New site format

[tatasal]

How do I preview a reply or post?

I am using my pc and I only see at the bottom left of the screen, the “Reply” and the “Close” options.

[raccoon]

@tatasal

How do I preview a reply or post?

I am using my pc and I only see at the bottom left of the screen, the “Reply” and the “Close” options.

The preview should be directly to the right of the area where you input info.
You don’t click on anything to see the preview, just look a little to the right.

[tatasal]

@raccoon

@tatasal

How do I preview a reply or post?

I am using my pc and I only see at the bottom left of the screen, the “Reply” and the “Close” options.

The preview should be directly to the right of the area where you input info.
You don’t click on anything to see the preview, just look a little to the right.

I just tried it, including testing it with a photo preview, and it works great. Thanks!

The more I slowly learn to how use this “new” BLF, the more I see it’s really a good leap in the right direction.

It’s only a matter of time when I really get to know the hang of this new format (and how to post/upload, etc.) that eventually I would believe the old one was well, old.

[sb56637]

Hey @tatasal , great to say Hi to you here on the new site. Thanks a lot for using it and adapting, I really hope that you’ll grow to like it.

[VrestoTaylor]

Hallo.I dont know where iam posting this cos iam totally confusing here nowaydays-but try to ask-how to delet all my pm? Also how to delet notifications from threads and topics where i posted? thanks

[sb56637]

Hi @VrestoTaylor , could you please send me a PM to help you out there?

[Correllux]

I notice another thing…wonder if it might be worthy of changing if possible. When you visit a user’s profile and look at their created topics, the list comes up in order of last-reply (by any user). I think it would be best if sorted in descending order of the date the topics were first created. For example, looking at users like muukka, djozz, Texas Ace, etc. for emitter tests, and given how many topics they created back in the day (and how many replies some of them have), it takes more scrolling and reading to find what you might be looking for.

With the absence of signatures here, where some would list their tests or a separate thread that contained all the links, the only thing we’re left with is the profile.

I suppose this is default sorting, which seems to be that rather irritating modern trend of popularity/hotness rising rather than a more linear chronological approach.

[sb56637]

Hi there @Correllux , that’s a valid point. I don’t think that sorting behavior can be easily changed. But it is possible with a search on a user’s topics like this:
https://budgetlightforum.com/search?expanded=true&q=in%3Afirst%20%40sb56637%20order%3Alatest_topic

@Correllux

With the absence of signatures here, where some would list their tests or a separate thread that contained all the links, the only thing we’re left with is the profile.

Keep in mind there is a user profile that can be filled out with free-form text and links, as well as the user’s website and also a selectable “Featured Topic”, and it will appear on a popup when clicking on the user’s name or avatar –
https://budgetlightforum.com/my/preferences/profile

[Correllux]

Thank you. I’ll make note of that search parameter…probably start up a bookmark list as well for ease of reference.

[nuemtol]

I know the old forum was quite old in appearance. But it was quite functional, for me.
This new style makes it difficult to quickly read posts. It takes much longer to discern where one post ends, and another begins. Attachments, links, & quotes, become very messy. I also prefer pages over endless scroll. It’s simple enough to have a preference option for users to choose # of posts/page loaded. Such as 25 posts/page, or 100, 200, etc. Makes it easy to search as well.
Thanks for making the attempt to update the forum. For me, it is an update for the worse.

My number one complaint is the separation between posts. Everything blends together into a mess.
*Thanks TK for the custom themes. And for everything else you’ve done as well, of course.

[sb56637]

Hi there, thanks for the comment.

@nuemtol

My number one complaint is the separation between posts. Everything blends together into a mess.

Please give TK’s themes a try, you can switch to them in the bottom of the sidebar.

I’m also testing a slightly thicker divider line between posts.

@nuemtol

It’s simple enough to have a preference option for users to choose # of posts/page loaded. Such as 25 posts/page, or 100, 200, etc.

