Foggy's Progress - a record of improvements to the forum

[RTH10260]

H/T for boxing in the book worms

[Danraft]

Just surprised that one topic thread was so irritating that it had to be “boxed in.” After all the various and many topics—one topic qualifies.
On a forum of mostly educated people the thought that some people read more than them is over-the-top enough to justify this?
Why does it matter?
Because it will now be unseen by many who would likely have an interest at some point, but could only see it if they join the group.
This makes sense for Sports where there would be many sub-topics on a forum that is primarily politics and active social topics.
But….
Whatever.

[Reality Check]

Just surprised that one topic thread was so irritating that it had to be “boxed in.” After all the various and many topics—one topic qualifies.

It is not surprising if you recall this is the same forum where a handful of people were so offended when an occasional sports thread happened to show up in Active topics that all sports threads had to be hidden by default.

[pipistrelle]

I don’t want to join a book club and have to read certain books at a certain time (especially since you’re not keen on pre-20th century classics), but would like to follow the discussions.

[RTH10260]

Just surprised that one topic thread was so irritating that it had to be “boxed in.” After all the various and many topics—one topic qualifies.
On a forum of mostly educated people the thought that some people read more than them is over-the-top enough to justify this?
Why does it matter?
Because it will now be unseen by many who would likely have an interest at some point, but could only see it if they join the group.
This makes sense for Sports where there would be many sub-topics on a forum that is primarily politics and active social topics.
But….
Whatever.

I asked for it as I don't care for the US literature. Books are not handled in a single thread so when members are posting the various threads pop up all over the place.

[RTH10260]

Just surprised that one topic thread was so irritating that it had to be “boxed in.” After all the various and many topics—one topic qualifies.

It is not surprising if you recall this is the same forum where a handful of people were so offended when an occasional sports thread happened to show up in Active topics that all sports threads had to be hidden by default.

It's an alternative way to handle the forum software as long there is no way to mark threads to be ignored. And yes, I am happy not to see all the US football and baseball discussions. Special interest groupr for things too special --- more special than birthers and sovcits...

[keith]

Well, it's yellow. Holy crap.

It's kind of clean and simple.

For those who want to try it out, it's Prosilver HiFiKabin on your UCP hit list.

Yeah, its yellow.
But notice how yellow hilighter still works perfectly. And notice how inclusions like tweets stand out from the forum page text.

I quite like it, though personally I'd have preferred a bit paler. But then I've worked on too many programs with design choices I wouldn't make to forget that my design choices are probably even more irritating to others, so I will just enjoy it while I can.

But I am wondering why the Bookworms got exiled. Were they teaching CRT or something?

[Reality Check]

It's an alternative way to handle the forum software as long there is no way to mark threads to be ignored. And yes, I am happy not to see all the US football and baseball discussions. Special interest groupr for things too special --- more special than birthers and sovcits...

I understand but my wish would be have the board default to show all topics with choices to hide some sub forums. I do not think the software has a topic ignore function except for blocking by members. Foggy has to stick with approved extensions or risk breaking the forum.

[RTH10260]

TFB v1.0 even had an Under the Brdge section hidden in the Bow of Fog

[MN-Skeptic]

I've mentioned before that color blindness runs in my family. The thing about color blindness is that what looks hideous to a color normal person may look perfect for a color blind person. I wonder if there are styles available which you, Foggy, might reject as awful, but that a color blind person would find perfect. The only way of knowing, though, is to have a color blind person sort through the various styles available.

Anyway, just my 2 cents.

[Foggy]

!

Message from: Foggy

Just surprised that one topic thread was so irritating that it had to be “boxed in.” No, and apologies if I could have read further before responding, but the point is, this will be a forum with MANY threads, at least one per book, which means one per month. The Book Club forum already has more than one topic thread in it. And it's not boxed in if absolutely everyone in the community can access it. It literally takes four clicks for lifetime access: 1: User Control Panel 2: Usergroups tab 3: select Book Worms usergroup 4: Submit After that, you will see every topic, every post, and there will be periodic reminders, as I put up for the Sportsball forum, that another whole world awaits your participation, in the Book Club. Sorry for any confusion, but if this is going to be an ongoing thing, it's going to generate a lot of threads ...

[raison de arizona]

[Foggy]

!

