ELynah Forum Update

Welcome to the updated ELynah Forum. It's been about three years since the last real software update so there are a bunch of new features, as well as a slightly altered interface. If you encounter any bugs or display issues, please post here with OS, browser, and problem, or if you have any comments about the layout (about anything other than menubar placement) feel free to post them here, as well.

Appearance Changes

• User control bar at the top of page shows who is logged in, log in/out, control center, private messages, PM alerts, etc. This stuff used to be lumped in with forum controls and is now in a more logical, separate area.
• Page title area underneath the user control bar. Now that there are multiple active fora, it makes more sense to show the current forum name. Also shows the thread title or page name ("Start a New Topic", "Search", etc.)
• Forum/thread/navigation/moderation bars now have a more logical layout and moderation, in particular, is cleaner and takes up less space.
• List View now shows original author under subject and the thread views have been moved to their own column. Moderation links moved from under subject to their own column.
• To the left of the subject is a thread icon signifying whether it's a regular thread, whether a thread has unread posts (red flag which can be clicked to go directly to oldest unread post), or is a sticky/announcement. More functionality may be added to this icon in the future.
• Inline images will automatically be scaled down to a reasonable size and can be clicked on to view full size.
• In Read View, the private message link is now next to the author's name in each post rather than in the navigation links.
• There is now a Hybrid View which will show like flat view, but with entire message blocks indented to show threading. It's not especially usable (IMO) so the "Switch View" link on the read pages ignores this view, but you can still select it in the Control Center if you choose.
• Control Center, Private Messages, and Search have had cosmetic updates.
• iPhone users will automatically be redirected to an iPhone template for simplified, low-bandwidth use.

Functional Changes

• You can mouse over a thread (or reply in threaded view) subject to see a preview of the message. If it's unread, you can control-rightclick or shift-control-rightclick to mark the message or thread read, respectively (there's a tooltip)
• ELynah Live section automatically refreshes every minute.
• Additional spam hurdles implemented, including CAPTCHA for new accounts.
• Users can create polls in their posts.
• Moderators can see change histories for edited posts.
• No more intermediate page when searching.
• Faster performance.
• All modifications done through mods and templates for easier update path in the future.
• Other minor changes I'm forgetting.

Known Bugs

• Poll not working
• Post preview has major display issues
• Timezones still not working correctly for countdown script. (jtw?)
• Change tracking seems to have stopped working
• Need to do CSS for polls

Yaay: no yellow.

Wow, how to surprise a guy at the end of a work day. And it even says hello to me. The smileys are presented vertically, can they go back to the old way? I assume that's not browser related, being seen on Windows with both Firefox and IE.

There's no "new" link next to the thread title, so I have to click on the thread before I can see what new posts have been added.

The red flag to the left of the subject indicates new messages. You can click the flag to go straight to the newest post. In flat view, new posts will have "new" after the subject.

I made the popup wider.

CowbellGuy
The red flag to the left of the subject indicates new messages. You can click the flag to go straight to the newest post, and new posts will have "new" after the subject.

I see the red flag now, but apparently new posts only also have the red flag, not "new" after the subject. At least not on my screen.

Thanks for the smiley change, I like the sticky, too.

You're correct, for the threaded view. The "new" tag only appears on flat view (where there are no icons for the messages). I'm not inclined to change that behavior since the flag should more than suffice.

I'll get used to most of the changes, like the new location of the "new" flag. Not a big deal.

Two things I dislike that I've noticed in my brief time looking at it:

1) the relative timestamp on the message list. i.e. "Seventeen Hours Ago." I would much rather see the absolute time stamp. I don't like to do math when I don't have to. "12:26 am" means I don't have to think about when the last message in a topic came in. "Seventeen Hours Ago," I do. Also sorta dislike the spelling out of the relative times. "Eleven minutes ago" instead of "11 minutes ago."

2) Putting the original author of the thread on a 2nd line beneath the subject. I rarely care about the number of "views" so I don't care if their location is a minimal note at the end of the thread title like it had been or in a column like in the new software. The author column worked well. Basically my complaint is that having 2 rows of text for every topic expands the forum vertically. If I want to skim the topics quickly on a "message list" page, now I have to selectively jump over the Author line. blah.

