This Last Upgrade to OL was a Doozy


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This Last Upgrade to OL was a Doozy

Man, look what they did to OL.

Dayaamm!

I have to do the updates for security reasons, but this time they did a number on the site.

Just futzing around, though, there are a few things I like and others... well, before I say I don't like them, let's see what happens when I get used to them.

Sorry for the inconvenience. I can't control this part until I move the forum to a different company.

But, clearly I am going to have to put together some sort of instructions for you guys.

Let me learn a few things, then I will tell you. Meanwhile, if you get the urge, please explore and share what you find out.

Stay tuned.

Michael

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4 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

Let me see what I can do to make it better. (Simple explanations with screenshots of functions, for example.)

The biggest problem I have with it is the new type font and line-length setting.  Reading posts is causing troubles for my eye glitziness.  If there's some way a reader can select the way the type appears, that would help me.

Ellen

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Ellen,

There is a lot of control over this at your fingertips with the browser and operating system.

I, myself, constantly expand and diminish text size to fit my reading comfort level. I also shrink the window or browser width when the lines are really long. When my eyes get tired from too much brightness, I turn on night lighting in Windows.

Let me know what you have trouble with and I will let you know what I do about it for myself, or what I know that can be done about it.

When I first started doing these changes, I felt a bit resentful because I never had to do this going all the way back to reading typed pages, then the green computer screens of DOS and so on. 

But, like all things new, I got used to it and have found it to be helpful. Now I can read a lot of sites irrespective of how badly and unintelligible they publish their pages. And even more, I change during the day. In the mornings, I have a lot more tolerance for bright lights and small type. I don't even notice them. As the day wears on and I read more and more, I start making changes as I go along. Now I like it.

As a default mode in the new upgrade to OL, I find the background too bright. This is one of the things I will be looking into.

Let me know what you think.

Michael

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11 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I, myself, constantly expand and diminish text size to fit my reading comfort level. I also shrink the window or browser width when the lines are really long. When my eyes get tired from too much brightness, I turn on night lighting in Windows

I do all that stuff too.  But I don't know of a way, if there is one, to change the type font and leading.

Ellen

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1 hour ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

... to change the type font and leading.

Ellen,

I'm pretty sure the font is the same as before. I use a lot of font changes in another project I'm working on and have for a few years, so I have a bit of unconscious sensitivity to font changes. (This is always jumping out at me when I come across inconsistencies, even in news articles and the like.) Nothing in my subconscious triggered a difference between now and before. I'm not saying 100% the font is the same, but I didn't detect a difference.

You can change the font of what you post, but I am pretty sure you already know that.

I don't know of any website where a reader can change the font of already published material.

But, on thinking about it, there is a way that works for changing the font if that is critical. Copy/paste the material you want to read to a word processor like Word, then select all and change the font, the size, anything you want. It's a pain, but it works.

As to leading, I don't know what that is. I probably should look it up.

If I understood your problem better, I could offer some ideas. I'm pretty good at brainstorming and trial and error. But more important than me on this, I want you to feel comfortable.

If something is within my reach, I will do it for you.

Michael

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2 hours ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I don't know of any website where a reader can change the font of already published material.

There is a Javascript trick that should work in most modern browsers. It's a "Bookmarklet" which is a tiny bit of script that applies to a page -- inside a bookmark link. The one I use (cross-browser) allows you to type in whichever font is best. One website among many that offer this font-change bookmarklet is here:  http://jsbookmarklets.blogspot.com/2012/11/change-font-of-any-webpage.html

If you drag the link at that site to your bookmark/favourites bar, then when you want, say, a nice Verdana, you simply click the 'bookmark' and enter the name of your preferred font, eg, "Arial' or "Verdana," or another choice.

This is the Javascript code:

javascript:function font_c(){var f_name=prompt("Enter the name of font! \n For list of fonts visit http://goo.gl/I06Lz");document.body.style.fontFamily=f_name;}font_c();

I also use a bookmarklet called "Design Mode"... http://designmode.benarmstrong.co.uk

Edited by william.scherk
Direct link to JS Bookmarklets page
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1 hour ago, Michael Stuart Kelly said:

I'm pretty sure the font is the same as before.

On some threads the font is the same, but those are threads that don't yet have the right sidebar.

I'm assuming that you, like me, are getting threads which have the posts in a block down the left side and a sidebar on the right giving various stats.

I'm not going to copy/paste and all that.  I'll just go into occasional-read mode.

Thanks, but looks like one is stuck with what the site designers provide, and they've gone farther than I'm in for this time.

Ellen

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1 hour ago, Ellen Stuttle said:

On some threads the font is the same, but those are threads that don't yet have the right sidebar.

I'm assuming that you, like me, are getting threads which have the posts in a block down the left side and a sidebar on the right giving various stats.

Ellen,

I haven't studied that sidebar thing, yet.

I have seen it come and go myself.

Stay tuned.

Michael

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19 minutes ago, Peter said:

I have tried to do a donation three times and it keeps telling me to try later. Is anyone else having a problem donating? Peter 

Peter,

I cannot resist.

I mean... what a set up for a pitch.

:)

So here goes.

To those of you reading this, would several of you try donating to see if there is a glitch? And then let us know your experience?

:)

I'm saying that with a chuckle, but, just in case someone wants to... it is a good idea...

No, wait... it's a great idea!

:) 

Michael

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47 minutes ago, Jules Troy said:

I am no longer able to view a mail box or check for messages unless one pops up on the bottom of my screen when viewing with my iPhone.(the only way I actually go onto the site)

Jules,

I don't use iPhone.

