Announcing the NI Discussion Forums Upgrade

[muks]

Wierd!! I get a file not found when i tried to download this image. I am able to download the attachment of the above message though. Is file size/format the problem?

[Rod42]

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@GerdW wrote:

Hi Laura,

one more suggestion:

It would be nice to have an option to switch the display of message time to 24h format. Right now I can choose "German"-style date format (dd-mm-yyyy), but there is no option to switch off the AM/PM-time format in the "Display" section of "My Settings"...

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Yes please. I find the AM/PM way very strange too. It's not just Germany; most of Europe uses 24 hour time, (I'm in the UK) 

In the previous incarnation I set the date format to (IIRC) "%d/%m/%Y %H:%M" so that I got the date as "28/06/2010 14:02" I'd just ignore the 02:02 PM that the system added as the time.

My setting is still in effect, so I still see the date and time formatted almost as I would like, so the ability is still within the system. What I would really like to see is a proper way to get rid of the awful 12 hour formatting of the time. It seems incongruous that Lithium accepts that people want a non-US date format, but not a non-US time format.

How about having options for date and time giving the most common options, with the option of a custom date/time field in which the user can enter the desired formatting codes [It was so nearly there before, all it needed was for the entered field to be for date and time instead of just date]

For example....

Date:
dd-mm-yyyy  ()   dd/mm/yyyy  ()
yyyy-mm-dd  ()   yyyy/mm/dd  ()
mm-dd-yyyy  ()   mm/dd/yyyy  ()

Time:
12 hour  ()   24 hour ()

Custom Date/Time: ()
(User entry field)

NB: In the above example () is a tick box

Rod.

[Ray.R]

THis probably was reported earlier.  If not, here goes.

It is difficult to distinguish the post marked as solution versus all the other posts.  If I was a newbie, I would not have clued in that the tiny little checkmark identified the solution post.

Making the entire post green or highlited in some manner would be preferred over the tiny little checkmark.  Yes, I am aware of the button that says "go to the solution". 

[muks]

I had reported that earlier but never the less the fully green message has my vote too.

[Laura F.]

Hi Everyone,

I hope you had a good weekend!  Here some of the latest news:

• There are some broken links around and Lithium is investigating.  I'm holding off on updating them until we have a firmer grip on what is going on which will hopefully be soon.
• muks - do you have your font size set to something other than Medium in your settings?
• smercurio (and others) - I agree the colors are sort of bland.  I do have some control over that and would like to work on it at some point but first I am trying to focus on the more pressing issues.
• I noticed that when I changed the "highlight" background color from gray to white, this also affected the drop down option menus.  When you hover over a selection it no longer changes color.  Should I try for a lighter gray "highlight" color so that it's not so bad with messages yet you can still tell what you are selecting in messages?
• Rod - I'm still pushing for a 24 hour time format.
• I'm actively experimenting with changing the green background color of the solution to make it stand out further.

The following previously reported issues have been confirmed as bugs:

• Page numbers in unread discussions module on the idea exchange don't work
• Cursor disappears when resizing the editor window in firefox

Thanks,

Laura

[JackDunaway]

When I type a long message with multiple lines and use the UP/DOWN keyboard arrow keys to navigate up and down in the message, most of the times the cursor will get "stuck" on a single line. (Especially noticed in Chrome, not sure about other browsers.)

[Albert.Geven]

Hi Laura

I'm missing the subject in the emails I get on a search. Previously I saw the subject, but since the update I only see a notice that there was a search match.

I still can click the link but cannot skip searches I'm not interested in.

[JackDunaway]

If I'm not mistaken, the ability to perform an advanced search with an empty query has been taken away. Previously, I would narrow down results based on author, board, etc., but not enter a search term, and it would return all matches based on the filters. Now, keyword is a required input.

Can this new behavior be confirmed, and if so, can it be reverted to the old method of allowing empty keywords?

[JackDunaway]

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@JackDunaway wrote:

If I'm not mistaken, the ability to perform an advanced search with an empty query has been taken away....

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A really hacky way of getting around this is typing, "a, of, the, and, to" into the "With one or more of the words" field. This is probably a 99.9% successful hack, but it's disappointing that the search mechanism even honors these "informationless" words, yet does not allow an empty query to return all results.

In other news, I'm trying to figure out a way to do a search for all users. Have not yet found a hack for this.

In other news, the Help Section on Searching is about as helpful as saying, "There's a box, yeah, you type in it and results pop out atcha" (in my head, I say that with matter-of-fact gusto in a thick Italian accent). This needs to be improved by explicitly stating all the searching rules (e.g., are there any valid wildcards, the counterintuitive fact that underscores are ignored in tags [supposedly], etc...)

In other news, it's tough to find that only 41 results are returned for "forum_improvement_ideas" when I know I have placed 150+ such tags. 

Search is broken on many levels right now, and my vote is for Lithium to place top priority on an intuitive, accurate search mechanism. #2 on my list is more sorting options for results. Search and sort are paramount when it comes to 800k+ posts.

[smercurio_fc]

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@JackDunaway wrote:

 Search is broken on many levels right now, and my vote is for Lithium to place top priority on an intuitive, accurate search mechanism. #2 on my list is more sorting options for results. Search and sort are paramount when it comes to 800k+ posts.

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I don't think this is limited to the forums. I think it's a systemic problem with the NI site. When people ask which web site has a great search tool I doubt NI comes anywhere near people even considering it. Of course, it makes the regulars on the forums look bad when we say "did you try a search", when we well know that the searching mechanism is bad. I have to bite my lip every time I write it in a response.