New Theme - Time for some testing

every time I've tried to upload a photo that was too large, It would fail. I would then fix it and then re-post. That will then give the error Andria pointed out every time. There is No way out, copy your text, close and start a new thread is the only way its worked for me after the message..

Actually, it was doing that to me BEFORE the update.


Cindy, I felt the same way, too. However, from the main page, on the right, you'll see all the forum categories. When there are new posts in a category, the category will be in bold text. Click on the category, and you'll have a list of all the posts. New posts will again be in bold and say .

The main reason I find it confusing, is there is no division between things, making the threads and the replies just a huge, long mess of text. If every other one had a different background color, it would help to break up that text.

Where? 

There's one on the unread posts page. 

Ryan, how difficult would it be to implement an automatic resizing script if the image is too large.  If it's possible, it could check for huge files so that you are not having to deal with full resolution images, but if the image is slightly oversize (or maybe even double), the script would resize it to fit instead of giving an error and forcing the poster to start over.  I had something that did this very thing on my original website, but it was in asp.  I could probably dig up some files for you to look at if you think it could help in doing something here.  I have visited some other forums lately that have done just this, and I think it could work very well.

Another request: can you make it so when you click on the "Post" button the window goes to your posting, instead of the top of the page.  I always proof my posts after submitting them, and with the new version I always have to scroll down to the post to do so, instead of it being right there when the page loads.

The alternating bg colors is a good idea also, I think.  I had a little difficulty with the forum at first, but it has grown on me quickly.  Change is difficult for many people.  Please stick it out until you are comfortable with it, I think you will like it if you do.  It is actually very nice, simple, and clean.  The only 'learning curve' that I can see on the new forum is a change of paradigm.  This is easily overcome with a little effort.  No, this is not meant as a lecture to anyone, I just hate to see good things get shut down because adjustment is required to regain comfort.  Many good things and ideas can falter because of unwillingness to bend.

There are a lot of forums out there, many are very similar, and many are very different.  I, for one, like change.  So this whole thing is great for me.  Otherwise, things become stagnant and stale.  This is a good step for Ryan and PAF and, although there are improvements that can be made, the changes are positive and front-running in my opinion.

Travis

Just FYI for everyone else, I have never had a problem with a file that is 650px in its longest dimension and saved at a '9' quality setting on the .jpg options that comes up during a save as.

It probably wouldn't be all that difficult to resize the images if they're too large.  I'd just have to figure out where the forum software handles that.  It would also be a chance to resize the ones that are really oversized.  We've had a couple uploaded that were 1,500 to 2,000 pixels wide and didn't fit on anyones screen.  The only potential problem I see is that the GD Library and ImageMagick are not always that great at resizing images and maintaining quality. 

I'll look into why it's not scrolling to your new post.  It is supposed to.

A change for those that miss the old home page.  Next to the header for the discussion board list you should see a link titled All.  Click it and you'll see a list of the boards similar to the old style.  Down at the bottom of that page is Maven's Mark as Read link

I've also updated the CSS so that as you move your mouse over the board list or the post list it will highlight that board or post in a light gray.  Hopefully that'll make it easier to separate them out.

And I figured out the cause for the error message on some of the related topics sections so it's been turned back on.  I've also bumped up the threshold for what's considered related, but if you see a thread that has particularly mismatched topics please let me know what thread it is.  I'm not totally sure that the threshold is where it needs to be yet.

Not at all. 

I learned a while ago that I shouldn't take comments or complaints as a negative.  They're a chance to improve.  Most of the comments in this thread are simply things I overlooked or didn't use so didn't think to include - Quick reply (which I've since started using ), Jump To box, mark as read, top of page link, etc.  And then there's suggestions like the boxes around alternating posts which didn't even cross my mind while developing the theme but make the threads much easier to follow.