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Forum Upgrade - Complete

A forum for us to keep you informed on the latest updates on the FC website and forums.
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tim_raper
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by tim_raper » Sat May 12, 2018 10:12 pm

c32tracker wrote:
Sat May 12, 2018 6:18 pm
Zymurgy661 wrote:
Sat May 12, 2018 6:13 pm
c32tracker wrote:
Sat May 12, 2018 6:08 pm
^ Me too. Wall to wall BLUE with greyey BLUE background. The soft creamy yellow accents on the previous skin made all the difference.
Ok, now i'm even more confused. As far as I know, there were no soft creamy yellow accents on the previous skin. The old skin was exactly the same as the current skin over on Civilian Aviation (which hasn't been upgraded yet) - http://www.civilianaviation.co.uk . I'm not seeing much of a difference between that and this one.
All the menus, posts and quotes are half grey, half cream/green (or whatever colour it's meant to be). There is no endless blue there like we're seeing here. Every post and forum menu here now is some shade of the same greyey blue hue, there's no variance to break it up and give it some life, and an abundance of blue is very bad for those with eyes sensitive to PWM.
It's pefectly pleasing on the eye to me, so please whatever you do don't change it. By far the easiest forum to read i have ever seen, congrats on a successful upgrade

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Ghastly Whisper
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by Ghastly Whisper » Sat May 12, 2018 10:37 pm

On various parts of the forum, the old sticky threads are not seperated anymore. For an example in the mess, the newest thread is the 6th one down, kind of hard to avoid on going threads....

On CMP the latest thread is number 5 down, I see they have different symbols on the left but for idiots like me, it takes too much brain power.

Other than that once the newness of it goes away, things are pretty good, shame about the crap colours though, but the usefulness of FC far outweighs some crappy colour.
Growing old disgracefully

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TeeJay
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by TeeJay » Sun May 13, 2018 6:53 am

Sorry do not like this new look at all on my phone!! :grr:
Old version showed the last post in a thread and who posted it on the right side of the board. And more importantly you knew if you had read it or not or it had been updated by a new post.

Hopefully the format looks better on the PC screen !

Whilst it looks fresh and modern, it’s a backward step as far as I’m concerned.

As this group relies on contributions from us all a bit of consultation wouldn’t have gone a miss!!

Trev

Zymurgy661
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by Zymurgy661 » Sun May 13, 2018 6:55 am

Magpie wrote:
Sat May 12, 2018 9:35 pm
Thanks for all the good work mods :clap:
Pages seem to take longer to load, anyone recognize this or is it my PC only?
Seems the same speed as it was previously to me

Zymurgy661
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by Zymurgy661 » Sun May 13, 2018 6:57 am

Ghastly Whisper wrote:
Sat May 12, 2018 10:37 pm
On various parts of the forum, the old sticky threads are not seperated anymore. For an example in the mess, the newest thread is the 6th one down, kind of hard to avoid on going threads....

On CMP the latest thread is number 5 down, I see they have different symbols on the left but for idiots like me, it takes too much brain power.

Other than that once the newness of it goes away, things are pretty good, shame about the crap colours though, but the usefulness of FC far outweighs some crappy colour.
Unfortunatley a change in the way the forum software now handles sticky threads. Already looking to see if there is a way of improving this.

Zymurgy661
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by Zymurgy661 » Sun May 13, 2018 7:02 am

TeeJay wrote:
Sun May 13, 2018 6:53 am
Sorry do not like this new look at all on my phone!! :grr:
Old version showed the last post in a thread and who posted it on the right side of the board. And more importantly you knew if you had read it or not or it had been updated by a new post.

Hopefully the format looks better on the PC screen !

Whilst it looks fresh and modern, it’s a backward step as far as I’m concerned.

As this group relies on contributions from us all a bit of consultation wouldn’t have gone a miss!!

Trev
Understand your point on the mobile view but that is,as far as i’m aware, out of our control as that is down to the way the new version handles mobile screens. As has been pointed out on this thread on page 2, most mobiles give an option to request the desktop version of the site which would resolve that issue. Am looking if it can be fixed some other way though.

As for consultation, this upgrade needed to happen for a number of key reasons not least the ongoing stability of the forum. Fully expected that there would be a few bugs along with changes to the way it looks/feels but staying with the old version was not an option.

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TeeJay
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by TeeJay » Sun May 13, 2018 7:06 am

It won’t be stable if we stop using it mate!!

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James Cutting
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by James Cutting » Sun May 13, 2018 7:17 am

Re: mobile viewing - it is pants. Previous version was much better. Thing is though, we’re in 2018, not 2008. We shouldn’t have to ‘view as a desktop on the phone’ just because the site doesn’t like mobiles. Find someone that can host a forum site efficiently and professionally, then it can handle mobiles too.

I’ll get used to it soon enough but that’s beside the point isn’t it? The face of the whole site didn’t need to change. Granted there may have needed to be background work done but the face of FC didn’t need to be changed this much ? :S :S
"Grim Reapers Supporter"

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Zymurgy661
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by Zymurgy661 » Sun May 13, 2018 7:24 am

The reason the mobile version is so different is down to how the forum software handles responsive formatting. As i said, that is likely out of our control although i am looking at options (which won’t be quick).

