[07-MAR-2016] Current status of BLF upgrade process

[DavidEF]

@DanielM

@Joshk

David, I mean this in the most utilitarian way possible. Your display picture is very creepy.

Second that. It’s creepy af.

My wife says so too.

[sb56637]

Hi everyone, this is a test of the new "Advanced Post Editor".

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[jacktheclipper]

[jacktheclipper]

[keltex78]

@DavidEF

@DanielM

@Joshk

David, I mean this in the most utilitarian way possible. Your display picture is very creepy.

Second that. It’s creepy af.

My wife says so too.

@DavidEF

I made my avatar back a few years ago for some other site, I can’t remember which. (Although, seems it might’ve been facebook) I first took a picture of myself with my cheap webcam. I actually used that picture as my avatar there for a while, but the webcam was not a good one, so the pic was grainy and the lighting was bad. So, I decided to help it a little. I opened up the picture in GIMP and colored over the old pic with blocks of color. I then added the weird, oversized eyes and called it done. My wife can’t stand the avatar, says it’s “creepy”! I like it, so I use it.

Via Your BLF Avatar - #242 by DavidEF

[J-Dub74]

@sb56637

@J-Dub74

Hey SB. I know this has to be a ridiculous amount of work tuning out all the little bugs and I don’t envy you right now.
Great job overall but I suppose I may as well throw my complaints and suggestions out there too.

Hey there, thanks for the comments!

User rank (star system) is gone. Not a huge deal I guess but I liked it. I was so proud when I got my fourth star!

Ah, I was wondering if anybody would notice. I believe I can put it back, but I was kind of thinking that it didn’t make a lot of sense to equate number of posts with “quality” or “reputation” of the user. Take me for example, I had 5 stars and yet I can barely insert a battery into a flashlight! (And let’s not even talk about threading lanyards into the little holes on the tailcap…)

I know it’s on the list already but location is really important in a global forum like this. It helped me a lot with how to respond to certain questions.

Meanwhile don’t forget that you can just click on the user’s name and see their location if it’s filled in.

White space… There is SO much of it now mostly at the bottom of each post. For those who don’t have a signature line on my 24” monitor I’m looking at 2 1/2 inches of blank space at the bottom of each post. I’m wearing out the scroll button on my mouse. One place at least 1/4 inch could be saved would be shrinking the height of the “Top…Quote…Reply” line under each post. It seems overly large now. It looks like the “Send PM” button is half the height of those bottom buttons and that is more than large enough IMO.

Hmm, I don’t really see it any different than the way it was before. I think it’s pretty much unavoidable given the author’s details that require a certain amount of vertical space for every post. But I wonder if you’re running into some kind of browser incompatibility. Here’s what it looks like for me on Firefox in fullscreen (15.4” hi-dpi):
http://s18.postimg.org/mtr8qkgs9/Screenshot_from_2016_02_12_10_47_05.png

I never thought I could hate emoticons… These new cross-eyed, dopey looking dorks with a sprout of hair are driving me bonkers! Ok I like the new crazy eyed one but I actually get mad looking at the winking one. Ok maybe I have some anger issues to work out. LOL I miss the old ones though. Perhaps you’re working on them already because now I only have 5 to choose from…

Yep, I think I’ll just put back the old ones.

Ok let me add that I really want the old subscription service back! It took me 10 minutes to find this thread again! LOL

Also, when I click on a user you can no longer see their created threads. I have now manually subscribed here. I keep forgetting I have to do that now. I don’t know if we need an auto subscribe just for looking but if I post in a thread I want to do the polite thing and respond to people especially if they’re saying something in response to what I’ve said so subscribing upon adding a comment would be great.

I checked your screenshot and that’s about how mine looks too. It’s probably just a result of the “big picture” effect of increasing the text size. It’s actually amount of vertical space for every post that’s taking up so much space now in my eyes. I was wondering if that space could be “coded” into less white. For example if I don’t post anything as a signature I don’t need those extra “X” amount of lines at the bottom of my replies. Could it only expand if there is something in there? A buddy of mine knows quite a bit about PHP coding so I can run it by him too. Maybe it’s just not reasonable to do. I didn’t think the text size needed increasing but I assume that’ not popular opinion since it was worked into this upgrade. It’s just my opinion so if everyone else likes it that’s fine. Whatever the final outcome I’m here for the long haul. You run a great site here my friend.

[Ervin_Anastasi]

Thanks for all the work !

