NAS Forum - Brand update and maintenance.

...Based upon previous advice from Mr. WebPM says, I have begun another Thread for TOUCHSCREEN people (e.g. myself.)... it is all hideously complicated, this NAS Forum adjustment business...

https://community.autism.org.uk/f/miscellaneous-and-chat/13435/touchscreen-users---random-maintenance-thread-thanks

Thanks DC, I can no longer type a reply and send it, So far every attempt just Hangs,,,then logged off and in again,so all my words gone, so far not one successful attempt,, so as usual I will copy all, hit refresh,,then paste and reply quickly to avoid it all vanishing. 

...Next reply from myself.

) ( said:

I for one will not be trying to change it myself,,, I can’t and have no desire to learn. 

...I am borderline upon such a business. I have done technical things sometimes (partitioning, Linux, trying to learn C)... but I also do not want to have to do such things to make this Forum easier to see/use... it sounds like fun, but I am too scared of "BRICKING" and that would be why many of us are just "Users" rather than "Programmers/Engineers/Hackers"... I would like to, but not just now...

...That could start a New Thread (a bit like my old ASCII Thread)... but a main thing about what you say is possibly a continuation for an older Thread:

WebPM said:

The old font-size controls have gone, of course, because Ctrl+ and Ctrl- work better. Changing just the font size has the issue that most layouts are rather dependent on the expected sizes. Those short-cuts change the whole page size, as many of you will know. Ctrl0 to reset to normal.

...I believe you - but how is/was this done upon a TOUCHSCREEN... ? 

For now, however - it is the Weekend, and so Mr Webster might not reply again until Monday/Tuesday, now... I still say Thanks very much for acknowledging us anyway...

(...I am Not in control of my Internet just now, so might get signed off at anytime...)

...Me again, replying to WebPM and supporting Mr.LoneWarrior, somewhat. Thanks WebPM for replying (at all!) - as always. Your reply is about "colours" but not at all what I (we?) hoped...

) ( said:

The new reply added box that is black at the very bottom of page is screen captured above, Even when I zoomed in the purple writing is hardly visible.

...This is what it is about. And then I also mentioned the White on Light Grey for the "Buttons" underneath the OP. Please change ALL of  these colours. 

(...I have other things to write but must post this so far or else it shall disappear!)

Or you could just listen to those of us that do speak out and tone down the colour scheme.

I for one will not be trying to change it myself,,, I can’t and have no desire to learn. 

The new reply added box that is black at the very bottom of page is screen captured above, Even when I zoomed in the purple writing is hardly visible.

Yes, that agrees with my observations. The slow-down is most noticeable when loading and following notification links, opening the "insert emoticon" pop-up, etc. Regular browsing when I'm just "lurking" doesn't seem any less responsive than any other web pages that I visit.

You're welcome. The disconnected/reconnected boxes relate to a fundamental feature of the software, on which we are continuing to feed back. My experience is that any other slowness that does occur is when you are signed in - you may care to confirm that. We'll investigate on that basis.

Thanks for the speedy response, WebPM (if only other sites had such a responsive web-dev!)

1) Thanks for the advice; after clearing my browser cache, the home page links do seem to be working OK now.

3) I've had a few spells where loading has been very slow, and occasional disconnected/reconnected boxes. I haven't spotted any particular pattern to it, and it's not clearly any better or worse than experienced before the update. It was very slow the first time I logged in after the update, but maybe that was just new uncached content being loaded?

Slow loading isn’t just LOnewarrior, I have had real problems with it too. Also I keep getting the little “you have gone offline” popup still. (I lost a long reply due to this yesterday, it vanished when I tried to post it and said little popup said I was offline and trying to reconnect). 

The issue of user control of colours was raised with the old design as well. As you say, modern browsers do hand control to the user - but you need to be able to write style sheets to do the kind of thing that DongFeng5 is suggesting. The other approach is browser add-ins, such as Stylish (for Chrome and Firefox). They offer a library of styles; you search it, and download the ones you like. Many are specific to individual sites (e.g. YouTube), and others change only minor things that some users find annoying (e.g the appearance of the scroll bar). However, there are also global styles that can be applied to all sites.

I wonder whether this might develop into a Community project, whereby DongFeng5 and Trogluddite might share their styles in Stylish, for the benefit of those who aren't so familiar with the technical details? I could provide the full set of colours for the new brand, to allow several versions (PM me).

The old font-size controls have gone, of course, because Ctrl+ and Ctrl- work better. Changing just the font size has the issue that most layouts are rather dependent on the expected sizes. Those short-cuts change the whole page size, as many of you will know. Ctrl0 to reset to normal.

