Differences between the old and new version of phpbb & proposed changes

My apologies: since I only have access to the desktop version (my phone has no useful internet access and would cost a fortune to use for that), I haven't seen the mobile version.


<rant mode>
Ok, so if there is a "desktop" and a "mobile" version, why did they have to screw up the "desktop" version with mobile features?

(most especially enlarging *everything* when font+/- browser function is used, when the *only* thing it should enlarge is the text of posts/etc, but instead even spaces between things are enlarged, as well as the actual things, making for huge waste of space and making it harder to read/use, when instead it should be making it easier).
</rant mode>
 
Hm the automatic log out is still very much at large. If I use a bookmark to hit a certain subforum as soon as I use the updated bookmarked URL I get to view that subforum as logged out. I did change the URL in the bookmarks to HTTPS from HTTP and that fixed it the first time, no this log in bs is back and this time I have already done the https part. What to do now?

Btw why is the board even using dynamically generated URL's like it is? I thought it was best practice 10+ years ago to keep even dynamic websites like forum/cms/wiki etc. uing friendly URL's to aid with SEO as well as user optimization?


Edited: Cleared board cookies and log out problem vanished. Don't know if that was an indicator of root cause or just plain random occurrence?
 
neptronix said:
Well, i had just spent the last 36 hours of my life getting this transition done. . . .

I really hadn't thought of it as anything other than that. Just wanted to make sure the point I was making didn't get lost. It STILL seems much like the old board, which was always fine with me. I've yet to see it simply not work as others have been saying, which is really something seeing as how I have some very unreliable DSL that doesn't let me watch YouTube straight through unless the video is real short. There's not much of anything that works as well as here. Helps to not have Flash, eh?

Oh, but somebody had to hijack and misrepresent my post for his own purposes and for taking the opportunity to be hateful, (And RUDE) about something else I had no trouble with but he wanted to act like I did. Oh the joy of grandstanding and . . . .

Anyway, yes, thank you for all your work on this. All the money they spend on so much of the internet that's never so much fun as the labors of love, eh?

Oh, but I am curious, is there a guide to those new icons that appear on certain threads? I mean I can get that the radioactive one means they're gettin' into it again, the others leave room for speculation.

Also, if I've quoted someone in a post there's a link that brings it up, "Notifications," upper right. But when I tried to use the report button on a spam post it gave me that same page.
 
teklektik said:
amberwolf said:
Clicking the icon with the red star (or other red icon; it's a red page in SE_Square_Left) should take you to the first unread post in the thread.
That only works on the desktop version, not on the mobile version - which if anything would benefit more from direct links to avoid squinting and flicking.
amberwolf said:
My apologies: since I only have access to the desktop version (my phone has no useful internet access and would cost a fortune to use for that), I haven't seen the mobile version.
Actually - my Bad - sort of...

It turns out that the mobile version (of Prosilver) looks and operates about the same as the desktop version regarding this 'last read' behavior.

That said, it turns out that ES and (Android) Chrome are handling logins differently that the old ES (but Firefox is unchanged). The mistake above came about because I was (suddenly) not logged in and hadn't noticed. With the old site, I could log in once and whenever I tapped a home screen link to ES, Chrome would open with ES and I would *still* be logged in on the new tab. Not so now - I have to login on every tab, so I guess I have to rummage through the Chrome settings and try to find out what isn't working so well.

In a related vein, I discovered that using the Chrome 'Data Saver' option that compresses pages before download was preventing me from logging in at all under the new ES (Android tablet). I'm guessing the second-hand compressed page shared something in common with the second tab problem above...
 
If you still have problems with suddenly being logged out, you are clicking a link from http:// instead of https://. The only way to retain your login status is to change these bookmarks to https:// ( certain browsers consider http:// and https:// to be separate sites and lose cookies if you switch back/forth. )
Unfortunately we'll be seeing this issue until 2018 when our SSL certificate provider finally allows wildcard certificates so that i can force forward all traffic to https://, which should fix this issue.

