172 replies to this topic

[berelinde]

Hide and Seek, you read my mind. I was just coming here to report difficulty signing in.

The first day or so the new forum software was in use, I was still logged in from before the switch, but I decided to clear out all the cookies, etc., and had to log in again. This time, I had difficulty doing so. Please see the attached screenshot. It shows what happened when I clicked various places.

Attached Images

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[Jarno Mikkola]

I need seriously more space to upload files to all the forums, the WeiDU.exe itself takes about 540kb's(in a .rar) and the limit is currently 512kb's.

[Graoumf]

I can't use the searching function: there's always "an error with database". Am I the only one?

[Shed]

I can't use the searching function: there's always "an error with database". Am I the only one?

Nope.

Nice look, otherwise, and I like the new forum features - well done .

[Hide and Seek]

Please see the attached screenshot. It shows what happened when I clicked various places.

My sincere thanks. That did the trick.

[SConrad]

We discovered with Slayer (the dark alternative to Asylum) that very few of our members actually used it.

Seriously? Slayer was so much easier on the eyes for me. You sure you weren't taking all those other unused accounts into consideration or something? Didn't realize I was part of such a small minority :/.

From memory, I'd say that there were maybe two dozen members in total who were using it.

Nice job with the upgrade...I don't imagine it was a walk in the park.

You'd be right about that.

My only complaints would have to be [...] that the donation stuff is on the main page and is sized, phrased, and situated in a way that kills the gentle "We'd appreciate any donations, but they are not mandatory, thank you!" gesture and replaces it with something that reads to a first time visitor (this was the first time I checked out the new scheme): "OMG GIVE US MUNEY PLZ - THIS IS HOW MUCH WE NEED".

From my perspective I certainly hope it doesn't come across that way. Donations are definitely still voluntary, and we don't want it any other way.

However, I also think that it was very easy to miss the limited "advertising" we had for donations in the previous incarnation of the SHS forums. It's much more visible now, granted, but only on the main page which accounts for a small part of our total pageviews. On every other page, it's actually less visible than what it used to be. That's not to say that I think they balance each other out, though; I don't.

The fact remains that our traffic and bandwidth usage have increased while donations have decreased. Combine that with the well over $8000 SHS has cost in hosting alone, and while donations have subsidized that by about $1000, it's still over $7000 that the people at the top have had to dish out. I can tell you that after having paid a significant portion of that myself, I have little-to-no regrets in making the donation form more visible. Having said that, I definitely don't want people to think it's mandatory. Besides, you can close the entire sidebar if you want to.

The new addition also makes it much easier to keep track of donations, which is a big plus. But that's neither here or there.

I'm sorry if this has been explained somewhere, cause then I missed it. I can't log in. Everytime I click on the "sign in", I get the little "page error" icon down to the left. Everything else work fine.

Woo, joys of IE. The non-working links are meant to slide down a login bar where you can fill in your details instead of taking you to a new page, but it obviously doesn't work in IE. I'll make sure there's a graceful fallback alternative, but can't do it now as I don't have IE on this computer.

I need seriously more space to upload files to all the forums, the WeiDU.exe itself takes about 540kb's(in a .rar) and the limit is currently 512kb's.

Then don't upload mods as attachments. I don't know how many times I have to say this. It's what the Download Manager is for.

I can't use the searching function: there's always "an error with database". Am I the only one?

Whoops. That's probably my fault from when I fixed the "view new content" part. Will try to fix.

[khay]

Hey guys, it was me who made the skin. Thanks for the kind words and the criticism as well, I do appreciate both.

The font sizes will stay like this, I`m afraid. Readability is very important and nowadays most people are using higher and higher resolutions. Some buttons still have too small fonts in my opinion, I`m thinking of increasing their sizes. There also are some changes that I`ll be making in regards of element spacing and the like, to make things easier to read.

About the brightness of the background: I don`t promise anything, but I might design an alternate version of the skin with slightly darker colors. Please note, that it won`t be like the old Slayer one, it will simply have the white/cream tones replaced with grey/darker cream. I often browse the intertubes at night as well and I`m well aware that high brightness is not easy on tired eyes. Everyone seems to like Google, though.

All in all, I understand it`s a big change from the old skin and it takes time getting accustomed to, but with use, I`m certain everyone will eventually get used to the new look. This inevitably happens every time a new interface design is introduced, change takes time getting used to.

Feel free to keep the comments coming, I do read (and consider) all the suggestions.

