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Forum Update - April 6, 2010

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Forum Update - April 6, 2010

from Stardock Forums

Hello everyone,

The forums were updated today (April 6, 2010) to fix some long-standing bugs, add a few new features, and make some minor changes.  The change log is as follows:

Note: If you notice any of the below features are not available or not working properly, please do a hard refresh (hold CTRL and press F5) to retrieve the latest javascript and css files.

1. "Flattened forums" option now available.

The flattened forums option is simply another way of viewing the forums.  The layout and design won't change, but what posts you see will.  What it does is "flatten" all of the posts in a specific forum so that it includes the posts in all of its sub-forums.  For example, the Stardock Games forum on the ImpulseDriven.com would include all of the posts in its sub-forums, such as Indie Games, Stardock Games, and Ubisoft Games.

This means that when you click on a forum now (with this option enabled), it will display many more posts than usual, and you can "dig deeper" into more specific topics by clicking on sub-forums.

You can turn this option on and try it for yourself by going to the My Account Options page.

2. Built-in spellchecker in the editors.  

There is now a spellchecker icon in the new post/reply editor, which will scan your content and highlight mis-spelled items, as well as provide proper spelling options.

After you type out your post, click on the spellchecker icon and it will scan the contents of the post and highlight mis-spelled words.  Left clicking on any mis-spelled word will provide a small popup with suggestions for the mis-spelled word.

The regular Firefox spellchecker is still a bit finicky about how it wants to work in the editor, so you may find that sometimes it works, and other times it doesn't.

3. Auto-resizing editor.

This feature may be more annoying than useful, so if enough of you find it annoying I'll disable it.  Basically, it auto-resizes the editor (vertically) when writing long posts.  

4. Preview button in editor.

This allows you to preview your post before submitting to see what it looks like.  For those of you who do a lot of formatting to your posts, this will help to save a lot of time without having to edit and re-edit to get it just right.

5. Many other minor additions, changes, and bug fixes.

These include the following:

Temporary removal of RSS feed icons in the forum listings.  This is because RSS feeds are not working properly and we are looking into a new solution for them.  We are thinking of removing RSS support for all forums except for specific ones that are important (such as Impulse Announcements or Elemental Dev Journals).  This will reduce the overhead of having these RSS feeds, will make implementing them much easier, and will provide more up-time for these feeds as we don't have to manage hundreds of different feeds.

Your password is now required if you try to change your username or existing password in your My Accounts page.

A "Return to Top" link was added at the bottom of every page (just above the timestamp) to quickly return to the top of the page.

Removed the custom right click menu on the editor, so it now uses the browser's default right click menu.

Bug fixes, karma fixes, CSS fixes, etc.

Note: If you notice any of the above features are not available or not working properly, please do a hard refresh (hold CTRL and press F5) to retrieve the latest javascript and css files.

As always, if you notice any bugs or problems, please let me know by posting in the Forum Issues forum or contacting me via PM.

Bara

184,910 views 101 replies
Reply #76 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I've noticed in a couple posts that some words are missing. I think it may have something to do with them being italicized. when you copy and paste them somewhere they show up, but you cant see them in the thread. It seems to have happened to V in this thread earlier, and here is an example in another thread:

 

 

Reply #77 from Demigod Forums Top

Xiandi: Thats pretty weird imo. Maybe a bug that has some kind of incompatibility with notepad or other editors? Because its only for the poster from what I understand.

Quoting GunslingerBara, reply 75
How does everyone else feel about removing the custom right click menu?
Bara

It wouldnt  make much difference to me, since I have enabled this function by allowing java script access to my Firefox.

But many people havent, and this still doesnt work for them. So YES, please remove the custom right click. The only thing we will lose, is the other functions of it (Insert/edit link, Unlink, etc), but these are incorporated as buttons in the toolbar anyway.

Oh and, please note, that even though I have inserted the neccessary commands to enable cut/copy/paste in the configration file of Firefox (I followed Mozilla's instructions by letter) the Cut function of the custom right click, never worked for me, only FIrefox's Cut works :S

I vote yes, remove it, it would help a lot of people ;)

Sins of a Solar Empire II
Reply #78 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Quoting GunslingerBara, reply 75
How does everyone else feel about removing the custom right click menu? 

Also, I've reverted the new WC skin back to the old one in the forums.  The new one isn't supposed to apply until the new WC site launches.

Bara

Woohoo, nice to have my custom FF right click menu back.

And the old WC forums skin is sooo much easier on the eyes I can't even tell you. Gray > baby blue any day.

Reply #79 from WinCustomize Forums Top

The listing of posts? It's as realtime as the regular post listing (non-flattened). The total posts, total replies, and last post info on the forum index aren't realtime (they're delayed by about 10 minutes) but I don't think that matters as much.

What is the purpose for that? I don't know of any other site forum that does that. It is quite irritating to 1) see that a post has been made to a thread and then go to check it and it's not there, or 2) the opposite of that, a post has been made and the recent posts lists doesn't show it. Both happen all the time and it's frustrating when you're trying to stay on top of something.

