Styleforum User reports and questions on technical issues

[Henry S]

The thread gallery appears only for logged in users.
Intentional to deal with scraper bots?

Unable to click on the images from the thread gallery preview. To access them, I have to click on View Full Gallery. They open as a resource (like "open image in new tab"), and you can't view the post.

 

[LA Guy]

Just some feedback...
Not a fan of the "similar threads".
It makes it a longer scroll to reach the new posts button.
And yesterday I clicked on a gummy spam ad to report it, and it listed "similar ads" for it. Which were just regular threads.
I don't see the value in this.

It’s a feature that allows people to discover new threads. We are refining this as we speak.

Ac quick tip. The lightening bolt icon will take you directly to new threads!

 

[LA Guy]

The thread gallery appears only for logged in users.
Intentional to deal with scraper bots?

Unable to click on the images from the thread gallery preview. To access them, I have to click on View Full Gallery. They open as a resource (like "open image in new tab"), and you can't view the post.

No, I'm not sure why that's happening. Thanks. @admin

 

[admin]

No, I'm not sure why that's happening. Thanks. @admin

I think this is due to the update. Will have to talk to dev.

 

[mhip]

It’s a feature that allows people to discover new threads. We are refining this as we speak.

Ac quick tip. The lightening bolt icon will take you directly to new threads!

ahhhhh, up in the tool bar.
That'll work...

 

[Henry S]

Every once in awhile I'm getting:
Web server is returning an unknown error Error code 520
Visit cloudflare.com for more information.

 

[admin]

Every once in awhile I'm getting:
Web server is returning an unknown error Error code 520
Visit cloudflare.com for more information.

We're working on tracking this down. You're not the only one who has seen it. If you are able, please note the date/time/page you were on when it happened, and PM me and @LA Guy . Thanks.

 

[Cause Moe]

I miss the "preview" button when posting. Now I just get the "Post reply" button, but no preview.

 

[LA Guy]

I miss the "preview" button when posting. Now I just get the "Post reply" button, but no preview.

Hover over the far top right icon in the options bar above the reply box. That's ther preview button, and will toggle you between preview and edit. Very elegant solution imho.

 

[Cause Moe]

OK, thanks. I disagree that this is an "elegant solution". Imho.

Was the "preview" button a problem that required a solution? I can't think why any effort was spent on "solving" such a non-problem. And I even more strongly disagree that the "solution" is "elegant" . Hiding a function and requiring the user to mouse-over the appropriate icon to discover its function violates multiple principles of GUI usability; it would have been shot down in the requirements review stage when I was designing GUI software. The icon shows a magnifying glass, which is universally taken to mean "search," so why would a user even think to move the mouse there if they didn't want to search? The "preview" function is effectively hidden from the user. There is no clue to a new user that the function even exists, and the chosen icon doesn't hint at the function's existence.

Based on my experience in GUI design, this is not an improvement; it is clearly a decrease in basic usability, especially to new users that may have no reason to think such a function exists.

 

[LA Guy]

OK, thanks. I disagree that this is an "elegant solution". Imho.

Was the "preview" button a problem that required a solution? I can't think why any effort was spent on "solving" such a non-problem. And I even more strongly disagree that the "solution" is "elegant" . Hiding a function and requiring the user to mouse-over the appropriate icon to discover its function violates multiple principles of GUI usability; it would have been shot down in the requirements review stage when I was designing GUI software. The icon shows a magnifying glass, which is universally taken to mean "search," so why would a user even think to move the mouse there if they didn't want to search? The "preview" function is effectively hidden from the user. There is no clue to a new user that the function even exists, and the chosen icon doesn't hint at the function's existence.

Based on my experience in GUI design, this is not an improvement; it is clearly a decrease in basic usability, especially to new users that may have no reason to think such a function exists.

It's just a standard package used across many platforms. But you go off, king,

 

[mhip]

It's just a standard package used across many platforms. But you go off, king,

You will rue the day

 

[LA Guy]

You will rue the day

No doubt lol. It's been a long week.

 

[Egdon Heath]

While the magnifying glass is the universal icon for Search, apparently when the magnifying glass appears on what looks like a dog-eared sheet of paper, this new icon means Preview. I just tried it, it's great. Instead of a whole new copy of the post appearing as a finished preview below the creation box, it instantly switches the creation box to the finished product, and back when you hit it again. Cool.

However I would not have known about this had I not read the post couplet just above. Anyway to inform the masses?

 

[LA Guy]

While the magnifying glass is the universal icon for Search, apparently when the magnifying glass appears on what looks like a dog-eared sheet of paper, this new icon means Preview. I just tried it, it's great. Instead of a whole new copy of the post appearing as a finished preview below the creation box, it instantly switches the creation box to the finished product, and back when you hit it again. Cool.

However I would not have known about this had I not read the post couplet just above. Anyway to inform the masses?

Thanks. Unfortunately, I don’t think that there is. The good thing about our text editor is that a poster can do a lot of formatting. However, “read the manual” is a huge lift in 2023, when engagements on most platforms are streamlined to the bare minimum, and you can actually do very little outside following a single road. Forums, on the other hand, have orders of magnitude more functionality, but a user will typically use by little of that. That editor has all of the functionality of a small word processor. I suppose that I could post the entire manual for the text editor somewhere, but just having the scrollover is more discoverable.

These are things that I’ve thought about in some detail, but I’m happy to listen to constructive suggestions. That said, please understand that our abilities are constrained by the architecture of the platform software.