Issues after 2023 site upgrade

[Koloss17]

32 minutes ago, The cheeseman said:

Click the threw bars at the top if you're on mobile

  Reveal hidden contents

And there is a button that says "Forums"

  Reveal hidden contents

 

Yeah, I know, but before you just clicked the Shard logo and went right up to forums. So that’s more steps than there was before. But it’s a slight nitpick.

[ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ]

Here there is a poll that nobody can vote on. There was a previous poll that was voted on, but it was changed, and there simply is not a place to vote but it shows options. 
I am on mobile.

[Experience]

I'm trying to figure out why some of these names are italicized. They seem sketchy at random. Not a bug, just curious

[Ravenclawjedi42]

6 minutes ago, Experience said:

I'm trying to figure out why some of these names are italicized. They seem sketchy at random. Not a bug, just curious

I’m pretty sure that the italics means that the person is currently typing.

[The Aspiring Archivist]

12 minutes ago, Experience said:

I'm trying to figure out why some of these names are italicized. They seem sketchy at random. Not a bug, just curious

What Ravenclawjedi said is correct. It's not super accurate, though, from what I can tell

[Aeoryi]

3 hours ago, Ravenclawjedi42 said:

I’m pretty sure that the italics means that the person is currently typing.

Chaos confirmed this on discord a while back. Italicized means typing.

[ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ]

I noticed that there is now a limit on characters in our contact info. However ones that are already past the limit are only unable to be added to. 
Thank you for keeping those intact, but why the limit?

[Chaos]

10 hours ago, Coolmint said:

From a tablet, I can't see where to change the font size, but the default size is too tiny.

There have never been global font size options even on the old version; you'll need to use your browser's Zoom functionality, I'm afraid.

9 hours ago, The Sibling said:

When you ever over shardcast in the menu an the it shows the recent episodes it doesn't show the newest one.

We are aware of this! Thanks.

48 minutes ago, ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ said:

I noticed that there is now a limit on characters in our contact info. However ones that are already past the limit are only unable to be added to. 
Thank you for keeping those intact, but why the limit?

Probably to prevent you all from doing the nonsense you were doing  

The old ones will be going away.

[Treamayne]

So, a few days in - and in the interest of feedback, I thought I would post my thoughts so far:

The Good:

Spoiler

• Very glad to see the post Rep count come back
• The badges attached to the profile pic - especially the fact that the tool-tip on hover gives the meaning
  • Looking forward to this possibly expanding, as long as they are relevant data rather than "bling" since that would cause important data to be lost in the noise.
• Very happy that the "mark forum read" now only applies to the level at which it is clicked, so I can "dismiss" noise in one forum (like spam in Cosmere Discussino" without losing the "unread" status everywhere else on the forum
• Content View Behaviour in the Settings. Maybe this was in the old forum and I never realized it, but having the discretion to change this is pretty storming cool
• Forum speed and responsiveness is noticeably improved
• Author tags - how did it take me this long to notice this awesome addition?

The Bad:

Spoiler

• Hiding the "report post" in a menu just seems like a bad idea - though I don't think we have a choice
• I cannot emphasize how much I hate the lack of a hover delay on the "Shardcast" and "More" menus - this pop-up bites me multiple times an hour and I constantly have to browser-back-button, move-the-mouse, wait-for-it-to-hide-itself, try-clicking-again - all because every time I switch pages it moves to top of the page, and the Shardcast happens to line up with the navigation list (clicking on the bolded example below opens the stupid menu around 90% of the time in my experience so far):

  • Home > Forums > The Cosmere > Subforum > Thread

• The "Edit Conversation" page. I still have been unable to determine what causes it (have only seen it on a few PMs - and not even all responses for a given chain of messages), but when it does happen it usually means you have to open a new tab to reference the rest of the converation because it segregates the single post with no context (unlike editing averything else, which open the editor in-place). Again, not likely something that can be fixed, but good to note for any future possible upgrades that this behaviour can be problematic.