Reply #80 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Maybe a bug that has some kind of incompatibility with notepad or other editors? Because its only for the poster from what I understand
Not sure what you mean by that. I didnt make that post, I just copied it off the thread onto my notepad so you could see the missing words.

Edit: I went back to that thread and the words are showing now... (shrugs)

Reply #81 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting Xiandi, reply 80

Maybe a bug that has some kind of incompatibility with notepad or other editors? Because its only for the poster from what I understand Not sure what you mean by that. I didnt make that post, I just copied it off the thread onto my notepad so you could see the missing words.
Edit: I went back to that thread and the words are showing now... (shrugs)

Oh :omg:

I thought you made that post. Hmm then this is even weirder. Maybe Bara can answer this? :|

Reply #82 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Twilight Zone?

Candid Camera?

Punk'd?

 

:beer: :D

Reply #83 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Xiandi, reply 76
I've noticed in a couple posts that some words are missing. I think it may have something to do with them being italicized. when you copy and paste them somewhere they show up, but you cant see them in the thread. It seems to have happened to V in this thread earlier, and here is an example in another thread:

Reduced 41%Original 1440 x 900

I'll have to do some extended testing to figure out what's going on there.  I wonder if the author of that post copied/pasted from somewhere into the editor.  Perhaps it copied over some odd formatting.

Quoting Bebi, reply 79

The listing of posts? It's as realtime as the regular post listing (non-flattened). The total posts, total replies, and last post info on the forum index aren't realtime (they're delayed by about 10 minutes) but I don't think that matters as much.
What is the purpose for that? I don't know of any other site forum that does that. It is quite irritating to 1) see that a post has been made to a thread and then go to check it and it's not there, or 2) the opposite of that, a post has been made and the recent posts lists doesn't show it. Both happen all the time and it's frustrating when you're trying to stay on top of something.

Posts should show up in real-time, if it doesn't then there is a bug.  The only thing that isn't real-time is the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th columns on the forum's home page.  When you click into a forum (say Stardock Games) all of the posts you see there are real-time.

Quoting Bebi, reply 78

Quoting GunslingerBara, reply 75How does everyone else feel about removing the custom right click menu? 

Also, I've reverted the new WC skin back to the old one in the forums.  The new one isn't supposed to apply until the new WC site launches.

Bara
Woohoo, nice to have my custom FF right click menu back.

And the old WC forums skin is sooo much easier on the eyes I can't even tell you. Gray > baby blue any day.

Unfortunately, this is only temporary.  The new skin was created to match the new Wincustomize skin which can be viewed at http://beta.wincustomize.com/

Once the above site is out of beta and becomes the new wincustomize, the old forum skin for forums.wincustomize.com will be changed to the new skin as well.

Bara

Reply #84 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Unfortunately, this is only temporary. The new skin was created to match the new Wincustomize skin which can be viewed at http://beta.wincustomize.com/

Once the above site is out of beta and becomes the new wincustomize, the old forum skin for forums.wincustomize.com will be changed to the new skin as well.

Aww....if only I could figure out why Stylish was making the editor textbox background the same as the body background...

Reply #85 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Xiandi, reply 76
I've noticed in a couple posts that some words are missing. I think it may have something to do with them being italicized. when you copy and paste them somewhere they show up, but you cant see them in the thread. It seems to have happened to V in this thread earlier, and here is an example in another thread:

Reduced 41%Original 1440 x 900

After a bit of research I found the problem.  Turns out it's a problem with the CSS behind the new wincustomize style.  Tomorrow's update will fix this issue.

Tomorrow's update will also remove the right click menu and possibly resolve the "my reply doesn't immediately show up" problem.

Bara

Reply #86 from WinCustomize Forums Top

:thumbsup:

LOL @ irony, this post didn't show up immediately after I posted it. XD

Reply #87 from JoeUser Forums Top

Tomorrow's update will also remove the right click menu and possibly resolve the "my reply doesn't immediately show up" problem.
How about the my reply timed out six times out of the six times that I attempted to post a reply to this thread today, problem?

Actually with this last attempt 7 8 times and counting ...

 [edit] 8 times appears to be the charm. Now if only the edit will work. [/edit]

Reply #88 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting Mumblefratz, reply 87

Tomorrow's update will also remove the right click menu and possibly resolve the "my reply doesn't immediately show up" problem.How about the my reply timed out six times out of the six times that I attempted to post a reply to this thread today, problem?
Actually with this last attempt 7 8 times and counting ...

 [edit] 8 times appears to be the charm. Now if only the edit will work. [/edit]

This issue is a bit harder to track down.  We believe it has to do with the load on the server, but everything we're seeing as far as tracking the data is concerned shows that the servers are fine.  It's an ongoing issue and we'll continue to investigate and try new things until we figure something out.

Bara

Reply #89 from WinCustomize Forums Top

I'll have to do some extended testing to figure out what's going on there. I wonder if the author of that post copied/pasted from somewhere into the editor. Perhaps it copied over some odd formatting.