Other than that, it looks good.

Re: Readable times, it's all very granular. I've turned off the spelled out numbers and lowered the threshold to the last two hours. It might end up just being an hour or something.

Re: Authors under titles, maybe I didn't mind the change so much because my moderating links used to be there so it just replaced one thing with another. I guess I could get rid of it, or maybe make a mod to make it user-configurable, but I kind of like it. Anyone else have an opinion?

I think it would be nice if the window was the proper width for a Blackberry screen. Other than that it loads great on my Tour and looks exactly as it does on the computer. The countdown clock even works without refreshing.

CowbellGuy
Re: Readable times, it's all very granular. I've turned off the spelled out numbers and lowered the threshold to the last two hours. It might end up just being an hour or something.

Re: Authors under titles, maybe I didn't mind the change so much because my moderating links used to be there so it just replaced one thing with another. I guess I could get rid of it, or maybe make a mod to make it user-configurable, but I kind of like it. Anyone else have an opinion?

I don't mind the names below too much. I preferred the old way but that's probably mostly out of habit and not true preference. I find the views column distracting though. At the very least, it'd be better to the right of the posts column. I care much more about how many posts are in a thread than how many views it's gotten.

CowbellGuy
Re: Readable times, it's all very granular. I've turned off the spelled out numbers and lowered the threshold to the last two hours. It might end up just being an hour or something.

I like those changes already. Thanks. I can live with relative times if the threshold is an hour.

Re: Authors under titles, maybe I didn't mind the change so much because my moderating links used to be there so it just replaced one thing with another. I guess I could get rid of it, or maybe make a mod to make it user-configurable, but I kind of like it. Anyone else have an opinion?

I think I can adjust, if you and others like it. What makes it bearable is that the topics are in a larger and much heavier (or bolded) font than the author line. I think I can train myself to just skim the heavy text.

I like the improvements on the "search" feature.

Are there any other icons we should look for besides the speech balloon, the flag, and the sticky notes?

Re: icons, that's a fine question. There are a bunch of icons in the CSS that I haven't seen used yet. It'll be a surprise! I actually changed the sticky icon because it was originally a bell.

Meh. It renders perfectly on my iPhone.

Someone was working on a mobile template. If they haven't finished it, I may take the reigns on that disaster.

Edit: I've implemented an iPhone mod/template. See the post below.

1) Is there a way to have the countdown tie to the correct time zone? The Niagara game starts in 9 minutes for me...
2) I enjoyed that you used to be able to see the number of new posts in each thread. Are we able to bring that back?
3) Can it get even awesomer?

Minor nit pick -- more personal preference than glitch:

In the previous version, information about post edits was in a smaller font, making it inconspicuous. Now it shows the "last edited" text in the same size as the main post. I liked the former; it was easier on the eyes.

CowbellGuy
Anyone else have an opinion?

You should move the menubar back to the left.




Well you ASKED.

The moderation buttons look like morse code (see attached screenshot) unless I mouse over them.

OK, he won't say it, so I will.
EVERYBODY GO TO THE PAYPAL BUTTON AND GIVE WHAT YOU CAN.
Do you think he get's all this for free?
Thanks Age.

Well, the software and my time are, to some degree (the server, not so much)

jtwcornell91
The moderation buttons look like morse code (see attached screenshot) unless I mouse over them.

I think I can fix that. But I'm afraid to ask what browser/OS you're using though, because I tested all the obvious ones.

I installed a mod that automatically selects an iPhone-optimized template when it detects the iPhone browser. The template isn't perfect, but it's decent, if lightweight. I'll work on it a bit more next week, but at the moment, the biggest drawback is there's no way to view the full version of the site.

I've also added a mod that lets anyone attach a poll to any new thread. Don't make me regret it.

Luke 05
2) I enjoyed that you used to be able to see the number of new posts in each thread. Are we able to bring that back?

I too liked that feature, and would like to see it brought back, if at all possible. Nothing quite like logging on after, say, half a day away, seeing 45 new posts in some thread, and knowing something's up. I also liked to see the number of new posts because it would give me some idea how long I'd be reading any given thread.

Thanks, Age!

