New RFF Under Construction - take a look

[bob338]

Please save the white background/black text option. My eyes cannot adjust to the black background so popular these days.

 

[Pál_K]

Another vote for nice soft white backgrounds.

 

[DwF]

Thanks for the hard work and dedication to keeping current with the site.
+1 for dark background.
+1 drag and drop to avoid posting at hosting sites

David

 

[seany65]

Hmm, will we have to move to it after it's fully set up, and what will happen to this forum, and what's on it, such as the Gallery, when it is?

I don't like white backgrounds as it hurts my eyes, but I don't like dark/black backgrounds, as when I leave whatever site has such backgrounds I find the rest of the "interwebnet" too bright. I know there's a "Denim" option, but could it be a shade darker?

Edit: Could the "Denim" be 2 shades darker?

I've just had a look at the home page. I think it looks rather messy.

 

[David Hughes]

I wonder what "Share" and "Tweet" mean; or rather what are they for?

So what happens if we click on them?

Regards, David

 

[Pál_K]

I read RFF and other forums exclusively on my phone. With a white background and black text, the white is not even as bright as the page of a book or magazine. For me, it is a nice soft white. But with a black background, then the white letters are annoying. Even a black magazine page with white letters is annoying. Personal preference I guess.

 

[Bill Blackwell]

Thanks for the efforts, Stephen. I don't mind adjusting here and there to use the new format.

+1

Virtually everyone will get used to any format or background changes - eventually.

- Although some are asking for a better way to make comments, the way it's handled here is more than adequate, IMHO. Want to comment? ... then do so with a response to a quote.
- Some are asking for a "like" option - if you do this please make them anonymous, preventing any tit-for-tat motivation(s).
- I strenuously suggest that you make the new site secure. I constantly get warnings here on my browser that this site is [currently] not secure.

 

[Zonan]

White background of some ilk should be at least an option- I can't/don't read the white text on black background.

Thanks for the updating!

 

[eckhardf]

I prefer a dark background but find the black background with white text too contrasty. Much happier with the dark grey background and white text on the current RFF site.

I would love to post some photo's on RFF but don't use flickr etc so my image post rate is probably zero (might have tried to post something years ago).

A drag and drop feature for photo's would be a number one improvement for my circumstance.

Not interested in social media links either.

I read RFF almost daily - great bunch of people here and nice to see the forum getting some technical love!

Great work 😀

 

[Larry Cloetta]

Since suggestions for the Classified’s section were requested: Fredmiranda.com handles classifieds better than anyone. How photos are loaded, how text is loaded, how ads can be bookmarked, and, especially, how feedback is handled in a way that is both easy, obvious, and minimizes the opportunities for people who are not involved in transactions to post useless feedback. Also makes it very easy to almost instantly see in detail exactly what kind of feedback a buyer or seller has received, as this information is linked right at the top of every ad.
Just copy the way it’s done over there.

 

[dbarnes]

Thanks for investing in RFF. I don't mind the social media buttons, but they're so big that it's easy to see why members who wouldn't use them would find them worth commenting on.

I do hope that you can switch to HTTPS.

 

[peterm1]

The present method for posting a response in a thread is pretty functional overall especially with the "Quick Reply" which is what I suspect most use most often though posting here has a few quirks especially with the "Post Reply" link box where all those little graphic emblems along the top of the posting box are a bit obscure, especially for newbies. Some way of improving that might help - I am sure I do not use most of those options such as the one to "wrap code around selected text" as I have no idea what they are for, how i might use them and how to use them properly. I imagine most users are the same.
But please keep (or refine) the process for attaching html tag before and after image links. It makes it easy and seamless to attach an image to a post without having to type code at each end of the address. You would not believe how often I screw up even something as simple as typing some square brackets with three letters inside. I would also say that while all web sites need upgrading from time to time please do not just make changes to make the site more up to date and "pretty" (and I think you new design does look pretty good). Please whatever you do make sure that a premium is placed on keeping it functional and easy to use for those coming here.