Also, about the 'go to top' button.. that was one of the things i thought nobody used, and wanted to save visual space for mobile devices, so i removed it. Since a bunch of people commented on it, i've brought it back.. but tucked it in the far right so that it uses less visual space.

I have tweaked a few fonts here. Things like signatures have gotten a font size bump. The fonts on these new phpbb3.2 themes are so tiny by default!

Okay, in regards to likes/dislikes/reactions.. the 2 phpbb extensions that are designed to do that turn out to be a bit questionable and might require some tweaking /coding on my part, so i'm moving that idea deep into the 'hard stuff' list.

Tele's suggestion of having a post title click take the user to the last page seems like a good idea, but that requires some hacking on phpbb's internals. I forget, did the forum work that way before?
I'm putting the 'back to top' arrow fix for mobile on the back burner though while i fry some bigger fish.
 
macribs said:
Btw why is the board even using dynamically generated URL's like it is? I thought it was best practice 10+ years ago to keep even dynamic websites like forum/cms/wiki etc. uing friendly URL's to aid with SEO as well as user optimization?

Yeah, so.. knightMB did not have the foresight in 2007 to enable that kind of functionality ( maybe it didn't even exist back then..? ), and god knows how many gazillion references there are to this URL format we've had forever..
We talked about this and decided to not break all those links that have been on google for so many years, but i'd like to look into potentially running both URL systems at once, if that is possible at all ( probably not ). Added this task to my hard list, but there's no guarantees it'll happen.

macribs said:
Edited: Cleared board cookies and log out problem vanished. Don't know if that was an indicator of root cause or just plain random occurrence?

That's awesome to hear. Stored 301 redirects were probably to blame.
Eventually all this login/logout stuff SHOULD vanish early next year. Sorry for the annoyance.
 
As for friendly URL iirc we started using them back in 2004-2005 ish. It was fairly new back then. I think what we did was not altering the db for older stuff but turning on friendly urls for new db entries. I think we at one point got it all converted to friendly url. The dynamic links are still generated for each db entry. Like each thread, post, update etc. But friendly url's are generated at the same time. If you like I could look up some of that stuff, think i still go the code. Could look up how we did it and see if I can give you pointers. Thing is, when it is first implemented it will help not only with search engines but also those links makes more sense for each user as well.
 
Okay, i kicked a few things off the list:

2) Removing the subject from replies in thread views after the first post ( really.. this is just a waste of space that clutters things up )
4) Images become a thumbnail when you are quoting someone ( screen space saver.. especially for mobile )

This one got removed because it did not work as advertised:

6) 'Share on' extension, which helps social media services like facebook, twitter, and reddit show better previews of our content. ( I am looking forward to this very much. )

This one got thrown on the backburner because it caused the database to crash upon install ( sorry about that; did not expect that to happen ):

4) Installation of the stop forum spam extension.. hopefully this will help the moderators.
 
Updated 'easy list':

1) Basic emoji support.
2) A way to actually contact the administrator.
5) adjust mysql / php timeout ( too long! )

Updated 'hard list':

1) Distinct page links for 'about us', 'the rules', 'wiki', etc instead of having them as sticky posts or scattered about the site. These would show up in mobile mode.
2) Original poster icon on left of the view topic list..
3) Reactions.. aka likes, dislikes, etc.. although this is a big change i'd have to pass by moderators/justin/etc. I still want to test the functionality though.
4) Forum category icons... another one we'll have to hash out before deploying.
5) Installation of the stop forum spam extension.. hopefully this will help the moderators. Caused a database crash on transform last time.
6) Clicking forum thread title goes to page in the thread.
7) Fix back2top arrows in mobile
8) investigate mod_rewrite.
9) bring back google search for nicer URLs
 
neptronix said:
If you still have problems with suddenly being logged out, you are clicking a link from http:// instead of https://. The only way to retain your login status is to change these bookmarks to https:// ( certain browsers consider http:// and https:// to be separate sites and lose cookies if you switch back/forth. )

My home screen links to ES already use https://.
That is not the cause of the difficulty I experienced.


(Since we seem to be posting in bold today...)
 
