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Bugs: Recent Topics Paging, Uploading Images & Preview (11 Dec 2020)

Recent Topics paging, uploading images and preview bugs require a patch which has not yet been released.

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11 Feb 2015 09:09 #197399 by Sagrilarus
I'm on a Fire HD. 1280x800.

I typed this response on my Fire earlier this morning, but when I tried to get out of the text box to press the Submit button I tapped on something (don't know what) and was forwarded to the home page. I lost my response. Between the keyboard and the floating banner (the banner expands when I zoom in so in order to read the text I'm dealing with a bigger banner) there was damn near zero space left to navigate in. My fingers aren't exactly precision devices.

Part of that is the device itself, not this site. But the floating banner closes the deal.

This is likely doing me a favor because I'm slipping into the bad habit of using the Fire for web browsing again. I should be on my laptop working or playing legit games instead. (Or writing an article, eh?)

I'm one vote like everyone else here, and you've heard it, but I'll ask the question: what purpose is the floating banner serving?

There's a few parts of Web 2.0 that I'd like to see go away. I'm hoping to find an extension for Chrome and Firefox that can lock floaty things in place. Everyone else seems to like them, so I likely need to find my own solution.

S.

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11 Feb 2015 10:32 #197416 by charlest
I love the new layout and how everything looks, one thing that's a little bit irksome however is that all of the front page posts are kind of aggregated together into a conga line of headings that are sometimes indistinguishable.

I wonder if some separation between articles and news items would be better. If I'm looking at the top scrolling article list right now above the forums I have a hard time telling what's a review/article and what's a press release. I think people like Barnes, Thrower, Sags, Pete, etc. are the bread and butter of what gives FAT its identity and why people are coming to the front page.

My opinion may of course not jive with anyone else's, just wanted to state this in case anyone else shared my thoughts.
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11 Feb 2015 13:05 #197422 by ubarose

Sagrilarus wrote: what purpose is the floating banner serving?
S.


That's a good question. And of course I like discussing these things. First, keep in mind that the banner is not behaving the way I want it to, and I am working on getting it changed.

The banner is supposed to be dynamic. If you scroll down it disappears. If you scroll up a certain amount it reappears. Why do this? The site transforms to an increasingly vertical layout as the screen gets smaller. So by the time you are on something like an iPhone reading the forum looks like this:



Reading the front page looks like this:





Once you have read halfway down the page on a phone, if you decide you want to navigate somewhere else, you have to either scroll all the way to the top to the menu, or all the way to the bottom to the "return to top" button. Either way, in Trash Talk, it is a lot of scrolling on a phone. Furthermore, with content as link dense as the forum, every time you touch the screen to scroll, you run the risk of accidentally tapping a link and opening a page you didn't really want to open, which is not only super annoying, but if you are not on an unlimited data plan, can start getting costly as well. Therefore, the dynamic header; as you start scrolling up, bingo, the menu appears. Scroll down a tad, it goes away. Additionally, when your keyboard pops up, is should force whatever you have in view up as well. This is interpreted as scrolling down, so even if you accidentally had the header in view due to say scrolling up a tad to click a reply button, as soon as the keyboard bounces up and pushes the screen up, the header disappears. So the only thing visible on your screen should be your keyboard (for about 50% or less depending on the device) and the input box (for whatever is left).

Of course, it takes a bit of getting used to, but it becomes second nature to people who regularly use a phone for browsing the internet. Tweak a little up to get a menu. Tweak a little down to make it go away. It's almost expected that sites will behave that way. Twitch up and don't get a menu drop, and people are like, "You gotta be kidding me. What is this? 2010?"

As I said, this is not functioning correctly right now. I'm working on it.
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11 Feb 2015 13:23 #197423 by JEM
Replied by JEM on topic Bugs Reporting and Suggestions
I'm not sure there's any need for it to be active on a desktop browser. I've never had a link click accidentally on my android phones, the browsers always seem to prioritize scrolling (and zoom on the link element if it's not a clear press instead of activating it), but if it's a problem for iphone users then that's understandable.

