THE FORUM UPGRADE

Rich, something very important seems to be missing. We used to have a personal activity feed that showed topic posts and likes. This was a very important navigation feature that came up when you clicked on your avatar. Now there's just a list, and this option isn't there.

I noticed that in the top left of each page are three horizontal lines where there are many different functions including search among others. I like that feature...

Andy

Finally the quote function works again in Firefox 42!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks Rich.

I appreciate the gray in the content area, and the expansion of the thread area horizontally.

Main thing I'm having a problem with now is the recent posts. Sometimes it shows just sort of a random selection - newest might be 12 or 20 minutes old, but a reload or click on a particular forum results in the correct display. This didn't happen previous to the redesign.

Perhaps this is just while work is still being done on the site.

David

Rich,

   Is there a Search function to the new upgraded forum formate?

Dave

Pine Creek Railroad posted:

Rich,

   Is there a Search function to the new upgraded forum formate?

Dave

All the way to the page bottom...

The screen looks like it's sized for an old 15"-17" CRT monitor. On a 24" it's all squeezed together in the middle of the screen.

This applies to both Chrome and IE11. Chrome looks a lot worse (smaller, more squeezed together) than IE-11. There are also breaks (small gaps) in the letters of the text.

Ted,

  Thanks much I also found it at the very top, under the magnifying symbol beside the +

PCRR/Dave

Well Rich how do you like being in the Dog House .

Guy

I appreciate the hard work and best intentions that went into this upgrade. However, this new format requires a scroll-wheel marathon. My fingers are totally exhausted! This upgrade creates more work to do or say the same thing as before, like translating to ten sentences in Spanish instead of three in English.  Specific constructive suggestion: Remove all the unnecessary spaces.

Interesting. Rich is 100% correct about offering constructive criticism and help. I've had the same gripe with operators on the broadcast trucks. They'd say "this sucks". It's hard to fix "sucks". 

I suggest to keep giving Rich the info. I've already seen some pretty quickly executed improvements. So I suspect he's busy at it. 

Rich,

I apologize if I disappointed you with my last post. I'm at a loss of what to say in response to being accused of saying, "this sucks" as I said no such thing. This will be like the other changes in the past. Everyone moaned, groaned, beeched and complained for the first two weeks. After that everyone toned it down for the most part never to utter another foul word.

I have but one gripe. Please hear me through. Surely you can do something about all the wasted space on each page? I'm showing a 2.0" margin on the left and a 5.50" margin on the right side of the page.

NKP Muncie posted:

Main thing I'm having a problem with now is the recent posts. Sometimes it shows just sort of a random selection ..

FIXED.

Ouch!  Topics are compressed too far to the left to read with my good (right) eye after the opthalmologist botched the cataract surgery on my left eye by whipping out his scalpel in what was supposed to be strictly a laser procedure.  May need another Yag capsulotomy before I can resume participation.

What, me worry?

Pine Creek Railroad posted:

Ted,

  Thanks much I also found it at the very top, under the magnifying symbol beside the +

PCRR/Dave

Sure thing Dave.

No + or magnifier charm on my tablet view but I also found it in the menu on the header bar. 3 horizontal lines is menu.

Wigville RR posted:

Well Rich how do you like being in the Dog House .

Guy

LOL! Thanks...I needed that!

I've been there many times in the past and I'm sure I'll spend a lot more time there in the future.  

Prewar Pappy posted:

...surely you can do something about all the wasted space on each page? I'm showing a 2.0" margin on the left and a 5.50" margin on the right side of the page.

Workiong on it.

And don't call me Shirley...

Rich,

I see that the body of the reply boxes are back to white. I think it's easier on the eyes if the boxes are a light gray like before. Just my preference...

guys, see my previous reply on the search and other functions at the top left corner of the page where the three horizontal lines are...

Andy

Edit Post is Not Working & Google Chrome Spell Check

Tried to edit a post and got the arrow message below. See red arrow.

Google Chrome, spell check is not working. 

Please look into these issues.

I've found it easy to navigate as the old forum.  Some buttons are in different places, but easy to find.  

Basic functions work OK.

