New forum being tested.

GBP-Keith

If you want to have a play then try out this link. for the next few days postings here and on the trial forum may get lost so maybe keep that in mind please. Your normal login info should work at the test forum.

http://greenbuilding.co.uk/vanilla%202/

GBP-Keith

the themes and layouts will change lots over the next few day so don't panic. I'm trying to get it to match this site somewhat for a starter.

fostertom

Wow, looks good

tony

Lightning

GBP-Keith

Have you been able to sign in guys?

SteamyTea

How do you just quote the highlighted text, rather than the whole post?
It did not seem to jump to the last post I have read, rather it goes to the beginning.
I managed to sign in.

tony

Aaaaarghhh I don't like my face!

I did sign in and did post something

SteamyTea

Tony
Does it remind you of any other forum sites :wink:

GBP-Keith

Not sure at the moment Steamy. A lot of the addons for this version did not survive the upgrade sadly.

GBP-Keith

Hey i've just applied the bootstrap theme and it looks groovy but some of the files failed to upload so it may be shaky.

SteamyTea

Um
Now you have put all the stuff that was on the left over to the right.
Reminds me of driving an old BMC car.

GBP-Keith

i didn't do that it automates by the theme.

It is cumfy over here.

Shall I try to match this one exactly?

Maybe we need ~a poll?

GBP-Keith

i want a like button and cannot find one!!

SteamyTea

I think that the biggest criticism of the old style is that we cannot quote and put a hyper link in.
Things like the the Flag, Like, Share are just bells and whistles that can start to clutter the interface up.

GBP-Keith

I think the quote on the new board will allow hyperlinks but you will have to probably cut the bits you don't want quoted.

GBP-Keith

Sadly for you lot i found a like button.

blacksmith

Like it - easy to navigate around and I like the larger text- sign in is fine and it's a quick site to get around using Google Chrome - makes a nice change to get a smooth site using a satellite connection.

SteamyTea

Posted By: blacksmitheasy to navigate around

Try bookmarking a thread and going back to it, all it did for me was go to the beginning of the thread, not where I left off.

Posted By: blacksmithI like the larger text

Not tried this, but does it mean that we will all have to read a post that is put up in large text?
Sub and Super script would be more useful, as would Greek symbols.

SteamyTea

Try playing around with this one:
http://greenbuilding.co.uk/vanilla%202/discussion/13342/trying-out-the-limitation-on-the-new-site

GBP-Keith

Oddly I dont see the gear editor on your original posting.

GBP-Keith

Ah the edit gear is next to the subject heading. That's a bit like the this forum actually.

GBP-Keith

It seems quite groovy. Please keep looking I think I'll aim for a switchover maybe Sunday. And I will do my best to draw over latest posts from this forum but no guarantees right now I'm afraid. So chit chat like the election thread might be best for the next few days for safety.

Ed Davies

Mostly like - look forward to using. Particularly nice to be able to mix markup and links.

Would really advise against the space between “Vanilla” and “2” in the URL; the URL encoding as “Vanilla%202” will just be confusing.

Hope you can change the style so the posting column is wider - combined with the larger text it'll make for a lot of scrolling during reading.

Pity that using “Quote” takes the whole of the posting, even if a smaller part is selected. Editing it down without breaking the markup takes a bit of care and people already quote too much.

Gotanewlife

Posted By: Ed Daviesand people already quote too much.

Agree.

Triassic

I tried to post in the new forum but every time I clicked in the "Enter your comments" box the key board disappeared. I'm using a Kindle, so I don't have a real keyboard only a pop up keyboard.

I'm also only seeing in black and white, I also find the quoted text difficult to decipher, it should be in box, a different colour, or in italics, or something to differentiate it.

To end on a positive, Keith your doing great work and the new forum looks and feels great.

djh

Posted By: Ed DaviesHope you can change the style so the posting column is wider

The posting column should automatically adjust to the browser width!!!

At the moment, the headers are wider than my browser, so I have to sideways scroll to read them. It's diabolical.

Please just keep it simple and straightforward. i.e. web pages, not an app.

GBP-Keith

Wilco. I've not looked at the css yet as that is where I'll need to fine tune it with the points above. Also not looked at it from my phone either. Some stuff will have to be played around with after we migrate as I'm worried we are losing postings now. From Sat afternoon any new applicants will be sent there and on Sunday I'll try setting up redirects.

Fingers crossed.

PS has anyone looked for their uploaded images or illustrations yet as I'm not sure if they transferred?

GBP-Keith

Quotes is fixed. Give it a try. Type out your text. then highlight the text you are quoting and a little box appears, then trust the system to deliver and click post. Voila!

Image upload is fixed. little box in corner of posting box.

Triassic

Signed in to New site, but still can't post anything, I'm a Kindle user and the pop up key board won't work.

Write the above using the Kindle and the original site.

GBP-Keith

I'll try it from my phone later tonight. As you may have guessed I'm not switching today. i think we need another week to test. Sorry.

wookey

1) Smaller (too small) text in comments (OP text size is OK, why make the following ones smaller?). Can we please have comment text the same size as OP text. It's useable once I've zoomed a lot (and made the OP text overly large), but the default sucks.

2) Stupid fixed-width layout so I have 1/3 page of blank either side. That's idiotic. Hmm, actually this one is fixed-width too, but as it's about 1/3rd wider and thus fills my screen its not annoyed me. The new one is significantly narrower.

3) Works without javascript - tick VG

4) However the layout is broken without 3rd-party site: (ajax.googleapis). Without that enabled there is huge blank space the height of the side-bar category list and the comments appear below that. That's not an issue on this site. Not clear why it needs google ajax to put the comments at the top of the 2nd column.

5) Number of postings in sidebar is nice bit of info.

6) Signing in works

7) I preferred the pink background for unread over little yellow '2new' decal, but I guess they both work. (The writing is still tiny!)

8) Comment box is only 2 lines high by default. Exceedingly irritating. It is draggable, but that default size needs fixing. And it is a standard text box so addons like 'itsalltext' work nicely.

9) Posting works.

10) edit gear thing appears but clicking on it does nothing. OK. You can make it working by turning on javascript and exsternal google ajax site. Don't like that. What's the point of javascript to pop-up a one-item menu. The old site had the one item just there to click on: 'edit'. That was a better UI.

11) And now I get a nasty gui editor. Is there a way to turn that off?

So yes new site basically works. And it does fix the one major bug with existing site (HTML+link not possible), but at the expense of a lot of UI changes, mostly for the worse. Some of those are presumably easily fixable. It does at least mostly work without 3rd-party code you have no control over, but the loss of 'edit' without that is a big deal. I would never host a site running 3rd-part javascript live, I'd have a local copy.

I'll try using it a bit more and see how it goes. Is this still 'Vanilla'? I don't see a reference on the new site.