MacRumors Forums Theme Change and New Platform

[Benjamin Frost]

I visit these forums several times daily using an iPhone 6, an iPad mini and an iPad Air 2.. I've experienced no problems - though the forums were a little sluggish this morning. Just in case it's relevant: all of my iOS devices are LTE and are being used on the Verizon network in Seattle, WA.

I noticed the forums have been sluggish the past day. Not sure if it's MR or my connection. Seems better now, if still a little slow.

 

[iwan073]

Love the new forum. Looks awesome

 

[King Kovifor]

Loss of saved content



If it's possible/normal to lose saved drafts in that way, then there should be an answer to a frequently asked question (FAQ) and ideally, that FAQ page should be compiled, or recompiled, before the first complaint about dataloss.

(I sometime draft things for hours, days or weeks before posting.)

Drafts older than the time frame are removed from the database. I can't comment on the length set here, I'm not staff.

 

[grahamperrin]

Search results often show not enough of each post

A busy site. There are often many results to a search query.

The snippet of text (of post content) within each result is often too brief and in those cases, I find myself Command-Clicking each result, to gain context in separate tabs.

Please: show more content.

 

[grahamperrin]

Incompatibility with TinEye

Probably a minor problem: it's no longer possible to use TinEye to seek images such as the one at https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/21449809

I randomly browsed another topic with images, the same problem affects the image at https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/20624529

 

[Dark Void]

Has the "points/trophy" system been removed, or is it just not functioning at the moment (shows 0 for all it looks like)? I don't mind either way personally, but am definitely curious as this seemed to cause a bit of controversy from what I read so far.

 

[ardchoille50]

Has the "points/trophy" system been removed, or is it just not functioning at the moment (shows 0 for all it looks like)? I don't mind either way personally, but am definitely curious as this seemed to cause a bit of controversy from what I read so far.

Yes, it shows 0 for everyone. I contacted the staff yesterday and was informed that admin is working on something that involves the trophy system functions.

 

[Dark Void]

Yes, it shows 0 for everyone. I contacted the staff yesterday and was informed that admin is working on something that involves the trophy system functions.

Good to know, thanks a lot.

 

[Gwendolini]

Two other issues I noticed by accident.

First, neither the QuickReply nor the dedicated Post Reply page do prevent Safari (did not test other browsers) from closing the tab/window when text is inside the QuickReply or Post Reply text box.

VBB message boards still seem to support it, as I tested it on one, thus it is not a Safari or script issue.

Second, the leading (distance between lines of text) in the Post Reply text box is quite narrow, while it is bigger in the QuickReply text box.

​

@arn
Is this still the place to report issues?

 

[Nermal]

I've been meaning to ask this for a while and I'm sorry if it's already been asked (at 35 pages this thread is becoming a bit of a behemoth!)

What does it mean when a thread has a blue "highlight" in the forum list/search results? About 40% of threads seem to have this highlight and I can't figure out what it represents.

 

[redheeler]

I've been meaning to ask this for a while and I'm sorry if it's already been asked (at 35 pages this thread is becoming a bit of a behemoth!)

What does it mean when a thread has a blue "highlight" in the forum list/search results? About 40% of threads seem to have this highlight and I can't figure out what it represents.

Are you talking about the alternating blue background of search results and thread lists? That's just there for aesthetic reasons and to help differentiate between results.

 

[ardchoille50]

I've been meaning to ask this for a while and I'm sorry if it's already been asked (at 35 pages this thread is becoming a bit of a behemoth!)

What does it mean when a thread has a blue "highlight" in the forum list/search results? About 40% of threads seem to have this highlight and I can't figure out what it represents.

If you're referring to the light blue background in a list of threads, that is known as table zebra striping (Wikipedia). However, it appears that threads categorized as stickies do not conform to this type of graphical enhancement, so it seems to break the intended pattern.