My request is simple. So simple that I suspect it might be available as an option. On the old board, there was a "my posts" text link in one of the headers. Now I have to use the Quick Links pull-down menu. Just about everthing that is on the Quick Links menu could be spread across that same empty bar where the Quick Links menu link sits. Visually that would be more cluttered, but it would be functionally simpler. But frankly, I really would just like to have direct access to "my links."

Yeah, I could probably make a browser shortcut for that ... and maybe I will.
 
neptronix said:
Tele's suggestion of having a post title click take the user to the last page seems like a good idea, but that requires some hacking on phpbb's internals. I forget, did the forum work that way before?
No, it took you to the first post.

On Subsilver2, to the right of the last poster in the "my subscriptions" page or the "unread posts" page, there was a little arrow and page icon that would take you to the last post.

There were also "Go to page" numbers by the title to the left side of the screen.

There was nothing to take you to the first unread post, however (which the new one in SE Square Left does have, in the red star or red page icon), which is better than taking you to the last post or page (at least for me).

SESL does also have the same things Subsilver2 had in the old forum (some look slightly different), except they dont' always show up.

I suspect that's part of the problems people are having, and it's caused by the "adaptive" scripting or whatever it's called.


In the current version, at least with SE Square Left, what you get on screen for controls, and how they are positioned, and possibly how they behave, depends on your font+/- choice in your browser, screen size/window size. It may also depend on which browser you use (I'm on an older Firefox because I can't upgrade or I'll lose addons, data, and settings I require), and possibly which OS (Android vs IOS vs Windows etc). Possibly even which kind of device (tablet vs phone vs desktop).

That is part of the problem I have--it shouldn't be like that--the controls should always be in the same place, and always the same size (possibly larger on mobile devices because they have to be operated by fingers, but that's useless and problematic on desktops (99.99999999% of them don't have touchscreens)). And it shouldn't take stuff off the screen as browser font size is adjusted--sometimes the point of me trying to adjust it was to read stuff it doesn't show after I do it. :roll:
 
Maybe its already asked and clarified, but in other forums you can just paste (ctrl+v) an image instead of having to open an image editor, paste the image, save a .jpg/.png to your disk, uploading and deleting the file.

Can we get image clipboard capabilities?
 
wturber said:
My request is simple. So simple that I suspect it might be available as an option. On the old board, there was a "my posts" text link in one of the headers. Now I have to use the Quick Links pull-down menu. Just about everthing that is on the Quick Links menu could be spread across that same empty bar where the Quick Links menu link sits. Visually that would be more cluttered, but it would be functionally simpler. But frankly, I really would just like to have direct access to "my links."

A couple people griped about this, so i looked into it.
I couldn't just add a link next to quick links, because in mobile mode, there's no space for it. On smaller screens, the quick links cannot fit in the small horizontal space.

What i ended up doing is putting a 'view your posts' link to the left of the 'mark forums read' link, like the old system.
This is not visible everywhere, but it fits in most places.
 
amberwolf said:
That is part of the problem I have--it shouldn't be like that--the controls should always be in the same place, and always the same size (possibly larger on mobile devices because they have to be operated by fingers, but that's useless and problematic on desktops (99.99999999% of them don't have touchscreens)). And it shouldn't take stuff off the screen as browser font size is adjusted--sometimes the point of me trying to adjust it was to read stuff it doesn't show after I do it. :roll:

I don't see what you are seeing at all, but i have a 1920 x 1080 28" screen. When i zoom in or zoom out, things just scale in proportion.
Same thing on the 1600 x 900 17" laptop i have..
Do you have a small/low resolution monitor or something? it might explain why elements move around and disappear.. because you're basically making the theme go into mobile mode by zooming so far in.

There is really no fix for this other than spending months rewriting phpbb's css and html.

