New forum software

[Matt C]

25 minutes ago, LongRail said:

Can’t find new content and not as easy to get back to top of page can’t see how you can choose how to view a managed thread alwayscstarts on first page at the moment all seems a backward step

Firstly to go to top of page look for the floating grey box on the right of your screen with an arrow pointing up  secondly for information on some of the features including setting up your content streams click on my rather large signature and it will take you a lovely place with helpfull info 

[55020]

1 hour ago, John M Upton said:

Interesting.  Unfortunately despite clearing cookies, trying a different browser, etc I am still having to request a password reset every single time (the 'Remember Me' Stay Logged In type function doesn't seem to work either!)  Says the Display Name is not on the list or something yet it does allow me to reset my password via my registered email address.

 

Something definitely isn't working somewhere.

 

Scrub that, it's working now!!!!

 

Can you let everyone know what you did to sort out your issue.  It might help others in the same situation.

 

[N15class]

1 hour ago, Miss Prism said:

 

Not what I was saying. I was talking about portable devices.

 

Nothing more portable than a smart phone. Unfortunately the site is not very good for them.  Least the old forum gave the opportunity to use the desktop version.

[N15class]

52 minutes ago, Mattc6911 said:

Firstly to go to top of page look for the floating grey box on the right of your screen with an arrow pointing up  secondly for information on some of the features including setting up your content streams click on my rather large signature and it will take you a lovely place with helpfull info 

Except you only get signatures on desktop, not mobile.

[Bill]

Hello -

I was unable to log in..

But after reading the useful info that Andy provided..

I managed to log in by changing my user name to Bill, on my browsers auto log in system.

BUT.. (This is the simplified version it was actually far more convoluted)

I now needed to change my email address but could not remember my password and was immediately flung into a prisoners dilemma.

To change my email address I needed to remember my password.

Which could only happen if the password reset was sent to my old email address.

Which has long since expired.

So I guessed my password and although as it turned out the guess was correct.

The software told me it was the wrong password.

And would not accept the new password..

(So I emptied my browsers cache..)

But none the less, without informing me it had surreptitiously changed my password to its new form anyway.

(I hope you are following this).

However when I logged out and tried to log in using my old password (remembered by my browser).

Thinking the change had not gone through as it had been rejected by the software

It told me that my password was unacceptable.

That is when I then deduced that something had in fact happened concerning passwords, 

So I guessed again and entered my proposed new password,(in spite of being informed by the software that the password change had not gone through),

And voila - I was in!  (Hurrah!)

The password change had in fact gone through. 

(Does this remind you of the Princess bride or not?)

So I now had a password that the software, somehow, by some magic, had recognized.

And I was able to now change my email address..

It is all so very simple, a child could do it.

 

And my Heartfelt thanks to the team for all the frustratingly hard work that must have gone in to making this upgrade possible.

Edited February 4, 2019 by Bill

[MarshLane]

8 hours ago, paul 27 said:

Same here prefered the old site,  cannot find my content now, seems much harder

look what they did with Hattons   I am old school use a computer every thing seems

geared to using the latest phones,  may be better for the younger members but not me.

 

Paul,

I still know people who preferred black and white TV!  Things change, unfortunately the world is geared towards smartphones these days, and in my view the implementation of mobile across the web has not had a positive effect on computers - but then on many websites, mobile devices now account for 50% of the devices that people use to view, unfortunately thats just fact and like it or not, we just have to adapt to it.  I suppose many people said the same when railways were introduced - people still preferred horseback! I have sent you a PM to try and answer your question.  A few things have moved around and are now approached in a different way but nothing is particularly harder.

 

8 hours ago, Chris116 said:

I have been on this site for over ten years and this is the second or maybe third time the site has been updated. Each time the reasons for doing it were clear and each I have disliked the new format for a time but each time I have got used to the new ways of doing things and within six months would not have wanted to go back to how they were. The first day with this update working I could not do what I wanted to and was unhappy but remembered what had happened in the past. Gave it a couple more days and I am rapidly getting used to the new site. One word of warning, I found it very hard to set this gs up on my phone so used my laptop to sort a few this out and then went back to the phone and "bingo" it all worked as expected. Patience and an inquisitive mind work wonders and before anyone says it is alright for youngsters I will point out I am 65 in July, so if this old un can do so can you! 

 

Well done Chris!  I am not sure what the 'gs' your referring to is?  Well done for working things out

 

2 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

I can't make any sense of trying to change settings in Activity Streams. If I change the 'Time' window, I get the same results whether the window is set to 365 days, 10 days, or 1 day.  And none of the results sets are correct.