 

[Nermal]

Ah, OK. I'm familiar with zebra striping but didn't realise that that's what it was (there are extra colours representing moderation so that didn't help). Thanks 🙂

 

[grahamperrin]

Seeking exact words or phrases

Seeking "mixed" finds posts that do not include that word.

How, with XenForo (without resorting to Google and the like), can I get a better set of results – where each result contains a required word or phrase?

 

[grahamperrin]

Throughout a topic: drawing attention to any and every reply from the opening poster (OP)

…

function displayThreadStarter(){
    var pageDescription = document.getElementById('pageDescription');
    if(pageDescription == null || pageDescription.getElementsByClassName('username')[0] == null){return;}
    var originalPoster = pageDescription.getElementsByClassName('username')[0].innerHTML;
    var posts = document.getElementsByClassName('message');
    for(var i=0; i<posts.length; i++) {
        var post = posts[i];
        var poster = post.getAttribute('data-author');
        if(poster == originalPoster){
            post.getElementsByClassName('userText')[1].innerHTML += '<em class="userBanner wrapped" itemprop="title" style="background: rgb(84, 191, 86);"><span class="before"></span><strong>Thread Starter</strong><span class="after"></span></em>';
        }
    }
}

Thanks, but that does not yet work for me. At https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/21396370 for example I see the established 'Staff Member' red alert but not the custom 'Thread Starter' green alert.

Is leading white space important? (Side note: that aspect of code is too easily lost with XenForo.)

Background

… can't see when someone replying to the thread is the thread starter …

… it would be nice to still have an indicator of "Original Poster" or "Thread Starter" whenever the OP comments …

Yes please bring this back. It's so contextually important to know who the OP is, especially in multi page discussions.

… he got the message. It's really annoying not having the thread starter highlighted and I notice the absence of this feature daily. …

 

[redheeler]

Throughout a topic: drawing attention to any and every reply from the opening poster (OP)



Thanks, but that does not yet work for me. At https://forums.macrumors.com/posts/21396370 for example I see the established 'Staff Member' red alert but not the custom 'Thread Starter' green alert.

Is leading white space important? (Side note: that aspect of code is too easily lost with XenForo.)

I just realized I didn't put in a call to the function when I gave the code to @AngerDanger. Add the following line below it:

displayThreadStarter();

Also, make sure to add userscript headers if that's what you're using.

Here's what mine looks like when going to the post you linked, although slightly different from the one you'll see since I've modified it since:

 

[grahamperrin]

To hide the big red "Staff Member" badges …

I like the badge. I'd prefer a single word, lowercase staff but I'm in no way upset by seeing Staff Member.

A user title is something that's important to members and is a good indicator …

Important to some members, but too many appearances of titles are cliquey, far from self-explanatory, easily misleading. With those observations, combined, I can't generalise it as 'good'.

Some titles, and thoughts evoked evoked by each title

63030

• LC II, Performa
• slow, conflicting extensions, system crashes
• outdated
• early 1990s

65816

• what?

68000

• a nice round number

6502a

• what?
• Is that more or less than, older or newer than 68000?

6502

• what?
• I didn't find that one until I scrolled to the top of a page, above a 6502a

regular

• appearing just once per month, week or day
• posts from a newbie can be regular

moderator

• self-explanatory

god

• creator of the site
• highest authority; superior to moderators

demi-gods

• creators of large or highly significant parts of the site, or of the code for the site
• superior to moderators

 

[Moshe1010]

Seeking exact words or phrases

Seeking "mixed" finds posts that do not include that word.

How, with XenForo (without resorting to Google and the like), can I get a better set of results – where each result contains a required word or phrase?

you can use tags in your search (unless @arn doesn't use ElasticSearch, which I believe he does or the MySQL server would go kaput). You can use the following in your search:
+ signifies AND operation
| signifies OR operation
- negates a single token
" wraps a number of tokens to signify a phrase for searching

 

[grahamperrin]

@Moshe1010 thanks, so (without actually linking to the results) I have, for example:

Search Results for Query: +"mixed"

But the first result does not contain the word. Are we missing something?

