Forum update to phpBB 3.2

[Cribbit]

This upgrade was much needed. I know the old design was familiar but this finally gets us in line with modern forums.

[5thHorseman]

The link-button to the last post of a topic (search results + my posts) is now behind the nickname instead of infront of it, making its position non-constant and thus more difficult to click.

Try the icon on the very far left. Not only is it more dynamic (it doesn't link to a post but instead to whatever the latest unread post happens to be) and in a single column, it's conveniently close enough to the forum title that you don't have to scan left and right to make sure you're clicking the correct thing.

[Engimage]

Overall upgrade was much needed.
However there are some things I dislike:

• Font all across the board is unpleasant to read. I do dislike it a lot. The biggest concern is about main post font.
• Unread topic icon color should definitely change to a more contrast one. Previously red was very distinctive and now with the same color of all forum elements it is bad. Same goes for read topics - white color just attracts your sight instead of unread topics.
• Not sure if previous version had it but quick reply mod should definitely be there. It is very convenient.
• Default color for untargeted buttons - grey - should have some contrast compared to other elements around. Especially regarding "Post Reply" button in a topic
• Form buttons in posting form ("Save draft", "Preview", "Submit") have rough corners. They look pretty bad compared to all other buttons around having rough corners and no gradient
• Forum is missing favicon (!!!!!)

[BlueTemplar]

But more to the point: What's the point of changing the skin? Is it one of those "changed for the purpose of chaning" things? To stay "modern"? Because that's about the most annoying type of software change i know as far as i'm concerned.

So, what was the need which necessitated this change?

So that the Forum is consistent with the upcoming 0.17 Factorio GUI ?

They sure do

Ah, found a bug(?) : spoiler tags don't work for images anymore !
EDIT : Ok, you need a spoiler title

The forum now uses unicode private use codepoints for all icons, meaning it doesn't work with my preferred font and everything is an ugly codepoint-square (also on pictures).

Shouldn't your font fall back to a system font in these cases?

[Optera]

What a huge change.

Pro:
I can finally see my mouse cursor when writing posts.

Con:
Font size is too small at some parts e.g. user control panel

[Jap2.0]

Feedback:
- It doesn't fit the width of the screen, even on a small (presumably 16:9) laptop screen
- The read and unread colors need to be changed. They're just so bad right now
- Everything looks washed out
- Half of the stuff I used is now locked behind a menu - notably my posts and log off
- It looks washed out
- There's no icon on the tab

To be honest, when I went here today I thought I landed on a bad mobile version of the site. That was, quite literally, my first thought.

Edit: also, can the huge "this user is online" badge be removed from the posts? I think it's stands out a bit much and some people might consider it a bit of a privacy concern. I was fine with how it was before, where it was possible to see it, but only if you looked for it and cared, but if this stays I'm finding a way to hide it.

Edit 2: it's also difficult to tell read from unread while hovering over a line, which gets a bit confusing.

[Oktokolo]

- The read and unread colors need to be changed. They're just so bad right now
- Everything looks washed out
- Half of the stuff I used is now locked behind a menu - notably my posts and log off
- It looks washed out

Until they fix it, you might try my CSS mod to get a less washed out experience where the quick links are indeed quick to click and read / unread icons are exchanged, so white is unread and yellow is read. It also removes the hover effects, hot topic icon animations and distinction between own and other people's posts.

[eradicator]

The link-button to the last post of a topic (search results + my posts) is now behind the nickname instead of infront of it, making its position non-constant and thus more difficult to click.

Try the icon on the very far left. Not only is it more dynamic (it doesn't link to a post but instead to whatever the latest unread post happens to be) and in a single column, it's conveniently close enough to the forum title that you don't have to scan left and right to make sure you're clicking the correct thing.

It doesn't even show when there's no unread posts, and if it is shown it's in the same line as the name of the poster below, both of which make it impossible for it ever to be "in one column". The previous icon actually had it's own column, and was always shown, making it the very consistent and easy to use button i probably used most on this forum.

So that the Forum is consistent with the upcoming 0.17 Factorio GUI ?

I don't know where you see any resemblance between that and the current forum skin, but they already stated that it was a security update of the forum software.

The forum now uses unicode private use codepoints for all icons, meaning it doesn't work with my preferred font and everything is an ugly codepoint-square (also on pictures).

Shouldn't your font fall back to a system font in these cases?

Private use codepoints do not have any predefined meaning, which makes fallbacks impossible. Only the exact font the site supplies knows the correct glyphs. I generally consider this practice broken-by-design, but i'm pretty sure i'm a very small minority in that regard, so i normally simply avoid using sites that do this. I've had a lot of fun here on the forums so leaving for a shitty reason like that is a pity, but i doubt they'll rewrite half of the theme just for me. :|

Edit: also, can the huge "this user is online" badge be removed from the posts? I think it's stands out a bit much and some people might consider it a bit of a privacy concern.

There's a setting "hide my online status", but it's currently ignored (BUG).

Edit:
BUG: The missing padding at the end of the post "box" i mentioned in an earlier post actually cuts off my signature.

[5thHorseman]

It doesn't even show when there's no unread posts, and if it is shown it's in the same line as the name of the poster below, both of which make it impossible for it ever to be "in one column". The previous icon actually had it's own column, and was always shown, making it the very consistent and easy to use button i probably used most on this forum.

I was actually confused by this because it's totally impossible for a post with no replies to show up in the "show posts with new replies" window. Then I remembered that that's not the screen that EVERYBODY uses to browse the forum.

