Forum slowdown

[gmattson]

Just received a call from Bill Glasheen regarding slow response when posting and large posts not being activated.
I've called our server administrator to look into things. Meanwhile, I posted two very large articles in the "Technical Support" Forum with no trouble. It took about 15 seconds to complete the posting on both entries.

If anyone else is experiencing this, please let me know by posting your problem here.

It is possible that individual internet connections and speed may be contributing to the problem.

George

[Bill Glasheen]

I have a long post that won't go through. I just tried it... saving it for when things get fixed. Anything longer than a paragraph or two just unceremoniously boots me into the "Board index" page.

Same thing was happening a week or so ago with the thread you started, George. I had to break one post up into four much smaller posts (see page 3). There seemed to be no rhyme or reason to the length. Five lines would work; six would blow up. Next section would take a couple of paragraphs. I have even tried writing the posts in Notepad and copy/pasting them here in case there are special characters screwing things up. No help. Frustrating... don't have an hour to play trial-and-error for a single post.

Bill

[Bill Glasheen]

See the following...

viewtopic.php?f=11&t=22038

I got the Forum to take a post only after breaking it up into 4 pieces. And I have one (1) single sentence that will not take. ONE sentence! The Forum inexplicably regurgitates and goes into the "Board index" page.

[gmattson]

OK... our capable web administrator has performed a major overhaul of the forums and requested that we check out, what he considers to be, a far better template.

Lets hear from you about how you like the format and Bill. . . has your problem been resolved?

[Bill Glasheen]

George:

I will try to see if I can cause things to muck up or not. For all I know, it might be a Firefox vs. MS Internet Explorer thing. I recently had that issue with logging in to work.

I must say that I am having a difficult time separating the individual posts with the color selections. Not enough contrast from one post to the next, or the ID with the content field. Maybe we need a female touch for this. Just no violet.

Bill

[gmattson]

Bill:
Regarding the color choice. I'm color blind (greens & reds) and find the color choice here to be fine. On most monitors there are options regarding color balance - intensity that might need tweaking on your computer.

Lets see if we get any other comments/suggestions from other posters before changing anything.

[Bill Glasheen]

Bill:
Regarding the color choice. I'm color blind (greens & reds) and find the color choice here to be fine. On most monitors there are options regarding color balance - intensity that might need tweaking on your computer.

Lets see if we get any other comments/suggestions from other posters before changing anything.

George:

One shouldn't have to change settings on a monitor so that it works for this forum (making unrealistic contrast settings) while distorting a simple photograph for every other web viewing. I can view this with my Dell laptop monitor and my massive Samsung side monitor (giving a two-screen Windows view) and it's problematic in both. You don't want to know what I paid for that Samsung monitor... It's as good as it gets. And I don't muck with the settings because it gives me a realistic viewing of a photo.

It's my job when delivering information to customers to have it visually appealing. There are simple choices that can be made which would make this better. Even if I switch this to black and white - simulating complete color blindness - it's problematic. The color choices before were fine; this not so much.

If you go into Microsoft Excel and choose INSERT > TABLE for a section of data with column headings, there are color choices that separate the individual rows so that one can easily follow a line of data. Microsoft got it right. You can choose lots of different colors. The default is pure white and a shade of blue, with dark blue for the column heading row. Others colors work as well. Use this as a kind of industry benchmark, and you'll do well. Another choice would be to have thick black lines outlining the boxes rather than the white contrasting with the very light blue.

Bill

[Jason Rees]

The updated template, 'pro silver,' seems to be uber-friendly for portable and touch-screen technologies, but I have to agree with Bill that the light-blue-on-white is not enough contrast. The older 'sub silver 2' template is still loaded and available, just not set as the default. It would be easy to switch back, if the decision were made to do so (personally, I like the new functionality of the newer template, but perhaps some darker shades of blue are in order).

I have noticed that the newer template works much better on my phone and kindle fire, and is very responsive on a touch-screen laptop.

Bill, are you still having problems with posting?

[Van Canna]

The other problem is the size of the fonts of this new format v. the old one.

To make his format more readable, I had to zoom it up, which then affects other sites such as Google, with oversize fonts. Not good.

[gmattson]

Hi Jason. . .

Is there any way to "finetune" this template? Both Bill and Van make good points regarding modifications that should make this template perfect.

I like the setup though and with a few "tweaks", should be acceptable to all.

[Van Canna]

Another problem for me is that I can no longer opt for hiding my status on line even after checking that on board preferences in the user control panel.

What gives??

[Van Canna]

Also, how do I change my password?

Where do I find instructions for that?

[gmattson]

For any user information and instructions, click on "FAQ" in the upper right corner.

Be patient while we fine-tune the system. Worse case, we can always return it back to the old template.

[gmattson]

Bill:
When I mentioned "checking your computer settings regarding color", I was referring to those of us who might have computers that aren't always set up correctly and/or on occasion don't work as they should.

I've asked the IUKF web administrator to check the colors and darken them if possible. On my computer, the colors now appear a little darker. Is this OK?

I happen to like the setup of this template and hope it is OK with the moderators and participants, but if it needs to be changed back, I will do it.

[Bill Glasheen]

There are three issues - the combination of which makes it very difficult to follow a discussion and see who is whom and what post belongs to what person. Together they create "the problem."

• The main Board Index page with the dark blue background behind the light blue individual topics is good. The individual forum pages with the white background contrasting against the light blue posts is the problem. If this can be fixed, that would be great. Can we ditch the white background in favor of something else?
  ...
• I personally don't like the labels of the posters to the right. The eye can't easily go back and forth in-between the left-justified text and the avatar of the poster to the right.
  ...
• You can barely read the person's name (by Bill Glasheen » 03 Jul 2013 03:23 ). Meanwhile the name of the topic is in a large font with bold characters on every single post (Re: Forum slowdown), which is a waste. If the two sets of fonts were switched, then that would help a lot.

- Bill