Updated forum layout & FORDS OF TRAX online

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Updated forum layout & FORDS OF TRAX online

Postby AdrianFRST on Sun Sep 09, 2012 9:27 pm

I've integrated the forums into the new site better, and also fixed a couple of things too.

The layout won't adjust to the browser size anymore, but images that are too big to fit into a post now auto-shrink and if you click you can view full size in a lightbox.

Things will continue to change, if you see anything odd try clearing your browser cache.

The latest batch of photos from Ford Fair is on the homepage too.

[Edit: Fords Of Trax too!]
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby trecoll on Sun Sep 09, 2012 9:29 pm

Confused me as I posted when it changed :lol:

Looks good from here though :) :Q
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby Rhinopower on Sun Sep 09, 2012 9:34 pm

The text decrease button isn't making much difference, but the whole thing is a bit large like my screen resolution has been turned down. Any ideas?
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby Malin91 on Sun Sep 09, 2012 9:43 pm

Thought something had changed but wasn't sure if i was jsut seeing things as ive not been on here for ages lol :P
Looks good =)
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby RSGeorge on Sun Sep 09, 2012 10:22 pm

Liking the new look. Gets two thumbs up from me :D
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby Max M4X WW on Sun Sep 09, 2012 10:36 pm

Rhinopower wrote:The text decrease button isn't making much difference, but the whole thing is a bit large like my screen resolution has been turned down. Any ideas?

Everything is huge!

Has user info on posts always been to the right as well?

Edit: I've just used the text decrease button and its shafted the layout of the buttons now and wont return!
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby Maxwell on Sun Sep 09, 2012 11:44 pm

Much better to use on the iPhone now!!

The font is a tad too big for the desktop computers/laptops, but no point crying over spilt milk!!

Good work. Fairly freshens things up
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby AndyKam on Mon Sep 10, 2012 1:16 am

Love the new layout. Viewing on ipad and its perfect. :)
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby Excursion on Mon Sep 10, 2012 10:15 am

Great work Ade. It's so nice to see a change! Do you keep a version history? It would be interesting to have a sub-forum that contained posts with the title of the date the changes were made, and a summary inside of what did change.

I can't even remember what the original forums looked like now, but I remember the information column was on the opposite side of the page to where it is now.
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby MircoJ on Mon Sep 10, 2012 10:28 am

I like the new look. There's just a small thing to mention: Some users signatures are really big now.
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby dontpannic on Mon Sep 10, 2012 12:01 pm

Poster information has been on the right for some time now, the main changes afaik are:

Font size/face changes
Integrated header and footer from main page
Grey background (which needs tweaking I feel, correlation between that and the blue is a little... odd...)
Images auto resize, and lightbox addon for full size.

So far as I can tell, Ade was going to integrate the website itself into the Forum (usernames and passwords etc).
All I can see to finish off is to finish that integration, tweak the forum theme itself to better match the main website (more dark colours, rather than the pale greys and pale blues)

I'd probably like to see a better organisation of sub topics (clicking on feature cars gives you a strange looking list with a '\' in there).

Getting there :)
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby Max M4X WW on Mon Sep 10, 2012 12:23 pm

Sheriff Burman wrote:I'd probably like to see a better organisation of sub topics (clicking on feature cars gives you a strange looking list with a '\' in there).

It looks like this in Chrome for me as well..
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby AdrianFRST on Mon Sep 10, 2012 1:18 pm

Sheriff Burman wrote:Poster information has been on the right for some time now, the main changes afaik are:

Font size/face changes
Integrated header and footer from main page
Grey background (which needs tweaking I feel, correlation between that and the blue is a little... odd...)
Images auto resize, and lightbox addon for full size.

So far as I can tell, Ade was going to integrate the website itself into the Forum (usernames and passwords etc).
All I can see to finish off is to finish that integration, tweak the forum theme itself to better match the main website (more dark colours, rather than the pale greys and pale blues)

I'd probably like to see a better organisation of sub topics (clicking on feature cars gives you a strange looking list with a '\' in there).

Getting there :)


Yep, that's pretty much spot on. I had to go live sooner than I really wanted so some parts like the section indexes are not done yet.

You should only see grey as a dark grey outside the main content area, try clearing your cache and see if the main page goes back to white again.