 

I think that may be to do with one of two things.  Either a) it is dependent on the indexing being completed, or b) for the activity streams, the activity only started recording when the site came back online.  My activity streams work correctly if I select 1 day or from last visit, so I suspect it could be the latter.  Bit like changing SatNavs, your new one doesn't know where the old one went!

 

2 hours ago, LongRail said:

Can’t find new content and not as easy to get back to top of page can’t see how you can choose how to view a managed thread alwayscstarts on first page at the moment all seems a backward step

 

The answers can be found on the FAQ - click here. But I'll send you a PM to try and help.

 

49 minutes ago, N15class said:

Nothing more portable than a smart phone. Unfortunately the site is not very good for them.  Least the old forum gave the opportunity to use the desktop version.

 

It could depend on your phone. I am on an iPhone 7+ and I have to say the site is a lot easier and better on that.  Easier to navigate, better to read and use.  I frequently used to flip back to the Desktop version, but then had the problem of trying to tap on the right thing without constantly zooming.  The new software has made that easier, and because the pages adapt to the width of the window/device, there's no separate version - that also makes it easier for the developers and Andy to keep changes in sync across both mobile and desktop.

 

47 minutes ago, N15class said:

Except you only get signatures on desktop, not mobile.

That was the same way on the old site tho - although it annoyed the hell out of me at times!!  It may be worth mentioning on the Wishlist topic to see if Andy can introduce Signatures to the mobile pages.  Not sure what the flexibilities of this kind of software are however.

 

Rich

[Kiwi]

1 hour ago, MarshLane said:

 It may be worth mentioning on the Wishlist topic to see if Andy can introduce Signatures to the mobile pages.  Not sure what the flexibilities of this kind of software are however.

Not sure I’d want that change to happen. Space will always be limited on a phone, so you need to  prioritise what it is used for. I rate signatures as an extremely low priority, especially given the rubbish some include. 

 

So, for me, any such change would need suitable options added with it so I can opt out. Then I would object there too, as the site already has too many configurable items. Thats half the reason this thread is already so long. Dozens of config options many can’t  or won’t work out how to find and / or use.  

[N15class]

I don't use apple stuff I don't like having to use iTunes to do anything, as I don't use a laptop it gets complicated. As for my phone it's a Motorola z3. Yes the site works better tsnt the old one but I always used the desktop version. It's strange that my phone has more power than a lot of my desktops had yet. You only get half a site. 

[rodent279]

20 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

 

It's there already, in what I call the 'where am I?' line.

 

 

Oh I see, just click on the RMWeb logo. Didn't think of that!

You don't get that banner on a phone, but you do on a pc. Thanks.

Edited February 4, 2019 by rodent279

[rodent279]

Personally, I find the new site easier and better to use on a mobile device.

[rodent279]

I notice some posts have a big heart banner attached to them at the top. What does this mean?

[Mikkel]

I have assumed that those are our friends. So they must still be there.

[The Fatadder]

Apologies if this has been covered

 

is there an issue with notifications?  Mine seem to be showing up in the top corner of the screen as per usual (and are showing in my followed topics) but I am receiving a vast amount of emails when people post in topics I’ve followed or posted in.  

 

In my notifications settings I have clicked the do not send me notifications button.

 

what I am trying to do is get back to the system under the old software having notifications in forum (and followed topics) but not get emails other than a few key topics

 

thanks 

[PaulRhB]

On ‎2‎/‎1‎/‎2019 at 12:12 PM, andi4x4 said:

   One question I have - All the threads I was following on the previous site have disappeared. Will these reappear as the rebuild progresses, or will I have to manually add them myself ?  Some of the threads were quite old and had no new posts for several months or even years - they could take some time to find again !

The lists are a bit short at the moment but are expanding slowly, mine were empty yesterday but have a few entries now. 

 

This might be generally useful as I was wondering how to find things on the mobile version. The activity stream on the web and mobile versions are just renamed, you can select them by the dropdown under the RMweb header or on the mobile version click the icon top right and select the activity stream option which then should give you Unread, content I follow, content I started etc. I've saved them as bookmarks which makes one tap accessing faster than going through the 3 stages of the menu each time.

 

On the photos it warns me that there is a 10mb limit per post so it does mean resizing or splitting into more posts.

 

Oh and I find selecting condensed view helps a lot on the mobile version, again saved with this already selected.

 

Overall I really like it as the mobile version is much easier to navigate to pages and photos can be loaded in multiple fast.

