New Update Underway

[Trifletraxor]

Befitting Halloween, we have a new scare update underway. Lots of changes, among others are a new wysiwyg interphase and that the "New Content" function is replaced by customizable activity streams. It also contains security updates, which means it is a go. The site will probably be down for some hours when Support start working on the update. 

[Trifletraxor]

The update has been completed, but unfortunately broke our skin. I'll have that working again within a day, should be easy to fix. In the meantime, please post any other bugs you find. (New Content being gone is not a bug, it's been replaced by a customizable activity stream).

[nDervish]

Are you taking wishlists for the activity stream or are you entirely at the mercy of upstream developers?  (It seems to work well, but there are a couple additional things I'd like to be able to customize.)

[Guest Vile Traveller]

I was happy with the star thing ...

[nclarke]

I really, really hate this stream thing. Can I turn it off? If not then it's likely I may not bother coming here any more.

[Newt]

BRING BACK THE STAR SO I CAN JAB IT WITH MY PUDGY FINGERS ON MY MOBILE ON MY BUS ON THE WAY HOME!!

(Awefully sorry about the shouting, I just lost my usual English reserve there, terribly sorry won't happen again)

[tooley1chris]

While invisible, pushing where the star was, still works on my phone...

[tooley1chris]

I see you can filter results of new content with tags. Anyway of filtering OUT specific threads.

While I welcome the Gloranthanites they are quite active and I have to scroll past oodles of posts about Glorantha that I'm just not very interested in.

 

[Guest Vile Traveller]

That would be good, I also don't read CoC or HQ threads (or Glorantha) so it would be good for me, too.

[Sunwolfe]

I just quickly pop open subforums I have no interest in reading and "mark [the] forum as read". Maybe rather repetative and not as elegant as an automatic filter but very satisfying :-)

[Trifletraxor]

18 hours ago, nDervish said:

Are you taking wishlists for the activity stream or are you entirely at the mercy of upstream developers?  (It seems to work well, but there are a couple additional things I'd like to be able to customize.)

Mostly at the mercy of upstream developers, but some of it can be tweaked in the settings and some can be requested which might make it into the next version if enough forum owners want it.

18 hours ago, Vile said:

I was happy with the star thing ...

17 hours ago, Newt said:

BRING BACK THE STAR SO I CAN JAB IT WITH MY PUDGY FINGERS ON MY MOBILE ON MY BUS ON THE WAY HOME!!

(Awefully sorry about the shouting, I just lost my usual English reserve there, terribly sorry won't happen again)

 

Like it instead! I hated the star rating so I turned it off. Admins privilege...

 

17 hours ago, nclarke said:

I really, really hate this stream thing. Can I turn it off? If not then it's likely I may not bother coming here any more.

Not sure what you mean with the stream thing. Could you please elaborate?

 

15 hours ago, tooley1chris said:

I see you can filter results of new content with tags. Anyway of filtering OUT specific threads.

While I welcome the Gloranthanites they are quite active and I have to scroll past oodles of posts about Glorantha that I'm just not very interested in.

 

3 hours ago, Sunwolfe said:

I just quickly pop open subforums I have no interest in reading and "mark [the] forum as read". Maybe rather repetative and not as elegant as an automatic filter but very satisfying :-)

I'll look into this. Should be possible to filter out subforums at least.

 

 

[nclarke]

Each time I came to the site I used new posts to filter the posts and only got posts that were new since my last visit. Now I get a stream of unread crap that I have no interest in and it's spammed with topics I don't want to read. The old style of 'proper' forum with the ability to only view new posts and then pick the ones I wanted to read was much better than this Facebook style stream of unrelated junk.

[Trifletraxor]

20 minutes ago, nclarke said:

Each time I came to the site I used new posts to filter the posts and only got posts that were new since my last visit. Now I get a stream of unread crap that I have no interest in and it's spammed with topics I don't want to read. The old style of 'proper' forum with the ability to only view new posts and then pick the ones I wanted to read was much better than this Facebook style stream of unrelated junk.

Still not sure I follow you.

Choose the "Browse" tab and you can view the forum the regular way.

Choose the "Unread Content" button to get all new posts since your last visit.

If you just want new topics from certain subforums, go to them and press "Follow" on the ones you're interested in, then go to "Create New Stream" and chose "Content I haven't Read" and "Only Content I Follow".

 

[Trifletraxor]

16 hours ago, tooley1chris said:

I see you can filter results of new content with tags. Anyway of filtering OUT specific threads.