I checked the search function and it worked OK.  Will have to give it more investigation as some of the results didn't pull up the threads.  Probably just old threads that have timed out.  Verdict to be determined.

An improvement would be alternating the color highlight of the replies.  For example, odd post numbers are white, even post numbers are grey.  Similar to the old set up.

All in all, it could have been much worse.  Much worse.  

It's still a fun place to talk trains, and that's what matters to me.

Rich, my appolgies. My previous post were neither helpful nor informative

Under the "Take Action " button I see the "Printer Ready Format " but that's only for the individual post.  Where is the selection for "Printer Ready Format " for the entire thread?  If no longer available, can you still print to PDF multiple pages of an entire thread?

MacBook Pro - Add Banner - On my computer.

OS X El Capitan Version 10.11 / 13 inch

WOW!

Just came on the website for the first time since this afternoon to look up the Camera Trainspotting thread and saw the difference.

I would say that my visits to the forum are 70% Smart Phone/30% PC, however, while using my smart phone on any of the various websites that I frequent, I expect to have the display compromised to fit the screen and am comfortable with that.  

Be that as it may, I'm NOT happy with the squeezed display and the acres of empty white space.  Not to mention that with all that white space instead of text or images that used to be in that area, the computer screen is more blinding to look at.  Heck, now I don't need to have any of the lamps on in the room when I'm on OGRR.  The screaming white acreage lights up the room enough.

Mark me in the not impressed camp.  

>Insert thumbs down Smiley here, as it's not one of the options provided<

This looks ok on my computer (at least it fills the screen), but it looks awful on my phone (iphone6s). There's no delineation between topics on the boards, or between the posts in the threads, its nearly impossible to figure out who's posted what. Additionally, the topic titles are now huge, only a few fit on the screen before needing to scroll. So much more scrolling the screen is now necessary to read the forum. The only improvment I see is the addition of thread page numbers on the phone, so you dont need to wait for threads to progressively load. 

I hope some of this is just early glitches, and settings can be adjusted to make it work. Right now, this upgrade has made the forum almost unreadable on my phone.

To Busy looking....Looks like Microsoft or Lionels web designer....worked on the software..Hopefully,  some things change! But, really to busy....the older site though simple had a simple order to it's design.

I am now looking at version #3 -the web page covers most of my 17" screen and I didn't change anything. Better but not good enough. Not as readable and as well llaid out before.  Ugly.

MartyE posted:

Interesting. Rich is 100% correct about offering constructive criticism and help. I've had the same gripe with operators on the broadcast trucks. They'd say "this sucks". It's hard to fix "sucks".  ...

Marty, I don't envy the position Rich is in right now.  Allan was frank enough to respond earlier in this thread and give us the sobering news that this upgrade was a one-way street... No chance of a roll-back.  That is sad, because this version of software from a design, presentation and functionality standpoint is clearly not ready for prime time across the broad audience of users it's meant to serve -- at least not from what we saw when Hoopla went "live" with the upgrade.

We're where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.  Some folks like desktops, others spend all their time on mobile devices.  But it's not easy designing for a gazillion different environments.  The irony here is the panacea of client/serving computing back in the 1990's was supposed to solve all these issues by having different software layers be independent of presentation logic.  Well, ya know what they say about the best laid plans. 

That's what I LOVED about apps that were based on the web browser interfaces.  The apps didn't need to worry about screen sizes and what-not.  And if I was on my iPhone, iPad, or desktop,  the presentation looked the same!  Nowadays, with this responsive design nonsense, the application logic is back worrying about how the presentation looks on the user's end -- depending on which device is being used.  So the APP is now making the decision of how the presentation looks on different devices.  But what if I don't WANT the presentation to look differently on different devices?  Or what if my preferences are different than that of the app developer?  Why should he or she determine those things?  That's SO not progress for the better.

I "get" that what we have here is what we're gonna need to live with if we want to stick around.  We're all big boys and girls here, and we'll decide what's a deal-breaker and what we can live with.  But by the same token, hearing the numerous usability concerns raised here in a manner of overall discontent should be a strong enough message to Hoopla that the software upgrade has missed its mark.