[Shed]

http://wiki.spellholdstudios.net/

Error Returned:

mySQL query error: SELECT conf_value FROM shsf_conf_settings c WHERE conf_key ='cookie_domain'

SQL error: Table 'shs_forum.shsf_conf_settings' doesn't exist
SQL error code: 1146
Date: Sunday 03rd o January 2010 04:27:55 PM

[SConrad]

http://wiki.spellholdstudios.net/

Error Returned:

mySQL query error: SELECT conf_value FROM shsf_conf_settings c WHERE conf_key ='cookie_domain'

SQL error: Table 'shs_forum.shsf_conf_settings' doesn't exist
SQL error code: 1146
Date: Sunday 03rd o January 2010 04:27:55 PM

Aware, thanks. We're currently deciding if it's worth fixing or if the Wiki is going the way of the dodo.

[Shed]

Righto.

[Shed]

You may know this already, but Download links in mod forums no longer link to the correct place in the Download Centre, e.g. http://www.shsforums...-download-link/

[Shed]

You may know this already, but Download links in mod forums no longer link to the correct place in the Download Centre, e.g. http://www.shsforums...-download-link/

http://www.shsforums...post__p__473823

Alright, that's a known issue, then.

[Archmage Silver]

Well, now that the quotes etc. work again, the site is starting to look pretty good to me. Again, good work guys (and khay on the skin - I agree on the font sizes on some of the buttons). I'd also change the Preview Post button to be same color as the Add Reply one, it's too easy to click on the more visible one now.

I'm with Seb on the donation banner change, it's not that much of a problem considering how much it can benefit SHS. And obviously people know it's purely voluntary, so no complaints there.

For those of you who use Firefox and have problems with the font/text size (either too small or too big) or the forum background color, see the NoSquint add-on. It has separate zoom sliders (+/- from default) for text and pages, and can change text and background colors. Obviously it saves your settings for each site separately, but global settings are also available.

Oh, I almost forgot - I'd like to again draw attention to the poor visibility of pinned threads, they could certainly use more blank space between them and the regular threads.

Edited by Archmage Silver, 03 January 2010 - 05:19 PM.

[Solar's Harper]

Just thought I better report an issue I've encountered with fast reply, although it is fairly likely to do with compatibility of previous explorers like IE6 than anything else.
Apart from being an uphill battle to use, seems functions like "Insert Link" and what-not are broken, literally taking longer to load, and when they do, click anywhere on them and they disappear - similar to an issue with the sign-in business as well, if one doesn't click in just the right spot.

Now, whilst the fancy work *is* appreciated, the functionality of the basics of these things seems to have been compromised heavily as a result for some of us. If it's an issue that can only be resolved from a user's perspective, fine, but this is just so it's out there and known, mmkay?

[Miloch]

Apart from the cosmetic things others have mentioned, I'll add a few things I've noted. I apologise if others have noted them already - haven't had the time or bandwidth to page through the whole thread.

Topic notifications are cooler in that you get the actual topic in the email subject. But I've noticed that when you click on the link you rarely go to the new topic; rather you go to the first page mostly. Also it seems to hang on page loading, to the point where (eventually) my browser will say it's loaded everything but still hang there with a blue bar and a circling cursor, and there's not even an option to "stop" (X) the page loading. I'm using Opera on Linux if that matters.

On the subject of email notifications, I noticed this on the old forum too... Sometimes I get them and sometimes not, and it seems quite erratic. I'm talking about posts or forums I'm subscribed to, with I think an "immediate" (or at least delayed) notification, but I get maybe half of them more or less right away and never get half of the others. And I notice this because I'm subscribed to only a very few topics/forums (to prevent spam otherwise).

Takes significantly longer to do view/reply to posts and PMs (or whatever they're called now ). Is this because the forum is still being upgraded behind the scenes, or because new functionality is bogging it down? Personally, I'd sacrifice any number of bells and whistles (like seeing the portraits of participants in a PM) for the sake of speed.

Nitpicky things: View New Content goes to the "Members" tab by default. Would be more useful if it went to Forum posts.

The padding around quotes seems a bit large. I noticed this when replying to a PM where it's typical to quote the previous PM back and forth so you don't have to retain all previous PMs separately. Well even after only 5 such quotes the original post looked ridiculously slim.

Someone else mentioned the lack of separation between pinned topics and unpinned, and I'd second that. Either a horizonal bar, shading or the like should suffice.

The donation and recent posts section on the main page looks improperly placed vertically. It'd make more sense horizontally positioned at either the bottom or top of the page. You notice this dramatically when you click off the main page. Icons could be improved, but you probably already knew that.

I'm not trashing the new site - I've upgraded tonnes of them and know this stuff happens. Just pointing stuff out so it can be rectified eventually. I'm surprised you upgraded everything so quickly and without much downtime. On the whole, it looks good. I'm sure speed and usability will eventually override any of these glitchy things, which can probably be ironed out in time .