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11 Feb 2015 13:50 #197425 by Colorcrayons
Thanks for the explanation, ubarose.

I guess I'm just a luddite then, as I honestly don't understand the need. 2010 or not, if it ain't broke don't fix it, K.I.S.S. (keep it simple, stupid), etc.
Not all new tech is demonstrably relevant. The argument from the cult of the new tech about 2010 for example, is a tanker full of logical fallacy.

I too have had a couple issues with responses going poof into the aether. Not sure if its a device problem, but it happens most often on this site, and always during long posts that take me an hour to formulate. :/

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11 Feb 2015 14:02 #197429 by Sagrilarus
If it's serving a useful purpose for most of your users then it's in. You need to cater to the smart phone market. Always worth asking the question though.

One of the things I liked on the old site (adored actually) was the tab in the upper right that you explicitly requested by touch to come down. That thing was the magic sauce on the page. If the new banner was smaller (were it me it would be a tiny box with a "+" in the middle of it) it would be much less of an issue, especially if it didn't size-up when you zoomed. That would likely solve the majority of my issue with it. Even if it covered content it would be a small enough obstruction to let you infer what was underneath. A tuning issue, but you need to cater to the greater audience and you may not be able to make it ignore zoom.

With my eyesight fading and "wider" expectations built on 20+ years of web browsing I think I've missed the boat on web browsing on a smart phone. This is one of the reasons I've held off on purchasing one. My 7" Fire is too small, and it has double the real estate of most phones. I can do it, but I don't dig it. I use it when I can't get to a legit screen.

S.

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11 Feb 2015 14:04 #197431 by Sagrilarus

JEM wrote: I'm not sure there's any need for it to be active on a desktop browser.


I will agree with this.

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11 Feb 2015 17:52 - 11 Feb 2015 17:57 #197460 by Disgustipater

ubarose wrote: Once you have read halfway down the page on a phone, if you decide you want to navigate somewhere else, you have to either scroll all the way to the top to the menu, or all the way to the bottom to the "return to top" button. Either way, in Trash Talk, it is a lot of scrolling on a phone.

Or just hit the status bar at the top of the screen (on iOS devices) to immediately go to the top of a page. I make liberal use of that feature in all sorts of situations, not just web browsing.

(I am very anti-mobile website, which includes how this site looks on a phone, so I can probably be ignored since I wont be happy unless it looks like the desktop version.)

JEM wrote: I've never had a link click accidentally on my android phones, the browsers always seem to prioritize scrolling (and zoom on the link element if it's not a clear press instead of activating it), but if it's a problem for iphone users then that's understandable.

I've not had that problem either (as an iPhone user).
Last edit: 11 Feb 2015 17:57 by Disgustipater.
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11 Feb 2015 21:21 #197472 by ubarose

Colorcrayons wrote:
I too have had a couple issues with responses going poof into the aether. Not sure if its a device problem, but it happens most often on this site, and always during long posts that take me an hour to formulate. :/


Sessions timeout after 120 minutes of inactivity.

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11 Feb 2015 21:28 #197473 by ubarose
P.S. You all are going to have to live with your issues for a while. The Spawn's sweet sixteen is this weekend and I have to get things ready for a 40 kid sleepover party.

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11 Feb 2015 23:01 #197478 by Gary Sax


Naw, seriously, I hope you survive.
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11 Feb 2015 23:50 #197484 by Space Ghost
Seriously. That is a lot of teenagers.
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12 Feb 2015 11:06 #197521 by Black Barney
and Uncle Black barney is on his way!

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12 Feb 2015 11:16 #197526 by charlest
40 kid sleepover? Clearly your kid doesn't have your trash talking skills or they'd have far less friends.
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12 Feb 2015 11:50 #197537 by Gary Sax

Black Barney wrote: and Uncle Black barney is on his way!


God you are so fucking awesomely gross. Wheezing in my office laughing.
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