As far as Italicized text not showing, at least in my post, it hadn't been copied from anywhere, just a straight post.

Reply #90 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting GunslingerBara, reply 85
After a bit of research I found the problem.  Turns out it's a problem with the CSS behind the new wincustomize style.  Tomorrow's update will fix this issue.

Tomorrow's update will also remove the right click menu and possibly resolve the "my reply doesn't immediately show up" problem.Bara

Thanks :thumbsup:

What about the "Forums Go Boom" problem? The first 10 times I saw it, I thought it was funny (especially the line with the pidgeons, "it looks like one of our pidgeons...."), but after the 100000000000000000000th time it gets really frustrating X|

 

Reply #91 from WinCustomize Forums Top

As far as Italicized text not showing, at least in my post, it hadn't been copied from anywhere, just a straight post.

As in the post Xiandi showed.

 

But as bara said

After a bit of research I found the problem. Turns out it's a problem with the CSS behind the new wincustomize style. Tomorrow's update will fix this issue.

Reply #92 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

How do I copy and paste my Burnt Orange Papyrus Font 12 because I can't do it now? See?

Saint Mina of Ophelia VII of Order of the Bloody Rose of Orders Militant of Adepta Sororitas

I have a banner that shows what it looks like.

AdeptaSororitas

Reply #93 from Stardock Forums Top

Quoting GmOOnii, reply 92
How do I copy and paste my Burnt Orange Papyrus Font 12 because I can't do it now? See?

Saint Mina of Ophelia VII of Order of the Bloody Rose of Orders Militant of Adepta Sororitas

I have a banner that shows what it looks like.

Don't rely on the copy and paste to do it for you as some of the HTML is now stripped out when pasted into the editor.  Instead, use the editor's tools to get it looking the way you want and/or use the HTML view to get more control over the look and feel of your post.

Personally, I would rather have all posts and replies use the same font, color, size, etc. to keep the forums consistent.

Bara

Reply #94 from Stardock Forums Top

Double post!

Ok, forum update has been pushed.  Change log is as follows:

1. Fixed CSS issues for the new Wincustomize skin that made some posts hard to read due to "invisible" text.

2. Removed right click menu from the editor, now uses the default right click menu for whichever browser you're using.

3. Possibly fixed the "reply doesn't show" bug.  Since I was unable to reproduce the bug I need to know if any of you notice it again.

Bara

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Reply #95 from GalCiv2 Forums Top

1. "Flattened forums" option now available.
This appears to be working for me now with one minor exception. It seems that if a thread is "pinned" then it will not appear in the superior forum list.

For example this thread on the GalCiv2 site does not appear in the Off-topic forum but the wincustomize thread does even though both are in the Forum Issues forum which is a subforum of the Off-topic forum on the GalCiv2 site.

This is not that big a deal but if it can be fixed then that would make it consistent.

Reply #96 from WinCustomize Forums Top

Personally, I would rather have all posts and replies use the same font, color, size, etc. to keep the forums consistent.

Indeed. It gets a little frustrating when you read the Stardock forum and see unreadable pale yellow text against a white background. If you hadn't visited the Sins forum you would never know why ;)

Reply #97 from Elemental Forums Top

Personally, I would rather have all posts and replies use the same font, color, size, etc. to keep the forums consistent.

Color consistency, definitely, and I also have no use for arty fonts when I'm trying to read quickly (Arial is hard to beat for online readability).

Body text of a consistent size is also a good idea, as long as it wouldn't exclude the ability to do some multi-level headings for really rich OPs like Wintersong's Elemental for Dummies.

p.s. to Bara: I broke the above two sentences into separate paragraphs after drafting them and that removed the spell-check flags, but spell-check flags are 'working' again in this chunk. Fascinating.

Reply #98 from WinCustomize Forums Top

2. Removed right click menu from the editor, now uses the default right click menu for whichever browser you're using.

Right on Bara.. one less source of aggravation for me on a daily basis, cheers mate. |-)

Reply #99 from Demigod Forums Top

Quoting GunslingerBara, reply 94
Double post!

Ok, forum update has been pushed.  Change log is as follows:

1. Fixed CSS issues for the new Wincustomize skin that made some posts hard to read due to "invisible" text.

2. Removed right click menu from the editor, now uses the default right click menu for whichever browser you're using.

3. Possibly fixed the "reply doesn't show" bug.  Since I was unable to reproduce the bug I need to know if any of you notice it again.

Bara

Whoa! I didnt except you to update the forums again so quickly. Kudos to you Bara :thumbsup:

And thanks a lot for the right click menu removal :thumbsup: Classic right click menu FTW! :grin:

Really, good work k1

p.s. After this update, the "flatten forums" is working now for me.

Reply #100 from Demigod Forums Top

Update: The fix for the "reply doesnt show" bug didnt work. I just posted a reply, and it didnt show up in the thread, even though I know it got posted, because I click "My Replies" and it says I have the last post. I know that it will appear after 1-2 minutes, but it is annoying anyway.

Just reporting, so Bara can be aware of it ;)