Forum changes.......

[WillsC]

Soon you will notice a few changes to the boards. The biggest of these changes will be the threads page going from 12 topics per page to 25 or so. The font size and font family will change. There will also be a few smaller changes that I hope people will like. The forum may do odd things during the transition

[Harborseal]

Anywhere from 25 - 100 sounds good

Can we choose from 25, 50 or 100?

[WillsC]

No

[F. Bennett]

Thanks for your efforts, Wills!

[MichaelTucson]

Is there something in the way this forum is set up that automatically logs me out after a certain amount of time with no inbound http activity? This evening I've been writing replies to a few posts, and get error messages indicating my credentials aren't current, or that I don't have authority to do that action (post a reply or post a comment). Yet although the indicator above shows that I'm still logged in, I find that if I swipe and copy to the clipboard, then logout and login again, I'm able to post the thing I just typed. Is that because of some timeout occurring? Or maybe it's because you're busy editing the forum configuration or something (and temporary). Anyway, if it's a timeout, can it be extended?

[WillsC]

Mike,

It had been set to timeout at 15 minutes, it is the default. I changed it to an hour, does that work for you or do you have another suggestion?

[MichaelTucson]

Thanks Wills. Yes, an hour sounds good to me. The 15 minutes was too short for me (I often multitask while visiting the forums, so a distraction that takes me beyond 15 minutes was all too common, and was frustrating). Moving it to one hour sounds great... thanks Wills!

[WillsC]

No problem at all, glad to help.

[joann1536]

I like the idea of longer threads showing. Thanks.

[WillsC]

Joann,

What do you mean by longer threads showing..do you mean more threads per page? If so that is in the works and I hope is rolled out soon. If you meant something different clarify it for me please.

[joann1536]

No, WillsC, that is exactly what I meant. More threads per page. I guess I need to get the terminology down. ;-)

[WillsC]

Joann,

The threads per page will be expanded from 12 to 25 and we will see how that does. I hope that will be soon.

[cis4elk]

I get timed out all the time if I get distracted or long winded in my typing. When I try post it tells me one of two things, which I can't remember exactly. It does auto-save, but often times the last sentence or two aren't there. So if I try post and get the message I do as Michael said and copy-sign out-sign in-paste. Sometimes, it won't let me copy, but if you "Preview" you can copy from there.

[WillsC]

The timeout was moved to an hour so I hope that helps.

[Rewton]

Wills, one feature that would be nice would come into play when you are re-visiting a thread. In that case it would automatically take you to the point in the thread where you left off reading last time. I've learned to like this feature on figs4fun but don't know how difficult it would be to implement here.

[eboone]

I am in agreement with Mike, a tool to go to unviewed comments would be great. At first I really liked the comment idea in this forum software. However, when people post comments on the 2nd page of a 4 page post that I have already read, I'm likely to miss them.
It is hard to keep up with lots of topics otherwise.

[AscPete]

The "Notifications" settings in your personal "User Settings" will automatically notify you of both comments and posts, when activated to do so.
Click on the Hyperlinked topic name when you check your forum messages and it will take you directly to the new post or comment...

[MichaelTucson]

Ah well, such are the breaks I guess. Here's hoping that the forum tools expand and someone finds a nice way to do this. Because:
@WillsC: well, you'd think that a person who asks a question might logically go back to look for answers that were posted as Comments, but in practice it doesn't seem to happen. If the person who asked is someone who's in the habit of looking to the first unread post, then why would they ever go scroll back up to look at their own posted question? Even a few examples that I've seen, right here on this new forum, involving people we all know. Only if they change their habits...
@AskPete: Yes, I noticed that feature. And I have it turned on (but not for long). Here's why: My email inbox is flooded by them, because the granularity is only for subscribing to threads (not individual posts). So not only is my inbox flooded, but it's so much so that it's effectively an unusable feature... I won't open every email and look when there are 30 or 40 of them... they all overlap and take me into the same thread. So I'll just look at the subject lines and decide which threads to look at. But I still might miss the individual comments.
@eboone: Exactly! Because the pages scroll over, I'm unlikely to go back and look at "stuff I've already read" (even though I haven't read the new
Comments there.
All: yet another issue: Look what happens when there are enough comments that they become a scrolled subwindow! Talk about hidden! In the absence of tools to navigate Comments, I'll probably revert to just always creating a new post and (if it's a reply to an earlier post) quote the one I'm responding to. I've already seen answers I provided in Comments be apparently ignored, so why bother writing if the response is sort of "hidden" from too many readers?