Here's another mod that I hopefully won't regret

Any images in the body of a post, whether it's in an [img] tag, attached file(nixed, kind of annoying), or even a bare URL, will be loaded and shown in-line. However, if the image is wider than 800px or higher than 600px (configurable) it will show the image at that size. If you click the image, it will show the full size. For a perfect demonstration, see JTW's Browser-busting attempt.

Someone else was bugging me about that. Would you actually not read a thread based on the number of new messages in it?

I can see the value in it, at any rate. I'll take a look at it next week.

CowbellGuy
Someone else was bugging me about that. Would you actually not read a thread based on the number of new messages in it?

I can see the value in it, at any rate. I'll take a look at it next week.

This is the main thing still left for me, as well. While I might not actually not read a thread ultimately, I may put it off for a time I have more time to read.

Thanks!

BCrespi

CowbellGuy
Someone else was bugging me about that. Would you actually not read a thread based on the number of new messages in it?

I can see the value in it, at any rate. I'll take a look at it next week.

This is the main thing still left for me, as well. While I might not actually not read a thread ultimately, I may put it off for a time I have more time to read.

Thanks!

Agreed, sometimes when I don't have a lot of extra time (such as at work), I'd flip through some of the low number posts and leave the big ones for home. However now if I click on a thread and it's a long one that I can't finish, it thinks I've read the whole new thread, correct? So then when I log on at home, it's not listed as an unread thread. Not a big deal, but useful.

Chris '03
I don't mind the names below too much. I preferred the old way but that's probably mostly out of habit and not true preference. I find the views column distracting though. At the very least, it'd be better to the right of the posts column. I care much more about how many posts are in a thread than how many views it's gotten.

Seems kind of nitpicky to me, but I changed it. =P

New post count added to subjects in list view. Happy now?

CowbellGuy
New post count added to subjects in list view. Happy now?

Yup, thanks.

This may go in the "wishlist" category, but it would still be nice to have some sort of "go to next new post" feature in threaded view.

CowbellGuy

jtwcornell91
The moderation buttons look like morse code (see attached screenshot) unless I mouse over them.

I think I can fix that. But I'm afraid to ask what browser/OS you're using though, because I tested all the obvious ones.

Oh, right, sorry:

Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.14) Gecko/2009091010 Iceweasel/3.0.6 (Debian-3.0.6-3)

(Basically, Firefox/Linux.)

CowbellGuy

I can see the value in it, at any rate. I'll take a look at it next week.

CowbellGuy
New post count added to subjects in list view. Happy now?

Hey, you said you were going to do it next week, and then you went and did it sooner. What gives?

Seriously--thanks. Unread post counts are good.

andyw2100
Unread post counts are good.

It must be Halloween. I read that as "Undead post counts".

Ronald '09
I think it would be nice if the window was the proper width for a Blackberry screen. Other than that it loads great on my Tour and looks exactly as it does on the computer. The countdown clock even works without refreshing.

Just to clarify, the site looks great on my Tour. The point I was trying to make was, when I zoom in close enough to be able to read the text, I am required to scroll to the right to read the end of each line. In a perfect world, a new line would start when it gets to the right of the screen so I could just have to scroll up and down to read the site. I don't know anything about the technology, so I have no idea if this is something that is easy to do or not. Other than that, it loads great, so I don't think mobile platform is really necessary.

On my old 8830, I used to have to scroll through all the links on the right of the page to get to the actually forum. Amazing the improvements RIMM has made to the browser. So if there are lot of people trying to access this site on older Blackberry models, they may appreciate a mobile format of the site, but with the Tour or the Bold, it's not necessary.

Actually, the forum is variable width. I believe I those cases the BlackBerry browser just assumes some preset window size. The iPhone uses 800ish pixels. Not sure what the BlackBerry uses, but it's nothing I can control.

The iPhone template is great, thanks!

The Edit, Report Message, and Follow Thread choices at the bottom of the message pane don't seem to be attached to anything except reading the current message.

I agree that the iPhone version allows for great reading of posts, but I can't follow the threads with regard to who is responding to who. Is there a setting to help?

Try using the bolt browser for BB. It scales much better than the BB browser.

Thank you! I can go back to ignoring the view count now.

