Post your tech glitches, errors, issues, etc. here.

sam52 · May 2012

OK, MODS - at home I am using Vista and IE7 .....terrible white blinding background.

JUst now at work, using Windows 7 and IE9.......much better beige/buff background.

Still the annoying big space on the left.

Moderators · May 2012

Thanks for your specific reports of what's not right for you (and what is right too!). This will give the team detailed info to get their tech teeth into.

sam52, have you tried resizing the window you're using, to make it narrower. As Joy describes, on some browsers, if the window gets narrower, the navigation bars move to the top of the page (accessed from the Menu button) and the blank space goes away.

Your Mods

luv_gardening · May 2012

It would save a few clicks for each view if, next to the "Back to Top" button, there were buttons to take you to "Next Favourite Thread" or "Last Favourite Thread", or maybe Next and Last could go to the next or last thread from whatever section you came from, say a Forum, Active Topics or Favourites. This would speed things up considerably.

CoolBreeze · May 2012

The italics doesn't work.

I'm trying this sentence in italics.

CoolBreeze · May 2012

Us resizing browsers and rearranging our pageview is NOT a gppd technical solution to a problem. This should look good on all browsers, regardless and has to be done on the back end.

Moderators · May 2012

Hmm...I don't think I've used Italics yet, so trying it too.

Thanks! Adding italics to the long list.

suzieq60 · May 2012

The back to top thingy seems to work now, but it definitely didn't before. Did you guys test this before you released it?

suzieq60 · May 2012

The Active topics page is totally awful - bring back the table format!!!

sam52 · May 2012

The biggest bug-bear for me, apart from the blinding white pages on Vista/IE8, is that I cannot scroll easily on Active Topics to find a post I want to read.

On the old format, each post I had visited previously was a different colour from the others - easy to identify. Now I have to scroll past eons of posts, all the same colour and try and read the thread name (I'm used to SCANNING rapidly) to find one I want to read.As there are so many and there are fewer of them per page, it is impossible to scroll quickly without it really hurting my eyes. I really DO have a sicky headache from all this.Ack.

Marple · May 2012

Jump to bottom works.

Back to top does not work.

jo1955 · May 2012

When I sign in, it shows I have one unread message on my favorites but when I click on it, a new message is not showing up. I can not remember how many threads I was following and am wondering if they are not all showing up. If they are not, how do I get them up?

purple32 · May 2012

I am on IE.

The large light gray margin ( 25% of the screen?) is troublesome. The color here is just too bright white and font size too small.

I am sure you will work the bugs out of some of the other things as time goes on, but it seems to me just being able to comfortably see/read the posts would be first priorty IMHO.

Thx!

Belinda44 · May 2012

Hi Mods,

Thanks for all your hard work! One thing I liked about the old board was that Dr. Weiss' "Think Pink, Go Green" columns were easily accessible from here. The topic would show up on the side and you could just click and go to it. Now, I imagine, I'll have to leave the "discussion" part of the boards to go find it. If it can be accessd from here, that would be great. Thanks.

ruthbru · May 2012

'Back to the Top' is not working for me this morning.

Stanzie · May 2012

I use firefox and a mac. I still don't understand how you drag something to lost the negative space, I don't know what to grab to drag?

Mods - you said you can post from word pad I think it was - can you also post from word perfect and if so how do you unformat? Sorry not that technical on computers.

I haven't tried it as I'm running out the door, but curious one thing that always drove me nuts about the old site was in typing a post you couldn't go back to refer to another page without losing the post. Wondering if this is possible now. I'd try it but don't want to lose this one.... That was huge to me so if that is possible that would be lovely.

Also like someone else said - I could post pictures but it always took a very long frustrating time. hope that is easier. I'll try later on today but that also was a frustration with othersite. I know it didn't like firefox so I'd have to use IE. Thanks

LuvRVing · May 2012

Still unable to update my avatar. Getting this message in a single line pink bar across the page:

is not included in the list

Win7 netbook with IE9.

I also think my new message counter is off by one.

lago · May 2012

Pictures just to let you know the reason I assume BCO doesn't let you just upload pictures is pictures take up a lot of space on a server compared to text. If BCO had to host all our pictures they would need to purchase a bigger server (more money).

I also assume, since all the content we post is "theirs" according to the rules they don't want to deal with the legal issues of pictures on this public site. Lets face it many of us post images that aren't really ours to use. Granted I don't think Amazon minds when I post a picture of a product sold on their site and then link to it but it is their image.

So I wouldn't expect the picture posting issue to change.

wallycat · May 2012

I also dislike this very much....

I have 1/3 of a blank computer screen because this format forces the conversation part off to the

right 2/3s.

I agree, the newest conversations on each board were easier to distinguish. It all looks like a software

malfunction. Maybe because I am using firefox ??? or whomever wrote this software thinks it looks neater but in reality, it wastes valuable space and time (to hunt each area).

My vote is the old one.

thenewme · May 2012

As pointed out before, the problem with the new format is the basic design, not mere "glitches."

Here's a summary that may help clarify... notice that this new format violates nearly all the principles listed:

http://www.sylvantech.com/~talin/projects/ui_design.html

ETA - Why is my link above broken? It only accepts half the url?

ETA2 - I realize that you (mods/developers) are overwhelmed with the negative feedback here, but honestly - do you not see that all the "glitches" you're fixing do nothing more than restoring things back to the functional way they were before? Why not cut the losses and go back to it instead of trying to put lipstick on the pig, as they say? There are lots of successful existing forums out there. If you want to completely re-do BCO, then at least base it on a successful model instead of trying to reinvent the wheel.

dlb823 · May 2012

After viewing all new entries for My Favorite Topics, I'm always still at 4. I can't figure out what I'm missing to clear those 4.