Some improvement is needed in that latter respect and in the following respects:
- I seldom attach photos from my PC these days due to there being a size limit which makes any photo too small to be useful in most cases. I appreciate this may mean more storage required by the site but these days storage is pretty inexpensive overall compared to what it was. So can this limit be raised? If it were I might use it more often if it were.
- Further to the above, I sometimes find it to be a pain if I wish to post here and do not presently have the relevant image hosted somewhere on the web already. Which means I need first upload it to a willing host then do the relevant html stuff for images being posted to a bulletin board. Simple if the necessary html string is provided by that host web site and so you can cut and paste it , but sometimes it is not provided in the correct form at some sites (perhaps to discourage freeloaders like me).
- You have a gallery I believe but while I have been coming to RFF for perhaps 15 years I still have no idea how to use it. And never found a useful explanation of what it is or how to do so. There presently is a gallery link on the home page but perhaps also a link on the gallery page explaining how to use it and what it is for might be useful if you are serious about it being a feature.
- To be honest I think there are far, far, far too many sub forums. (88 I think, on last count!) Most people only use a few of these, as reflects their interests though they might out of interest read threads and posts on a wider variety of them. If you wish to retain this mind boggling range of sub forums how about a compromise. Allow users to save as part of their profile (say) half a dozen of their favorite sub forums - the ones they actually create threads for - and then provide links to these at the top of the "Forums" page under a heading "My Favorite Forums" or similar. It is a pain to have to scroll through dozens and dozens and dozens of sub forums to find the one you might wish to post to. If people are like me most times the best forum for a specific thread will be one that is in any event a "favorite" that I have used many times before. This link to favorites would assist usability in the face of an ever growing list of sub forums (I note that a few more have recently been added).
- Far and away the biggest issue for me is not one that affects posting or viewing per se, but user experience overall. In other words it is a question of the availability of and stability of your site. I do not know who hosts it for you but hardly a day goes by when I cannot post something because when I click on RFF in my browser your site sits and thinks, and thinks, and thinks, and thinks and thinks and thinks and thinks and(well you get the message) eventually I get an error message saying it is not available. Usually it comes back up within a few minutes after several tries. But to be honest if I were not quite so dedicated to RFF and its community I would have given up long ago. I suppose this is a back handed compliment as it suggests too much traffic is now using RFF. That's good but the consequences of it are bad for users and suggests a hosting / infrastructure upgrade is needed.
- A similar issue to the above arises sometimes when posting. I type a post and click "save" but nothing seems to happen for ages and ages while waiting for a response. Sometimes things go quiet and nothing further seems to happen after a long interval so I click again only to get a message that I am trying to post a duplicate post. I suspect this is part of the problem mentioned above and hope it can be overcome by an infrastructure upgrade - bigger widgets or more pipes and wires or more RAM in the server or some such.

 

[Erik van Straten]

- A similar issue to the above arises sometimes when posting. I type a post and click "save" but nothing seems to happen for ages and ages while waiting for a response. Sometimes things go quiet and nothing further seems to happen after a long interval so I click again only to get a message that I am trying to post a duplicate post. I suspect this is part of the problem mentioned above and hope it can be overcome by an infrastructure upgrade - bigger widgets or more pipes and wires or more RAM in the server or some such.

O, yes, that is very annoying, I agree. It happens all the time.

Erik.

 

[Godfrey]

Oh yes:

In addition to my prior comments:

Please preserve the present use of BBCODE at least with respect to {IM***, {URL}, and basic text formatting tags ({CENTER}, {I}, {B}, {INDENT}, etc).

I post my photos to Flickr.com and use it as an image server on many different forums and mailing lists, posting images via links to Flickr ... Having BBCODE supported means I can just using the Flickr sharing facility and drop the supplied BBCODE string it creates into a post to facilitate image posting, without having to recopy and re-insert image files in some other format.

G

 

[ironhorse]

Looks great when you click on the dark mode!

 

[peterm1]

Oh yes:

In addition to my prior comments:

Please preserve the present use of BBCODE at least with respect to {IM***, {URL}, and basic text formatting tags ({CENTER}, {I}, {B}, {INDENT}, etc).

I post my photos to Flickr.com and use it as an image server on many different forums and mailing lists, posting images via links to Flickr ... Having BBCODE supported means I can just using the Flickr sharing facility and drop the supplied BBCODE string it creates into a post to facilitate image posting, without having to recopy and re-insert image files in some other format.

G

I agree with this.

 

[brusby]

The display size of the new forum is very small on my monitor. It seems to occupy only about 1/4 or 1/3 the available size in the center of my display. I'm using a recent 27" iMac with current software.

The small size makes text very difficult to read without zooming in. Each time I go to a new page, it defaults to the small display size and I have to manually zoom in again.

By contrast the current forum uses the entire available monitor space and text is much larger and significantly easier to read without zooming in.

 

[CameraQuest]

Oh yes:

In addition to my prior comments:

Please preserve the present use of BBCODE at least with respect to {IM***, {URL}, and basic text formatting tags ({CENTER}, {I}, {B}, {INDENT}, etc).

I post my photos to Flickr.com and use it as an image server on many different forums and mailing lists, posting images via links to Flickr ... Having BBCODE supported means I can just using the Flickr sharing facility and drop the supplied BBCODE string it creates into a post to facilitate image posting, without having to recopy and re-insert image files in some other format.

G

why not post on the new site and tell us what you think?

 

[farlymac]

I'm going to reserve logging in to the new site to when the safety warning goes away.

But while I looked around a bit, I noticed something that could pose a problem father down the road, and that is there is no consistency when going from one page to another. The style doesn't stay what I selected, some pages have drop down menus, others don't, and the layout changes from page to page.

Please settle on consistent layout and functionality across all pages.

Thanks, Stephen.

PF

 

[BernardL]

A simple drag and drop of photo files would be helpful to those of us who would like to post images but don't use photo hosting sites or the galleries here on RFF.

+1
I support this. Uploading images to the RFF gallery is a deterrent against sharing images.