David Harding
The Edit, Report Message, and Follow Thread choices at the bottom of the message pane don't seem to be attached to anything except reading the current message.

Fixed (this was only broken in threaded view for those wondering why yours might have worked).

How about including mp3 as a valid attachment format?

HeafDog
How about including mp3 as a valid attachment format?

Done. Also raised the size limit to 614kb, but that's as large as it will go.

Updated the original post with a list of features, with more to come when things settle down.

The ELynah Live section now updates automatically every minute without needing to reload the page. Of course, the contents won't necessarily change that often.

CowbellGuy

HeafDog
How about including mp3 as a valid attachment format?

Done. Also raised the size limit to 614kb, but that's as large as it will go.

Why 614?

Josh '99

CowbellGuy

HeafDog
How about including mp3 as a valid attachment format?

Done. Also raised the size limit to 614kb, but that's as large as it will go.

Why 614?

Because that's as large as it will go. Duh.

Forum looking good.

I tend to keep up from my crappy phone using Google Reader's RSS. RSS just shows new topics now, but not new posts. Is RSS going away? Not a disaster for me if it is, but just thought I'd ask.

Thanks!

Chris

crodger1
Forum looking good.

I tend to keep up from my crappy phone using Google Reader's RSS. RSS just shows new topics now, but not new posts. Is RSS going away? Not a disaster for me if it is, but just thought I'd ask.

Thanks!

Chris

No, but I did notice the RSS feed on my iGoogle page only showed threads, but also showed how many replies there were for the thread. Haven't looked at RSS, but it might be configurable.

crodger1
Forum looking good.

I tend to keep up from my crappy phone using Google Reader's RSS. RSS just shows new topics now, but not new posts. Is RSS going away? Not a disaster for me if it is, but just thought I'd ask.

OK, got it. There are actually RSS feeds embedded on each page with and without replies. At least here if I click and hold the RSS link, I can pick which one I want. The only difference is ",replies=1" added to the feed URL, so you should be able to change that in your reader.

Out of no where, I got this message repeatedly while trying to read the forum:

Possible hack attempt detected. The posted form data was rejected.

OS: Mac OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.1
Browser: Safari 4.0.3 (6531.9)

CowbellGuy

crodger1
Forum looking good.

I tend to keep up from my crappy phone using Google Reader's RSS. RSS just shows new topics now, but not new posts. Is RSS going away? Not a disaster for me if it is, but just thought I'd ask.

OK, got it. There are actually RSS feeds embedded on each page with and without replies. At least here if I click and hold the RSS link, I can pick which one I want. The only difference is ",replies=1" added to the feed URL, so you should be able to change that in your reader.

Yup -- for "Men's Hockey" I fed it

http://elf.elynah.com/feed.php?1,replies=1

and it works just as before. Thanks very much!

Oat
Out of no where, I got this message repeatedly while trying to read the forum:

Possible hack attempt detected. The posted form data was rejected.

OS: Mac OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.1
Browser: Safari 4.0.3 (6531.9)

I got the same message from both my work PC (XP) and my home laptop (Leopard). Both times as a result of trying to vote in the poll.

RichH

Oat
Out of no where, I got this message repeatedly while trying to read the forum:

Possible hack attempt detected. The posted form data was rejected.

OS: Mac OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.1
Browser: Safari 4.0.3 (6531.9)

I got the same message from both my work PC (XP) and my home laptop (Leopard). Both times as a result of trying to vote in the poll.

I just got the same (XP; Firefox) while trying to vote in the poll.

Trotsky

RichH

Oat
Out of no where, I got this message repeatedly while trying to read the forum:

Possible hack attempt detected. The posted form data was rejected.

OS: Mac OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.1
Browser: Safari 4.0.3 (6531.9)

I got the same message from both my work PC (XP) and my home laptop (Leopard). Both times as a result of trying to vote in the poll.

I just got the same (XP; Firefox) while trying to vote in the poll.

Same.

Vista, FireFox

Same thing for me (Iceweasel, Debian). Although after I "voted" the poll results display rather than the poll.

Ah, ok. That poll was a temporary solution anyway. Thanks for the detective work. I'll get on it.

