Plans for updating the archaic forum?

[SillyOldDufferModerator @sillyoldduffer]

Posted by Lee Jones 6 on 11/11/2020 08:29:04:

… the issues at hand:

• Reply box
  • Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe it's CKEDITOR – is it an old version? It's super clunky
  • Over-rides web browser behaviours
    • Right click (Qhat's that paste thing about? How is that helpful?)
    • Spell checking *really frustrating*
      • You have to copy words out to Google and back to amend them
  • No preview function
    • It's a lottery as to how this post will be formatted once it goes live!
  • The odd red CR/LF (carriage return/line feed) line doesn't work on mobile devices
  • Inserting an empty line between things like images requires a little dance
    • You have to add an image, then a new line, then a new image
      • If you forget, adding one retroactively is a real pain
  • Splitting up/editing quotes is equally as painful
• Forum behaviour
  • No multi-quote
    • You can fudge it with a series of ['quote', copy/paste, repeat], but it's arduous
  • Photo upload
    • You can only upload 5 images at a time
      • Worse than that, in reality it times-out if you attempt more than 4
  • Only 1 device at a time supported
    • If you flip between phone and computer (which I do often), you have to re-login each time *sigh*

Although a 'Moderator', I have no connection with MyTimeMedia other than buying magazines. This is a personal view.

A list of issues is more helpful than 'Honestly, without exaggeration, it's the worst platform I've worked with.' because we can focus on the difference between actual shortcomings and features users happen to dislike. For example:

• Right click is a deliberate security measure. It stops hackers scripting cut&paste into webpages. Inconvenient but safe. Not blocking malware is more worrying.
• Not sure a preview function is helpful. Posts are proof read in the editor and can be edited after posting for about 30 minutes. The forum changes the look of posts to indicate which mode the user is in. Members see two; posts, and edit. As a junior moderator I see a third, which reminds me if I'm looking at an original post, or editing one of my own, or have moderator superpowers. Accidentally using moderator privileges is bad news!
• Spell-checking: not necessary to copy words out to fix them. I use the Browser's spell checker (SHIFT right click). If not working check browser settings!
• Photo load timeouts are a function of line-speed and how much work is done loading the photo, the forum reduces images to web-friendly sizes (I think 1024×768). Uploading megapixel photos over a slow line will cause timeouts but I've not had a problem uploading 5 at a time since getting broadband. I used to downscale photos before uploading them.
• Only allowing 1 device at a time to be logged in at a time is very common. It stops users accidentally leaving devices logged so passers by can mess with their account, and it fixes the awful confusion caused when users edit the same post from multiple devices at the same time! My computer background emphasised the importance of always logging out at the end of a session: I'm horrified the forum allows users to stay logged in. Convenience vs risk is a difficult balance.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't the best of all possible fora. Lee has legitimate gripes. Me too. How to publish photos baffles everyone at first. They can't be rotated. The site sometime logs people out for no apparent reason. Posts are limited to text and JPG images only. Computer source code is reformatted. No maths symbols. The menus are a little counter-intuitive. Primitive search. Maximum post size too small. Etc etc.

Finding a good alternative isn't easy. Model Engineering is only one of several hosted jointly by the same software. It's an instance not an independent entity free to do as it likes. Changes that appeal to Model Engineers might annoy Patchwork & Quilting. Change either requires MyTimeMedia to transfer all their magazine websites, or to host ME separately. Either way, not cheap. License costs are probably the smallest factor. The man hours needed to deliver a new platform will be substantial, and so are the risks. One is that users won't like the new forum! It's not just the need to learn new bells and whistles, it's the likely intrusion of privacy invasive features. Fancy websites pay for themselves by harvesting customer data.

No doubt MyTimeMedia are considering all the options. They could choose to turn everything off, or launch a deeply unpopular heap of bling. Be careful what you wish for!

What makes the forum valuable to me isn't the software, it's member contributions. The forum's ability to answer a broad range of technical questions is unsurpassed. And not only helpful, it's unusually good mannered and friendly too.