[Dimbo_The_Blinky]

@sb56637

Looks like to add links with dashes in them we’ll have to use the insert link button when using the Simple Post Editor.

Vastly better to have the URL gobbledygook hidden behind human-readable text! It’s supposed to be “HyperText”, after all. Maybe just not parsing URLs at all in the comment body (i.e. render them as plain text) would be easier on everybody? Then if anyone chooses to paste a URL, the reader(s) can do whatever they choose to do with it.

PS: When I Save a Post it doesn’t Subscribe me to that Thread. I Saved my account subscription settings to test, here, if that fixes the problem. BRB…

[sb56637]

@Dimbo The Blinky

PS: When I Save a Post it doesn’t Subscribe me to that Thread. I Saved my account subscription settings to test, here, if that fixes the problem. BRB…

Correct, that’s still broken.

[sb56637]

@J-Dub74

I checked your screenshot and that’s about how mine looks too. It’s probably just a result of the “big picture” effect of increasing the text size. It’s actually amount of vertical space for every post that’s taking up so much space now in my eyes.

If you look at my screenshot, you’ll see that those are short one-liner posts, but the vertical space is unavoidable because the user’s name, avatar, post count, and join stats also take up vertical space.

[raccoon]

@sb: I did some googling and found this image...

Does it look familiar?

[Bort]

@raccoon city

@sb: I did some googling and found this…

Does this look familiar?

yes, a button i would prefer to delete

[raccoon]

@Bort

yes, a button i would prefer to delete

I don't like it either, but it looks a lot better than what we have right now.

[Bort]

@raccoon city

@Bort

yes, a button i would prefer to delete

I don’t like it either, but it looks a lot better than what we have right now.

perhaps we should replace what we have now with a two step authentication (which could work with your button)

[Dimbo_The_Blinky]

Thanks, man. I won’t bug you about it. The new forum looks awesome!

Thanks too for dealing with all our “issues” so gracefully!! If anyone else wants the post-level Subject line back, we can get the exact same effect by just typing a Subject line at the top of the post, hitting < Enter > twice and going on with it. Mischief managed!

(PS: I always Preview. It appears typing the Left Broket (shift-comma) and a character, starts it parsing HTML. So (e.g.) to enter < Enter > surround “Enter” with spaces.)

[raccoon]

@Bort

perhaps we should replace what we have now with a two step authentication (which could work with your button)

As long as sb can do it, that sounds like a great idea.

[Bort]

Can we add automated multi quoting, perhaps select the threads you want then hit reply and all are available to be replied to

[keengeorge]

Sb, thank you Very Much for all the tedious work you are currently doing, it is Greatly Appreciated.

Best Regards,
George

[ToyKeeper]

@sb56637

Thanks a lot ToyKeeper. Let’s try this other Textile code markup:

Inline code, surrounded by @@@ chars: <a href="http://some.site.com/foo/bar/baz">The Foo Bar Baz site</a> Followed by normal Textile-rendered text.
…
Hint: this is the only known way to type _the_’s username.

Oh, I always typed _the_ as ==_the_==. The double-equal is short-hand for temporarily disabling the markup language.

I didn’t realize the @ inline code block short-hand would prevent URL detection.

Putting an @ on both sides of something often gives me problems though, like if I want to list numbers. The following list should have three items, each with an @ in the middle:

• 1000 lm @ 3000mA
• 500 lm @ 1500mA
• 250 lm @ 750mA

To make it work, I need to escape the @ symbols:

• 1000 lm @ 3000mA
• 500 lm @ 1500mA
• 250 lm @ 750mA

Basically, the @ symbol does special things even when it’s surrounded by spaces and there are newlines between. It’s a good idea to write ==@== any time you want an actual @ symbol, or it might interfere with other formatting.

I think I’m noting these things mostly for other people’s benefit, in case they’re not used to the simple post editor.

[J-Dub74]

@sb56637

@J-Dub74

I checked your screenshot and that’s about how mine looks too. It’s probably just a result of the “big picture” effect of increasing the text size. It’s actually amount of vertical space for every post that’s taking up so much space now in my eyes.

If you look at my screenshot, you’ll see that those are short one-liner posts, but the vertical space is unavoidable because the user’s name, avatar, post count, and join stats also take up vertical space.

Gotcha. Yes I do see that now. Maybe a better example is a couple posts up. Look at all the blank space below Bort’s posts #239 and #241. That’s more like what I’m trying to point out.