You can't filter out specific forums and threads directly, but you can choose to follow only certain forums or certain threads and create an activity stream with only stuff that you follow. So that should work pretty well for indirectly filtering out forums, but filtering out specific threads would be harder.

 

[nclarke]

Unread posts gives a stream of unrelated stuff that goes back days. It doesn't give me only New since my last visit.

I really don't like the new software update and think I'm going to just use other media sources to find material that interests me without all the unrelated material that I don't want to go through.

[Trifletraxor]

3 minutes ago, nclarke said:

Unread posts gives a stream of unrelated stuff that goes back days. It doesn't give me only New since my last visit.

I really don't like the new software update and think I'm going to just use other media sources to find material that interests me without all the unrelated material that I don't want to go through.

You can specify the time period of the activity stream to be "Since my last visit". The possibility for each member to create a customized stream based on their own preferences is a huge improvement to the old "New Content" function in my opinion, but there's other sites out there too that might suit you better as you point out.

[Steve]

Another way to do the filtering is instead of letting it show you "All Content", change that to "Topics", and then (using the gear wheel icon) you can choose which topics you want to hear about. This is another way to do it without having to do "Follow".

 

[nDervish]

4 hours ago, Trifletraxor said:

Mostly at the mercy of upstream developers, but some of it can be tweaked in the settings and some can be requested which might make it into the next version if enough forum owners want it.

OK, then, in that case:

1) Option to hide specific (sub)forums and/or tags.  Like others have said, Glorantha/CoC/HQ is all just noise to me.  (I see that you've mentioned in an earlier reply that you can follow forums and filter to only show followed content, but I'd be more comfortable with things filtered out rather than filtered in, so that, if a new forum gets added, it will appear immediately instead of relying on me to notice that it's been added and explicitly follow it.  You're less likely to accidentally miss something if the default is to show everything, minus whatever has been explicitly excluded, than if the default is to show nothing, except what has been explicitly included.)

2) Option to collapse threads instead of showing every single new post separately, so that I can just go down the list and open each thread with new activity without needing to remember for each thread whether I've already opened it on this visit or not.

3) Option to show only the title of new activity, not the actual content, so that more threads will fit on the screen at once with less scrolling required.  (EDIT: While setting up followed forums, I noticed the "condensed view" button in the top right corner of the feed.  It does this.  It's just easy to miss, since it's not listed on the feed customization page.)

Basically, I want a feed that just shows the titles of threads with new activity (each listed only once, regardless of whether it has one new post or a hundred) with a link to go to the first new post in each thread.  Much like the old "new content" page, but with the added filtering ability provided by the new feeds feature.

Edited November 4, 2015 by nDervish

[lawrence.whitaker]

Where’s the RuneQuest theme gone?

[NickMiddleton]

The irritating thing is there used to be a button that basically did what most people wanted ("show me new forum posts since my last visit") and now there are a bunch of buttons that LOOK like they do the same, but don't... and despite creating a custom, personalized "activity stream" that shows whhat I want to see (all new forum posts since my last visit) all that does it force me to make several mouse clicks when I arrive to get at where it is buried in a drop down menu...

As a piece of interface design it's lacking, I'm afraid. Is there no way to place my custom activity stream (or at elast SOME of them) on the front page when I#m logged in? So that when I get here, I can just click on the button I want, rather than having to a) ignore the default one (which doesn't do what I want) and b)  go digging in drop down menus for the custom one I made?

Cheers,

Nick

 

[Trifletraxor]

3 hours ago, Steve said:

Another way to do the filtering is instead of letting it show you "All Content", change that to "Topics", and then (using the gear wheel icon) you can choose which topics you want to hear about. This is another way to do it without having to do "Follow".

 

Well spotted Steve! Much easier! :)

3 hours ago, nDervish said:

OK, then, in that case:

1) Option to hide specific (sub)forums and/or tags.  Like others have said, Glorantha/CoC/HQ is all just noise to me.  (I see that you've mentioned in an earlier reply that you can follow forums and filter to only show followed content, but I'd be more comfortable with things filtered out rather than filtered in, so that, if a new forum gets added, it will appear immediately instead of relying on me to notice that it's been added and explicitly follow it.  You're less likely to accidentally miss something if the default is to show everything, minus whatever has been explicitly excluded, than if the default is to show nothing, except what has been explicitly included.)

2) Option to collapse threads instead of showing every single new post separately, so that I can just go down the list and open each thread with new activity without needing to remember for each thread whether I've already opened it on this visit or not.