Dave

[Michael GilliganParticipant @michaelgilligan61133]

Posted by John Haine on 11/11/2020 09:03:12:

[…]

And wouldn't it be useful to be able to upload pdfs, or dxfs or (heaven forfend) g-code?

.

John

Whilst I have no compelling desire to participate in this rather contentious discussion … I would offer one suggestion by way of a tactical ‘work-around’ for that:

It should be a simple matter to share “pdfs, or dxfs or (heaven forfend) g-code” using Dropbox, and posting the link

… You just need to be careful when setting the permissions on a folder. [*]

MichaelG.

.

[*] happy to be corrected by those with hacking expertise

[John HaineParticipant @johnhaine32865]

Well that's interesting. On my Win10 laptop spell check is ctrl – rightclick. That's the kind of eccentricity that we mean – every other text editor that I know of you just place the cursor in the word and right click, no need for <shift> or <ctrl>. And some of the word suggestions seem just perverse.

Over the years I have quite often mentioned things I've designed and had people asking for more details – if I could either post the files (like in groups.io) or attach to a PM response it would be much easier, without that I have to send by email either the files or a link to a cloud server. So for me the ability to upload any file type would be much the most useful change.

It's because of the content and the rate at which it gets published that I follow the site, and it's very useful and a great community. That makes the shortcomings even more frustrating!

Engineering is about innovation…

[Lee Jones 6Participant @leejones6]

Posted by SillyOldDuffer on 11/11/2020 10:23:39:

Although a 'Moderator', I have no connection with MyTimeMedia other than buying magazines. This is a personal view.

A list of issues is more helpful than 'Honestly, without exaggeration, it's the worst platform I've worked with.' because we can focus on the difference between actual shortcomings and features users happen to dislike. For example:

• Right click is a deliberate security measure. It stops hackers scripting cut&paste into webpages. Inconvenient but safe. Not blocking malware is more worrying.
• Not sure a preview function is helpful. Posts are proof read in the editor and can be edited after posting for about 30 minutes. The forum changes the look of posts to indicate which mode the user is in. Members see two; posts, and edit. As a junior moderator I see a third, which reminds me if I'm looking at an original post, or editing one of my own, or have moderator superpowers. Accidentally using moderator privileges is bad news!
• Spell-checking: not necessary to copy words out to fix them. I use the Browser's spell checker (SHIFT right click). If not working check browser settings!
• Photo load timeouts are a function of line-speed and how much work is done loading the photo, the forum reduces images to web-friendly sizes (I think 1024×768). Uploading megapixel photos over a slow line will cause timeouts but I've not had a problem uploading 5 at a time since getting broadband. I used to downscale photos before uploading them.
• Only allowing 1 device at a time to be logged in at a time is very common. It stops users accidentally leaving devices logged so passers by can mess with their account, and it fixes the awful confusion caused when users edit the same post from multiple devices at the same time! My computer background emphasised the importance of always logging out at the end of a session: I'm horrified the forum allows users to stay logged in. Convenience vs risk is a difficult balance.

Don't get me wrong, this isn't the best of all possible fora. Lee has legitimate gripes. Me too. How to publish photos baffles everyone at first. They can't be rotated. The site sometime logs people out for no apparent reason. Posts are limited to text and JPG images only. Computer source code is reformatted. No maths symbols. The menus are a little counter-intuitive. Primitive search. Maximum post size too small. Etc etc.

Finding a good alternative isn't easy. Model Engineering is only one of several hosted jointly by the same software. It's an instance not an independent entity free to do as it likes. Changes that appeal to Model Engineers might annoy Patchwork & Quilting. Change either requires MyTimeMedia to transfer all their magazine websites, or to host ME separately. Either way, not cheap. License costs are probably the smallest factor. The man hours needed to deliver a new platform will be substantial, and so are the risks. One is that users won't like the new forum! It's not just the need to learn new bells and whistles, it's the likely intrusion of privacy invasive features. Fancy websites pay for themselves by harvesting customer data.