Edited February 4, 2019 by PaulRhB

[AY Mod]

1 hour ago, rodent279 said:

I notice some posts have a big heart banner attached to them at the top. What does this mean?

 

It's just a marker to say it's a popular post based on the ratings. It probably needs some adjustment.

[AY Mod]

1 hour ago, The Fatadder said:

is there an issue with notifications?  Mine seem to be showing up in the top corner of the screen as per usual (and are showing in my followed topics) but I am receiving a vast amount of emails when people post in topics I’ve followed or posted in.  

 

In my notifications settings I have clicked the do not send me notifications button.

 

I haven't got the software setup yet to see what notifications you have or haven't set but it may be worth clearing site cookies from browsers and logging in again in case that's retain outdated info.

[brushman47544]

I too think I am getting the hang of the new activity streams, but there is one thing I can't seem to avoid even when creating my own. When showing new content, I get a list including every new post that I have not read, rather than just one entry (the latest) per thread as per the old RMWeb. This means some popular threads dominate the list and makes it difficult to identify the others. Is there a way to select show latest message only per thread?

[Corbs]

It should work if you use these settings

[Corbs]

2 hours ago, rodent279 said:

I notice some posts have a big heart banner attached to them at the top. What does this mean?

If you are using the desktop version of the site and are unsure about what something does, often you can find out by hovering your mouse over it and a little info-box will pop up for example if you hover over the heart it will say 'This is a popular post'.

[brushman47544]

19 minutes ago, Corbs said:

It should work if you use these settings

 

That works...… except that it won't let me save the changes. I can click don't save or create new stream but save changes? is there but unclickable.

 

EDIT: Ah, its a question, not a button... For "Content I Follow", it won't let you save changes - the software requires you to create a new stream

Edited February 4, 2019 by brushman47544

[AY Mod]

15 hours ago, Miss Prism said:

I'm sure Andy will be able to confirm the steep rise in RMweb mobile use over the last few years. Social media software has been relentlessly driven downmarket by the small mobile screen, but the conundrum nowadays is that the old definition of mobile is itself becoming outdated as tablet use increases and tablet screens become higher definition.  That said, having a mouse or other pointy thing is definitely regarded as mediaeval !

 

I've waited until I've got data from yesterday on a device usage report I can see which indicates it's 75% desktop and 25% mobile/tablet - it's supposed to distinguish between mobile and tablet but doesn't seem to do so. I'm certainly not looking to push anyone toward mobile usage but it's fair to say that the tools in the new software are better for users and admin in that form, especially the capacity to take pictures with mobiles and upload directly to posts. I see more pictures taken with mobiles at shows than I do with cameras these days so it's right to match that trend and cater for the market. Are the pictures any better though? As with cameras it depends on the user.

[eastwestdivide]

Date format in quoted posts is appearing in the US order, month before day, which is quite confusing around the first few days of Feb!

I can't see any "locale" setting in my account settings, and my computer settings are UK.

 

Edit: if there's no way of localising it per user, then having a fixed format where the month is in words would be useful, given an international audience.

 

Edited February 4, 2019 by eastwestdivide
Month names suggestion

[Corbs]

10 minutes ago, brushman47544 said:

 

That works...… except that it won't let me save the changes. I can click don't save or create new stream but save changes is there but unclickable.

Save it as a new stream with the name 'New content I follow' and then it appears under 'custom streams'. You can use the green tick highlighted next to the stream name in my screenshot to make it your default.

[AY Mod]

12 minutes ago, eastwestdivide said:

Date format in quoted posts is appearing in the US order, month before day, which is quite confusing around the first few days of Feb!

I can't see any "locale" setting in my account settings, and my computer settings are UK.

 

It looks like the usual US English thing, it wasn't apparent with the relative time form and it's especially confusing at this time of the year.

 

I have just installed English UK as a Language and deleted English US which seems to have given it a retrospective kick to change previous posts (and quoting). I'll let that bed in and take effect and then install English US as a user selectable option a bit later.

[Andy Hayter]

41 minutes ago, brushman47544 said:

I too think I am getting the hang of the new activity streams, but there is one thing I can't seem to avoid even when creating my own. When showing new content, I get a list including every new post that I have not read, rather than just one entry (the latest) per thread as per the old RMWeb. This means some popular threads dominate the list and makes it difficult to identify the others. Is there a way to select show latest message only per thread?

 

I am using "unread content" right side of page instead of the activity centre and this seems to give a much less cluttered list and only one entry per thread as far as I can see.