Feature requests/bug reports

[wickham]

I've just had the same problem where a very old un-updated Snitz forum was getting hacked so it was closed to new posts and members. A new phpBB forum was started and people asked if all old posts, members, passwords, etc. could be transferred but it proved impractical. A link was made to the old READ-ONLY forum and it is being kept alive just as an archive, but it seems that TMF will disappear.

[bitstrange]

Just to add to the ever growing to-do list, I've just tried posting something in the Airport Lounge, but it doesn't seem to have the buttons to add a New Topic. Same with Around the UK. Sorry if I'm missing something!

Thanks,

Est

[mc2fool]

I do wonder whether TMF could sell/give us the original forum software. I'm sure there would be complications, but it's something we are all used to. It's about the best forum design I've seen.. with one niggle over switching between threaded/unthreaded modes which never seemed to work smoothly.

Not just the software but also the database of existing posts. Or, better still, sell/give us the whole caboodle, so we could just carry on with it as is...

You underestimate the task involved in migrating a database from one forum's structure to another.

Actually I don't, and (because I don't) I didn't suggest that. What I said was "Not just the software but also the database of existing posts", so the only migration I envisaged was of software+database from one set of servers (TMF's) to another (ours). (Some de-TMF-ication of the visuals would be needed of course.)

However, I have to (also from experience) agree with kiloran's point about the problems of maintaining old unique legacy software.

OTOH, if we could get the SQL database off of them (I'm assuming here it is all in an SQL database!) it wouldn't be too difficult to put together a PHP site that provided read-only archive access to it. Having said that, I'm not volunteering

[wickham]

Creating a poll is disabled. This can be useful to ascertain whether a share or strategy has support.

[WessexMario]

Hi,
could url links be activated?
ta.

[88V8]

...the problems of maintaining old unique legacy software.

In my one and only brush with programming, many years ago, I learned that often there are multiple ways of making a programme do something and different programmers prefer different methods and don't necessarily know other programmers' methods.
And programmers are supposed to annotate the master programme as they proceed, describing what is happening, flagging what doesn't work, indicating what is a patch for a previous process etc,... and often they don't.

All of which I am sure would make taking over such an olde programme a nightmare.

V8

[gbjbaanb]

...the problems of maintaining old unique legacy software.

In my one and only brush with programming, many years ago, I learned that often there are multiple ways of making a programme do something and different programmers prefer different methods and don't necessarily know other programmers' methods.

Definitely need a URL link embeddery feature enabled.

http://dilbert.com/strip/2016-10-17

It is possible to port these things, so if we can get the old software (.aspx extensions means .NET code, which is not the worst thing to work with) then we can run it up and continue, or look into porting posts to a different software forum. Its often not rocket science, just dull tedious work.

I like the tree views for replies, makes the quoting old posts irrelevant and makes things easy to read through. So I would always vote for something more like slashdot views than phpBB default ones.

Of course what nobody is thinking so far is what extra features we could have that old McFooly didn't have. Chat flyouts? Picture or other upload albums? RSS feeds? Tag clouds? Facebook (etc) login integration? Rich editors? Print friendly? Mobile friendly?

I know one open source forum that has all the above (and the same thread/flat views that TMF has), its not phpBB though.

[doug2500]

When I look at the 'board index' half of the board titles are obscured and blacked out, does anyone know why that might be?

[stooz]

Can we please get rid of the scrolling circular icons in the topics list showing there's more than ten replies to a topic, they are seriously annoying!

Such animated gifs on web pages were deemed a human factors no-no back in the '90s!

These are part of the default setup, I will look at the design and layout soon. Certainly the limit they kick in can be modified and there icons All replaceable.

If anyone has suggestions on colour schemes, Feel free to start a topic or pm me.
I suggest a Google of phpbb themes for inspiration.

[stooz]

When I look at the 'board index' half of the board titles are obscured and blacked out, does anyone know why that might be?

No good reason, can you produce a screen print?

[stooz]

Hi,
could url links be activated?
ta.

It's being worked on. Greatly abused by spammers selling watches so it's being done carefully, not quickly.