Message from: Foggy

...my wish would be have the board default to show all topics with choices to hide some sub forums. That's simply not possible, so I have to do it the way I am. And the truth is, in the middle of football season we do have at least two, and usually more, active threads on any particular day -- one on this week's college football pick 'ems, one on pro football pick 'ems, maybe one or two from last week that somebody added something to it, ya never know. And this is probably going to be similar, several active threads at any one time. If you use either Active Topics or Unread Posts, it does get old to see a thread you don't want to read pop up again and again, and if you don't read or at least load the page with the posts you haven't read, it goes to the top of the list and doesn't go away. I fondly remember how much I hated it when Gavin Seim got on the list. We followed him way past his expiration date. And just think how it would be if we had Mama June threads ALWAYS on the top of Unread/Active topics, yuk, ptooie. Love Orlylicious, but I'm not a fan of Mama June. Anyway, as I said, you can effortlessly join these usergroups just once and you never have to think about it again. If you join Sports Fans you see the sportsball threads, and if you join Book Worms you see all the Book Club threads. Having said that, I'm going to be delayed, ol' Wifehorn has some projects that cannot be put off until later, so Book Club threads will be totally public for at least another day or so.

[Volkonski]

I am happy not to have to see the Sportsball posts because of my lack of interest.

One thing that drives me crazy on Twitter is that the news organizations I follow keep posting about sports news in which I am uninterested.

Seriously, cricket news from India is not important to me.

[Foggy]

!

Message from: Foggy

Yes, and there were others who were dedicated Fogbow members, who are here to discuss polly ticks and whirled events and to follow the weirdo right-wing nutcases we follow, but who have no interest at all in sportsball topics, and I respect that. I think the same is going to be true of Book Club. If I could do it the way RC describes, I would do it that way. It would be much preferable. I can't, so I have to do it this way. But this way is easy (four clicks) and permanent. You make your choice, you join whatever usergroup you want, you're done. It's the best available solution, and with that, I am AFK for the balance of the afternoon.

[Reality Check]

That's simply not possible, so I have to do it the way I am.

Thanks for the explanation and it is really no problem. Those of us who follow sports or books or whatever can easily get to those topics.

[Whatever4]

Hey Boss, is there an accessible option? Like until I get my cataracts fixed, I can’t read the board. I can make it bigger via the iPad Pinch, but then I have to manually scroll right and left to read the sentences. I need bigger type.

[MN-Skeptic]

Hey Boss, is there an accessible option? Like until I get my cataracts fixed, I can’t read the board. I can make it bigger via the iPad Pinch, but then I have to manually scroll right and left to read the sentences. I need bigger type.

Are you using Safari? Do you see the small and large A’s in the address bar? Tap on them. You will get a drop down box whose top line is a small A on the left, 100% in the middle, and a large A on the right. Tap on the large A to increase the font size. Additional taps will keep increasing the size.

Alternately, you can change the font size for all of Safari by going to your iPad’s Settings, scroll down to Safari, scroll down to Page Zoom, then select a page zoom size.

[Foggy]

Hey Boss, is there an accessible option?

There should always be accessibility features on any machine.

Having said that, there is an extension I can add that would give you the ability to increase text size to 400%.

Who says size doesn't matter?

Check it out:
https://www.phpbb.com/customise/db/exte ... arge_font/

HOWEVER, I'm not sure if that is going to help. You can already increase the text size, and you'll still have the problem of horizontal scrolling.

What you really need is a way to increase your phone size 400% on occasion.

Try the HiFiKabin board style, black on yellow. But if you want the large font extension, lemme know.

[RTH10260]

Hey Boss, is there an accessible option?

HOWEVER, I'm not sure if that is going to help. You can already increase the text size, and you'll still have the problem of horizontal scrolling.

Objection, your honor. The CSS retains layout size so the text with large fonts gets wrapped around within the text box limits. There will be physical lengthier forum pages to scroll down. Width ought to remain with fewer words per line.

[Foggy]

!	Message from: Foggy
	OK, then I installed Large Fonts. To use it, go to User Control Panel --> Board Preferences tab and answer the following three questions: Would you prefer the font to be larger? Would you prefer a different font size for mobile devices? Would you prefer ALL of the font to be bold? More improvements coming ... today is INFRASTRUCTURE WEEK!

Edit: Tried 400% text size, and horizontal scrolling is definitely a problem. It's unusable for me, but I already had my cataracts fixed.

[RTH10260]

400% may be overkill, but lower percentages ought to work.

Though it seem my Samsung tablet nor my Samsung phone got recognized as mobile devive and did not increase font size.

[Foggy]

Yeah, the effectiveness is apparently altered depending on the board style you are using. But heck, if anybody is really helped by that and the yellow board style, I'm happy.

I have a few plumbing chores today, tweaking toilets with minor leaks (2 of them) and replacing the faucet mechanical parts in a sink, then I'll try to get to the forum stuff.

[Azastan]

I am using the larger print and bold together, thank you.

[northland10]

The mobile version worked for mine using GrandNew (not that I left it on that as I was just looking to see how it works). I did turn it onto 400% for my laptop. I was able to read it from 8 feet away. What fun. Now I need 8-foot arms to type a response.