I've been focusing on getting the backend working so I can get all the show reports and photos up. Once that's done and things calm down for Autumn then I'll move on to the next thing.

Your forums login will soon work on the main site, I'm not saying why yet, that'll be a surprise!
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby Max M4X WW on Mon Sep 10, 2012 1:23 pm

AdrianFRST wrote:Your forums login will work on the main site, I'm not saying why yet, that'll be a surprise!

Are you sure? :-? Doesn't seem to work here.
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby AdrianFRST on Mon Sep 10, 2012 1:26 pm

Excursion wrote:Great work Ade. It's so nice to see a change! Do you keep a version history? It would be interesting to have a sub-forum that contained posts with the title of the date the changes were made, and a summary inside of what did change.

I can't even remember what the original forums looked like now, but I remember the information column was on the opposite side of the page to where it is now.


This is the forth forum system and the 5th design they've had:

1999 - 2001 UBB
2001 - 200? phpBB 1
200? - 2007 phpBB 2
2007 - 2012 phpBB 3
2012 - now phpBB 3 (slight retweak)

I'm going to dig out some old screenshots and post them on the Facebook timeline, I just need to get my old PC out of the attic first.
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby AdrianFRST on Mon Sep 10, 2012 1:28 pm

Max M4X WW wrote:
AdrianFRST wrote:Your forums login will work on the main site, I'm not saying why yet, that'll be a surprise!

Are you sure? :-? Doesn't seem to work here.


Sorry, that's "will work" as in "will soon work" not "will now work". I've edited the post.
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby Max M4X WW on Mon Sep 10, 2012 1:31 pm

AdrianFRST wrote:
Max M4X WW wrote:
AdrianFRST wrote:Your forums login will work on the main site, I'm not saying why yet, that'll be a surprise!

Are you sure? :-? Doesn't seem to work here.


Sorry, that's "will work" as in "will soon work" not "will now work". I've edited the post.

No problem! Will the text size be staying as is? Its really annoying me given there is already 'less space' for the forum and the text is twice the size :lol:
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby JamieFRST on Mon Sep 10, 2012 1:55 pm

Looks very fresh, but text is abit in your face :)
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby - Danny Boy - on Mon Sep 10, 2012 2:33 pm

I was like woah its all different! :lol:

It does look nice! The only problem I can find so far that is annoying me is when I reply to threads it freezes firefox up for a few seconds, might just be a problem I am having and no one else.
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby - Danny Boy - on Mon Sep 10, 2012 2:45 pm

Actually, seems to be ok now. So scrap the last post!
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby AdrianFRST on Mon Sep 10, 2012 8:10 pm

I've reduced the text size in posts now, and also fixed the sig issue so they shouldn't be so big.
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby Max M4X WW on Mon Sep 10, 2012 8:16 pm

AdrianFRST wrote:I've reduced the text size in posts now, and also fixed the sig issue so they shouldn't be so big.

Its still bigger than it was, in the forum topic listings too! Why did you increase it across the board?
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby AdrianFRST on Mon Sep 10, 2012 8:43 pm

Max M4X WW wrote:
AdrianFRST wrote:I've reduced the text size in posts now, and also fixed the sig issue so they shouldn't be so big.

Its still bigger than it was, in the forum topic listings too! Why did you increase it across the board?


Displays are bigger and PPI is higher these days, so as the screens have got bigger, font sizes have shrunk. The only reason for needing the forums page to be wide was to allow space for large images which is now fixed with the lightbox.

For example a couple of years ago when the 24" iMac came out it had 94 pixels-per-inch, the latest 27" is 109 PPI. A non-retina iPad is 131 and the 11" Macbook Air I have is 135.

We used to need tiny fonts as monitors were tiny, but this is no longer the case so everything grows. It looks a bit odd as the site has been dragged 10 years into the future rather than gradually updated.

Having said that I'll fine tune it and find a happy medium.
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Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby dontpannic on Mon Sep 10, 2012 8:53 pm

I prefer a larger font, easier to read without having to zoom in on a phone (although I use Tapatalk) and looks fresher and more modern.