[SConrad]

Just thought I better report an issue I've encountered with fast reply, although it is fairly likely to do with compatibility of previous explorers like IE6 than anything else.
Apart from being an uphill battle to use, seems functions like "Insert Link" and what-not are broken, literally taking longer to load, and when they do, click anywhere on them and they disappear - similar to an issue with the sign-in business as well, if one doesn't click in just the right spot.

Now, whilst the fancy work *is* appreciated, the functionality of the basics of these things seems to have been compromised heavily as a result for some of us. If it's an issue that can only be resolved from a user's perspective, fine, but this is just so it's out there and known, mmkay?

Definitely user-imposed because of browser choice. Sorry.

Topic notifications are cooler in that you get the actual topic in the email subject. But I've noticed that when you click on the link you rarely go to the new topic; rather you go to the first page mostly. Also it seems to hang on page loading, to the point where (eventually) my browser will say it's loaded everything but still hang there with a blue bar and a circling cursor, and there's not even an option to "stop" (X) the page loading. I'm using Opera on Linux if that matters.

Can you copy-paste a couple of the non-working links, please?

On the subject of email notifications, I noticed this on the old forum too... Sometimes I get them and sometimes not, and it seems quite erratic. I'm talking about posts or forums I'm subscribed to, with I think an "immediate" (or at least delayed) notification, but I get maybe half of them more or less right away and never get half of the others. And I notice this because I'm subscribed to only a very few topics/forums (to prevent spam otherwise).

I'm afraid I don't know what could be causing this... I know that I personally find email in general to be pretty unreliable when it comes to mailing lists and notifications, but I don't think I've ever experienced a 50% drop rate. If you want to, you can PM me and we can perform some more advanced troubleshooting.

Takes significantly longer to do view/reply to posts and PMs (or whatever they're called now ). Is this because the forum is still being upgraded behind the scenes, or because new functionality is bogging it down? Personally, I'd sacrifice any number of bells and whistles (like seeing the portraits of participants in a PM) for the sake of speed.

I haven't noticed any significant speed decreases, other than when we were rebuilding posts/PMs. A tip can be to look at the execution time at the bottom right of the page, right next to the clock icon. If it's less than a second, any slowdowns is most likely due to your browser and/or internet connection.

Nitpicky things: View New Content goes to the "Members" tab by default. Would be more useful if it went to Forum posts.

In my experience, this only happens if there are no new posts to show.

The padding around quotes seems a bit large. I noticed this when replying to a PM where it's typical to quote the previous PM back and forth so you don't have to retain all previous PMs separately. Well even after only 5 such quotes the original post looked ridiculously slim.

And here's the beauty of personal conversations! With them, you won't have to quote previous PMs, as they all will be visible in a thread-like format.

Someone else mentioned the lack of separation between pinned topics and unpinned, and I'd second that. Either a horizonal bar, shading or the like should suffice.

I had a look earlier and there was no easy way to do this. khayman might have ideas on this, though.

The donation and recent posts section on the main page looks improperly placed vertically. It'd make more sense horizontally positioned at either the bottom or top of the page. You notice this dramatically when you click off the main page. Icons could be improved, but you probably already knew that.

Yeah, we're going to have another look at alignments as we've spotted a fair few. None if it has been earth-shattering, however, so priority has been given to site-breaking bugs instead of purely cosmetic changes.

I'm not trashing the new site - I've upgraded tonnes of them and know this stuff happens. Just pointing stuff out so it can be rectified eventually. I'm surprised you upgraded everything so quickly and without much downtime. On the whole, it looks good. I'm sure speed and usability will eventually override any of these glitchy things, which can probably be ironed out in time .

Thanks. Lots of things have improved already--we haven't had any spam since the update, for one. I'm personally very much in love with the attachment uploader, as well, and all in all the benefits of the updated software far outmatches the time it takes to get used to it.

[ilot]

Excuse me but when I am "log in" I can't see my Personal Message "situation".

Where are my sent and received personal messages???

Thanks

Edited by ilot, 04 January 2010 - 08:27 AM.

[Jarno Mikkola]

Where are my sent and received personal messages???

Click the bar in your name on the top right corner, you'll see your profile menu(Messages etc.), of course it could be that your browser can't show you the profile menu bar, so you just have to update, like GeN1e.

Edited by Jarno Mikkola, 04 January 2010 - 08:53 AM.

[Immortality]

My eyes

[ilot]

Where are my sent and received personal messages???

Click the bar in your name on the top right corner, you'll see your profile menu(Messages etc.), of course it could be that your browser can't show you the profile menu bar, so you just have to update, like GeN1e.

I see nothing about "Messages", how do I update?