No doubt MyTimeMedia are considering all the options. They could choose to turn everything off, or launch a deeply unpopular heap of bling. Be careful what you wish for!

What makes the forum valuable to me isn't the software, it's member contributions. The forum's ability to answer a broad range of technical questions is unsurpassed. And not only helpful, it's unusually good mannered and friendly too.

Thanks for taking the time to author this reply Dave. Very enlightening, as usual.

To avoid of this thread going on and on, I'll refrain from replying to each of the points individually.

I agree that people in general are resistant to change – this thread is a testament to that.

It's a shame that MyTimeMedia have tied themselves in to a bespoke solution like this, but it is what it is.

It sounds like there isn't anything that can be done to improve/fix the majority of my points if this is the case.

Out of interest what Browser do you use? Shift + Right-click in Chrome just highlights hunks of text.

[JasonBModerator @jasonb]

Lee, it is a Bespoke website of which the forum is just a part.

You need to bear in mind that login is not just to the forum it also has to tie in with the subscription records so that access to the archive, subscriber only content etc can be accessed. All to easy to share your login details with a few mates so they can all read the mag so that is one reason to log people out on another device.

Layout also needs to be considered as this is a commercial site so room needs to be made for adverts.

I really don't have a problem loading photos in batches of 5, they always seem to load OK. The fact you have to do it through an album if not hosting elsewhere can actually be useful as we often see people say look in my album rather than them having to fill a thread with the same photos.

I feel a preview is not needed here so much as you can see photos in the editor unlike other forums where all you get is a line with the image url so preview allows you to check you have the right image.

Although cost of the software is an issue so is secure storage, backups etc. Neil did post a month or so ago when a couple of points about the forum came up

Yes it has a few quirks of its own but once you get used to these it does the job

[Lee Jones 6Participant @leejones6]

Posted by John Haine on 11/11/2020 10:33:47:

Engineering is about innovation…

Except forums. That doesn't include forums.

[Lee Jones 6Participant @leejones6]

Posted by JasonB on 11/11/2020 10:42:51:

Lee, it is a Bespoke website of which the forum is just a part.

You need to bear in mind that login is not just to the forum it also has to tie in with the subscription records so that access to the archive, subscriber only content etc can be accessed. All to easy to share your login details with a few mates so they can all read the mag so that is one reason to log people out on another device.

Layout also needs to be considered as this is a commercial site so room needs to be made for adverts.

I really don't have a problem loading photos in batches of 5, they always seem to load OK. The fact you have to do it through an album if not hosting elsewhere can actually be useful as we often see people say look in my album rather than them having to fill a thread with the same photos.

I feel a preview is not needed here so much as you can see photos in the editor unlike other forums where all you get is a line with the image url so preview allows you to check you have the right image.

Although cost of the software is an issue so is secure storage, backups etc. Neil did post a month or so ago when a couple of points about the forum came up

Yes it has a few quirks of its own but once you get used to these it does the job

Yes, I'm starting to understand the landscape which is causing the shortcomings.

It's a shame, but it sounds like having anything fixed/improved would be a real uphill struggle.

This is fast becoming a "suck it up buttercup, change is impossible" kinda situation!

[Lee Jones 6Participant @leejones6]

Posted by John Haine on 11/11/2020 10:33:47:

Well that's interesting. On my Win10 laptop spell check is ctrl – rightclick.

This worked for me in Chrome.

To be honest, just this one thing will make a significant improvement in usability for me personally!

Thank you Dave and John *much* appreciated.

[martin perman 1Participant @martinperman1]

Gentlemen,

Why are so many of us discussing this, we dont own this site we just use it, the concensus of opinion is it does what we want it to do and most of us either dont use or even notice the "imperfections".

You may have also noticed that apart from Dave the other Moderators have not commented because they know what the owners, ME, views are from past chats, we all know from time to time one of Me's staff pops up so we know she reads these post and she knows that nothing will change so why make a comment.