It’s worth mentioning that we didn’t have the option to change the number of posts per page in the old forum because of technical limitations, and also because that made a mess with users’ links to specific pages when everyone had a different number of posts configured. Here are some more thoughts in detail as to why I consider the current infinite scrolling method to be an improvement:

Different Forum Recommendation

I’m like you in that sense, I tend to have old school preferences in technology and yet I’m primarily a mouse user for most things. Sorry if I’ve missed something, what is the glitch related to jumping to the first or last post by clicking the first or last date/time in the time slider? In general terms I totally understand complaints about pointless change in technology, especially deletion of useful features or “dumbification” of the UI just to make it look clean or trendy. But in this spe…

Also, here are some tips that might not be obvious at first glance, as well as an explanation about why this migration was necessary:

New BLF forum engine FAQs

Hi everyone, I finally found some time to summarize the answers to the most common questions about the new BLF forum engine. Why? The forum engine that powered the original BLF was not actually a forum engine, it was a bare-bones framework for creating generic websites, and to make it work like a forum it required tons of third-party modules and custom coding by me. The version of the site engine that BLF used was running on borrowed time, as the creators of that software have moved to a new…

[nuemtol]

Thanks, I’m using the TK dark theme & it makes the individual posts much more discernible.
For example, for me, it’s much easier to load a page of 25-100 posts, and quickly scroll down the page, skimming text, in a, b&w, times new roman, essay format. Or, hit ctrl-f, find where a long discussion/topic may have a few relevant posts clumped together. Or quickly scroll through, looking for a relevant image/link. Takes a few minutes. Personally, I’d rather have 1 long thread about a topic, than 5 disjointed ones. It’s a lot easier/faster, imo, to reference, “back to page 5”, or, “post 57”, etc.

There’s no way I’m going to sit here for 10 minutes and wait for 299 posts to load, in 20-comment-clumps, (or whatever it is), and try to wring out whatever information has been discussed here, just hoping that something of value may have been said. Especially when combined with the aesthetic. I will never read this thread. By the time I get to post 50, I’m going to want to scroll back and reread something. Then I’ll lose my place, and decide the information wasn’t worth looking for anyway.

I’ll use the search bar, and I’ll use google site search. This update has killed reading long threads, for me. And, imo, long threads are 90% of what BLF is for me. For example, if I want to catch up with what’s been going on with Nichia 219’s, or D4’s, Osram, or what someone like Virence is up to, I’ll pull up a thread, and read the last 6 months worth of info. I’m never going to bother with that now. Gone are the days of multi-tab or multi-window reading. Like, having a color rendition post up in one tab, and another tab with the relevant post of an IRL picture review, etc.

It feels like I’m in the facebook comments section of a pop-news website.

Again, thanks to the people who run the site, for all of their work, and to the OG’s. I’m sure the new format is nice for some people. And I’m sure there were reasons for the change. For me, it seems to have removed what I enjoyed about BLF - having a huge collection of information posted by very intelligent people, which was easy to follow along with and learn from.

Just thought about “old” threads to me, like the Q8, narsil/anduril. Hopefully there’s some change to BLF in the future, and those threads will be easily readable once again. It’s hard to know what the audience is- I wish I knew how many lurkers stumbled across something like that & took the time to browse through it. It’s a really unique exhibit of how strangers with various special skills can come together & design a great product, in the open, on full display.

(I guess you can’t even ctrl-f “q8”)

[sb56637]

@nuemtol

(I guess you can’t even ctrl-f “q8”)

That does indeed work:

• The first time you hit Ctrl+F it uses the site search engine to search within the thread. For those 5,000 post threads this is a fast way to find what you’re looking for.
• If you hit Ctrl+F again it will use the browser search bar within the loaded context of the thread.
• If you click the search button it will by default do a search of the whole site.

