Forum changes

[Simon]

*SNIP*

Good websites these days are responsive so they present a desktop-friendly version when you're on a desktop, and a mobile-friendly version when you're on a mobile device. Many sites also provide an app for mobile users, which is essentially a specialised browser. You shouldn't be encountering a mobile-friendly version on a laptop screen, ever, even if the website does have a mobile-friendly version.

Anyway, I hear you. The fact is, mobile views are growing and desktop views are not. The scales may tip eventually whether we like it or not.

In any case, the reason for my experiemental changes to the ATF were not to make it mobile friendly, which it certainly isn't!

The trouble is that the new allegedly desktop-friendly website versions are still much slower, clumsier, and have many fewer options than the versions that they replaced.  This has made navigating, for example, bank and other service web sites a PURE NIGHTMARE.  One world-wide bank recently discontinued their Internet web-banking completely (!) in favor of "mobile phone banking" only.    Many of my clients' business sites that I have to visit daily have become less useful and clumsier to navigate as well.

The worst thing is that this transition to the new "mobile friendly software" (and the accompanying downgrade in the quality of the accompanying new "desktop versions" of the same) has done is to limit, or even eliminate, one's ability to search or use an index function.  This is a real problem today, Internet-wide.  On some sites (business and fun related) I used be able to, until a few years ago, search for thousands of files (or topics and posts) by subject, or address, or date, going back nearly 20 years.

In a *SNAP*. 

But since the new software exploded on the scene earlier this decade, that has often become impossible.  (Or its so hard to figure out how to do, that you just give up.  Try searching your Paypal transactions going back to 2001, for example.  Good luck trying to figure out how to do it.  It used to be easy. Now its almost imposible to go back past 3 years.  So I've bookmarked a link that allows me to do that, which was almost *literally* IMPOSSIBLE to find on the Paypal website.  It took me a couple of hours of clicking links and doing Google searches to finally get there).

Another example are Disqus discussion groups that used to be navigable similar to the DTF, but have in recent years undergone the same software platform transformation.  Now you can't search anymore for old threads and topics.

Its like an Internet "virus" is slowly causing the Internet to lose its collective memory in favor of "here now", "gone and forgotten tomorrow".  Let me tell you, for a historian like me, this is positively maddening (and truly terrifying at the same time). The twenty-something "whizz kids" who are coming up with all this new software technology are like toddlers who have been let loose, unsupervised, to play with matches in a Japanese paper house.  They have no idea what they are playing with, so to speak.

This could easily springboard into a discussion of the societal and even biological (read:brain) mass-changes that the current Internet social media-driven software is causing in the current generation ... but then that would be WAAYYY off topic .... wouldn't it .... and I have work to do ...

[DinoToyForum]

From Maintenance Mode topic. As you can see, these replies are not appearing in the thread. So, I think there has been a glitch. I will lock the thread. Don't worry TyrantQueen, I'm still looking into the reason for your profile being omitted from the top posters list.

The logo is now centered on my Ipad. Not on my laptop though.

Also, something seems to be amiss with this thread. My previous reply doesn't appear in the thread, though I can see it here on the reply page. I'll quote myself as a test.

It's centered for me at the top of this thread, as well as the 'home' page of the forum. Also thanks for the transparency on this stuff. I was wondering why everything looked weird today and yesterday. I thought the pages were failing to load correctly for me.

Ah, that's good to know. It is still not centered for me so it must be a cache thing as I suspected (even though I have cleared the forum cache and my browser cache, so maybe it is a server cache thing).

I'm glad to keep members informed so no problem there. And I always appreciate your feedback. 

I think this topic encountered an error so I'm locking it as a precaution. We can continue the discussion in the forum changes thread.

[Dilopho]

Oh no, the papo t rex is missing from the front page! 

[Sim]

@dinotoyforum: I noticed your reply to Faelrin wasn't visible in the thread.  The same thing or something similar has happened at least once before, it was Reply #20 by John in this thread: http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=6633.20  I could see John's post in the reply page, but for some time it wasn't visible in the thread.  I can't remember how long it took, but eventually John's post did become visible in the thread.  I just noticed Reply #40 by Syndicate Bias on page 3 of that thread, I hadn't seen it before.  Maybe this post also took some time to become visible in the thread.

[DinoToyForum]

@dinotoyforum: I noticed your reply to Faelrin wasn't visible in the thread.  The same thing or something similar has happened at least once before, it was Reply #20 by John in this thread: http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=6633.20  I could see John's post in the reply page, but for some time it wasn't visible in the thread.  I can't remember how long it took, but eventually John's post did become visible in the thread.  I just noticed Reply #40 by Syndicate Bias on page 3 of that thread, I hadn't seen it before.  Maybe this post also took some time to become visible in the thread.

