new forums discussion

[TheCotMan]

i'm posting this here because i can't reply to the thread announcing the new forums.

Wow, that sucks. Added to my list of things to fix. Sorry about that.

let's start with the reply. that announcements thread doesn't seem to be locked, and there's even a "reply" button (tried to attach an image of this, but that's essentially impossible due to the very small file size limit for attachments) and if i mouse over it the cursor changes to a pointer indicating that it's supposed to be a link. clicking does nothing.

Click on the "quote" icon, and your browser should copy/paste that post to the bottom text-field to reply to that post. This is not the same way it was. I can investigate adding a "reply" option instead, or change "quote" to read "reply". Which would be best from you point of view?

also, from a functionality standpoint... having a "reply" button only way up at the top of a page is kind of frustrating. the old forums used to have reply link/button down at the bottom of each page, not to mention in each post. (EDIT: seems this thread here does have a reply button at the bottom. so maybe the announcements thread IS actually locked to non-mods? and the Reply button at the top is just a relic that shouldn't be there? FURTHER EDIT: it seems the "top" reply button is part of some floating element that scrolls down the page as you read, so it's always there. still does nothing when I click, though)

I am betting there is a change to the security/permissions for forums as part of the upgrade. I'll look to re-open that thread to give users access to reply -- something we want in the announcement threads.

themes - the dark theme is very difficult to read (very stark bright text hurts eyes over the black... and many menus and other elements are dark and thus unreadable over the black background) and the cool blue theme is totally brash and bright. i know that themes will be worked out in the future, though. fingers crossed.

The upgrade was unable to automatically upgrade the styles/themes that I have manually kludged together, and upgraded for 10 years. The end result? I am working on building themes/styles from scratch, trying to emulate some of the look and feel from past themes. This system is troublesome, as there are variables with misleading names that suggest they are for "text edit background color" or color for text, but they are not used for any editors. The edits to control colors in the editor are in a CSS table dynamically generated. Some variable are totally useless to their name. Dealing with styles/themes under the new software is consuming a lot of time finding out which features work and which features do not.

Wait until you get to "PM" or "blog" and se how the dark color theme/style looks there.

My highest priority after the upgrade, and then the last-night upgrade to php is to get the themes/styles functional, so that text can be read and the reply-field contrast is usable. Once we can actually read all the text, and there is no slight difference in shading/contrast to make it hard or impossible to read, then I will be working on things like "too bright on too dark" issues, and then working on color themes. Yellow on black is different from blue on black in the classic theme. Previously we had 2 or 3 "dark" themes (classic, default, high-contrast-dark) and each had different colors for links (blue, yellow, red). Once we get one functional "dark" theme, we can explore changing link colors.

useful links - my bookmark for the DEFCON forum used to be https://forum.defcon.org/search.php?do=getnew so that i would instantly see any new posts or threads after logging in. that appears to not work anymore.

Nope. I already have 2 reports on that. At least one website used it for their DCG page to pass on forum activity. A forum mod also expressed dissatisfaction with this gone. Additionally, the "new" tab options for new activity does not show new activity, and the public version of this fails to work, saying "you must be logged in" -- Yeah, I know about this too, and it is part of the functionality things I want to fix, but it is after making the forums read-able, and something people can reply to.

Please continue to post complaints and constructive criticism about the new software, so I can build of list of things to do, and prioritize them. If you or others disagree with the priorities, please provide an argument to support a different priority list.

i'm sure that there will be more feedback, but those are the first things i'm seeing. also, all page loads and general interactions seem much slower than before, but this must be wrong since the whole major downtime was due to a big upgrade, no?

Page load is slower. the new software does more on page load. I don't know what can be done to speed it up. I am guessing a large part of the slower load is the new forum software does more in the way of dynamic page generation than the old forum software, with many more elements added to each page.

i'm already on the record as a guy who generally hates change. so some of that is coming out, i'm sure. but, yeah, this is not making me all smiley inside.

You are not alone. Others feel this way too, which is why I kept the "classic" theme style around, or upgraded to emulate it for major forums software upgrades, year after year for 10 years. The new forum software make that impossible. I will work to try to make something that shares some of its colors, but the new layout and panels makes emulating the classic theme impossible. :-/

[Zorlac]

The "cool blue" theme makes things readable, but I miss a decent dark theme.

[Zorlac]

I agree with the black text on a dark grey background, its impossible to read, as is light text on a light background (the cancel/preview/post reply buttons at the bottom). Slow page loads are a pain, but can be worked on. A "show new" or "get new" link would be really useful to get working again.

Am off to see if there are other themes that work better, or at least make my eyes bleed less :)

[Deviant Ollam]

i'm posting this here because i can't reply to the thread announcing the new forums.

i am having a few problems with the new forums, actually.

let's start with the reply. that announcements thread doesn't seem to be locked, and there's even a "reply" button (tried to attach an image of this, but that's essentially impossible due to the very small file size limit for attachments) and if i mouse over it the cursor changes to a pointer indicating that it's supposed to be a link. clicking does nothing.

also, from a functionality standpoint... having a "reply" button only way up at the top of a page is kind of frustrating. the old forums used to have reply link/button down at the bottom of each page, not to mention in each post. (EDIT: seems this thread here does have a reply button at the bottom. so maybe the announcements thread IS actually locked to non-mods? and the Reply button at the top is just a relic that shouldn't be there? FURTHER EDIT: it seems the "top" reply button is part of some floating element that scrolls down the page as you read, so it's always there. still does nothing when I click, though)


themes - the dark theme is very difficult to read (very stark bright text hurts eyes over the black... and many menus and other elements are dark and thus unreadable over the black background) and the cool blue theme is totally brash and bright. i know that themes will be worked out in the future, though. fingers crossed.


useful links - my bookmark for the DEFCON forum used to be https://forum.defcon.org/search.php?do=getnew so that i would instantly see any new posts or threads after logging in. that appears to not work anymore.


i'm sure that there will be more feedback, but those are the first things i'm seeing. also, all page loads and general interactions seem much slower than before, but this must be wrong since the whole major downtime was due to a big upgrade, no?

i'm already on the record as a guy who generally hates change. so some of that is coming out, i'm sure. but, yeah, this is not making me all smiley inside.