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Forum Update - October 5, 2010 - Many Changes/Tweaks

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Forum Update - October 5, 2010 - Many Changes/Tweaks

from Stardock Forums

Hey everyone!

I just pushed an update to the forums.  This update is a big one, made up of a lot of small changes and tweaks.  The most significant change is that we now show which site posts, PM's, and karma are coming from.  This is to help avoid confusion and to spread the word of the other forums and sites.  Please take a look at the change log below for more info:

Change Log:

  1. In posts, we now show which site the posts and each reply came from.
  2. In each user's karma page there is now an icon to show which site the karma came from.
  3. In your Private Messages page, we show which site the PM was sent from.
  4. In the My Replies page (or any user's replies page, see #6 below), you can change a dropdown to show the replies from all sites.
  5. In a user's a profile, the Karma, Posts, and Replies numbers can be clicked for more information.
  6. You can now view the replies for all users by clicking on the Replies # in a user's profile.
  7. The "Reason for Editing" box for editing posts has been removed.
  8. iPad/iPhone/iPods can now send PM's.
  9. In posts, we now hide the buttons (Quote, Edit, etc.) for each reply until you mouseover the reply.  This is to help keep the forums cleaner and to reduce confusion as to which set of buttons belongs to which reply.  The original posts' buttons appear by default.
  10. The "Last Reply Info" column in forums, my posts, my replies, and recent posts has been updated visually.
  11. In each forum, you can now see the number of views each post has.
  12. My Posts page (and any user's posts page) is now paginated, so you can more than 1 page of posts.
  13. Lots of changes to the styles and icons to make them more consistent.
  14. Lots of bug fixes.
  15. Better error messages.

Please let me know if you find any issues with the above or in general.

Bara

315,713 views 115 replies
Reply #76 from WinCustomize Forums Top

IE8, up to date w/ no add-ons Win7/64. I built this rig a year ago in May.

Specs:

Mobo: MSI K9A2 Platinum Edition
 CPU: AMD  Phenom 9850BE
 RAM: OCZ Reaper DDR2 8500 1066Mhz  4Gb
 GFX: EVGA e-GeForce 8800GT
 PSU: Enermax 600 Watt
 HDD: Western Digital Caviar SE16 WD6400AAKS 640GB
 DVD: LITE-ON Black 22X DVD Burner

Using the scroll wheel on the mouse , a logitech corded model, not using Setpoint.

Java Version 6 Update 21 (build 1.6.0_21-b06)

 It seems to effect both the speed and the smoothness of scrolling.

Reply #77 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I have an older machine than you and it's fine.  Just how jerky is the scrolling?

While I admit it's a tiny bit slower to show the buttons in IE8 than in Firefox/Chrome, it doesn't seem to affect the scrolling for me at all.

Bara

Ashes of the Singularity II
Reply #78 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Just how jerky is the scrolling?

It depends on the amount of replies and their length. A page with many short replies is worse than a page with several long replies. If I move my cursor off of the reply area to scroll, everything is fine.

It's not all that bad, as in unusable or annoying, I just need to remember to move my cursor out of the reply area. (and I have most of my memory already allocated to things like breathing,sleeping and eating. At my age ,I don't want to forget to do those);P

 

 

Reply #79 from WinCustomize Forums Top

As for the buttons only appearing on mouseover, I figure that since you would have to mouseover the reply anyways to click on the buttons, it wouldn't really matter. Let me know your thoughts on this and I'll decide whether to show them by default like they used to be.

It does cause a slowness/jerkyness/nano interruptions in scrool wheel scrolling. It irritates me, but it may not bother anyone else. I say show the reply/quote buttons by default. If you can, give us the ability to control that individually, if not, the old way was better.

Reply #80 from WinCustomize Forums Top

OK, I just tested it. If I use the scroll wheel on this page, with these replies, with my cursor over the replies, it takes 6 turns of the scroll wheel to go from page top, to bottom. Moved my cursor into the blue area at the right of the reply area, 3 turns of the scroll wheel reaches top to bottom.

 

So it's slowed by half.  :thumbsdown:

Reply #81 from Stardock Forums Top

Ok, the forums logging out issue should be resolved for certain now.  The issue was related to us applying an encryption-related patch to one server but not others.  We are now applying the patch to all of our servers, so you may notice some inconsistencies across the sites related to logging in/out.  You may need to re-login on other Stardock sites due to the encryption change.

Bara

Reply #82 from Sins Forums Top

barra, the login issue appears to be fixed

harpo

 

Reply #83 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting RedneckDude, reply 80
OK, I just tested it. If I use the scroll wheel on this page, with these replies, with my cursor over the replies, it takes 6 turns of the scroll wheel to go from page top, to bottom. Moved my cursor into the blue area at the right of the reply area, 3 turns of the scroll wheel reaches top to bottom.
 

So it's slowed by half. 

 

I tried it here doing the same thing Jim and it takes three turns anywhere on the page.  No problems. o_O

Reply #84 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I just tried that and mine is taking twice as many scrolls as the outside areas also.