Many thanks for all the comments. I'm hoping to address some of the issues, so I'll try to summarise, because they appear in different messages in this thread:

1. Trogluddite's issue with links to the forum: I cannot reproduce this, and I suspect some kind of local caching effect in Trogluddite's browser or Internet provider. If anyone else has the same problem, please say. I would recommend clearing your cache and, if possible, trying on another connection or device as a check.
2. DC would like "to bottom" and "to top" buttons - I'll put that down as a suggestion
3. Lonewarrior experienced slow loading, but I'm treating that as a one-off problem. Is that fair?
4. Marking of read vs unread threads (for signed-in users) - I agree that normal for unread and bold for read is counter-intuitive; apologies for missing this in testing (there was a lot to test)
5. Lonewarrior reports inconsistent marking of read (replied-to) threads; that's likely to be how the underlying software handles things, but if we can identify when threads are and are not marked as read then I can feed back
6. Pages showing the old logo: we will, over time, work through and update all our materials and content to the new brand. Obviously, some may not change before it is taken down - photographs and reports from before the change, for example. If you're seeing the old logo at the top left of pages, that will be a caching effect (where your browser, or something else in the chain, keeps a copy of a page element in order to avoid downloading it every time), and will clear by itself. Clearing your browser cache may help. We took some steps to reduce this effect.
7. Visibility of voting buttons (and voter names); we can look at that again. Obviously, if they are too prominent, they distract from the main content, so there's a bit of a balancing act to perform. Point taken on usage with mobile devices.
8. Violet on black - again - we'll look into that, but to me it's a positioning issue, as the reply notification wouldn't be noticeable in the footer even it were in big red letters. Lonewarrior implied that this happens for a lot of text, but I can't reproduce that?

I'll comment separately on colours.

“Power to the people”!

“I’ve got battles to fight, and rights to right!”

up the tooting popular front,

thank you for the memories DC.

...While I am still (able to be) here, this is more from myself about that New Logo...:

...Here is an example of what some of my Schooldays were like when the Teachers were not looking...

...And often when I go out, especially at other persons, they do this instead, to whatever drives or motivates me...

(It is not easy being driven and driving others with a Wheel shaped like that, just to let anyone know, but some of us can do it!)

...Lastly though, this is how I often feel when going out, & when I think people are not looking and/or judging me...

...I shall sign off, now...!   ;-)

I voted you up DC, also Mr Math Photographer, and it took me about twenty attempts at pressing the +1 and +2  on each voted posted to actually show, usually I tap the icon +1 and then touch the black box and it just shows up..touch screen iPad, 

so not very easy at all.

Dissallowed cynosure!

And Robert's!

Cheers, I might have to give that a go (a nice little rainy-day project.)  It'll give me an excuse to learn some CSS and HTML; I've been programming for 30 years or more, but never got around learning the internet stuff.

Disambiguating Cynosure said:

The Community-homepage picture

It's very autism-friendly of the blonde woman to tolerate atypical Aspie eye-contact of the other two, though. It took me a long time to work out that staring directly at people for months on end like that wasn't socially acceptable!

However, while I know that I shouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth, I have considered contacting the Trade Descriptions people. I first joined years ago, and I still only get this typing words thingy on my computer - my introductory "picnic-table complete with assorted attractive friends (drinks not included)" still hasn't been delivered!

I'm accessing this site on my smartphone.

I tried to see who voted.  I accidentally voted myself up.  Then voted myself down to cancel my previous vote.  I still cannot see who voted what.

I really don't know if I'm coming or going.  

It's been a tough day.  And not enough sleep.  Help!!!

...Sorry to bother you, Mr. Math-Photographer, but I noticed another new thing, now - or it is my old devices...? I voted your reply up. Someone voted as well. But NOW, whomever voted upon replies is not shown. Hmmm... maybe that is a good thing or not... but I just aught to mention it... Good Fortune to one and all, anyway...     :-/

...I am signing off soon, but this could go on and on...

I just noticed that upon some Threads they cannot be "Voted Up": Posts can be voted up, but maybe not Threads (directly under the OP). And yet -if anyone looks at the top of this Thread, you may see that there are Buttons to Vote Up - But the writing is WHITE upon LIGHT GREY!?

---NAS, do any of you actually use this Forum?

If you want to fiddle with the colours you see on your own browser, you can do so.

Here's an example:

This was achieved by creating the following userContent.css file:

@-moz-document domain(autism.org.uk) {
     div {
         /* font-family:'Utopia' !important; */
        background-color: black !important;
        color: gray !important;
     }

     .site-nav__link {
         color: SteelBlue !important;
     }

     h1 {
         color: SteelBlue !important;
     }

     .thread-list h3 {
         /* font-family:'Utopia' !important; */
     }

     .thread-list h3 a:hover {
         color: white !important;
     }

     .thread-list h3 a {
        color: gray !important;
     }

     .content-fragment .content-list.tabular .content-item .cell .value {
         color: gray !important;
     }

     .activity-story .content-list.comments.with-content {
         background-color: #000000 !important;
     }

     .activity-story .content-list.comments {
         background-color: #000000 !important;
     }

     .content-fragment-page a {
         color: SteelBlue !important;
     }
}

If you've never done this sort of thing before, start here: ffeathers.wordpress.com/.../