Ok, thanks for letting me know. That was a while ago, at least. Maybe there is a glitch every now and again, hopefully nothing too serious. Perhaps it happens when the server goes offline mid-posting.

[ceratopsian]

Regarding centring the banner: on my desktop the full banner is visible but on my phone the far right (head and year) are cut off.

[DinoToyForum]

Regarding centring the banner: on my desktop the full banner is visible but on my phone the far right (head and year) are cut off.

On my mobile, too. Thanks for pointing it out, I'll see what I can do...

[DinoToyForum]

@tyrantqueen, would you mind temporarily setting your account so it is not hidden (or giving me permission to do it) so that I can troubleshoot the Top Poster list issue? I just want to rule that out.

[tyrantqueen]

@tyrantqueen, would you mind temporarily setting your account so it is not hidden (or giving me permission to do it) so that I can troubleshoot the Top Poster list issue? I just want to rule that out.

I just did as you suggested, and it's showing up again.

[DinoToyForum]

@tyrantqueen, would you mind temporarily setting your account so it is not hidden (or giving me permission to do it) so that I can troubleshoot the Top Poster list issue? I just want to rule that out.

I just did as you suggested, and it's showing up again.

Many thanks, that's the explanation then. Hmm, I'll see if there's a fix but it might be beyond my coding abilities. In the meantime it is up to you if you want to remain hidden (and absent from the top posters list) or not.

[ceratopsian]

I can now see the full banner on my mobile!

[DinoToyForum]

I can now see the full banner on my mobile!

After fiddling around with code and getting nowhere, I just reduced the size of the banner by a few pixels. That did the trick.

[ceratopsian]

The simplest solution is often the best!

[DinoToyForum]

The simplest solution is often the best!

Indeed!

Another issue I'm aware of for mobile view is the font sizes are all different. Some are large, some are impossibly tiny. I'm not able to fix this at the present time... but one day.

[postsaurischian]

Hm ... knowing from experience the forum is not in best health as long as I see the sauropod icon in my bookmark list.
I hope you'll be able to nurse it back to health soon one day, Dr. Admin ... thumbs pressed!

[DinoToyForum]

Hm ... knowing from experience the forum is not in best health as long as I see the sauropod icon in my bookmark list.
I hope you'll be able to nurse it back to health soon one day, Dr. Admin ... thumbs pressed!

Yes, I lost all forum 'modifications'. That reminds me, I'll try and install the bookmarks modification. I'm installing them one by one, but I'm being careful, as it was a modification that caused problems recently. 

Edit - I think it installed successfully. Hopefully, all your bookmarks will be intact? If not, I'm afraid you will have to start again.

Also, if anyone else notices any missing functionality, please let me know. It is probably a modification I need to reinstall, or purposefully haven't installed.

[postsaurischian]

I'm afraid you have no influence on my bookmark list . It's my strange computer. Everytime the forum was down the icon changed from T.rex to sauropod and back again when the forum was accessible again. And now it has changed to sauropod again, but I have total access to everything. That's new.

- The bar above the re-sized pictures appears as if it was written text by the poster. I preferred the coloured bar.*
- I miss a bit the "members online" info at the upper left.

* and the info is wrong. It says 973x729, while my pictures are in 1066x800.
   http://dinotoyblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=152.msg209545#msg209545

[DinoToyForum]

I'm afraid you have no influence on my bookmark list . It's my strange computer. Everytime the forum was down the icon changed from T.rex to sauropod and back again when the forum was accessible again. And now it has changed to sauropod again, but I have total access to everything. That's new.

- The bar above the re-sized pictures appears as if it was written text by the poster. I preferred the coloured bar.
- I miss a bit the "members online" info at the upper left.

The reason the icon changes is because the forum is in a subfolder of dinotoyblog.com. So, when the forum is down, your bookmarks must get the default icon for the dinotoyblog instead. 

I'll check out the coloured bar and fix it if I can.
I agree about the members online. I can add it but removed it because the new version looked odd on the left, and all the same info is at the bottom anyway. But, it is convenient, so I might see how it looks on the right...

[postsaurischian]

Thanks! Did you see the little edit in my last post. It's strange because the actual size is being displayed but the info is wrong .

[DinoToyForum]

Thanks! Did you see the little edit in my last post. It's strange because the actual size is being displayed but the info is wrong .

I missed that, so thanks. I added in the Members online list, I think it looks quite good on the right, just below the welcome message.

Not sure what is the problem with the image resizer. On my screen there is a coloured bar and for the images in your thread it says "...original 1066x800". It looks fine to me. Could you refresh your browser and see if the problem persists. If so, could you possibly take a screenshot for me?