Site Issues, Updates, Changes, and Feedback Thread

[The Computer Audiophile]

Hi Guys - This thread is here to log any issues that you find with the site and to provide any feedback you wish. As usual, all feedback, good, bad, indifferent, is welcome.

It has been a long weekend and I'm sure I missed a few things in my final run-through of the site. Please let me know what you find. In addition, I still have a lot of housekeeping to do and will get to it as soon as possible.

 

A few issues I am working through:

1. Front page articles need some of the code that didn't transfer over from the previous site removed (it's still visible in some articles).
2. Article, not forum, attachments need to be re-attached (this will keep e busy for a while).
3. Blog attachments need to be re-attached (this will also keep me busy for a while).
4. I am creating URL redirect so some of the old URLs / web addresses will still work. Please let me know if you want your favorite thread to still work with the old URL (test to make sure I haven't created it already). 

 

Notes:

1. Support for the iOS and Android apps has been discontinued.

 

P.S. I still have access to the old site incase someone thinks they lost something.

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, kirkmc said:

It looks good, and I checked out the responsive version, and it scales well to mobile devices. 

Wonderful. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Theobetley said:

I have to admit I missed CA over the weekend. Glad you are back. Looks good but do we no longer have new posts?

Check out the top menu under Activity. Is this what you want?

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Booster MPS said:

Top Right of the page above the CA logo there is an "unread content" link.

One question Chris, the formatting seems to be rather narrow on my Chrome browser with lots of white space in the margin.  Given the length of some of our posts scrolling down might not be convenient.  Any thoughts on that?

I'm glad you asked. I did a lot of research on the appropriate width of text / paragraphs etc... and most of it said about 70 characters / 10 words wide was the sweet spot. 

Thanks for the feedback. I can always make tweaks to improve the experience. 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, semente said:

This layout is similar to the "new" HifiWigwam layout...

 

I wish I could praise it but it's slow to load and wastes lots of screen space.

I hate it.

 

R

Thanks for the feedback. 

The slowness you see concerns me. I can't reproduce it yet, but I'll continue to try.

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, bogi said:

I observed are added lines between paragraphs in articles as well as forum posts. I am on Windows, I checked that on Firefox, Chrome and IE - the same.

Hi Bogi - Yes, I believe this is a formatting issue from the conversion. New stuff going forward should have that issue and the stuff I go back and edit shouldn't have the issue. 

Thanks for the report.

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, semente said:

Chris,

 

Can you reduce the space between lines in text and widen the thread boxes?

That would probably solve it.

 

R

Thanks for the suggestions.

Here is one article, of thousands, about the best width of paragraphs for readability and user experience etc... https://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability

 

Are you saying the space between continuous lines of text is too much or between paragraphs or both?

[The Computer Audiophile]

19 minutes ago, matthias said:

Chris,

it looks very nice, but so far it is not possible to search posts of a certain member.

Matt

Hi Matt - Click on the search magnifying glass up top, then click on the members tab. You can put in a username and search for them. From there, you can even follow certain users etc...

[The Computer Audiophile]

22 minutes ago, arglebargle said:

My hopefully constructive feedback is that I really miss the name of the most recent poster to a thread from the index. The avatar indicator gives a hint, but only if the user has an avatar and you recognize it. 

This is still there. Both avatar and the name of the person. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

24 minutes ago, Booster MPS said:

@The Computer Audiophile (just trying the tagging there....)

Thanks for the reply.  Will be interesting to get other's experience on column width.  The font and layout is VERY readable and pops on the page.

Additional question - within a thread as you read, there was previously a link where you could "jump to first unread" post within the thread.  Does that link still live on the new forum.

Good question. I liked that as well. I will see if it's available.

23 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Chris, The scaling of the avatars is poor up to devistating. Not talking about my own (also not the best what happened to it) but i.e. Jud has grown a lot over the weekend.

Avatars were brought over from the old site. If people want to make their look good, just re-upload one. 

24 minutes ago, Jud said:

Couple of things (using Vivaldi browser on Lubuntu):

- I'm seeing lots of ads.  Do paid members see ads now, is there a setting to change this, or is it a glitch of the new site?