I will try to find an iPhone simulator online.

What browser does the iPhone use?

Michael

 

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Jules,

I've looked around and can't find what I am looking for. The best I can find is site dealing with Safari controls on iPhone and that does you no good. Your problem isn't with the browser. It is an OL software issue. You need to find the OL icon for messages.

But I do have a suggestion based on working on a Wordpress site of all things. The new version allows you to design a page for desktop, then change it for tablet, and change it further for smartphone. This allows you to design a site that looks good on all three.

With the header specifically, when the menu (or menus) has a long number of items, rather than pile the menu items on top of each other for smartphone view, thus making the header really long vertically and often distorts the image, it collapses them into a hamburger icon that opens a drop-down or call-out menu. A hamburger is an icon that looks like an equal sign (=), except it has three lines instead of two.

The normal place to check your messages on OL in desktop view is an icon that looks like an envelope in the header right next to your name on the upper right (being that clicking on your name opens a menu with profile-and-related options). See if there is an extra hamburger floating around up there in the header, or maybe when you open the menu for your own name, see if they added "messages" to that menu.

I wish I could help more, but that's the best I've got right now.

Let me know if that worked. If not, maybe we can brainstorm something else.

Michael

 

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Michael and Jules, it looks like a problem that may be at the Invision (IPB) end, as several users have mentioned issues like "Mobile menu not showing."

The 'mobile version' and the 'tablet version' and the regular laptop/desktop version of the OL software all 'run' at the same time. But, the HTML/JQuery/Ajax code 'listens' for the width of your OL browsing experience -- the width parameters -- whether on mobile, tablet, laptop, destop or enterprise computer.

In a laptop or desktop browser you will see the responsiveness of the Invision code for differing display width by first clicking the Maximize button on the upper right corner of the program's top bar. Click the Maximize button a second time if necessary -- in order to reduce the size of the browser window on your display, to bring it in from the edges of your full window.

This lets you then emulate a mobile experience without cracking open a mobile phone.

Once you have done un-Maximize, you can 'grab' the rightmost edge of the browser ... and 'drag' it horizontally. With Objectivist Living, you will see that the software 'adapts' to what it understands to be the actual display width in pixels of your browser -- when you drag the width to the browser's smallest limit -- as if your narrowest browser window were a mobile/tablet window. 

When you try it yourself, you will see that the top menu at OL changes as you drag the browser edge to show a narrower display.

The problem right now is that once your browser 'shrinks' the OL content, instead of collapsing the 'no room for you' menu items into a hamburger, several items go poof and disappear (eg, Inbox/sign-in and all the other menus/submenus) and so does the hamburger drop-down that used to show before the upgrade.

Here's a link to a community board where I caught one question being asked, as I note above:

https://invisioncommunity.com/forums/topic/457832-just-tried-the-mobile-app-yikes/page/2/?tab=comments#comment-2827060

-- what is unclear to me is if there is an administrative way for Michael to edit OL menu configurations. Because, on the example board above, the hamburger appears where and when it should.

[see also: https://invisioncommunity.com/search/?q=mobile menu&quick=1 ]

Edited by william.scherk
Clarified some confusing wording/spelling
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William,

That helped, but in a manner different than you mentioned.

3 hours ago, william.scherk said:

In a laptop or desktop browser you will see the responsiveness of the Invision code for differing display width by first clicking the Maximize button on the upper right corner of the program's top bar. Click the Maximize button a second time if necessary -- in order to reduce the size of the browser window on your display, to bring it in from the edges of your full window.

This lets you then emulate a mobile experience without cracking open a mobile phone.

In the OL forum software itself, I get Condensed and Expanded buttons, but only when I click "Activity --> All Activity." There are probably other places. I have't specifically gone after this yet. But in the home view of the forum, these button do not appear for me.

Normal browser window with OL in Activity --> All Activity view.

image.png

 

However, I do have Maximize and Minimize buttons on the upper right of my browser along with a Close button. And, when I click the Maximize button twice, it allows me to size the browser window as I wish by dragging the sides or corners. (I use Brave Browser and run Windows 10 as my computer's operating system.)

Normal browser window with OL in home view:

image.png

 

When I made the browser narrow by dragging the right side, some of the top menu does disappear.

Narrow browser window which is similar to smartphone width:

image.png

 

But then I made it reappear with a simple trick. I used the wheel on my mouse to shrink the container and font size. After it got really small, the menu reappeared. I think on a tablet and smartphone, you use a finger and thumb maneuver on the screen to do this.

Narrow browser window which is similar to smartphone width, but with shrunken container and font:

image.png

 

Let's see if this works in a similar manner for iPhones and fixes it for Jules.

If this works, he would obviously have to shrink the container and font to get to the Messages icon and click it, then expand the container and font to normal size to read the message feed or message.

Michael

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On 8/19/2020 at 8:57 PM, Ellen Stuttle said:

The biggest problem I have with it is the new type font and line-length setting.  Reading posts is causing troubles for my eye glitziness.  If there's some way a reader can select the way the type appears, that would help me.

Ellen

Try hitting your "Ctrl" and "+" keys together.

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51 minutes ago, Jules Troy said:

Yeah I’m screwed.

Jules,

LOL...

I hear you.

:) 

But you can't reduce the size of the forum on your iPhone screen?

I always thought you take a finger and thumb, place both on the screen and slide them closer together or further apart to make things bigger and smaller.

I would be interested to see if the Messages button appears when you do that.

Michael

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