The changes between the old version and new version are significant. On top of the upgrade the whole theme had to be rewritten to get it as close as possible to where it was before bur some things really our out of our control.

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James Cutting
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by James Cutting » Sun May 13, 2018 7:30 am

Zymurgy661 wrote:
Sun May 13, 2018 7:24 am
The reason the mobile version is so different is down to how the forum software handles responsive formatting. As i said, that is likely out of our control although i am looking at options (which won’t be quick).

The changes between the old version and new version are significant. On top of the upgrade the whole theme had to be rewritten to get it as close as possible to where it was before bur some things really our out of our control.
Thank you for being helpful and explaining this, I can understand why you’ve done it. It’s a pain, yes, but I’m sure it’ll grow on me. :)
"Grim Reapers Supporter"

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awacsfan
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by awacsfan » Sun May 13, 2018 7:53 am

First of all I would like to thank everybody involved in maintaining and keeping FC up and running...

On my desktop PC the changes are very subtle, but on my Android mobile the dark blue colour with black lettering and the thing grey letters on dark blue are next to impossible to read with my old eyes, especially if one is outdoor... I've also tried switiching to the desktop version on my mobile but without success as there are no changes to the FC website at all, even after page refresh. Are there any chances to possibly change the colours or enable users to set their own colour preferences?

Image and to the right the CA screenshot: Image

One thing I would like to ask... is there a possibility to DIRECTLY upload any images without having to make the de-tour via flickr or other image hosters? This is a pain particularly on a mobile phone...
Thanks for all your work!
Last edited by awacsfan on Sun May 13, 2018 8:08 am, edited 1 time in total.

Zymurgy661
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by Zymurgy661 » Sun May 13, 2018 8:02 am

awacsfan wrote:
Sun May 13, 2018 7:53 am
One thing I would like to ask... is there a possibility to DIRECTLY upload any images without having to make the de-tour via flickr or other image hosters? This is a pain particularly on a mobile phone...
I'm afraid thats something that we can't do. If we were to allow users to directly upload images then that means that we also have to then store them on our server. The increase in storage costs and associated bandwidth are far too significant for that to be an option.

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awacsfan
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by awacsfan » Sun May 13, 2018 8:10 am

@ Zymurgy661 - thanks for your kind and fast reply which is very much appreciated. Didn't realize that and thank you for your explanation!

EF-111
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by EF-111 » Sun May 13, 2018 8:31 am

awacsfan wrote:
Sun May 13, 2018 7:53 am

On my desktop PC the changes are very subtle, but on my Android mobile the dark blue colour with black lettering and the thing grey letters on dark blue are next to impossible to read with my old eyes, especially if one is outdoor...
I can see how that could be a pain to read. I too use an Android mobile, but unlike on yours the changes to the site are quite subtle on mine (the colours are the same as on my PC). Just a thought, but I view it through Google Chrome on both my 'phone and PC. Is it possible you are using different browsers for your PC and 'phone?

Regards, Steve

Zymurgy661
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by Zymurgy661 » Sun May 13, 2018 8:34 am

awacsfan - thanks for the screenshots. Have a feeling i know what the issue is so will look in to that tonight and get back to you for testing.

Zymurgy661
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by Zymurgy661 » Sun May 13, 2018 8:43 am

Mobile theme update - I've put in a quick and dirty code change just now relating to the mobile theme. Although portrait mode will still show as topics only, if you go to landscape mode it should now display as per the forum. I've tested on my iPhone and seems to be working although did have to clear all cache/browser history for it to load the new files.

Hopefully a halfway house for the time being whilst a longer term fix is looked at.

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awacsfan
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by awacsfan » Sun May 13, 2018 8:57 am

@ Zymurgy661 - thanks for your assist - I'll give it a try and see if and how it works. I have a feeling it's a Dolphin browser issue on my Anrdoid mobile phone... the "quick and dirty" code change works in landscape mode however the colour problem is still there... guess I will ditch Dolphin and use either Firefox or Chrome instead.

@ EF-111 - I am using Mozilla Firefox on my desktop which is no problme at all, compared to Dolphin on my mobile. I've tried Google Chrome on my mobile a few minutes ago and it's similar to my desktop PC.

Zymurgy661
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by Zymurgy661 » Sun May 13, 2018 9:14 am

Awacsfan - the fix only covers the posts column showing up at the moment. The color fix will be tonight hopefully

POL
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by POL » Sun May 13, 2018 9:21 am

Dolphin isn't updated any more so I'd suggest moving away from it for security reasons, if not the fact it can't handle gradient CSS!

slogen51
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Re: Forum Upgrade - Complete

Post by slogen51 » Sun May 13, 2018 9:33 am

Using the desk top site option on my android phone , Chrome: everything looks good to me , the text is black on light blue so easy to read and looks like my laptop using explorer 10 , in other words the site looks like it did before.

However in pure Mobile mode :
I think the 'fix' you applied is now showing the last post info but has broken the formatting and alignment within the actual topic section - it works but the text is sitting outside the panel.

The best bet is to use the EGVP suggestion of choosing " desktop site" in the chrome options drop down menu as it gives a consistent look and feel - a cookie storing the users choice would be nice

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