If you mouseover a thread (or reply in threaded view) subject, you'll get a popup with a preview of the message contents. In addition, you can control-rightclick to mark the message read or shift-control-rightclick to mark the thread read. There's a tooltip, so you don't actually have to remember that.

CowbellGuy
If you mouseover a thread (or reply in threaded view) subject, you'll get a popup with a preview of the message contents. In addition, you can control-rightclick to mark the message read or shift-control-rightclick to mark the thread read. There's a tooltip, so you don't actually have to remember that.

Mousing over the "Previous Message" or "Next message" link also gives you the popup, which I find somewhat more annoying than the merely slightly annoying popup when mousing over the subject line.

Is there a way to let us toggle the popup option individually?

Beeeej
Is there a way to let us toggle the popup option individually?

Now there is. If you go to Control Center > Forum Settings there's an option to disable them.

CowbellGuy

Beeeej
Is there a way to let us toggle the popup option individually?

Now there is. If you go to Control Center > Forum Settings there's an option to disable them.

Thanks!!

CowbellGuy
If you mouseover a thread (or reply in threaded view) subject, you'll get a popup with a preview of the message contents. In addition, you can control-rightclick to mark the message read or shift-control-rightclick to mark the thread read. There's a tooltip, so you don't actually have to remember that.

Cool!

Beeeej

CowbellGuy
If you mouseover a thread (or reply in threaded view) subject, you'll get a popup with a preview of the message contents. In addition, you can control-rightclick to mark the message read or shift-control-rightclick to mark the thread read. There's a tooltip, so you don't actually have to remember that.

Mousing over the "Previous Message" or "Next message" link also gives you the popup, which I find somewhat more annoying than the merely slightly annoying popup when mousing over the subject line.

Is there a way to let us toggle the popup option individually?

I also found this annoying as, if you click towards the right side of the "next message" link, the pop up blocks your clicking. I did like it for subject/post links though. I'll turn it off for now though I can see how it would be nice if not for link-blocking implications. Thanks!

In replying here I don't have the ability to guess where this post will be as far as the thread is concerned. That's not a really big deal, but the fact that I have no way to see when prior posts in the thread were made is a problem.

Am I missing a setting?

This is pretty minor thing.

With the old software the "compose" section at the bottom was restricted to a certain width. Now it expands to the width of the forum.

This may be intentional, but it is sort of weird when you have the window maximized on a large wide screen monitor.

I suppose I'll get used to it.

Firefox/Vista (soon to be 7)

The "search" feature doesn't seem to work as I might expect.

I was trying to find the thread about CU games on TV and searched for "TV", "television" and got 0 results found. I also got 0 results found for the word "the". Other words like "Cornell" and "search" do give a lot of results.

I suspect "TV" is too short a search term, so it's not working. The word "television" doesn't appear in either of the TV threads, but "televised" does, and that term returns results. Can't search for what isn't there.

I had a couple people comment that sometimes the whole page doesn't load in IE. Is anyone still seeing this behavior? If so, when it happens can you view source (right-click on page, select View Source) and tell me what's on the very last line?

Age
Here is a screen shot of what I told you about on saturday.
I also attached the source info.
Doug

Thanks. All the data is being sent. It's a display issue with IE. What version is that? Looks like 6 maybe? *cough*

Age
Yes, it is 6. I am at work right now and that is what they have on our computers.
But I had the same problem at home using either Firefox or IE and they are up to date.
Doug

This is fixed, too (or should be).

Dpperk29

Trotsky

RichH

Oat
Out of no where, I got this message repeatedly while trying to read the forum:

Possible hack attempt detected. The posted form data was rejected.

OS: Mac OSX Snow Leopard 10.6.1
Browser: Safari 4.0.3 (6531.9)

I got the same message from both my work PC (XP) and my home laptop (Leopard). Both times as a result of trying to vote in the poll.

I just got the same (XP; Firefox) while trying to vote in the poll.

Same.

Vista, FireFox

This should be fixed now (as is the poll). Let me know if it happens again.

Age,

When I previewed a post, I got a "test poll" in the upper right. I assume this is an accidental holdover?

JH

Jeff Hopkins '82
Age,

When I previewed a post, I got a "test poll" in the upper right. I assume this is an accidental holdover?

JH

I don't know, but anyone who doesn't vote for #2 is an idiot.