3) Option to show only the title of new activity, not the actual content, so that more threads will fit on the screen at once with less scrolling required.  (EDIT: While setting up followed forums, I noticed the "condensed view" button in the top right corner of the feed.  It does this.  It's just easy to miss, since it's not listed on the feed customization page.)

Basically, I want a feed that just shows the titles of threads with new activity (each listed only once, regardless of whether it has one new post or a hundred) with a link to go to the first new post in each thread.  Much like the old "new content" page, but with the added filtering ability provided by the new feeds feature.

1) See what you mean. No fix for it at the moment, but will pass it forward, maybe we'll get it later. A hack can be that any new forums are announced in the Alastor's Skull Inn forum. 2) Just click the circle or star to go to first new post and any other post of the same thread will disappear when you go back to the stream (as long as you've chosen the feed to only show unread content).

1 hour ago, NickMiddleton said:

The irritating thing is there used to be a button that basically did what most people wanted ("show me new forum posts since my last visit") and now there are a bunch of buttons that LOOK like they do the same, but don't... and despite creating a custom, personalized "activity stream" that shows whhat I want to see (all new forum posts since my last visit) all that does it force me to make several mouse clicks when I arrive to get at where it is buried in a drop down menu...

As a piece of interface design it's lacking, I'm afraid. Is there no way to place my custom activity stream (or at elast SOME of them) on the front page when I#m logged in? So that when I get here, I can just click on the button I want, rather than having to a) ignore the default one (which doesn't do what I want) and b)  go digging in drop down menus for the custom one I made?

The "unread content" button does what the old "New Content" button did before, just mark "site read" if there are threads you don't want to read when you've done with those that interest you. But if you want a customized stream which excludes some of the forums you'll have to use the submenus. You could just bookmark the url and go directly there if that would save you time.

2 hours ago, lawrence.whitaker said:

Where’s the RuneQuest theme gone?

All the themes for the Chaosium family of games forums was replaced by the new default banner. Many have requested individual themes for those forums too, but haven't heard back from Chaosium yet about how they want it.

 

[Trifletraxor]

Thinking about it, if you just want to filter out a couple of forums, the easiest way might be to just go to the main page, mark those forums as read and then go to the "Unread Content" stream.

[nDervish]

17 hours ago, Trifletraxor said:

2) Just click the circle or star to go to first new post and any other post of the same thread will disappear when you go back to the stream (as long as you've chosen the feed to only show unread content).

That assumes you open one thread, go back to the list, open the next thread, go back to the list...  I open the list once, then click down it opening each thread in a new tab and never go back to the list (until the next day).  Using the back button or otherwise reloading the same page repeatedly is something I avoid whenever possible.

Also, on my #1 (filtering out uninteresting forums), I tried doing the "follow forums, then set the Follow Status filter to 'only content I follow'" and it didn't work.  It showed me nothing at all, even though the badge in the upper right corner of the forum page (e.g., http://basicroleplaying.org/forum/3-basic-roleplaying/) shows "Following".  As a test, I also set the other filters to include all content (even if already read) from any time (not only since my last visit) and it still shows nothing if set to "only content I follow".  Does "follow" perhaps mean something different in the filter definition than it does on the forum pages (e.g., only recognizing followed threads, not followed forums)?  Or it could just be a bug, of course...

Steve's suggestion of switching from "All Content" to "Topics" and filtering that way seems to work, though.

[Trifletraxor]

1 hour ago, nDervish said:

That assumes you open one thread, go back to the list, open the next thread, go back to the list...  I open the list once, then click down it opening each thread in a new tab and never go back to the list (until the next day).  Using the back button or otherwise reloading the same page repeatedly is something I avoid whenever possible.

I see the problem. That makes having each post show up more problematic.

1 hour ago, nDervish said:

Also, on my #1 (filtering out uninteresting forums), I tried doing the "follow forums, then set the Follow Status filter to 'only content I follow'" and it didn't work.  It showed me nothing at all, even though the badge in the upper right corner of the forum page (e.g., http://basicroleplaying.org/forum/3-basic-roleplaying/) shows "Following".  As a test, I also set the other filters to include all content (even if already read) from any time (not only since my last visit) and it still shows nothing if set to "only content I follow".  Does "follow" perhaps mean something different in the filter definition than it does on the forum pages (e.g., only recognizing followed threads, not followed forums)?  Or it could just be a bug, of course...

Smells like a bug. I'll report it to the support guys - same bug at the IPS support forums! Filtering topics seems to be the way to go at the moment then.

[tooley1chris]

Hey Trif, is there a way to delete custome streams? I messed up and doubled some before I knew what I was doing...