The Ugly:

Spoiler

• Eye-Searing Orange Banner really needs a "dismiss" button to close it
• Post metrics (or whatever we call the sidebar on PC) with random data about the thread
  • This should either float so that the thread doesn't seem to waste so much space or be selectable in settings so we can turn it off. Having 20%(ish) of my screen be nothing but washed-out gray the majority of the time is rather off-putting. It also makes we wonder if this was a feature that was requested, or just something we are stuck with because "that's how the upgrade works."
  • It's also super annoying because it's so inconsistent - at least it does not seem to show up in every thread.
• Question Mark Poll icons seems very counterintuitive since a gray "?" is fairly common as an indication that "this image is missing". I'm sure I'll adjust eventually, but it really is an odd design choice. Especially since the same icon is used in the Q&A forum, but with a different meaning.
• The Heart Icon (like) replacing the old rep icon

Wishlist:

Spoiler

• Seach my posts from Profile>My Activity
  • Not that it is difficult to open the advanced search and "search by user" adding myself, just seems like a search in "my activity" is obvious and lacking
• An "Expand all" button or selector for a thread. Some of these discussions have a lot of references, WoBs, etc., and having to click "expand" 20 times per page is less than fun
• Return of Rep Source since there is no Negative Rep any more
  • Even if it is only mentioned in the Alert rather than on the post
  • "Treamayne gave you a rep" (or liked your post as the new version says)

I'm sure I'll think of more, so I'll just update this post when that happens

Edited October 25, 2023 by Treamayne
Edit 20231025

[Chaos]

55 minutes ago, ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ said:

I noticed that there is now a limit on characters in our contact info. However ones that are already past the limit are only unable to be added to. 
Thank you for keeping those intact, but why the limit?

I actually looked at this setting; we don't have limits in place on those contact info fields, so this may be a bug? We can institute limits (and frankly, should), but just wanted to report on this.

4 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

Post metrics (or whatever we call the sidebar on PC) with random data about the thread

• This should either float so that the thread doesn't seem to waste so much space or be selectable in settings so we can turn it off. Having 20%(ish) of my screen be nothing but washed-out gray the majority of the time is rather off-putting. It also makes we wonder if this was a feature that was requested, or just something we are stuck with because "that's how the upgrade works."
• It's also super annoying because it's so inconsistent - at least it does not seem to show up in every thread.

This is a thing we can turn off if people really don't like it, but I think it can be useful. It turns on after there's enough posts on the topic. Obviously if there are two posts, there's 

 

6 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

I cannot emphasize how much I hate the lack of a hover delay on the "Shardcast" and "More" menus - this pop-up bites me multiple times an hour and I constantly have to browser-back-button, move-the-mouse, wait-for-it-to-hide-itself, try-clicking-again - all because every time I switch pages it moves to top of the page, and the Shardcast happens to line up with the navigation list (clicking on the bolded example below opens the stupid menu around 90% of the time in my experience so far):

• Home > Forums > The Cosmere > Subforum > Thread

This is a little confusing to me, I'll be honest. Clicking on the link as you suggest absolutely does not trigger it. Seems that you are accidentally hovering over it, repeatedly? Unless this is a weird browser thing, I cannot replicate this at all.

Also, you are back buttoning to remove the popup?

I do appreciate the feedback and we may make alterations, but this is a bit baffling of feedback, I'll admit xD In the meantime, you can hover over slightly to the right or left of Shardcast and it instantaneously goes away, right? There shouldn't be any waiting at all. Maybe I'm missing something; I'm more confused than anything.

[Treamayne]

15 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Obviously if there are two posts, there's 

This seems unfinished?

15 minutes ago, Chaos said:

This is a little confusing to me, I'll be honest. Clicking on the link as you suggest absolutely does not trigger it. Seems that you are accidentally hovering over it, repeatedly? Unless this is a weird browser thing, I cannot replicate this at all.

May I ask this? If you place your mouse about an inch above "Shardcast" and move your mouse straight down (no hover) to click "The Cosmere" in the navigation line, does the Shardcast menu not open? For me, if the mouse even touches any of the blue around the word Shardcast, the menu pops open and blocks anything I want to click, no hover time at all. Please see attached:

Spoiler

So, usually, I'm in a thread and trying to use that navigation to return to the subforum, or main forum and, inevitably, it open the pop-up under the mouse as I click - sending me to Shardcast instead. That's when I have to use the browser's back button and try try again (generally hovering under the menu until it decides to go away so I can approach the link from below without passing the dreaded Shardcast trap)

Edit - mentioned before, but I'm on PC with Firefox 118.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Treamayne

[Chaos]

1 minute ago, Treamayne said:

This seems unfinished?