Ah well... here's hoping that somebody builds in some reasonable version of this into one of the forum tools. Even something as simple as taking me down to the first unread "point post" (Comment) OR to the first unread "integer post" (Post), whichever is highest.

Thanks for listening.

[Singing Gardener]

I dont' see a way to search the whole forum. Only individual threads. Can we have that feature please?

[Gina]

RE 'comments'. Michael Tucson commented:

All: yet another issue: Look what happens when there are enough comments that they become a scrolled subwindow! Talk about hidden! In the absence of tools to navigate Comments, I'll probably revert to just always creating a new post and (if it's a reply to an earlier post) quote the one I'm responding to. I've already seen answers I provided in Comments be apparently ignored, so why bother writing if the response is sort of "hidden" from too many readers?

At first I really liked the quick comments too. But there have been times when I've made a comment only to see someone below in the thread has said the same thing. Also I notice that if the original poster deletes his original post, the comments are deleted too.

Unless it's a quick quip, or a comment on the last post of a thread, I now prefer to write a separate post (like this one) instead of tacking on my 'pearls of wisdom' somewhere in the middle of a thread where they may never be seen.

edit: In fact, I didn't even see some of the first comments of that last long cluster because they had already been folded out of sight.

[eboone]

Agree with what Gina and MichaelTucson both have said on the comments, don't think I will be using them for significant content

[greenfig]

Is there a way to email a member or pm is the only option? I find the PMs a little confusing, how they count what's in the mailbox and what's in there

[newnandawg]

Go to your message center. On the left side there should be a "compose new" in blue. Click on that.

[greenfig]

Oh, yes, how does one become a member?
I am at 51 and still Junior? Not that it matters but curious...

[eboone]

greenfig - it is supposed to be based on number of posts. I thought it was at 50 though, maybe they reset things. I thought Kelby graduated from Jr at 50.

I see above F.Bennett is a member at 49, so I am not sure.

[Kelby]

30 for me.

[AscPete]

The software is probably counting posts and comments... participation (just a guess )

[Gina]

As Ed said, It's supposed to be a numbers thing, but it appears not to be consistent.

Greenfig, I'm also a bit confused about the private messages, visitor messages, and notifications here. I expect I'll get used to them eventually.

[eboone]

Well, when I hit 50 and 51 it still said Jr Member. I closed out and came back a while later and now it says Member. Not sure if it was the leaving and returning, or if someone fixed something. I see greenfig is now graduated too.
I'm sure there are still some forum setting adjustments going on. Not worried about it. I am certainly "Junior" to many here in terms of experience.

[greenfig]

Ed, congrats!
I think either the software doesn't respond immediately or you have to relogin to see the update of your status

[WillsC]

Or a certain Admin forgets to hit "update titles" after messing with the system.

[eboone]

Wills - blame it on the dog in your avatar

[Gina]

'The dog ate my updates?'

[greenfig]

The pictures are too small while viewing in somebody’s posts. I am on a Mac and even the right clicking does not give me an option to view a larger version.
Is it possible to make them larger or to add a button for the handicapped people like me?

[WillsC]

Let me check in to that.

[WillsC]

Greenfig,
At the moment I can't change the picture size, it is a known bug and while I have options to use or not use thumbnails and the size of the previews none of it is working. As a work around until it is fixed if you click on the thumbnail and open it then right click the picture you can open it in a new tab or window and that picture is full size.

[psilva8]

Loving this look Wills. Great job.

[greenfig]

Thank you, Wills!

[WillsC]

Glad to help...I hope they patch the issue soon.

[Otmani007]

I love the look as well. Good work, Wills!

[WillsC]

Thanks all appreciate the feedback.

[cis4elk]

Suddenly, the figs home page keeps defaulting to Ascending order rather than the preferred Descending. Everytime I look at a thread it switches back. Annoying.

[WillsC]

That was me should be fixed now.

[Harborseal]

LOL.