As mentioned on other threads, the glare of the background color is still an issue for me, although it seems a bit better this a.m. Not sure if it's been slightly tweeked again or if it's just the difference between looking at it at midnight and 8:00 a.m... Deanna

leggo · May 2012

I know this was brought up a few months ago. When you logged in, you remained logged in until you physically logged out. Just "X-ing" out of the forum didn't log you out. I never had that problem at the time....but I do now. Not a big deal really. Just have to get used to hitting the log out button when I leave. Is anyone else having this issue? Might present a problem for those checking up on somebody...they'll show up as currently logged in, but they're not. Again, not a big deal mods, just mentioning it in case it is a new glitch.

otter · May 2012

As I've mentioned elsewhere, I am seeing two different versions of this new Board layout, depending on which browser I use. I'm on a MacBook Pro running Mac OS X v. 10.4.11.

The version I see with Safari (v. 3.0.4) has the gray column in the lefthand 1/3 of the page, with the blue nav bars and the drop-down menu. I am assuming that's what we're supposed to be seeing. I like it, even though about 1/3 of the page is "wasted" at the left side. I figure BCO will eventually insert ads and other stuff into that space. Note: if I re-size that page by tugging on the corner, I cannot make the gray column disappear or make the nav bars convert to a "Menu" button. The whole page just gets smaller until I reach the size limit.

OTOH, the version of the layout I see with Firefox (v. 3.0.19) is a full-page text version. There is no gray column at the left, and there are no nav bars or drop-down menu. Instead, I see a square, blue button at the top right of the page that's labeled "Menu". If I click on that button, I see links similar to the blue nav bars in the Safari version, but the function of the "Menu" button is not intuitive. People will use trial-and-error if they get frustrated enough, but there ought to be better labeling of functional things. I am assuming this full-page, menu-button version of the layout is the back-up version you've created for those of us whose browsers can't handle the real version. Note: no matter how I re-size the page or change my "zoom" setting, I cannot convert this page to the format with gray column and nav bars, when I'm in Firefox.

I can't check all this with IE because that browser is no longer functional on this laptop.

otter

ETA: This sentence should be in bold-face print. This sentence should be italicized. They are formatted correctly in the Compose window, but italics didn't work last night -- the text reverts to standard font once submitted. We'll see if things are okay now (10:39 a.m. CDT). [The italics formatting still doesn't stick once the post is submitted.]

Moderators · May 2012

Just made a chart with all the comments. Sent to our tech team, and we are working through the list.

We'll keep posting any changes that we make!

Anonymous · May 2012

I am trying everything to increase font size, i.e. went into Internet properties then Accessiblity, deselected "ignore font styles specified on web pages"

Nothing works Frown

Anonymous · May 2012

Stanzie ~ Maybe this will help you? Smile (edited to say (it should be "restore down" instead of minimize - at least that's how it works on mine.. You just can't have your window maximized to full screen.)

otter · May 2012

Suggestions:

Links that have been "visited" should change to a different color from those we haven't visited. Isn't that a formatting standard? The color change was one of the cues I used to locate familiar forums and threads at a glance. It would be especially helpful now that we're facing a list-type layout as opposed to the previous tables (which I preferred). The change in font color should stick whether we've logged off or not; we should be able to set the duration with our browser preferences. This function is missing in both Firefox and Safari on my MacBook Pro.

In Firefox, I am seeing two boxes flagging each "New" thread in a forum. There's one red box to the left of the title of each thread with a new post, and another red box to the left of the time stamp of the most recent post to each of those threads. Why the double-labeling? Shouldn't one flag be enough to tell us which threads have new posts?

In Safari, I see no red "New" boxes at all. There is nothing flagging the threads that have new posts.

I took screen shots to illustrate all this, but I'm not going to bother to post them because I lose the resolution when I bring them here from Photobucket.

otter

dlb823 · May 2012

For the record, my background color (iMac, Safari) is a sickly gray with a very slight greenish hue (think old hospital or other institutional room paint). It's both gloomy and glaring the same time, and literally makes my eyes jump around after just a few minutes of sitting in front of it.

River_Rat · May 2012

I went out and tried to run errands yesterday after being on this site and had to turn around and go home. My eyes were toast. I don't know if it's font-size, the font itself or contrast but it's seriously wreaking havoc with my eyes. There are standards for accessibility that if used would improve the site. I don't like the empty space at the left but I could deal with that.

My actual vision is pretty good but I do have astigmastism. I think something is aggravating that as I also feel nauseous reading here. I have repeatedly tried "Control +" to enlarge the font to help to mediate my eyestrain. It works on every other website I've ever tried it on, but doesn't work here. A robust Beta testing would have detected these problems, barring that being able to fall back to the old site while doing an after-the-fact Beta testing would be great. Since that doesn't seem likely I'll have to stay away and just check in once in awhile until something changes.

I do appreciate that you were trying to improve the site, just disappointed the the lack of testing and the way it was rolled out.

I'm on a Mac running OX 10.5.8, viewing on Safari 5.0.6.

Anonymous · May 2012

Thanks Susan, having same problem as Stanzie, tried your very detailed instructions above, but they don't work for me, i.e. no matter what, the grey areas to the left and to the right remain, the page does not fill up. Will download Firefox and see if it does it. Anything to get a readable font size !!

Anonymous · May 2012

Attempting to post the "how to" get rid of the empty space on the left. Not sure if the concept is the same on the mac, Stanzie?

Also.. these are the colors I am seeing. I like them.

Post your tech glitches, errors, issues, etc. here.

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