Site Issues, Updates, Changes, and Feedback Thread

[Jud]

1 minute ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

All of this great feedback coming from the guy who design this :~)

Hey, you can read it in low light. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 hours ago, Octagon said:

Hi Chris,

a lot of work on your desk, it will take some time for us to get along with all changes, no worries.  

 Could it be that all subscriptions are lost with the transition? In case, will that be updated later on or is that content finally lost?

Thanks

Thomas

I'm still receiving notification emails from my old subscriptions. Is this still broken for you?

[The Computer Audiophile]

5 hours ago, Musicophile said:

I must admit I haven't been through the full list of responses here. Just a quick question: how do you easily access the last entry of a given thread?

Like this?

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 hours ago, accwai said:

Two quick questions:

• How does one insert a video?
• Is there a way to turn off WYSIWYG and edit the BBCode directly?

Thanks!

Just paste a link to the video and the site will automatically embed the video.

Looking into enabling a "source" button for everyone.

[The Computer Audiophile]

54 minutes ago, tapatrick said:

+1

Good luck with the changes Chris and thanks for a fabulous forum.

Tapatalk is not connecting and showing threads and live updates, can't seem to log in to CA through tapatalk even though I updated my passwords in case that was the problem

Tapatalk will not work.

The amount of time involved to create an equivalent experience in the apps and web pages is much more than it should be. For now, app support is discontinued.

[Jud]

3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Looking into enabling a "source" button for everyone.

Could be nice for corner cases.

[tapatrick]

3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Tapatalk will not work.

The amount of time involved to create an equivalent experience in the apps and web pages is much more than it should be. For now, app support is discontinued.

Thanks Chris.

[PeterSt]

15 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

All of this great feedback coming from the guy who design this :~)

Yeah, great my feedback, don't you think ?

Anyway, it is known that you don't like SMF(orums) and there's not much more "design" to it than a lousy color scheme which *is* readable. But I see you don't like MQA much and blur the lot. I have mine of course deblurred (click on them to compare). Haha.

[The Computer Audiophile]

42 minutes ago, SamuelTCogley said:

Hi Chris

 

With due respect, your site is called "The Computer Audiophile".  Any chance you see the irony in severely diminishing the experience of your users that are accessing your site using desktop computers?

I ask again:  Isn't there a way to look at the User Agent string of the browser to determine if they're coming from a desktop and open the width?  The width of the avatar column seems to be OK for mobile browsers but not desktops?  Will you give users (like me) who didn't put spaces in their usernames an opportunity to do so now so it doesn't look so hideous?  It seems like the desktop experience is something that isn't as important to you as the mobile experience, which is odd because desktop computers are arguably the very center of interest of this forum.

Is your reluctance to open desktop browser width based somewhat on the ad layout?

 

There is a lot of talk about the desktop view being less than what it once was. When I compare the old layout to the new one, the number of characters per line is really not much different. Maybe 5-7 characters. 

I am looking at screen size to make adjustments, not user agent string. 

[The Computer Audiophile]

OK Guys - Here are some scrrenshots from old to new. The first one is a split screen showing the differences. The second one is a couple posts only and it's offset to line up the text area (with red bars highlighting the areas). You'll see there really isn't much difference in width for the text area.

[austinpop]

28 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

All feedback is welcome, especially that which is prefaced with kind words :~)

Those kinds words were well deserved!

28 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I can't change the links near the Unread Content link without a major change. 

Oh Ok, it was just a thought. At this point I can accomplish something similar by making my custom activities into browser bookmarks. Not the cleanest, but it does work.

28 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

I'm thinking about user selectable themes that would enable everyone to select from a number of options.

Yes. YES! Please!! I know that will help a lot of people.

28 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Auto scaling is something I tested, but disabled. I can re-enablel it. It's on my list of items to test again today.

That would be great.

28 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Can you elaborate on the signatures and your line spacing opinions?

Well, since the signature shouldn't take up too much real estate, the line width seems unnecessarily high. Is there any way to add line spacing as a formatting option? Or if not, consider coding a smaller line spacing on signatures. See my sig below for what I mean.

Thanks, Chris.

[The Computer Audiophile]

46 minutes ago, richard kimber said:

Are the notifications working correctly? I was up-to-date with this list, but then got a message saying there were 7 new items, but on refreshing the page there was only one.

 

And just after submitting the above it said 9 new messages, when mine was the latest one

Perhaps the timing isn't perfect or the notifications aren't real-time. A slight delay? I'll check.

[jhwalker]

5 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

OK Guys - Here are some scrrenshots from old to new. The first one is a split screen showing the differences. The second one is a couple posts only and it's offset to line up the text area (with red bars highlighting the areas). You'll see there really isn't much difference in width for the text area.

Good demonstration - what makes it look so different now is that the white space goes all the way to the edge of the screen, which makes everyone see there is an opportunity for more screen usage.

I also wasn't aware of all the space needed for ads, etc., as I've been a paid member for several years and never see them.

