Queries and complaints about the new format (retitled)

[Sunshine Meadows]

I just wanted to say sorry about this length of time this site was down today. I was doing something new and it took longer than I expected it would.

Today I was doing a back up to my computer and later I will be backing up to the Go Daddy server. Last time I backed up to the server the website was slow but remained up but dont worry if it is down for a bit.

I know this is all a bit irratating its just I want to make sure I have done what I can to have the message board backed up. Once we are up and running properly I plan to back up once a week and will try to make it a Monday morning thing.
 >thumbsup<

[oldtone27]

Another curious effect.

I use the group links (that's what I call them) at the top and foot of the posts which repeat the group titles to navigate quickly.

I notice that the link for 'Disability Q and A' also lists the moderators which does not appear with the others.

The problem with that is I have on a couple of occasion clicked on KizzyKaser by mistake and found myself viewing her profile.

Honestly I'm not stalking you Kizzy!

[Sunshine Meadows]

Oldtone,

Thank you for the heads up I sorted it  >thankyou<

[Sunshine Meadows]

Oldtone,

Earlier in the thread we we talking about you using IE7 to view this forum and you didi not want to change it to IE 8 because you had banking details you worried you could lose. I realised on work around would be for you to install Firefox and use that to browse here.

eg http://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/new/.

I will still be looking to improve the functionality of this site and add how to posts, but in the meanwhile Firefox is worth thinking about.

[DarthVector]

That's a good point, actually - you can keep Internet Explorer as your default browser, but have a copy of Firefox installed for anything IE can't handle.

[oldtone27]

Sunshine, thanks for your comments.

The bank in question, which I use for some accounts, unhelpfully advised some time ago that they had no plans to make their service compatible with browsers other than IE and I found it did not work fully with Firefox or Chrome. It does have cross bank account features I have not found with other services.

It is supposed to be compatible with IE8 and was being tested with IE9 but I had all sorts of problems upgrading to IE8 and even more downgrading to IE7 when I found it did not work on my system satisfactorily. I am now being reminded by Microsoft to upgrade to IE9 and would if I was confident it would work or I could revert to IE 7 with no problem.

My experience with Microsoft products is that they think they know best and are not keen on letting users choose what best suits them.

I really don't want the aggro of switching browsers to suit particular sites.

[Sunshine Meadows]

Darth,

:-) I regularily use both IE8 and Firefox at the same time because I multitask. The browsers are shown at the bottom of the screen and when I click on say IE8 I have tabs loaded at the top, and the same for Firefox. I am using IE8 for OuchToo.org pages and Firefox for Aimoo pages, it is making the back and forth copy and pasting dates titles and content much easier while moving stuff over from Aimoo

IE8 -- Firefox -- Microsoft Word -- Window Media Player

all to the right of the Start button ~big grin~

oldtone,

I am so used to surfing the way I do that using two browsers works for me, but I can see why it could be a hassle for you. Its like if I had to just use IE8 it would feel weird. If I can help you further just ask
~smile~

[KizzyKazaer]

Honestly I'm not stalking you Kizzy!

 >lol<  I don't think there's anything THAT exciting on my profile  >biggrin<

[oldtone27]

Another little query.

I opened the Talk>>Welcome Aboard thread and intending to look for the latest posts and I was offered pages 123...5. Fine.

I went to page 5 but was not sure if there wasn't anything on page 4 I hadn't read so tried to go back one page. Still showed 123...5.

I picked Previous but that took me to the previous thread.

So I picked Next and the Welcome Aboard thread then offered 1...345.

At least I could get to page 4 but why is there no paging button or have I missed it.

Aimoo is better in this respect as it shows the three first and three last pages in a long thread.

[Hurtyback]

Many sites have a 'go to fist unread message' facility. That was not available on Aimoo and, disappointingly,  it seems that this is the case here too  :-(

[DarthVector]

Page number display settings help for administrators; one might experiment with the "Limit number of displayed page links" option, although the examples don't carry any implication that you can change which pages in the sequence get displayed, so don't get your hopes up.

Ideally, I'd want to see the first and last three pages in a thread, too, not to mention the first page with an unread message on it, and the pages either side of the page I'm on (yes, I'm a geek (: and yes, that is up to ten pages).

I'd also turn off the "Enable 'Today' feature", but that's purely my personal preference - I find it more readable to see every message with its timestamp displayed in exactly the same way, because then I can choose the date and time format in my profile settings.

I have better news with the "Go to first unread message" feature, though - if you click on the little orange "new" icon (it looks like this: ) next to the title of a thread which has been updated, it'll take you to the first message you haven't read yet, as long as you're logged in.

[Sunshine Meadows]

Thank you Darth, for answering Oldtone's question, so there is a solution which shows the replies he has not read he just click on the orange new icon.

Hurtyback,

If you look at the top left hand side there are two options:

Show unread posts since last visit
Show new replies to your posts

That are similar to go to the first unread message facility :-)

[Sunshine Meadows]

Oldtone,

I have reviewed this thread and realise that the title needs changing, after all it is not being used to report problems so much as posting queries and complaints about the way the new site works. I dont mind people pointing out what they see as faults and asking for help in how to do something but the way this thread is going is hurting my feelings (yes I have them too) in the way even with all the benefits of the new format ' it is still not good enough :-(

Everyone,

I dont expect you all to be doing a ~happy dance~ about learning to navigate the workings of this new format and I do know a lot of you are pleased with the benefits of the move. It is just the past week has been hard work and I would appreciate a few days of positive thinking.

This thread is going to be retitled 'queries and complaints about the new format.'

[DarthVector]

By the way, if the "new" icons on all the archive threads are annoying you, you can nuke the lot by going to the forum's front page and clicking on "MARK ALL MESSAGES AS READ" towards the lower right of the page. Make sure you've read any new messages on threads that interest you first, though, because hitting that button removes every "new" icon across the entire forum. After that, the "new" icons will slowly come back - but only on active threads - as people continue to post and the moderators continue to archive material from Aimoo OuchToo.

EDIT: It turns out that there are several options for marking things as read or unread, depending on where you are in the forum. Here's a list of what I've found so far:

1. On the front page of the forum, there's a "MARK ALL MESSAGES AS READ" link towards the lower right of the page. It marks everything in the entire forum as read, so use it with caution.

2. In the different topic areas, such as "Talk" or "Cafe", there are "MARK READ" links near the "NEW TOPIC" ones. These mark everything in that area as read, but leave the rest of the forum alone.

3. In any given thread, you'll find "MARK UNREAD" links near the "REPLY" links. These mark the current thread as unread, which restores the "new" icon for that thread. Note that this also sends you back to the thread list, so don't be surprised when that happens.

Option 3 can be handy if you find an interesting new post in a thread, but you haven't got time to read it right now, so you want a reminder to come back to it later.

[Mistynow]

Not a complaint Sunshine, most likely me using computer incorrectly but when I click on the pdf's they won't open for me using FF, Adobe is the latest version,  >blush< please help  >yikes<