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

No, i feel the same. i'm in my mid 30's and grew up with desktop computers. Mobile devices are hobbled due to their wonky input and small screen. It results in the web being full of typos and short content. They're convenient for reading.. horrible for writing.

The worst thing about mobile devices is that they've turned web design into either a nightmare ( if you care about how things are presented ), or a cluster frock ( if you don't care about how things are presented and you use garbage frameworks that are 'mobile first', which lend themselves to designs with huge gaps in space, bizarrely large text, low detail density, etc on desktops. )

So yeah, a lot of web designers choose the latter, and the web is mostly designed for the lowest common denominator now.

I'm committed to keeping ES a desktop computer oriented site. I think mobile compatibility is good these days, but it comes secondary. We explored moving to several other message board systems and didn't find anything better, from a desktop usability standpoint. Pretty much everything else was better on mobile. It just seems like a proper design for both is super rare.
 
I used to be hard core xhtml and css advocate back in the days when I did freelance web work. Back then we worked really hard to get the fastest load time by reducing code due to lack of bandwidth. xDSL was still for the few, ISDN was still strong and we where slowly moving from 2G to 3G. Back then the hardest part was IE and the microsoft way of reading or rather writing css to screen. So many hacks and tricks to get content displayed in similar ways across different browsers, and MS could not follow standards and had their own way.. Back then no one even thought of mobile devices. I mean WAP failed and the very first "smart phones" was really more of a PDA with a modem. Any in-field web browsing going on, people used their smartphone as a modem and connecting their laptop to their "smartphone" rather then using those expensive pcmcia expansion cards or fiddle with their Ericsson R380 et al. So we didn't have to worry about compliance with mobil devices.

The dynamic web brings back good and bad memories, asp, php, SQL and MySQL and then the shift into the .NET era. Now that made for speedy development and good code re use. And then I moved to dynamic portal framework and open source rather then doing things "by hand". 3rd party module warehouses where we could sell our modules,or buy modules from others, even fortune 500 companies used the same framework we did. And eventually the web did turn from static to dynamic, it just took far longer then I ever would imagine.
 
A lot has changed. Knowing 5 languages is mandatory now. It's not fun anymore; it's work!
 
I dont know what it is, but the forum has changed. Before the borders were fixed. Now it moves with Zooming (cntrl + mouse wheel)
I have changed my pc around, fresh install of o/s onto ssd so that might be why its changed for me.

Oh as for mobile stuff, yeah I dont do webstuff on mobiles, just basic searches for cheating on crossword puzzles.
Keep it desktop oriented!
Less work, more ebiking fun!
 
markz said:
I dont know what it is, but the forum has changed. Before the borders were fixed. Now it moves with Zooming (cntrl + mouse wheel)
I have changed my pc around, fresh install of o/s onto ssd so that might be why its changed for me.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Is it a problem? if so, let's see some screenshots.

The borders are relatively fixed in size/position for me in firefox until you get into really big or really small size, and then what happens is expected.
 
neptronix said:
markz said:
I dont know what it is, but the forum has changed. Before the borders were fixed. Now it moves with Zooming (cntrl + mouse wheel)
I have changed my pc around, fresh install of o/s onto ssd so that might be why its changed for me.

I'm not sure what you mean by that. Is it a problem? if so, let's see some screenshots.

The borders are relatively fixed in size/position for me in firefox until you get into really big or really small size, and then what happens is expected.

It is not a problem, I prefer it this way now. I use Mozilla Firefox as well.

Before, I'd zoom in or out, the text would get bigger or smaller, but the borders/margins were fixed and would never increase or decrease.

For example, you see the phpBB Endless Sphere title, with the search on the right - all encapsulated in the dark blue. Before that box, along with everything else below it (Quick links, FAQ, Home Board Index. And everything below that, Categories) would stay fixed, sure the text would change. I am saying now, the borders/margins change with zooming in and out.

Pics of course are the new way, which is better. I dont know if anyone else had it the way I had it, or if it was just me.

Clipboard01.jpg

Clipboard02.jpg
 
Oh geez, the default theme looks bad.. :lol:
 
Se NX is the one i customized. It's got fixes for a lot of the issues that the default theme has.

I forget what i did with the themes.. if i forced new users into the NX, or old ones into the NX theme.

( ps, for everyone else.. the nx theme looks like this: )
2018-05-11 18_49_46-(2) Endless Sphere - Post a reply.png
 
neptronix said:
Oh geez, the default theme looks bad.. :lol:
Not really.

I know you have put effort into the NX version, but I find it somewhat unattractive and difficult to read. The uniformly large font, dark high contrast edge fills, and blocky title typeface all make it difficult to focus on the text body. This is a physiological phenomena - the human visual system is drawn to areas of high contrast and complexity so large high contrast titles and surrounds make it physically more difficult to see the body text.

I find the Prosilver theme to be more attractive, to have a more compact index presentation, and to be far easier to read.

But, different strokes for different folks.... :D
 
Tbh stock theme works fine, and the silver is also great. In my mind a great theme is one that people do not really notice much and do not really think much of, rather they just keep using the forum.

If I could have my way I guess a slimmer one would be my choice, where one could collapse certain parts of default layout to better fit the screen you are on at the time. Reason for this is if I am away in the RV the laptop I then carry is an old HP with sad screen resolution of 1366x768. I don't really use that very often but when I do it is really a painful experience. Because I got to use fairly large text that impacts screen layout. Top banner seems too big, and the only important thing in there is the search field. The next <div> with quick links, notifications and the one div below that with forum path just seems to take up so much screen real estate. If those all where collapsible it would make general browsing more pleasant on that low res screen. Then I could restore for search etc. Or most likely searching is done via new tab and google anyway using site:endless-sphere.com

But it is not something that is important to me, nothing I spend time thinking.
 
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.
Been looking at and reading this forum since 2007. Today it happened. I was curious and clicked [Mark forums read] button at the right top of the main screen. It happened :( Now it appears like I have read every word on this entire forum. Before today, read posts and topics showed up as blue. Unread posts and topics showed up as red. Now the entire forum is blue. Only a few topics from today are now red.

Is there a way to undo this? Been searching the internet for hours. Think this blunder is permanent. I am doomed. :cry: Seems like there is no way to undo this. Yes I tried the [Delete cookies] button at bottom right of screen. Tried browser, Clear All History. Did not work.

Why is there such a horrible [Mark forums read] button? Who would want to lie to them selves and pretend they read every word on this entire forum?

Guess my only option at this point is to actually read every word written from the birth of this forum in 2006, to Jun 25 2022 Sometime around 12:00 noon. This is going to take awhile. How am I going to remember all this?

Read, reed, rede, read, and red. Getting mixed up with the definition of these words.
 
There's no way to undo it except some extensive database surgery.

This is not transferred through to Xenforo as far as i know. So everyone is going to experience this on the new platform. Bummer, but it will work it's way out in time.
 
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