As for next/ previous links, I will look into it. It's just part of a layout, rather than a fault I think.

[doug2500]

When I look at the 'board index' half of the board titles are obscured and blacked out, does anyone know why that might be?

No good reason, can you produce a screen print?

Sorry, it's gone back to normal. I thought about a screen shot but I don't have a photo hosting account so didn't bother.

Thanks for the reply, and even more thanks for the new website. What you've achieved in a couple of days is astounding to me!

[Breelander]

...I don't have a photo hosting account so didn't bother...

For future reference, you don't need an account at http://imgur.com/ just to upload images, registering is only needed for things like leaving comments.

[kiloran]

An annoyance rather than a bug....

When reading a topic, much of the screen width is taken up by the column on the right with username etc:

kiloran
Posts: 25
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 9:24 am
Contact:

The Joined element is far too wide and fairly irrelevant. A particular problem if a post has a wide code section, where the text may be wrapped due to insufficient screen width.
There's no way I need to know the time that someone joined when reading a topic. Better formatted as:
kiloran
Posts: 25
Joined: Nov 2016
Contact:

--kiloran

[rgifford]

I want to be able to read posts unthreaded, within a board of course. Reading off topic posts in a thread (or a post which was a natural development of the thread) together with BOB were the two best aspects of the Fool boards. They both led me to things that I hadn't considered looking for.

[stooz]

An annoyance rather than a bug....

When reading a topic, much of the screen width is taken up by the column on the right with username etc:

kiloran
Posts: 25
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 9:24 am
Contact:

The Joined element is far too wide and fairly irrelevant. A particular problem if a post has a wide code section, where the text may be wrapped due to insufficient screen width.
There's no way I need to know the time that someone joined when reading a topic. Better formatted as:
kiloran
Posts: 25
Joined: Nov 2016
Contact:

--kiloran

I concur, why do I need to know when you joined per se? Leave it with me...

[AndyPandy]

When I signed up here, my TMF password, which had stood me in good stead, unchanged since it was issued in 1998 was deemed unacceptable, so I had to add something to the end to satisfy the Password Police.

Of course, I've now forgotten that and it appears that the 'reset password' link is non-functional. No 'reset' email received, despite clicking it a few times.

Spam folder checked, obv. and I've had to create a new identity to post this

Actually, I might stick with the new ID, but the Password reset function needs looking into, I guess.

[GN100]

"Not just the software but also the database of existing posts. Or, better still, sell/give us the whole caboodle, so we could just carry on with it as is..."

Now that would be really great but probably won't happen. Even if TMF did give us the whole thing my gut feeling is that it would require a tremendous workover to keep it going. Nothing that money and time wouldn't cure but that's a major stumbling block in itself.

GN

[mc2fool]

An annoyance rather than a bug....

When reading a topic, much of the screen width is taken up by the column on the right with username etc:

kiloran
Posts: 25
Joined: November 4th, 2016, 9:24 am
Contact:

The Joined element is far too wide and fairly irrelevant. A particular problem if a post has a wide code section, where the text may be wrapped due to insufficient screen width.
There's no way I need to know the time that someone joined when reading a topic. Better formatted as:
kiloran
Posts: 25
Joined: Nov 2016
Contact:

--kiloran

I concur, why do I need to know when you joined per se? Leave it with me...

Personally I don't see why the right hand panel is needed at all, and given the frequency of w i d e tables posted on some TMF boards, it'd be good to get rid of the right hand panel altogether to give the maximum available width for posting. If any of the information in the panel is deemed useful it can just be added onto the end of the "by" line at the top of each post.

[wickham]

Personally I don't see why the right hand panel is needed at all, and given the frequency of w i d e tables posted on some TMF boards, it'd be good to get rid of the right hand panel altogether to give the maximum available width for posting. If any of the information in the panel is deemed useful it can just be added onto the end of the "by" line at the top of each post.

The right hand panel isn't there in we_universal style which I administrate ; see example http://forum.dloc.co.uk/viewtopic.php?f=34&t=1470
This style is very popular and it isn't too late to change

It also gives you a chance to change to header to a decent-sized photo.