I just hope that hoopla has given Rich enough parameters to make this "new design" workable for most of us here.  I can only imagine Rich is gonna have a LONG night ahead for himself, because he's conscientious about how his brand "looks".  I'd be the same if this were my baby.

David

Here is some constructive input from a Gen X'er.  Not a Millenial nor the Greatest Generation.  I primarily interact with OGR on my 17" Macbook Pro via Chrome.  The revised layout is attractive from a change perspective, however, the dead space on the right & left margins is difficult to adjust to.  There is "A Lot" of washout in the dead space from the white background.  My brightness is about 50% and is set via calibration.  The 18% Gray works well to contrast from the dead areas, but why is there so much dead space?  My eyes are not screaming too bright, but same token they are wondering if there is another option for the white that is filling the dead space.  I understand the desire to offer more functionality for mobile devices, but at what sacrifice for Desktop/ Notebook users?  I had no issues opening up OGR on my iPad Mini in Safari, and I never needed to scroll nor increase the font setting.  

I definitely dig the "Replies per page" option.

Attached is a Screen Capture of what I'm seeing on my Macbook Pro.

I kind of like this current version.  Spreads out to fill up my 24" monitor and the light gray background is way better than the white.

Good Luck with the updgrade Rich - progress can be difficult at times, and usually takes some time to get acclimated to.

Bruce

Allright, now your cooking. Im digging the full screen

It seems like OGR is trying some adjustments.   I noticed the message area is expanding as I increase the window size vs. what was happening a few hours ago.  Tried this on a laptop, and 27 inch monitor at a almost full size.  I noticed less white space.     I think we need to wait and give OGR a chance to make more adjustments.

 I do like the option allowing the users to pick how may replies visible per page 20, 40, 100, 200.    

PatapscoValleyRR posted:

It seems like OGR is trying some adjustments.   I noticed the message area is expanding as I increase the window size vs. what was happening a few hours ago...I noticed less white space.     I think we need to wait and give OGR a chance to make more adjustments. 

Yep...we are tweaking things based on the feedback we're getting from people who have posted on this thread. The page can now be made wider (up to 1920 pixels wide - the HD standard) and we're going to tweak the colors a bit more to make it more pleasing to the eye.

Within a day or two, spell check in the posting window will be working again.

Progress...small steps.

Posts in boxes!!!! Much better!

been on here about 15 minutes, and the bright white background is hurting my eyes. 

I do like how the pics in posts are larger.

It's getting better !! thank you for the hard work. the top Menu font's are blurry

OGR Webmaster posted:

Yep...we are tweaking things based on the feedback we're getting from people who have posted on this thread. The page can now be made wider (up to 1920 pixels wide - the HD standard) and we're going to tweak the colors a bit more to make it more pleasing to the eye.

Within a day or two, spell check in the posting window will be working again.

Progress...small steps.

Rich, the forum is now making excellent use of widescreen desktop displays.  Nice column of forum content down the center, a list of sub-forums in the left-most column, and the list of recent topics in the right-most column.  Then when viewing individual threads, the display opens up to two columns... the left-most two thirds contain forum thread content, and the right-most third contains the recent thread list.  The width of the display is completely untilized with NO white-space.  Nicely done!!!  I think I've already forgotten how poorly things looked on my desktop when I signed on to the forum late this afternoon!!!    Definitely moving in the right direction... at least my brain doesn't hurt (as much) when looking at things now.

David

Yay no double click required for iPad.

Only iPad will appreciate this.

Richard Gonzales posted:

Well, I just now signed into what I thought was the OGR fourm.  A friend warned me about the new forum upgrade a little over an  hour ago.

Why do some folks insist on fixing things that are not broken?

Where is the spell check function? Did is lose it when I I had to remove the OGR URL from the EI compatability mode list?

This was a bad choice OGR staff, and reading David's note, there is no going back!!

 

Richard

 

 

Rich, they may not have had a choice!  upgrading....But, There are other choices and other places to go that may offer a simple format....if you can't handle this one.

I'm very sure that "RICH MELVIN" isn't 100 percent pleased with the product...

I'm also sure he will do what he can....to make it better.

So, I'm going to hang in....even if I get a headache.

I did a print screen