Sorry, getting distracted. There would be no reason to display the stats with such few posts. 

2 minutes ago, Treamayne said:

May I ask this? If you place your mouse about an inch above "Shardcast" and move your mouse straight down (no hover) to click "The Cosmere" in the navigation line, does the Shardcast menu not open? For me, if the mouse even touches any of the blue around the word Shardcast, the menu pops open and blocks anything I want to click, no hover time at all. Please see attached:

Yes, I understand that, but that isn't exactly what you said. I don't know, this is just... interesting to me that you have your mouse above the navbar, specifically above Shardcast and not above The Cosmere in your example, and do this motion fast enough that you click it so fast. I don't know. It's clear your workflow is very different from mine, and that's okay, it's just interesting to hear because this is never a thing that I would imagine would be triggered 90% of the time.

We can discuss. I'd be curious if this is a thing that bothers others. It may be a personal preference matter. There are tradeoffs to hover delay, but we can see. I would encourage you to move slightly to the left or right in the navbar in the meantime, perhaps?

[ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ]

30 minutes ago, Chaos said:

I actually looked at this setting; we don't have limits in place on those contact info fields, so this may be a bug? We can institute limits (and frankly, should), but just wanted to report on this.

When I try to add, it says, "You cannot put more than 250 characters here" or something in a  shard message kind of way.

Dont make a limit! it is fun to make them creative. and for mine, it expands as i have some more meaningful things said to me.

[Treamayne]

9 minutes ago, Chaos said:

Yes, I understand that, but that isn't exactly what you said. I don't know, this is just... interesting to me that you have your mouse above the navbar, specifically above Shardcast and not above The Cosmere in your example, and do this motion fast enough that you click it so fast. I don't know. It's clear your workflow is very different from mine, and that's okay, it's just interesting to hear because this is never a thing that I would imagine would be triggered 90% of the time.

I'm sure the workflow is a factor, as is using multiple tabs - but changing decades of forum habits (not just Shard - but many forums over many years) is no small feat. Not impossible, of course, but also not necessary when good web design methodology implies these kinds of menus should have a hover setting (on-hover instead of on-mouseover).

Quote

We can discuss. I'd be curious if this is a thing that bothers others. It may be a personal preference matter. There are tradeoffs to hover delay, but we can see. I would encourage you to move slightly to the left or right in the navbar in the meantime, perhaps?

Well, we can hope if others read this they will chime in if they experience something similar. As far as left-right goes, it's not like I am purposely placing the mouse where it is - the act of using that navigation tool necessitates the mouse position in the horizontal space, the refresh to the page I navigated forces the screen to the top (putting the mouse above the menu bar) and trying to move down (either to another navigation link or a new thread link) pops the menu in the way. I think even a 1 second hover would fix it - but no hover at all means no respite from the constant menu-spam.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Treamayne
Clarity

[The Bookwyrm]

I used to receive a notification every time someone I followed posted a status update, but that no longer occurs. I checked the notification settings and didn't see anything about status update notifications...

Am I missing something, or did the update change this?

[Chaos]

4 minutes ago, ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ said:

Dont make a limit! it is fun to make them creative. and for mine, it expands as i have some more meaningful things said to me.

I say this with love: Contact fields are not the appropriate place for that, and make navigating the pages awful. 

Please tell me honestly if you think this is a great experience on mobile: 

I do think being able to navigate to people's content on mobile effectively absolutely trumps creativity here. That's an excruciating amount of scrolling to get there. That field should be a line, at most, in all viewports. Use your About Me page for this! This has kind of gotten out of control over the past few years, memeing on the old contact methods. 

2 minutes ago, The Bookwyrm said:

I used to receive a notification every time someone I followed posted a status update, but that no longer occurs. I checked the notification settings and didn't see anything about status update notifications...

Am I missing something, or did the update change this?

Yes, it doesn't do that anymore, as mentioned before. You will want to create an Activity Stream (the newspaper icon on mobile and desktop) for this, likely.

[Aeoryi]

38 minutes ago, Chaos said:

I say this with love: Contact fields are not the appropriate place for that, and make navigating the pages awful. 

Please tell me honestly if you think this is a great experience on mobile: 

I do think being able to navigate to people's content on mobile effectively absolutely trumps creativity here. That's an excruciating amount of scrolling to get there. That field should be a line, at most, in all viewports. Use your About Me page for this! This has kind of gotten out of control over the past few years, memeing on the old contact methods. 