I only go to the actual sub-forums when I want to post something. Sorry about the confusion that brought.

[BlueTemplar]

So that the Forum is consistent with the upcoming 0.17 Factorio GUI ?

I don't know where you see any resemblance between that and the current forum skin, but they already stated that it was a security update of the forum software.

I don't know where you *don't* see the resemblance !
Take just the "rust" on the edges for instance...

The forum now uses unicode private use codepoints for all icons, meaning it doesn't work with my preferred font and everything is an ugly codepoint-square (also on pictures).

Shouldn't your font fall back to a system font in these cases?

Private use codepoints do not have any predefined meaning, which makes fallbacks impossible. Only the exact font the site supplies knows the correct glyphs. I generally consider this practice broken-by-design, but i'm pretty sure i'm a very small minority in that regard, so i normally simply avoid using sites that do this. I've had a lot of fun here on the forums so leaving for a shitty reason like that is a pity, but i doubt they'll rewrite half of the theme just for me.

Yeah, sorry, what I meant to say, is that your font should fall-back on the site font?

This is funny

https://what.thedailywtf.com/topic/1333 ... ls-defined

But at least you shouldn't have these kind of issues?

(How a fall-back to the site font would be impossible?
https://css-tricks.com/css-basics-fallb ... eader-id-0
It's not like the Unicode code for that character itself is being modified?)

[mexmer]

did you also remove favorite icon with forum skin change? my bookmarks no longer show factorio wheelie.

also kinda dislike, i now need to use two clicks for egosearch.

[zOldBulldog]

Pro: Looks cleaner and loads faster.

Con: The color scheme makes it harder to quickly identify the "newly updated" posts.

[DaveMcW]

The forum now uses unicode private use codepoints for all icons, meaning it doesn't work with my preferred font and everything is an ugly codepoint-square (also on pictures).

How are you enforcing your preferred font? There may be a way to do it that doesn't affect fontawesome.

[Jap2.0]

I'm also not sure about the notifications thing - I can see how it would be useful to know if you're quoted, but I already read everything I comment in (from the view my posts), and actually most things outside of the mod subforums, so I see it already. I can see how it would help some people, though, and I don't dislike it as much as some things, so I'll keep it as is for now.

[Koub]

I absolutely hate the new forum update for one main reason.

It doesn't fill the width of my ultra wide screen.
Please fix.

Before: https://www.dropbox.com/s/rl1w8bf3ihl9o ... 6.png?dl=0
This is a good use of screen real estate, I'm not going to complain about any of the actual content in this view, but, it fills the screen.

After: https://www.dropbox.com/s/z0hsiwvriwhvm ... 3.png?dl=0
The content is restricted to less than half the width of my screen, which in itself is terrible. The screen width thing is a huge issue when you're looking at long posts on a topic page, as it means you can fit less posts on a screen due to the increased number of line breaks.

I understand - and welcome - the update for security reasons

While I can do with the new things (icon changes, ...), I absolutely agree with bobingabout. I dislike that the new forum layout uses only 1152 pixels in width. I have a reasonable old 2560x1440 display (far from the modern 4K+ screens). I feel like I'm in a cinema, and watching a movie filmed vertically by a smartphone. More than half (55%) of my screen is filled with nothingness (the forum only uses 45%).

big picture inc

Factorio Forum - bad layout.jpg (294.11 KiB) Viewed 5200 times

Also : Is it not possible to upload pictures and hide them in foldable spoilers any more (see above) ? This feature was quite useful.

[Rseding91]

Okay, i pull back my dislike. I am actually okay with it now as it is pretty easy to tune it with some user CSS.

My Stylus skin to make the forum great again (at least for me):

Code: Select all

...

Thank you. The quick-links fix and removing max-width from the forum styles fixed the forums for me. Having a fixed-width website in 2018 is just crazy. I have a 2560x1600 screen and with this new style it takes up < 50% of the screens horizontal space leaving a massive portion of my screen dead space.

[BlueTemplar]

The ironic thing is that it's supposed to be a "responsive" layout ?

[Oktokolo]

The quick-links fix and removing max-width from the forum styles fixed the forums for me.

But i didn't removed any max-width constraints. I am browsing in a window occupying a bit more than half of the width of my monitor and are not a fan of reading really long lines - so i didn't feel the need to do that.
Maybe, the Factorio team fixed it. I detected subtle style changes multiple times while tuning my forum mod already.

P.S.: Just updated again - mostly removal of unneeded stuff.

[Rseding91]

The quick-links fix and removing max-width from the forum styles fixed the forums for me.

But i didn't removed any max-width constraints. I am browsing in a window occupying a bit more than half of the width of my monitor and are not a fan of reading really long lines - so i didn't feel the need to do that.
Maybe, the Factorio team fixed it. I detected subtle style changes multiple times while tuning my forum mod already.

P.S.: Just updated again - mostly removal of unneeded stuff.

I removed it because I didn't buy a 2560x1600 monitor to have > 50% of the space be useless.

[Jap2.0]

The quick-links fix and removing max-width from the forum styles fixed the forums for me.

But i didn't removed any max-width constraints. I am browsing in a window occupying a bit more than half of the width of my monitor and are not a fan of reading really long lines - so i didn't feel the need to do that.
Maybe, the Factorio team fixed it. I detected subtle style changes multiple times while tuning my forum mod already.

P.S.: Just updated again - mostly removal of unneeded stuff.

I removed it because I didn't buy a 2560x1600 monitor to have > 50% of the space be useless.

So can you remove it by default?