Martin P

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

I'm happy with it. It'd be nice to be able to add videos to albums, but nothing else readily occurs to me.

I'm beginning to think that out-of-control technology is counterproductive, and I won't accept that that's just an old man's view.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Its curious someone suggested this hasn't been discussed before – it seems to me that it comes up at least every couple of months!

One of my biggest concerns regarding the future of the forum software is not raising hopes unrealistically.

Around a year ago I was asked for my views of potential routes forward and a few months later there was work in hand to look at new forum software across all the MyTimeMedia forums. I did not make any announcements as it was clear it could take some time to be put into effect.

Then Covid-19 happened. This has had quite an impact, and I'm sure people will notice we have lost some titles. It also means we have less capacity for dealing with software issues and things like the end of flash, recent changes to browser security settings breaking the archive for many users and addressing glitches that have been made subs renewal more difficult than it should be take priority.

Our priority has become keeping the magazines in the best possible health under much more difficult trading conditions (international distribution and high street sales have been affected – take out those subscriptions folks!) and we have had longer intervals between issues.

One of the biggest challenges will be how successful the forum is. We have about 30,000 users signed up and are consistently in the top two busiest hobby engineering forums worldwide. This means the amount of data to move to a new system and the server capacity required are on the larger side. Naturally, such a successful forum should become even busier with better software and that will bring its own challenges.

Clearly a bodge job will benefit no-one, and the investment required to the job properly will have to wait until things have settled down again.

Neil

Edited By Neil Wyatt on 11/11/2020 10:53:59

[Lee Jones 6Participant @leejones6]

Thanks for that Neil.

It's wonderful to know that this subject is being taken seriously and change is (or was at least) afoot.

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

In a similar manner to other contributors, I also think that there is very little wrong with this forum. In fact, some of the others that I have been on I find very confusing and frustrating, so yes, just leave well alone.

May I throw back an argument to Mr Lee Jones 6, not particularly associated with this forum, but in his guise as someone who has been involved with open source software, of which I have been a user for a few years now. And yes, I am aware that this is going off topic, but it will give you an insight to what I think as a user of software.

Many years ago I played around with Suse 9.1 and the KDE2 desktop. Nice, simple piece of software which I could find my way around quite easily. But as I was, at that time, reasonably happy with (I think) Windows 2000 (W2K) I didn't bother taking it any further. Time passed, Windows XP superceded W2K, and I found XP even better. And then Windows Vista, Windows 7 arrived and I was faced with scrapping some perfectly satisfactory software along with possibly some of my equipment. And so I decided to move to Linux with Open Suse being the obvious choice. Could I get on with what was now KDE3 or 4? Could I heck! I couldn't find out how change things at all, and then I discovered these so-called almonds – strange multi coloured corners of the screen which looked for all the world like a screen aberration. What a stupid idea! Who the heck dreamed up that thing? What on earth was wrong with a simple means of eg, right click anyway on a part of the blank screen to access the options? Frankly, it occurred to me that this was no more than some twerp just out of university saying "look how clever I am" and completely ignoring the needs of the users.

There is no need to go all fancy with software: the primary function should be to make it easy for the user to achieve the user's objective, not that of the massaging software designer's ego!

I might add that I've lost count of the sheer stupid things I've come across in software – a random list instead of an alphabetic list; leaving out the most obvious item in the list; failing to place the cursor at the beginning of an entry box etc. I could go on, but I'm sure get all get my gist.

Regards,

Peter G. Shaw

[Lee Jones 6Participant @leejones6]

Posted by Peter G. Shaw on 11/11/2020 10:59:43:

In a similar manner to other contributors, I also think that there is very little wrong with this forum. In fact, some of the others that I have been on I find very confusing and frustrating, so yes, just leave well alone.

May I throw back an argument to Mr Lee Jones 6, not particularly associated with this forum, but in his guise as someone who has been involved with open source software, of which I have been a user for a few years now. And yes, I am aware that this is going off topic, but it will give you an insight to what I think as a user of software.

