was inserting text.



* Text needs editing. The word "post" in the sentence "all post(s)to the TDR Discussion Forums" is plural. nit picking here, but it may as well be right. sub-paragraph enclosed for you:



5. Vendor Participation: Vendor input and commentary is welcomed in our Discussion Forums, however, direct solicitation is not. Vendors have proven to provide insightful conversation and commentary. Demonstrate professionalism in all post to the TDR Discussion Forums. The following will be strictly enforced:



* Steve, you might want to add to this statement that the user's name is "real-time". That even if it is changed, the previous statements will reflect what it was changed to, UNLESS a new sub-scription is created. Reference paragraph:



"10. It Is the WWW (Don't Forget, The World Is Watching . . . ). This one is simple. Be aware that anything you post on the TDR Website - or anywhere on the World Wide Web for that matter - may be read by the rest of the world. Keep your pants up. We do not have the staff to change user names to protect you from something you posted without serious consideration first. "

 

[Truckie]

All right what am I doing wrong? I cant log on to the test site.

It says to enter you user name and pass word and I do that and it says I have entered a invalid pass word and name. Do we need to get a new pass word or code to get in?

So far from what Iv seen the new site looks pretty cool, but something needs to be done with the color.

Right now I just want to be able to log on to the new site.





MIKE

 

[John - K5AWO]

Mike,



I am logging into the the test site with my normal username and password.



I only had to do it once, as I clicked on the "remember me" and a cookie was created so I don't have to do it anymore.

John

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Truckie - did you change your password recently? The database on the test site is from July 11th, 2004 so if you've changed your password and/or username since that time it would be your old username and/or password that you'd need to use. Try doing the lost password routine over there to get you on. Did you try the different colors offered? There are six of them right now.

 

[Steve St.Laurent]

Originally posted by John - K5AWO

* Search this thread is not working for me.



* Advanced mode- Insert Hyperlink. The action worked, but the display went back to TOP instead of returning to the position where I was inserting text.

" [/B]

How did search this thread not work for you? I just did it and it brought up a list of each individual post inside that thread that had the word I searched for in it. What did it do for you?



I'll take a look at the hyperlink thing and report it to vB. That's something I'd rather wait for them to fix so we don't end up with different than released code.

 

[John - K5AWO]

Originally posted by Steve St. Laurent

How did search this thread not work for you? I just did it and it brought up a list of each individual post inside that thread that had the word I searched for in it. What did it do for you?

I had a thread open, searched for a word that was display and received the following:



vBulletin Message

Sorry - no matches. Please try some different terms.



The following words are either very common, too long, or too short and were not included in your search : under



I have tried it several times from different threads with the same results. I just looked to see what might be different. I was in "Thread Mode" when doing that.



I just changed to "linear mode" and did a search and it turned up two posts in a thread related to the word searched for.



Now even that is working on Thread Search... dunno what it was. The last couple minutes are the only time it has worked for me. But since it is working, don't "fix it".

 

[Truckie]

Steve I have not changed any thing on my password or user name. So I don't know what the problem is.

I'm going to see what I have to do for the lost password thing you said. I will let you know what happens.





MIKE

 

[Gypsyman]

Steve,

I have seen mention of the drop down menus needing to be easier to read. I have to agree. After using them a few times they could at least use a larger, less bold font to make them more legible.



Still looking good...



-Richard

 

[Silverbullet]

Looks great! Havent had any problems

 

[jcbrown]

Font Size...

I wouldn't worry about font size. My browser allows me to increase/decrease font size in real-time.