- The formatting selections at the top of the text entry box are (at least for me) a not very well visible white-on-gray.  My browser or is this the same for everyone?

Yes, at least you could have thinned me out, but it seems I've become a Fathead!

Ah, thanks for the info. When I imported the users, it put the paid members in the new all access group as a secondary group, not the primary. I've changed yours and will adjust the rest. 

I'll look at the formatting options, but I can't help with the thinning out part :~)

[The Computer Audiophile]

31 minutes ago, mansr said:

I noticed a couple of oddities on my phone (Android/Chrome). I'll get a screenshot if it happens again.

I wouldn't mind slightly wider text either. Of course I can always make it look any way I want with some CSS overrides.

Hmm, this was two different posts that somehow got merged. What's up with that?

I'll check it out on my phone again.

Yes, two posts in succession within a certain period of time will get merged. I can always change it, but lets try it for a little while. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

16 minutes ago, Mihaylov said:

Tapatalk does not work.

Correct. There are currently no plans to replace the iOS and Android apps. The new design is responsive and scales to mobile devices. Apps are a pain in the ass to manage and maintain.

[The Computer Audiophile]

14 minutes ago, jcn3 said:

Chris,

When looking at the thread list for a forum, you can can see who last responded to the thread but nothing else. On head-fi, this same view also shows the first bit on the reply and a hyperlink to the post.

Is that possible? It's certainly nice to go directly to the last post in the thread.

 

I'm looking into it.

 

 

 

 

9 minutes ago, jhwalker said:

What I'm missing is the ability to go to the "first unread" post in a given thread.  It seems you can only go to the *last* posting, which means you may miss a number of posts from your last visit until this latest post.  Would love to see that back.

Also, would like to see some of the navigators reproduced in a footer-type "floating" band on the bottom of the page; e.g., "Unread Content" link - should not need to scroll up several pages of content just to click that link.

 

Agree with you about the first unread post button. Looking into it. Thanks for the feedback about links in the footer. Great idea.

 

 

 

9 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

It seems that we lost all the "go to last read" data for the old posts (not the new ones). No big deal ? ... I wonder. In a 1K+ posts topic I am now never going to go into it and continue where I suspended last time. So or I'd skip all after where I left off last time or I must find myself where I was. Neither I am going to do.

Not that anyone would care.

About the white space in between the lines : it now acts like Word (Windows). I mean, if I use Enter I want to go to the next line and nothing more. If I need an additional empty line, I'll use enter again.

Additionally, the Preview does not show the real outcome, as it seems (font is smaller).

Lastly, the X to go back (from Preview) to Edit mode is even less intuitive than my software. LOL.

Finally, I now see that tablet mode is less than twice the width of Phone mode. So true, this doesn't meake sense really (Phone looks to be about right).

Right, after pressing Enter one time to much for 10 times in this post ... maybe we should notice that no forum works so intelligently.

And oh, what about my sig. All the same empty lines just because I use new lines which are quite mandatory in such a situation.

And hey, I surely won't tell about how I personally hate the upside-down dropping down header of the page when scrolling down. I now this is hot, but ...

OK, I said finally halfway, but all looks way crowded from all angles possible.

  <-- Good !

Anyway, all meant well and just telling what springs to me.

Peter

 

Thanks for the feedback Peter. 

 

 

8 minutes ago, rickca said:

I agree that there is way too much wasted space on the left and right.  I'm using a 24" 16:10 display with 125% zoom with Chrome.  There is about 20.5" of horizontal screen space, and the CA content/ads are only using 13.5" of it.

 

Hi Rick - Tweaks are certainly possible, but I'm going to try this width for a little while. It's what almost all readability experts think is about right. I also understand that they don't speak for you and what you think matters :~)

 

 

 

7 minutes ago, Melvin said:

Nice work Chris!

A couple of minor questions:

1. Is the "Audio System" section of our profiles gone or am I just not finding it?
2. Blog entry editing? Where did it go? 

 

The Audio System section converted, but I can only find one small piece of it. I'm still looking, but don't plan on finding it.

What do you mean by blog entry editing?

 

 

5 minutes ago, R1200CL said:

Can't double tap space on my iPad to make a "." ?