@nuemtol

I’ll use the search bar, and I’ll use google site search

There is frankly no comparison between the former extremely inadequate and incomplete Google site search with the integrated site search engine that we have now. Please give it a try, it works very well and allows for extremely granular specific searches across the entire site and/or in specific threads or specific categories with a ton of other search criteria if needed here when clicking on the menu inside the magnifying glass icon.

@nuemtol

There’s no way I’m going to sit here for 10 minutes and wait for 299 posts to load, in 20-comment-clumps, (or whatever it is), and try to wring out whatever information has been discussed here, just hoping that something of value may have been said.

I agree, unless someone is planning on reading 5000 posts 1 by 1 there is always going to be a lot of scanning and searching to quickly parse the thread. But that’s precisely where this new format excels – before you had to scan 30 posts and then click next > , and then repeat. Now you just scroll down. Yes, there is a brief delay as it loads the next chunk of posts, but it’s the same or less than loading the next page in a normal forum. Going any faster than that would just be aimless scrolling.

@nuemtol

By the time I get to post 50, I’m going to want to scroll back and reread something. Then I’ll lose my place

This specific situation is elegantly handled in the current forum software:
https://budgetlightforum.com/t/new-blf-forum-engine-faqs/217457#where-are-the-pages-2

@nuemtol

if I want to catch up with what’s been going on with Nichia 219’s, or D4’s, Osram, or what someone like Virence is up to

In those cases you could look here:

• Clemence’s activity: Profile - clemence - BudgetLightForum.com
• Posts from the past 6 months about Nichia 219: https://budgetlightforum.com/search?expanded=true&q=Nichia%20219%20after%3A2022-10-01

@nuemtol

Gone are the days of multi-tab or multi-window reading. Like, having a color rendition post up in one tab, and another tab with the relevant post of an IRL picture review, etc.

You can load as many BLF tabs as you want, just like before. I usually have 4 - 6 open myself at any given moment. You can even respond to a post while navigating in the top pane of BLF to a completely different thread and even quote posts from a different thread within the same interface.

So I would strongly encourage you to read the mentioned FAQs page as well as the analysis specifically about pagination and give the new site a try before reaching hasty conclusions that it won’t work. I know it’s different in some aspects, but at the same time this forum engine is one of the most popular currently and has been successfully running many very large communities for years, and there are definitely some good reasons for that.

[Nachtfeuerzeug]

Overall, I really like the new website while viewing it on Windows and Android devices but no matter what browser I use on an up-to-date iPad, the site is not displayed correctly. There is a message at the top that says to use a compatible browser. Has anyone encountered this and found a fix?

[sb56637]

Hi there @Nachtfeuerzeug , thanks for the feedback. It sounds like it’s an older iPad running a version of iPadOS older than version 15. If it’s a slightly newer device then please try to upgrade the OS to version 15 or higher. Otherwise it’s an unfortunate case of Apple no longer supporting the device, and the developers of this forum software not wanting to support older browsers with the workarounds that would be required. (In the Apple mobile ecosystem no matter which browser is used they all run on the same web engine, which is tied to the version of the mobile OS.) Personally I don’t agree with policies of forced obsolescence, but unfortunately I have no say over it.

[Nachtfeuerzeug]

Thank you SB!

[ToyKeeper]

If you can override your browser’s user-agent string, you might be able to get the site to load by pretending to be a newer browser. It’s possible some parts of the site might not work, but it might at least be more functional than the unsupported-browser version of the site.

[Nachtfeuerzeug]

Thank you TK! I looked into user-agent string and learned something.
The iPad was actually pending an update so once I cleaned out the storage, full of the kids apps and stuff, it finally updated. I’m enjoying BLF on the iPad!

[sb56637]

Glad to hear that @Nachtfeuerzeug ! Out of curiosity, what version of Safari / iPadOS is it running now?

[Nachtfeuerzeug]

Hey SB! I’ll let you know later this evening.
@sb56637 Edit: it’s iPadOS 15.7.5