Jay

No idea. Have you tried clearing your cache?

Nope.

The petition and design changes have occupied my time for a while, so forum enhancements were put on the back burner. I'll get to it eventually.

Ziz said:

Zion said:

Most people find it

easier to read text

that is contained in

a smaller area than

text that is spread

out across a wide

space because it's

easier for your eyes

to follow down to the

next line.

So you like posts that look like they were typed on the telestrator that newscasters read from?

If the forum looked like that, you'd have a point. In fact, it does not.

I'll just quote myself from the other topic in Feature Requests:

TV's Frink said:

And here's an actual bug (I think).  I now can't see the quote box when typing my reply, so it's harder to tell what is in the box and what isn't.  But when I post the reply, I can see the box.  Weird.

Should work now.

I'm glad I get feedback like this and definitely want to continue this discussion. I'm a huge proponent of usability and want to hear from everyone.

While I see many forums with layouts that expand to fit the available space, I see very few good web sites that do. I don't understand--at all--how people read long forum posts on a widescreen monitor with lines of text that stretch into infinity. I think Windows has done a horrible job of training people over the last 10 years to expect windows to fill all available space and for the content to follow suit; ironically, one of the things Windows has always done worse than Mac is managing the actual windows :)

In my experience, moving from variable width to fixed width is jarring at first simply because it's different. Once people become accustomed to it, going back to variable width looks strange...mostly because it is. Shifting blocks of content to make better use of available space is fine and makes sense with web content expected to be viewed on monitors of various sizes, but stretching out the text on linear user-based content so it flows across an entire widescreen monitor is simply bizarre, and a fine example of learned behavior.

I'm not entirely sure why you feel the need to increase the zoom level on your browser here, but not elsewhere. We use a pretty standard 12 pixel font size for posts (typical for forums and larger than a lot of sites). The quote font size is smaller so it takes up less space, but I'm working on a solution for that as well (showing only the first few lines of a quote and letting the user hover/click to view the rest). None of these things have changed in the new layout and they won't change if I add a skin that's variable width. I am concerned to hear that you find that this site requires more zooming than others, so please post more thoughts on this point if you can.

I'm working on the image solution. I know it's a problem. But, as I said here, all these large images are a nuisance and they have to go. Again, only in forums do I see this kind of content. Good sites manage images much more cleanly through thumbnails and zooming. Large images embedded within the content simply don't work on the web. Users should be linking to these images, not embedding them.

And here's an actual bug (I think).  I now can't see the quote box when typing my reply, so it's harder to tell what is in the box and what isn't.  But when I post the reply, I can see the box.  Weird.

I see this also. I'll take a look at it tonight.

I'm going to put together a wide layout skin as an option, but it will apply to the forum only. What some view as wasted space, others view as a layout more appropriate for actual reading.

Another "light" skin will be available soon. I just didn't have time to get it ready for this update.

Regarding images...I'm working on something. I know it's annoying when the images get clipped, but honestly, all these giant images have no business being embedded directly in forum posts anyway. It makes pages take much longer to load for those on slower connections, and I'm regularly annoyed by the "jumps" that occur when I use the first unread post link on a topic, drop down to that post, and the contents continue to shift as images load at the top of the page. This doesn't happen all the time (God bless FIOS), but when the server is busy, it's annoying as hell.

All I can suggest for now is using links to images instead of embedding them. It's entirely likely I'll disable the ability to dump full-size images in posts.

For those of you who haven't already noticed, we have a new petition online requesting a proper restoration of the OOT for the eventual Star Wars Blu-ray release. Please sign it when you get a chance and pass it on to others.

There also have been some design/layout changes. Do not post comments or issues regarding the design in this topic; they will be deleted. Please restrict such posts to the Forum Software and Web Site category.

Working on kind of a big site update right now, so not quite yet. Probably the next forum update after this one.

The increased number of downloads indicates that the traffic is genuine, at least as far as the forum is concerned. I doubt it's a bug in the software.

As for where all that traffic came from, no idea.

If people want to submit ideas or icons, I'm open to it. It's one of those things I think about constantly, but never get around to.

I must have had an old version of the stored procedure on my local machine when I did the last update. I'll put this at the top of the list, thanks.

I made an adjustment to the editor script that should let you do this now. You might have to refresh your cache.

Yeah, it was something along those lines. It's on the list, along with a hundred other things :)

Fixed.

I increased the opacity a bit for OT Old Skool. I copied the value over from Standard Blue without checking it, my mistake.

The whole transparency thing may be a horrible idea. Feel free to let me know :)

ady, you're seeing what you're supposed to see in IE6. I no longer support that piece of garbage.

I forgot to include the icon that now represents a banned user. Should be fixed this weekend.

Topic cleaned. As always, user bans will follow for those who can't play nice from here on out.

And yes, the forum is still moderated. Some of us have jobs. Use the ignore feature, skip over ugly posts, have a beer, or do whatever else you have to do to get yourself through the day.

Gaffer Tape said:

And do all of the newer users use the default colors?

OT Old Skool is the default for new members. The blue theme (or some variation thereof) will be the theme I release the software with Real Soon Now™. I'm working on another theme called OT Classic that will incorporate colors from the Old Skool theme, but with a brighter palette overall. Not everyone likes dark backgrounds with white text. (I find it a tad fatiguing after long reading sessions myself.)

Sorry, I develop most styles in the blue stylesheet and copy them over to OT Old Skool when I'm done, and occasionally I forget to update the colors. Fixed (refresh your cache).

Topic cleaned up by removing posts.

Any further cleanup involves removing members.

TV's Frink said:

Follow up question - if a user has chosen to ignore PM's from me, will I be notified?  Will I even be able to write the PM?

No notification. When you attempt to send the PM, you'll receive a message saying that the user has blocked you.

What happens depends on the options the user selected when they chose to ignore you. At its most basic level, ignoring a user hides their posts from view--all their posts, past and future. The post is replaced with a link that lets you view the post if you want to. However, if someone else quotes them, that quote is visible to you. There's no easy way of blocking that.

You also have the option of preventing them from sending you private messages, preventing them from viewing your profile, and preventing them from sending you e-mail via the user contact form (which isn't implemented yet).