Many years ago I played around with Suse 9.1 and the KDE2 desktop. Nice, simple piece of software which I could find my way around quite easily. But as I was, at that time, reasonably happy with (I think) Windows 2000 (W2K) I didn't bother taking it any further. Time passed, Windows XP superceded W2K, and I found XP even better. And then Windows Vista, Windows 7 arrived and I was faced with scrapping some perfectly satisfactory software along with possibly some of my equipment. And so I decided to move to Linux with Open Suse being the obvious choice. Could I get on with what was now KDE3 or 4? Could I heck! I couldn't find out how change things at all, and then I discovered these so-called almonds – strange multi coloured corners of the screen which looked for all the world like a screen aberration. What a stupid idea! Who the heck dreamed up that thing? What on earth was wrong with a simple means of eg, right click anyway on a part of the blank screen to access the options? Frankly, it occurred to me that this was no more than some twerp just out of university saying "look how clever I am" and completely ignoring the needs of the users.

There is no need to go all fancy with software: the primary function should be to make it easy for the user to achieve the user's objective, not that of the massaging software designer's ego!

I might add that I've lost count of the sheer stupid things I've come across in software – a random list instead of an alphabetic list; leaving out the most obvious item in the list; failing to place the cursor at the beginning of an entry box etc. I could go on, but I'm sure get all get my gist.

The issues you articulate here are not specific to Open Source or software at large or even technology.

This is life. It moves on. People innovate. Things change. Albeit, sometimes to the frustration of others.

We have TVs now (in colour), and mobile phones that fit in our pockets and cars that drive themselves!

The great thing about Linux though – if you know what you're doing, it's HIGHLY configurable!

You can make your desktop look however you want. I can make some suggestions (offline) if it would help.

[Mick B1Participant @mickb1]

Posted by Peter G. Shaw on 11/11/2020 10:59:43:

…

Frankly, it occurred to me that this was no more than some twerp just out of university saying "look how clever I am" and completely ignoring the needs of the users.

…

Regards,

Peter G. Shaw

That happens ALL THE TIME!!!

I spent 30+ years modifying, implementing and supporting MRP/MRP2/ERP software, and it seemed to be a fixed axiom of each generation of the industry to utterly ignore the body of knowledge built up in the previous one. The naivety of system developers seemed to have no limits. Terms with very exact definitions were used for different and more casually-defined purposes in succeeding packages, and whole areas of useful functionality were simply dropped as if they'd never existed, and had to be laboriously redeveloped in different platforms. We had to re-invent the wheel every dozen years or so.

[mechman48Participant @mechman48]

I find the forum works quite well as is; the only gripe I have is, as I've posted previously, was, 1 ) the frustrating habit of when I'm replying to a post & have to go to my albums to select a jpeg to insert into the post or refer to a link; the dialogue has disappeared. I am now in the habit of either copying & pasting to a word page or, as I have just found out, pasted to 'clipboard' then having to re-paste it back, surely within the format there should be a means of keeping the dialogue within the box if you have to leave the forum ?.

2 ) The awful scrabble of the title box & thread headline being a jumbled mess. I do not have any ad blockers on & am on Win 10, not Chrome, which has the facility to turn off/on ad blockers. I can only deduct there is something to do with ads interspersed in the headline format ?.

George.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

New Scientist has an interesting article this week about how much of our civilisation is propped up by languages like FORTRAN and COBOL that few people are being trained in.

Even when people learn these languages, they aren't learning the 'idioms' earlier programmers making it as easy to break as to mend (think TSB…) which has some elderly ex-programmers being offered inducements to return.

I think it was DARPA that was quoted as using machine learning to figure out the tangled webs and dependencies of legacy software in an attempt to make changes less risky and more incremental.

Neil

[Roy VaughnParticipant @royvaughn26060]

What I would say is, be careful what you wish for. There are some ghastly ME forum formats out there. This one is fine for me, but I suppose it will eventually become unsupportable and be superceded by something quite possibly worse as seems to be the norm nowadays.