A more tangible example. Seeking the word in this topic finds MacRumors Forums Theme Change and New Platform but the word is not in that post. There's the phrase 'mix-ups' but not the word 'mixed'.

 

[Clix Pix]

I like the badge. I'd prefer a single word, lowercase staff but I'm in no way upset by seeing Staff Member.



Important to some members, but too many appearances of titles are cliquey, far from self-explanatory, easily misleading. With those observations, combined, I can't generalise it as 'good'.

Some titles, and thoughts evoked evoked by each title

63030

• LC II, Performa
• slow, conflicting extensions, system crashes
• outdated
• early 1990s

65816

• what?

68000

• a nice round number

6502a

• what?
• Is that more or less than, older or newer than 68000?

6502

• what?
• I didn't find that one until I scrolled to the top of a page, above a 6502a

regular

• appearing just once per month, week or day
• posts from a newbie can be regular

moderator

• self-explanatory

god

• creator of the site
• highest authority; superior to moderators

demi-gods

• creators of large or highly significant parts of the site, or of the code for the site
• superior to moderators

Actually, demi-gods and demi-goddesses are members who have made financial contributions to the site and who therefore get a few extra little "perks," including the designation of "demi-god" or "demi-goddess." Some contributors prefer the label "contributor," while others are in stealth mode and simply stick with the usual numbers. Nothing to do with creating parts of the site or creating code for it, not at all "superior to moderators." 🙂

 

[maflynn]

Some titles, and thoughts evoked evoked by each title
...

The FAQ describes the titles, I recommend you review that to get a better understanding of the titles
I'll not quote the entire FAQ but as you can see, the demi titles, they are regular members who contribute. I'm not sure why you thought they were above moderators, but in any case the FAQ is quite helpful. It will answer many questions you may have regarding the site.

Special titles for forum members:

• Demi-God, Demi-Goddess, or Contributor => Member who has contributed to the site and has chosen to use one of those three titles.

Special titles for the MacRumors staff and volunteers:

• Moderator => Forum moderator
• Administrator => Forum administrator
• Editor or Contributing Editor => Member who writes news content for the site
• Moderator emeritus => Member who is a former moderator
• [other title] emeritus => Member who formerly held the specified role

 

[MDJCM]

Guys this platform upgrade is really nice on mobiles. Finally, a usable mobile forum!

Very nice.

Haven't tried it on desktop.

 

[Moshe1010]

@Moshe1010 thanks, so (without actually linking to the results) I have, for example:

Search Results for Query: +"mixed"

But the first result does not contain the word. Are we missing something?

A more tangible example. Seeking the word in this topic finds MacRumors Forums Theme Change and New Platform but the word is not in that post. There's the phrase 'mix-ups' but not the word 'mixed'.

yes, you need to use + only with two words and up. If you try to find the word "mixed" then use only "mixed" without "+". @arn should have Stemming Analyzer enabled in XF's ACP in order for it to work properly. The search is crap overall, I would suggest using site:https://forums.macrumors.com/ <your search term> on google. I would suggest adding a bar under the regular search box with google in an iFrame so people can decide how to search. I think Elastic Search is not a good option overall, but that's what XFs developers have chosen, so we can't so anything about it. Sphinx would have been a better choice.

 

[grahamperrin]

The FAQ describes the titles …

Yes, but meaningful, self-explanatory titles would make that that page unnecessary. I don't suggest abandoning the tradition, just be aware that most of the titles are not immediately meaningful.

The site could be improved by linking each title to that frequently asked questions about titles.

 

[grahamperrin]

… to find the word "mixed" then use only "mixed" without "+". …

Already done; that's what led to the report above.

… google …

Unfortunately I need to search

>> without resorting to Google and the like

– but thanks.