Jeff Hopkins '82
Age,

When I previewed a post, I got a "test poll" in the upper right. I assume this is an accidental holdover?

JH

That's so people can test the "possible hack attempt detected" issue with the poll.

RichH

Jeff Hopkins '82
Age,

When I previewed a post, I got a "test poll" in the upper right. I assume this is an accidental holdover?

JH

I don't know, but anyone who doesn't vote for #2 is an idiot.

Phew! Glad I passed that test.

RichH

Jeff Hopkins '82
Age,

When I previewed a post, I got a "test poll" in the upper right. I assume this is an accidental holdover?

JH

I don't know, but anyone who doesn't vote for #2 is an idiot.

Oh please, #2 hasn't played anyone good yet this year! How can you vote for them in the polls?

Josh '99

RichH

Jeff Hopkins '82
Age,

When I previewed a post, I got a "test poll" in the upper right. I assume this is an accidental holdover?

JH

I don't know, but anyone who doesn't vote for #2 is an idiot.

Oh please, #2 hasn't played anyone good yet this year! How can you vote for them in the polls?

#2 had a really good intrasquad scrimmage.

Age:

FWIW, the new version is much cleaner on a Blackbery Browser. Old version had scrolling and other issues.

Larry

When I try to post something that I pasted in from a file in the protokrach thread, I get the error

Phorum Database Error
Sorry, a Phorum database error occurred.
The administrator of this forum has been
notified by email about the error.
Please try again later!

I've read this whole thread, but not all at once, and not lately, so forgive me if this has been already mentioned.

If the post is long, and it's in the middle of a long thread as frequently happens in the post game threads, it takes a lot of scrolling up (to get to the "next post" button) or down (to the next title line) to get to the next post in the thread. Does it make more sense to have the "Previous post/Next Post" buttons on the lower red bar of each thread so it's right at hand instead of the upper red bar? Or maybe both?

I second the motion. I think the next/previous post buttons belong at both top and bottom of the current message.

Typical (Jerk). Found a mod for rating messages, but it was completely borked. Rewrote a good chunk of it and now it works. For the moment, ratings will just show when reading, but eventually, there will be rating info shown for each user and a top-rated posts thingy. Rate away!

Neat. Sure you won't be hearing from Google's lawyers?

Also, why is the "good" button green, and the "bad" button red?

Oh, good. This won't lead to civility issues.

Is there no way to have the rating not take a new page? I don't need to see my rating register, but it's nice to be able to go back to the main forum page by just hitting backspace once.

ugarte
Oh, good. This won't lead to civility issues.

I downrated you, but it only decremented the rating -- it doesn't actually show that someone downrated you. I guess I'll still have to be a jerk manually.

RichH
Also, why is the "good" button green, and the "bad" button red?

Because if the "good" button was red and the "bad" button was crimson, they'd look too much alike?

Josh '99

RichH
Also, why is the "good" button green, and the "bad" button red?

Because if the "good" button was red and the "bad" button was crimson, they'd look too much alike?

Red China didn't like that red lights meant stop when red should mean progress in the glorious people's republic, so they swapped red and green, found it was almost as effective as the one-child policy in limiting population, and then switched back. You could look it up. I did and couldn't find citations, which makes me wonder if this was an early form of urban legend that predates Al Gore's invention.

The thank/flame count is now shown on each user's profile page, the total rating for a thread is shown in the list view, and a link for "Top Users" in the control panel bar now works (after much wrangling of buggy, buggy code). The author didn't bother implementing the "top threads" function despite putting a stub for it, so, time permitting, I'll add that.

Is there any way we can personally track down which of our posts received thanks/flames? I assume the answer is no, but I'm going to ask anyway.

Not at the moment, but the data's in there so it's just a matter of writing it.

Age, I don't think this is working as designed in Chrome. I just liked RichH's thread starter about 10 times. The rating didn't appear but he's suddenly the #1 rated poster.

what happened to the Iphone version? It's been going to the regular non-mobile site for the past couple weeks.

The iPhone version was incomplete and kind of buggy. The author started it but never finished it and since you can't get to lots of features I turned it off. Time permitting, I'd consider trying to finish it, but I don't think it's too terrible just using the full site.