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Re: Updated forum layout & FORDS OF TRAX online

Postby AdrianFRST on Mon Sep 10, 2012 9:37 pm

Fords Of Trax now online too, on the homepage. More updates in the last week than in the last 5 years!
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Re: Updated forum layout & Ford Fair Focus' Now Online

Postby Max M4X WW on Mon Sep 10, 2012 10:27 pm

Sheriff Burman wrote:I prefer a larger font, easier to read without having to zoom in on a phone (although I use Tapatalk) and looks fresher and more modern.

Maybe I'm old fashioned and use the forum on a PC! 23" screen though at the highest resolution and the font is bigger than every website I use!

Quick comparison..

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Re: Updated forum layout & FORDS OF TRAX online

Postby Nismo on Tue Sep 11, 2012 5:39 am

Sites looking well wicked now.
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Re: Updated forum layout & FORDS OF TRAX online

Postby andymac on Tue Sep 11, 2012 5:51 pm

Please note that the image resizing only works for attached images, though the lightbox works for all images. Externally linked images will be cropped down rather than resized, so if you wish to insert an image in your posts please use the attachment feature.
Nothing to see here...
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Re: Updated forum layout & FORDS OF TRAX online

Postby oVerboost. on Tue Sep 11, 2012 6:03 pm

For me, everything seems to be working fine and think the new font etc is a massive improvement. It's little things like this that really make a difference, as reading a smooth, nice font is always more appealing than a boring one or one that is, well, crap.

One thing I would like to ask, how about updating the feature cars section of the site? As I'd love to have mine featured on there... :)
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Re: Updated forum layout & FORDS OF TRAX online

Postby Max M4X WW on Tue Sep 11, 2012 6:05 pm

Does the image in my post not look like this then Andy, I.E. resized?

Untitled.jpg
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Re: Updated forum layout & FORDS OF TRAX online

Postby AdrianFRST on Tue Sep 11, 2012 6:35 pm

andymac wrote:Please note that the image resizing only works for attached images, though the lightbox works for all images. Externally linked images will be cropped down rather than resized, so if you wish to insert an image in your posts please use the attachment feature.


It should work for externally linked images as that was the main problem. Attachments have always had thumbnails.

If it's not working for you try clearing your cache. I've got some quite aggressive caching setup which really helps page load but can stop new functionality appearing if your browser has cached an older version of something.
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Re: Updated forum layout & FORDS OF TRAX online

Postby Ollie on Tue Sep 11, 2012 6:39 pm

Hmm... I clicked the text size icon to try and make the font a tad smaller but the only thing that changed was the menu. After that it loaded with the menu at the normal size, then made it smaller so it looked like this...

http://cl.ly/image/1D110H1S2o1d

Resetting Safari cleared issue, not sure why it happened though or how it saves it... I deleted all cookies related to FT and it still did it. :-?

Any chance you could knock the thread title font down a notch so those titles in the screen shot don't wrap round? Or stop people creating titles entirely with capital letters. :lol:


Edit... Bit of a weird issue I've seen a couple of times, going into a thread using jump to last post I just get a plain white page then the content appears if I scroll it. Odd. Suspect it's a rendering issue with Safari.
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Re: Updated forum layout & FORDS OF TRAX online

Postby Ollie on Tue Sep 11, 2012 7:58 pm

Another issue noticed by Tweek here...

signature-problem-vt195416/

Looks like the new lightbox for images on the forum has broken signatures where the image is wrapped in a URL tag. Just tried it editing my own...

With link, signature doesn't display:
Image

Without link, signature displays:
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Re: Updated forum layout & FORDS OF TRAX online

Postby andymac on Tue Sep 11, 2012 8:07 pm

Max M4X WW wrote:Does the image in my post not look like this then Andy, I.E. resized?


It was your post plus a couple of others I've looked at that weren't resizing. It may be a chrome thing, however. I'll try in ie.

EDIT : IE rendered fine without emptying cache, chrome also failed to render after a forced reload but emptying the cache did sort it. Not particularly good behaviour from chrome tbf.

I'll do a quick "How to clear the browser cache for noobs" post with pics and link it from the initial post, if you're happy with that Ade ?
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Re: Updated forum layout & FORDS OF TRAX online

Postby andymac on Tue Sep 11, 2012 8:21 pm

Has the font size reduced or is my mind playing tricks ? The new post / post editing page seems to use a larger (for me, better) typeface than the forums.
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