[Neil WyattModerator @neilwyatt]

Posted by mechman48 on 11/11/2020 11:20:07:

I find the forum works quite well as is; the only gripe I have is, as I've posted previously, was, 1 ) the frustrating habit of when I'm replying to a post & have to go to my albums to select a jpeg to insert into the post or refer to a link; the dialogue has disappeared. I am now in the habit of either copying & pasting to a word page or, as I have just found out, pasted to 'clipboard' then having to re-paste it back, surely within the format there should be a means of keeping the dialogue within the box if you have to leave the forum ?.

2 ) The awful scrabble of the title box & thread headline being a jumbled mess. I do not have any ad blockers on & am on Win 10, not Chrome, which has the facility to turn off/on ad blockers. I can only deduct there is something to do with ads interspersed in the headline format ?.

George.

1 – use the black camera icon, or if you want to open and search your albums, do this in a new tab.

2 – I guess you mean Edge the bundled browser in Win 10? This is now Chrome under the hood. You could try internet explorer mode for this website which bypasses some of Edge's 'cleverness' which breaks more than a few websites. Alternatively, I know Firefox displays the site without issues.

Neil

[Peter G. ShawParticipant @peterg-shaw75338]

Lee,

Thankyou for the offer. I eventually chose Linux Mint with which I am, (currently until v18 gets superceded) fully satisfied. And yes, I'm fully aware that there are very many "improvements", but not necessarily to the benefit of the user. You mention colour TV's. A few years ago we bought a Samsung TV to replace our 24 year old CRT TV. It worked perfectly with the new, at that time, DVR. Recently the DVR failed. And the replacement does NOT work properly with the Samsung. Why? Because the Samsung doesn't have some feature or other in respect of DVI or is it HDMI. Is that an improvement? Not in my view it isn't, instead, I believe it's yet another attempt by manufactuers to restrict what people can do with their equipment on the grounds of software theft.

Which is why I tend to be somewhat cynical about software "improvements".

Peter G. Shaw

[Ady1Participant @ady1]

An archaic forum for some archaic people doing archaic stuff

perfect

[Lee Jones 6Participant @leejones6]

Posted by Peter G. Shaw on 11/11/2020 11:48:37:

Lee,

Thankyou for the offer. I eventually chose Linux Mint with which I am, (currently until v18 gets superceded) fully satisfied. And yes, I'm fully aware that there are very many "improvements", but not necessarily to the benefit of the user. You mention colour TV's. A few years ago we bought a Samsung TV to replace our 24 year old CRT TV. It worked perfectly with the new, at that time, DVR. Recently the DVR failed. And the replacement does NOT work properly with the Samsung. Why? Because the Samsung doesn't have some feature or other in respect of DVI or is it HDMI. Is that an improvement? Not in my view it isn't, instead, I believe it's yet another attempt by manufactuers to restrict what people can do with their equipment on the grounds of software theft.

Which is why I tend to be somewhat cynical about software "improvements".

Peter G. Shaw

Mint is a good choice. It's based on Ubuntu (my former employer).

HDMI is a significant improvement over SCART, which was an improvement over RGB.

Yes it's annoying when we lose backward compatibility with newer devices, but the improvements are worthwhile.

Try to squeeze HD over RGB or 4k over SCART. You can't do it, so we need something newer/better.

[Lee Jones 6Participant @leejones6]

Posted by Ady1 on 11/11/2020 11:55:28:

An archaic forum for some archaic people doing archaic stuff

perfect

Another good one Ady – keep 'em coming!

[Martin ConnellyParticipant @martinconnelly55370]

I do new archaic stuff

Martin C

[Mike PooleParticipant @mikepoole82104]

I am all for progress but it is very irritating when something is stopped from working by an upgrade. If this site is upgraded then something will cease to work, I doubt that any upgrade has ever worked 100% on rollout. My phone is regularly has a software upgrade which will quickly be followed by another one to fix the bugs and then another and so on.

Mike

[Author]

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