Forum Maintenance, 5 Sept 2021

[Dave Ambrose]

I need to take the forum offline for about 6 hours starting at 9 AM Pacific on Sunday, Sept 5th. I'll be doing some heavy maintenance and working on making the ads less obnoxious. I expect an explosion of postings in WIP and Under Glass. ?

[bobthehobbyguy]

Thanks in advance. 

[Danno]

Need someone to hold the flashlight for you, Dave?

[Kit Basher]

Wow! I got a rocket ship! Thanks for all your hard work, Dave.

[OldNYJim]

Another fine tune up - thanks Dave!

And now I too have a rocket?  Is anything higher than a rocket?  

[peteski]

The post count badges (like rocket) are cute, but I'm not too crazy about the rounded up post count.  I'm a visual kind of a guy and I liked seeing the actual post count displayed for each member's info (on the left of their post, under the avatar).  Now we see "3k", 4k", etc.  I know I can hover over that number and the actual count is displayed, but that requires me to do something extra I didn't have to do in the past.  Why make things more complicated?  Just show the actual number, like it was done in the past.

[Dave Ambrose]

3 minutes ago, peteski said:

The post count badges (like rocket) are cute, but I'm not too crazy about the rounded up post count.  I'm a visual kind of a guy and I liked seeing the actual post count displayed for each member's info (on the left of their post, under the avatar).  Now we see "3k", 4k", etc.  I know I can hover over that number and the actual count is displayed, but that requires me to do something extra I didn't have to do in the past.  Why make things more complicated?  Just show the actual number, like it was done in the past.

That was part of the upgrade they didn't tell me about. I'll see if I can bring back the actual post count. 

[peteski]

7 minutes ago, Dave Ambrose said:

That was part of the upgrade they didn't tell me about. I'll see if I can bring back the actual post count. 

Ah, they are always try to sneak in some undocumented "improvements"! 

[Danno]

If you hover your curser over the balloon and "k" post count, it shows a small banner with the exact count.

[peteski]

Thanks Danno -- I know that and already mentioned it in my post.  I also explained that my preference would be to see the actual number without hovering.

[Snake45]

You get a rocket! And you get a rocket! And YOU get a rocket! 

[Danno]

11 hours ago, peteski said:

Thanks Danno -- I know that and already mentioned it in my post.  I also explained that my preference would be to see the actual number without hovering.

Well, excuuuuuuse me.

I didn't bother reading the 4th, 5th, and 6th sentences of your rant. That would have required me to do something extra.  I keep forgetting you're from New England. 

[Tabbysdaddy]

Phones don't have cursors to hover.

[peteski]

2 hours ago, Danno said:

Well, excuuuuuuse me.

I didn't bother reading the 4th, 5th, and 6th sentences of your rant. That would have required me to do something extra.  I keep forgetting you're from New England. 

MEOW!

I did thank you for the info.  As for my "rant", if you want to dissect it, the entire post only contained 5 sentences, and the info you missed was in the 3rd one (which you supposedly read).  Maybe those sentences were too long?  Sorry.

I again thank you for the helpful info.

 

[Rob Hall]

2 hours ago, Tabbysdaddy said:

Phones don't have cursors to hover.

...and the post count doesn't show on phones.  Have to go to a user's profile to see their post count on mobile. 

[Danno]

1 hour ago, peteski said:

MEOW!

I did thank you for the info.  As for my "rant", if you want to dissect it, the entire post only contained 5 sentences, and the info you missed was in the 3rd one (which you supposedly read).  Maybe those sentences were too long?  Sorry.

I again thank you for the helpful info.

 

No, no. Than kew!  

 

[Plowboy]

I don't care about my post count. Much less someone else's.

The rocket ship inside the avatars is kind of an annoyance. But, I'll get used to it. 

Are we ever going to get the ability to edit titles in threads after three days? 

 

[Rodent]

Buying a 28" monitor at the beginning of "pandemic work from home" has made me not go back to trying to browse this forum on a mobile device. I used to almost exclusively visit from my tablet, but the PC experience is so much better. 

[Plowboy]

It isn't working very well on my tablet. It's back like it was before the last upgrade. When I go into a topic, I can't go back. I have to tap the address bar and re enter the web address. I also sometimes have to tap on the topic a couple or three times to pull it up. 

[Dave Ambrose]

9 hours ago, Plowboy said:

It isn't working very well on my tablet. It's back like it was before the last upgrade. When I go into a topic, I can't go back. I have to tap the address bar and re enter the web address. I also sometimes have to tap on the topic a couple or three times to pull it up. 

What type of mobile device are you using? 

[Plowboy]

3 hours ago, Dave Ambrose said:

What type of mobile device are you using? 

It's a Samsung Galaxy 6.

[JollySipper]

On 9/5/2021 at 7:11 PM, CabDriver said:

 Is anything higher than a rocket?

"Burning out a fuse out here alone......"

Dave, I had an odd happening the last time I made a post, which was soon after the forum came back online.... When I clicked 'choose files' an empty quote box appeared. Not sure if it was just a glitch? Just thought I would let you know......

[Bainford]

What is the purpose of the rocket? What does it signify?

[peteski]

13 hours ago, Bainford said:

What is the purpose of the rocket? What does it signify?

The forum software developer has to add things in most updates, just because.  I think it is called "feature creep".  This happens to pretty much every piece of computer software out there. Quite few of those "new features"  are totally unneeded, and often make the software more complicated to use, or add to a more busy look.

 

Do we need the rocket badge?  No.  Is  it useful? No.  What it really is (if you can hover over it) is to show you the rating of each member.  Like "Ohana".  That rating used to be displayed out in the open in the older forum version.  Now they hid it.  Cute isn't it?  Not!

They did the same with the "Edit Post" function. After a recent update I couldn't find a way to edit the post.  After hunting for it for some time I finally found it. In the past it used to be out in the open. I believe that the "Edit" button used to be clearly shown at the bottom of a post.  But the software wizards decided that it was too easy.  They have now hidden that function in the "..." pull-down menu.  But it is so non-intuitive that I find myself clicking on the "quote" button instead!  Plus, what took only a single click,  now takes 2 (open the menu, then clock on "edit"). Judging by what I see others doing (quoting their own posts when they want to edit), I'm not the only one who find this new hidden edit "feature" confusing.  I'm finally getting used to it, but that means that the"Edit" function will probably be moved again.  They can't seem to leave things alone!  Yes, this was a rant about those constant changes, just for the sake of change!

Edited September 10, 2021 by peteski

[bobthehobbyguy]

The rocket is another meaningless metric like our new like button.

Everyone has a rocket. Part of the everyone is a winner mentaility.

Wish they would spend the time improving the edit feature.