By the way, 60% ( and growing ) of the internet's web browsing traffic is mobile devices these days, so a site has to work with mobile and desktop.. all kinds of design changes have to happen in order for a layout to work on both. This new version of PhpBB does a hell of a job balancing desktop and mobile compatibility. I've seen far worse designs. :shock:
 
marcos said:
Maybe its already asked and clarified, but in other forums you can just paste (ctrl+v) an image instead of having to open an image editor, paste the image, save a .jpg/.png to your disk, uploading and deleting the file.

Can we get image clipboard capabilities?

Are those phpbb forums? if so, send me a few examples of that kind of functionality in action and i'll look into it.

Otherwise, one cool feature of this phpbb3.2 is that you can drag an image from your desktop into the text editor and it'll automatically upload the file to the board.. pretty nifty.
 
neptronix said:
What i ended up doing is putting a 'view your posts' link to the left of the 'mark forums read' link, like the old system.
This is not visible everywhere, but it fits in most places.

I don't see this. Where is it?
 
fechter said:
I don't see this. Where is it?

You'll see it in the upper left in the board index, or in a category view.



In a forum view, it's on the right.

The one place it's not visible is in the individual posts. Although... i might be able to jam it in by shuffling the theme around.
This theme just doesn't always have a consistent place for the link to go.
 
neptronix said:
Are those phpbb forums? if so, send me a few examples of that kind of functionality in action and i'll look into it.

Not really, I've seen in forums like this, I don't remember the name of the platform.
https://forum.kicad.info/

The copy/paste feature makes it much quicker for us who need to communicate technical stuff.
 
neptronix said:
A couple people griped about this, so i looked into it.
I couldn't just add a link next to quick links, because in mobile mode, there's no space for it. On smaller screens, the quick links cannot fit in the small horizontal space.

What i ended up doing is putting a 'view your posts' link to the left of the 'mark forums read' link, like the old system.
This is not visible everywhere, but it fits in most places.

I appreciate you taking the time to do this. Thanks!
 
neptronix said:
But here is what's planned.. aka the 'easy list':
...
2) Removing the subject from replies in thread views after the first post ( really.. this is just a waste of space that clutters things up )
Works fine except in the not often occurring case when merging a separately posted topic into a larger topic whereupon the separately posted topic's Subject: field was lost.
Example: Safe lipos incoming! by helpfulguy was merged into Thread for new battery breakthrough PR releases.

Also, because the post's title isn't there any more, can no longer easily get its url by hovering cursor over its title and right-click selecting "Copy link location." Have to hit the "i" get info button and access it in there.

Just commenting about it and not at all a complaint. Overall, the new way is better. :)
 
You can use the red (or gray) page icon to get the link to the individual post. Either right click and copy URL or click the page and then copy teh URL from your browser's bar.
 
neptronix said:
fechter said:
I don't see this. Where is it?

You'll see it in the upper left in the board index, or in a category view.

2017-11-30 07_59_10-Moderator Forum - Endless Sphere.png

In a forum view, it's on the right.

The one place it's not visible is in the individual posts. Although... i might be able to jam it in by shuffling the theme around.
This theme just doesn't always have a consistent place for the link to go.

Not in ProSilver theme.

Just curious; is there a theme editor somewhere? Some features are present only in certain themes. Some features should be in all themes.
I sort of like the Milk theme except the font colors make some things really invisible.

It would be great if there was a view your posts or quick links button at the bottom of the page next to the Home and Board index, etc.
 
mark5 said:
neptronix said:
But here is what's planned.. aka the 'easy list':
...
2) Removing the subject from replies in thread views after the first post ( really.. this is just a waste of space that clutters things up )
Works fine except in the not often occurring case when merging a separately posted topic into a larger topic whereupon the separately posted topic's Subject: field was lost.
Example: Safe lipos incoming! by helpfulguy was merged into Thread for new battery breakthrough PR releases.

Also, because the post's title isn't there any more, can no longer easily get its url by hovering cursor over its title and right-click selecting "Copy link location." Have to hit the "i" get info button and access it in there.

Just commenting about it and not at all a complaint. Overall, the new way is better. :)

Hm, those seem like pretty minor nags. I know that having the title not always there does look rather weird ( given that we're used to that being there)... however, it really declutters the overall view of the post.
 
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