PS - I wound up zooming to 150% in Safari, which *almost* fills my screen  so I'm now content with the new, current layout.

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, jhwalker said:

Good demonstration - what makes it look so different now is that the white space goes all the way to the edge of the screen, which makes everyone see there is an opportunity for more screen usage.

I also wasn't aware of all the space needed for ads, etc., as I've been a paid member for several years and never see them.

PS - I wound up zooming to 150% in Safari, which *almost* fills my screen  so I'm now content with the new, current layout.

My original design for paid members eliminated the right sidebar completely (even the CA logo) and stretched the content all the way into the white space. However, due to the backend site design there is a screen reflow issue which is very annoying. Upon loading the page, all content is loaded at the narrow size, then it checks your membership to see you don't need ads, then it expands the design. All this happens in less than one second, but it's visible and annoying. 

[PeterSt]

Chris,

I think someone else tried to point out the same as I am going to show you now. Look :

First shot is from a certain width of my Chrome browser; Second shot is from the same browser but the right hand border was dragged a few mm to THE RIGHT. Thus, the internal browser's width scaling messes up.

Hope this is helpful.

[The Computer Audiophile]

@jhwalker

Here is the issue I was talking about:

 

[The Computer Audiophile]

2 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Chris,

I think someone else tried to point out the same as I am going to show you now. Look :

First shot is from a certain width of my Chrome browser; Second shot is from the same browser but the right hand border was dragged a few mm to THE RIGHT. Thus, the internal browser's width scaling messes up.

Hope this is helpful.

Maybe you need to close your browser or something. My view is much larger than yours. I said my "view" Peter.

[austinpop]

5 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

OK Guys - Here are some scrrenshots from old to new. The first one is a split screen showing the differences. The second one is a couple posts only and it's offset to line up the text area (with red bars highlighting the areas). You'll see there really isn't much difference in width for the text area.

Hi Chris,

Thanks for putting these before and after screenshots. Very interesting. I see now that the width issue is a psychological one in my brain, that is reacting to the monochromaticity and white space.

Now that I see your old site, would you consider retaining some of the best elements in your new design?

1. Your old site's font was awesome. The new font is just... unremarkable.
2. The light blue and gray backgrounds under various screen elements on the old design made a world of difference. It really highlights the need for themes. I suspect us older, hidebound audiophiles would cheer a "classic" theme that captures as many visual elements of the old look as possible!

[Jud]

43 minutes ago, Jud said:

I was wondering the same, until I realized Alex "pinned" all the threads at the top that are newer than those below.  He's just pinned a relatively large number of threads, so that's why you're not seeing the most recent activity at first glance.

Sorry, pinned all the threads at the top that are *older* than those below....

[PeterSt]

3 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

Maybe you need to close your browser or something. My view is much larger than yours. I said my "view" Peter.

I am sorry, but what do you mean with "my view" (in bold) ? (English again ).

Anyway, I stopped and restarted the browser and see no difference. Here's the maximum width I can drag regarding monitor (width of 1650). After some threshold only white adds.

Btw have no real issues with most of the things I mention so I am only trying to help a little.

[Jud]

22 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

Chris,

I think someone else tried to point out the same as I am going to show you now. Look :

First shot is from a certain width of my Chrome browser; Second shot is from the same browser but the right hand border was dragged a few mm to THE RIGHT. Thus, the internal browser's width scaling messes up.

Hope this is helpful.

Interesting that it shortens the lines when you *increase* the horizontal window size (dragging the right hand border to the right).  Will have to wait until I'm home to experiment.  I have 4 browsers (edit: 5, now that I think of it) on 3 different OSs and a couple of different monitors I can play with.

[Jud]

3 minutes ago, PeterSt said:

I am sorry, but what do you mean with "my view" (in bold) ? (English again ).

He means his is bigger, rather than other things that could be bigger....

[mansr]

8 minutes ago, austinpop said:

Your old site's font was awesome. The new font is just... unremarkable.

The old one used Verdana. Now it's Helvetica with Arial as fallback. Personally, I quite like Helvetica.

[PeterSt]

8 minutes ago, austinpop said:

I see now that the width issue is a psychological one in my brain,

I don't think so.

 

8 minutes ago, austinpop said:

The new font is just... unremarkable.

There is something with this too. Can we compare fonts perhaps ? Look below for what I see :

[jcn3]

28 minutes ago, The Computer Audiophile said:

OK Guys - Here are some scrrenshots from old to new. The first one is a split screen showing the differences. The second one is a couple posts only and it's offset to line up the text area (with red bars highlighting the areas). You'll see there really isn't much difference in width for the text area.

chris,

 

one thing to note is the use of space with regards to texts.  on the new site:

* spacing between lines is much more, allowing fewer words per vertical inch

* spacing between paragraphs is much more, again allowing less words per vertical inch.  i'd actually prefer no additional spacing with returns -- doing two to create a new paragraph.

also, is the font bigger?  is seems like it is, but on your example they look the same.

thanks again for all the work -- it is appreciated.  we all get a lot of value from the site!