Yes, it doesn't do that anymore, as mentioned before. You will want to create an Activity Stream (the newspaper icon on mobile and desktop) for this, likely.

(This could all be fixed by a drop-down menu for each field)

Did you see the screenshots regarding the text box not appearing on mobile?

[Robin Sedai]

51 minutes ago, Chaos said:

I say this with love: Contact fields are not the appropriate place for that, and make navigating the pages awful. 

Please tell me honestly if you think this is a great experience on mobile: 

I do think being able to navigate to people's content on mobile effectively absolutely trumps creativity here. That's an excruciating amount of scrolling to get there. That field should be a line, at most, in all viewports. Use your About Me page for this! This has kind of gotten out of control over the past few years, memeing on the old contact methods. 

Yeah, I agree with Chaos about this tbh. I usually browse the Shard on mobile, and it's annoying having to scroll past a wall of text to check someone's status update, or see their posts. I get why people do it but I also think that having a character limit is the right way to go.

Edited October 25, 2023 by Robin Sedai

[Aeoryi]

3 minutes ago, Robin Sedai said:

Yeah, I agree with Chaos about this tbh. I usually browse the Shard on mobile, and it's annoying having to scroll past a wall of text to check someone's status update, or see their posts. I get why people do it but I also think that having a character limit is the right way to go.

Without a character limit there is the possibility that certain text fields could crash certain devices, or cause problems on one end. Character limits are the way to go.

[ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ]

21 minutes ago, Robin Sedai said:

Yeah, I agree with Chaos about this tbh. I usually browse the Shard on mobile, and it's annoying having to scroll past a wall of text to check someone's status update, or see their posts. I get why people do it but I also think that having a character limit is the right way to go.

17 minutes ago, Aeoryi said:

Without a character limit there is the possibility that certain text fields could crash certain devices, or cause problems on one end. Character limits are the way to go.

These feel targeted.

(In a joking way, not actually.)

[Chaos]

1 hour ago, Aeoryi said:

(This could all be fixed by a drop-down menu for each field)

Did you see the screenshots regarding the text box not appearing on mobile?

(Yes, but this is not the purpose of those fields, obviously.)

Yes, I don't have anything to report about this mystery yet. Can't reproduce yet. If you see this again, please report all info you can think of (page, browser, OS), and anything else you can think of.

[+Slowswift]

FWIW, I still get notifications for new status updates--I've been using the activity stream for a while to see them all, but the notifications from folks I follow are still coming. Also, in my experience it's always been all-or-nothing with respect to notification following people: either you see everything they post or not..

[Koloss17]

Also quick question: I think this is still kind of in flux as the site changes, but why can’t I see someone’s post count and reputation title on their posts? I’m on mobile, and I did like seeing those

[Satsuoni]

9 hours ago, Treamayne said:

Quote

We can discuss. I'd be curious if this is a thing that bothers others. It may be a personal preference matter. There are tradeoffs to hover delay, but we can see. I would encourage you to move slightly to the left or right in the navbar in the meantime, perhaps?

Well, we can hope if others read this they will chime in if they experience something similar. As far as left-right goes, it's not like I am purposely placing the mouse where it is - the act of using that navigation tool necessitates the mouse position in the horizontal space, the refresh to the page I navigated forces the screen to the top (putting the mouse above the menu bar) and trying to move down (either to another navigation link or a new thread link) pops the menu in the way. I think even a 1 second hover would fix it - but no hover at all means no respite from the constant menu-spam.

FWIW, while it does not bother me (I do not use navbar), I did try to click on  "17th shard discussion" on this very page several times, by moving mouse upwards, and in about half of the cases, I overshot slightly and brushed against "Shardcast". The popup then appeared and did  not (naturally) disappear when I moved mouse down until I left the said popup. So yes, it is possible, and in fact, very easy to click on it accidentally if one does not stop and move mouse away on the menu bar or under the popup. That also happens if one moves mouse from the top of the page downwards. 

[ΨιτιsτηεΒέsτ]

2 hours ago, Koloss17 said:

Also quick question: I think this is still kind of in flux as the site changes, but why can’t I see someone’s post count and reputation title on their posts? I’m on mobile, and I did like seeing those

Yeah that was very nice.