 

Looking into it.

 

 

4 minutes ago, mvilla said:

Hi Chris, just confirming the two comments above. 

Massimo

 

Thanks.

[The Computer Audiophile]

33 minutes ago, jcn3 said:

I agree that the width of the space for thread text is too small. On my Samsung tablet, thread text is only about 40% of the available width on the screen.

Ads look to be about 40% of the width, too.

Width for user name, pic, etc. could definitely be less.

Thanks for the hard work this weekend. I bet you're exhausted!

Thanks for the constructive feedback. I understand change is tough but I also understand that not all change is good. That's why I'm very open to this feedback and making the experience as good as it can be.

I have a lot of caffein in me right now. Going on a few hours of sleep and no further sleep until tonight. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, Melvin said:

Found this to work quite nicely:

 

I really like you right now :~)

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, skatbelt said:

No signatures anymore and is the iOS app obolete?

Signature are still here. Correct, no iOS / Android apps right now and no immediate plans for it.

1 minute ago, Jud said:

Empathize with your sleep deprivation and grateful for your hard work.  It's turned out really well overall, especially on mobile.

Thanks Jud. I know I can't please everyone, but it's nice to please at least some people :~)

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, PeterSt said:

And Chris, outside of anything else ... I like the width. Let me be the only one, but I certainly agree with all the experts. Newspaper columns are small for the same reason (avoid moving head and find back the next line unconditionally instead of skip one or read the same).

And the scrolling complainers ? let them be. But remove the while vertical space. Now 50% is gained. Haha. 

What an endeavor ...

Thanks Peter.

One follow up Peter. how could I ever forget this post of yours, just hours after the last site upgrade - 

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

1 minute ago, Melvin said:

@The Computer Audiophile .. I was looking for a way to edit a previous Blog entry is all and couldn't seem to find a way.

BTW, is there no "preview" option for posts? I normally like to preview before submitting a reply.

 

I'll look at the blog editing thing. I believe preview is the little magnifying glass thing in the editing bar. Not the more intuitive. At least you can preview what it will look like on desktop and mobile :~)

[The Computer Audiophile]

I just changed the look of the editing bar on top of the posts. Is this better or worse for you guys?

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, Jud said:

There's a notification of topic replies that pops up at the bottom of my screen with a link saying "Show Reply" or "Show Replies."  Clicking it doesn't scroll me to the reply/ies.  Just my browser, or the same for everyone else?

I noticed this as well.

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 minutes ago, AudioDoctor said:

I am no longer seeing my audio system listed in my profile page.

 

It's a small thing, but I would make you aware of it Chris.

Correct, the content converted over to the new site, but it's lost somewhere deep within the database. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, PeterSt said:

I don't see a difference ? See my attachment a few posts back (about the Preview button).

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

3 minutes ago, bogi said:

As quite usual thing in my case, after I posted my previous post (in other thread) I found some typos and other small things I wanted to correct to make my post easier understandable. It took me about 5 minutes and during that time other forum member posted in that thread. Quite usual thing. But then I had trouble to post my edited change. It took maybe 2 minutes of waiting time and then I got:

Sorry, there is a problem

We could not locate the item you are trying to view.

Error code: 2S136/C

Contact Us

 

... and my editing change was lost. During that wait time I tried to open the forum main page in other browser tab and it also took long time. Then the forum became more responsive.

Thanks.

[The Computer Audiophile]

4 minutes ago, Elberoth said:

Out of all available formats, you had chosen the worst. HiFi Wigwam also uses it, and I hate it. One of the reasons I'm not more frequent to that forum. 

One feature I miss the most is the new posts button. 

 

What do you mean yo mis the new posts button? Have you tried all the "new" buttons under Activity? You can even create custom activity streams.

I realize you may want a much wider screen, but nearly all readability studies suggest this width is ideal. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

Just now, Kal Rubinson said:

I tend to hate change so take that into consideration.

Off the top, there is too much white space at the expense of information density on the screen.  Also, the font is too fine and small for comfort.

 

Thanks for the feedback. Going from a wide screen to this is kind of tough, but nearly all readability studies suggest this is the sweet spot with respect to number of characters and line length. 

I'm looking into the font size.