Reply #85 from JoeUser Forums Top

As I'm reading this thread & mousing over replies the buttons are not showing up.  They were appearing on mouseover this morning.  Checked up at the top & I'm still logged in.  FWIW.

A thought: It isn't obvious when viewing replies what your login status is.  Perhaps having the buttons appear only for logged in viewers & not guests (since they can't reply anyway) would be worth considering.  Or a background color change or some other visual cue which would serve the same purpose, so you don't lose the contents of a lengthy reply because you've been logged out by the system since you started it.

And hope you feel better quick, Bara.

Reply #86 from JoeUser Forums Top

Even after submitting #85 - no buttons on mouseover.

Reply #87 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting LightStar, reply 83



Quoting RedneckDude,
reply 80
OK, I just tested it. If I use the scroll wheel on this page, with these replies, with my cursor over the replies, it takes 6 turns of the scroll wheel to go from page top, to bottom. Moved my cursor into the blue area at the right of the reply area, 3 turns of the scroll wheel reaches top to bottom.
 

So it's slowed by half. 


 

I tried it here doing the same thing Jim and it takes three turns anywhere on the page.  No problems.

IE8 here...you on FF?

Reply #88 from WinCustomize Forums Top

IE8 here...you on FF?

 

Yep, using lastest FF here, no problems at all now.

Reply #89 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Just tried it in IE8, definitely has a problem.

+1 Loading…
Reply #90 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I can't update a skin due to HTTP errors!!!!   What have you done to this site....aaarrrrghhhhh!!!!! 

 

OK, fix it.....now.   :annoyed:          :D :grin:

Reply #92 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Jeesuz...just put the buttons back where they were and be done with it. This was completely unnecessary to do and all it's done is cause problems. You guys should have a practice website to test all these changes on rather than doing them all on here and screwing everything up. And how about this!-----> fix...me <----can that be fixed as well once and for all? I did not create that click-able link and just does it all by itself when I'm typing. Why is stuff like that ignored and stuff we don't need gets all this attention. The buttons were just fine being visible.

So...what is the goal now for this site? What other changes do we have to look forward to. It's bad enough we have to beta test the software and be ignored in regards to features...but the site as well now? And if it really did take a year to create all this as was said...I'm not impressed. I visit other sites that make big changes and I'm never told I need to clear my cache and cookies or anything else....the changes are made and everything works fine....not one single hiccup.

Reply #93 from Stardock Forums Top

test

Reply #94 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

Hmm ...

Note my reply #93 does not show a link to the forum from which I posted.

It seems there are "secret" forums that allow you to remain anonymous.

Curiouser and Curiouser.

Reply #95 from Stardock Forums Top

More strangeness.

To avoid the link to the forum from which you post all you need to do is to reply via your blog at JU or I assume Impulsedriven except for some reason I can't actually seem to reply to this thread via my Impulsedriven blog, it gives me a "Bad Auth" error.

I'm posting this from the Impulsedriven forums (as opposed to from my Impulsedriven blog) so we'll see if that works. I assume it will.

So the question is should there be a link inserted for people that use their blogs as opposed to a forum and why can't I reply to this thread from my Impulsedriven blog?

Reply #96 from JoeUser Forums Top

Buttons are now appearing dynamically again.  XPP/FF.  FYI.

Reply #97 from Stardock Forums Top

Still can't reply to this or *any* thread via Impulsedriven.net blogs.

This is with both IE7 and FF 3.6.10. AFAIK this just started happening with this latest update.

Replying from not the last page of a multi-page thread simply hangs. Replying from the last page of a thread gives the following error.

Your comment was not submitted successfully.

Bad Auth

Please try again.

To test merely go to http://gunslinger.impulsedriven.net/article/398498/ and try to reply.

Reply #98 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Mumblefratz, reply 97
Still can't reply to this or *any* thread via Impulsedriven.net blogs.

This is with both IE7 and FF 3.6.10. AFAIK this just started happening with this latest update.

Replying from not the last page of a multi-page thread simply hangs. Replying from the last page of a thread gives the following error.


Your comment was not submitted successfully.

Bad Auth

Please try again.


To test merely go to http://gunslinger.impulsedriven.net/article/398498/ and try to reply.

It should be resolved in a bit, we're updating the machine with the encryption patch now.

Bara

Reply #99 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

It should be resolved in a bit, we're updating the machine with the encryption patch now.

Bara
Cool.

Just for information purposes, assuming that's it's not some super secret proprietary information, how many different servers are required to support all of Stardock's forum/blog sites including orphans like the GC2 Metaverse as well as the GalCiv 1 site?

Reply #100 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Mumblefratz, reply 99

It should be resolved in a bit, we're updating the machine with the encryption patch now.

BaraCool.

Just for information purposes, assuming that's it's not some super secret proprietary information, how many different servers are required to support all of Stardock's forum/blog sites including orphans like the GC2 Metaverse as well as the GalCiv 1 site?

The forums are on a cluster of 3 servers.  The other sites are on their own servers/clusters depending on the traffic the site gets and how it was developed.

Bara