Subtle changes, bugs and feedback

Did that fix it?

yep looks fine now.
altho not in ie 9...but thats flaky anyway
works in FF and chrome

thanks!

Found the weirdest thing with Safari on iPhone.

It chooses to render things at different sizes depending on the amount of text next to it.

So on the home page, it shows Cycle Training smaller than the other forums, because there's no text next to it.

And a moment ago, it showed General smaller than Track, because the amount of text next to it was less than Track, so it assumes that part of the page is less important.

So Safari ignores all of the font size rules I tell it to use, and they just apply their own.

I've had to increase the text next to forums to at least 62 characters for them all to be shown the same size.

LINES!

Thankyou, I can see again

I've just tried it on an Android 2.1 and Android 4.2, both work fine.

I think it's your phone, as in the calibration of the touch screen and where it registers the touch.

I've recalibrated the touch screen. It's better, acceptable even, but still skew-whiff compared to other sites I'm visiting. Meh.

Found the weirdest thing with Safari on iPhone.

It chooses to render things at different sizes depending on the amount of text next to it.

So on the home page, it shows Cycle Training smaller than the other forums, because there's no text next to it.

And a moment ago, it showed General smaller than Track, because the amount of text next to it was less than Track, so it assumes that part of the page is less important.

So Safari ignores all of the font size rules I tell it to use, and they just apply their own.

I've had to increase the text next to forums to at least 62 characters for them all to be shown the same size.

Does this help?
http://www.freepx.net/blog/how-to-stop-font-resizing-on-iphone-without-affecting-zooming-in-safariwebkit/

I think different people will appreciate different features. This is an example:

You could go further on the User CP page. This is the page I have bookmarked (I don't know if that's typical of users) and I never use the Your Control Panel column which sits on the left – everything (amiright?) is accessible through the top tabs menu.

I actually really like the menu on the left and always use it. :)

The main difference seems to be between people who use touch screen devices (often with small screeens) and people who don't.

I still think this new font need tracking out 10 (blah, blah, type nerd on a bike nerd forum, etc).

:)

I don't know what this means, but as I don't use a touch-screen device, I'm pretty indifferent to all the changes except for the font and font size. I really liked the old font and while a few days ago I thought I had it back, I now can't find it again. I've tried all the fonts that Firefox offers me but no luck. What was the name of the old font again?

Font size I can always adjust, although it doesn't remember my choice (not a major issue but an additional page load every time) . If at any point these evolved into User CP options so I could customise them, that would be most welcome, although I expect they're among the harder-to-code things.

All this web design/user interface stuff seems to be going a little in the direction in which IBM PC compatibles went once upon a time, with a bewildering variety of requirements making it more and more difficult to get everything compatible. :)

In the list of threads, on the right hand side of the thread title (but before "Last Post") is a group of icons:

= Subscribed (usually meaning participation)

Gotcha, it's a bit of a strain to read across each thread row to find that info (most users probably scan up/down the thread column), I imagine that some eye tracking on LFGSS would show that the majority of the right hand side goes unviewed.

My gut feeling is that the "down arrow" (which serves no purpose currently, right?) could be more useful for this kind of functionality (point right if you're subscribed to the thread/part of the conversation for example).

How do you do a force-refresh on the Android browser?

I've tried all the fonts that Firefox offers me but no luck. What was the name of the old font again?

The old font stack was: 'Trebuchet MS','Verdana','Tahoma','Arial',sans-serif

It would use the first one of those that you had installed on your system.

Gotcha, it's a bit of a strain to read across each thread row to find that info (most users probably scan up/down the thread column), I imagine that some eye tracking on LFGSS would show that the majority of the right hand side goes unviewed.

My gut feeling is that the "down arrow" (which serves no purpose currently, right?) could be more useful for this kind of functionality (point right if you're subscribed to the thread/part of the conversation for example).

I agree on the eye tracking.

The common eye tracking pattern is an F shape:
1) Across the top
2) Across the middle
3) Down the left

So the thread icons where they are, well they're pretty invisible. If you see them it's the result of darting around the page to see them.

I've never known how valuable the thread icons were, as they're visual and not clicks... so I've had no measurement of them I could use.

Do people care that they're subscribed to a thread, or that it has attachments? Do people ever care about the thread ratings?

I agree with you that we as the minority who author posts do care about seeing which of the threads we've participated in.

The question is just how to represent this visually.

On the left hand side seems best, but I also don't want to interrupt the speed at which people can scan the thread titles.

I've not got a lot of data to backup the decisions I make here, which is why the design this week has been evolutionary. Make a change, give it time and see how it feels, rinse and repeat.

If I hear overwhelmingly that the thread icons are useless and ignored, then I'll abolish those and focus just on hinting at participation on the left hand side.

But, if the icons are used, then the most logical place for another attribute of the thread is within that group.

I just discovered that clicking on the attachment paperclip pops up a window showing all of the attachments in a thread.

Did anyone else know it did that? Does anyone ever use that?

Sounds like you're all over it, in my opinion there are tonnes of reasons for keeping more thread info "upfront"... imagine scaling LFGSS to the power of 10 and how that would affect the ability to source/find the info/threads you're after, etc.

I may be wrong in thinking that people are more interested in seeing the replies to their own posts/threads than other "no participation" threads, but I doubt it. Highlighting participation threads also encourages further conversation and more "relevant" responses (people not continuing their conversations in other threads randomly, etc).

I totally agree with that.

One of the things I've always disliked vBulletin for is that it really offers no feature to give you notifications "Someone replied to your post". That's crazy... that functionality is core to communication.

Subscription indicators and participation indicators are both poor solutions to that problem.

That's in the new stuff I'm working on... that has to be available to people.

What happens in the stop gap until then is always going to be a bit crap in comparison.

But yeah, I'll look at moving the icons and grouping them differently.

I'm guessing you clear the cache for the android browser

Brilliant changes today to the thread listings. So much clearer and sensible IMO.

I am missing a quick way to Unsubscribe from threads now. Is there a way to do that without going into the thread?

Nah, go into the thread.

Or mass unsub from the control panel.

I just discovered that clicking on the attachment paperclip pops up a window showing all of the attachments in a thread.

Did anyone else know it did that? Does anyone ever use that?

Would be good to be able to show just the images in a thread

As in, the externally linked ones?

I really don't have much of a way to do that today.

It may be possible under the new thing... but what's the value in it? It would return almost as many images as posts in a lot of threads.

Nah, go into the thread.

Or mass unsub from the control panel.

Ok. ta.

It may be possible under the new thing... but what's the value in it? It would return almost as many images as posts in a lot of threads.

I've always wished to do that for http://www.lfgss.com/thread708-238.html#post2706975 to see people and their bikes without the chattter

I can view all unsubscribed threads then use tick boxes to filter out those to unsubscribe from.

All is good.

My gut feeling is that the "down arrow" (which serves no purpose currently, right?) could be more useful for this kind of functionality (point right if you're subscribed to the thread/part of the conversation for example).

I always use the 'down arrow' to right-click and open threads.

It has the same functionality as the thread title currently though (it could work harder).

The old font stack was: 'Trebuchet MS','Verdana','Tahoma','Arial',sans-serif

Thanks, David, I'll try that when I get home.

It has the same functionality as the thread title currently though (it could work harder).

Do you mean the thread title could work harder or the down arrow? (Thread title could go to the first post by default, which is what I would expect it to do. Might cause more people to read the Nursery rules? ;) )