Website redesign – Update

After living with the update for a while I have a list of issues.

Will they get addressed if post them on this thread?

@Rusty

No-one here, but us chickens, Rusty.

If you report-post those they’re easily fixable.

Which begs the question, why not have a fix in place that stops the bug from happening in the first place?

Well, they won’t if no-one does.

They’ve probably already been mentioned in the previous pages, mind. Email tech@ if you’d rather go directly to those who can do something about it.

Ta.
Will do.

Which begs the question, why not have a fix in place that stops the bug from happening in the first place?

Because the code behind sites like this is so complicated and has so many potential paths that it’s almost impossible to check every possibility. There’s also the thought: why would anyone use a list item that wasn’t in a list? Basically an assumption that users follow the rules. Unless someone reports a bug then they won’t know about it.

One item that would be useful is a link within a thread to the latest post. Put this at the top of the thread.

[list]

For me, this thread is still b0rked from the LI tag.

I’m writing to raise the issue of background data again – every time I leave chrome open on this mobile site it eats megs of data in the background, more than facebook or the Graun or something.

Perhaps limit the number of ads that update themselves? No other website does this!

NB I can track which apps are using the background data, so it really is STW and not another page/app.

If you can highlight which ads, is it a particular rogue advert that STW can track down?

Have you got video auto-playing?

But it all kind of ties in to it surely being easier to move to a new platform, rather than have this unwieldy codebase you can’t change.

I expect that’s ultimately what will happen. There’s the small matter of years of legacy discussion, though.

Give it a couple of weeks and we’ll have gone over same stuff again anyway 🙂

Edit: my initial typing made that “sane stuff”

🙂

The problem of needing to tap twice on things with my IPad Mini seems to have been fixed. Thanks.

If you can highlight which ads, is it a particular rogue advert that STW can track down?

App dude, I can see it’s Chrome using background data when the phone is locked; It’s a feature in EMUI. I can’t see which Ads are doing it, but it seems to happen all the time so I figure it’s not the specific Ad, but is infact something about STW’s code updating or changing the Ads every now and then, regardless of whether the user is interacting with the page.

It is not Autoplay, as on my device it is currently disabled and Data Saver is enabled. Also, it’s after the page is loaded. IE I read STW, lock the screen after a page/thread and when I unlock the device I have a notification that Chrome is using data in the background. Usually this is 4-5MB as I tend to unlock the phone every 30 minutes or so.

It runs around 8-10MB per hour if I don’t quit the browser and leave Chrome open on STW pages. Should be easy enough for others to verify, whether they have EMUI or another Android version, by checking the daily data use before and after they unlock the phone.

I have Chrome Background Sync and Background Data disabled. I have many many data using settings disabled, even Address Autocomplete, so this really is odd. When I turned the background data notification on I freaked out!

And another thing. STW now completely screws up formatting on posts that contain quotes, with the font or spacing being affected. See above.

App dude,

Sorry, misread.

STW now completely screws up formatting on posts that contain quotes

Dunno the cause, but it seems to be related to whether there’s a carriage return after the quote or not. I think.

I’ve been away a while has anyone worked out how to zoom on an iPad mini?
I can hardly see what I’m typing.

Still no “view desktop version” button I can see.

Can’t see the pages for multi page threads on the forum main page. The text column isn’t wide enough for a full thread title on its own!

Pretty sure both those things have been answered a few times on this thread – apparently the site is designed to be responsive so there is no longer a desktop view as the design itself changes depending on the size of screen you are looking on (which means on phones and tablets, there is no option to view the desktop version as it doesn’t exist).

I’m guessing the multi page thing is a deliberate ploy to encourage more clicks and therefore more pages views (and advert revenue), so unlikely to be fixed any time at all.

Just my own opinion on it all, but as we haven’t really had an official line after all these months, I suspect we are allowed to speculate as to the whys…

Actually, I found a menu option in chrome on android to “request desktop site” which has done it. So there does appear to be separate versions (to the layman end user).

I really hate not being able to see the whole thread title or how many pages there are, in to the last page directly etc. As a subscriber I don’t see ads anyway so it’s just annoying.

Now that is interesting…I’ve now also got that option back and it works…either some tweakery has been done behind the scenes or my Android update has fixed something, that is awesome news – thanks for correcting me on that.

Hmm – that’s by far the most irritating thing for me with the new format. Just a click to go to the last post in the thread would be fine if they can’t do the pages – I really hope it’s not a deliberate thing to make us go to the first page of the thread to find such a link.

I’ve no idea…sadly, I’ve been thinking about this a lot as I don’t believe they have intentionally given us a poorer system than what was already there. So once I had that sorted, I figured they must be doing it for some kind of gain.
Plenty of posts on this thread about all the data this site seems to eat up now and that got me thinking more about the ad revenue…and then I realised to get to the last page on a lot of threads, you need to click more than once so you are getting more ads delivered.
As said, it is only my speculation and not based on anything solid…but given how bad the new format is, I’m spending less time on it so I more time to think. I should probably use it to do better things…

“that’s by far the most irritating thing for me with the new format. Just a click to go to the last post in the thread would be fine”

If I understand this correctly then, yes, agreed. Reading the forum on an iPhone 5 SE means I don’t see most of the thread title because of the multiple page icons (if there are multiple pages). And when there are multiple pages frustratingly I can’t see the last page icon; Instead it seems to be a few pages from the end, where-as I’d rather see the point the discussion has reached and then step back if I feel it’s necessary.

So, why can’t the new format be: click on the thread title to go to page 1 and after the thread there is a page icon with the page number representing the last page in the thread?

An aside, if I log in to view forum activity, for example one of the picture threads, in order to see my last picture posted, the forum activity link just sends me to that forum thread, not the relevant page within that thread. So for the picture thread of around 190 pages, I have to scroll back through till I find my picture.

On android using Chrome you can use Force Enable Zoom. It’s not as good as the desk top site but it stops me having to request desktop every time I look at the forum.
I honestly thought it would have been fixed in the time I was away.

TBH Zippy seeing as they make a point of staying in the Sales section that ’tis “forum is provided free of charge” I highly doubt they will fix a thing.
However seeing as it’s the forum that drives users to the magazine and subscriptions you’d think they’d have worked out which they need to update and improve first….
I ditched the “P” due to the constant problems and until they realise that those problems need sorting sooner rather than later it’ll stay ditched.

So, why can’t the new format be: click on the thread title to go to page 1 and after the thread there is a page icon with the page number representing the last page in the thread?

Because more clicks equals more apparent traffic equals more perceived value for advertisers. Shame it makes the site awful to view/use on a phone. I bet it loses more clicks than it gains. I just don’t bother looking at a thread if I can’t read the title.

It has certainly highlighted inadequacies in apple stuff.
My next tablet will be an android.

zippykona – Member
It has certainly highlighted inadequacies in apple stuff.
My next tablet will be an android.

How old is your iPad Mini, and which version of iOS is it running, because I’m not at all certain it’s specifically an Apple issue as much as it’s an iOS version issue.

It has certainly highlighted inadequacies in apple stuff.
My next tablet will be an android.

You might want to check the thread about Youtube Plugins.

Not sure what model but its running 9.3.5.

Nobody should go back to flash…

Current version of chrome seems to support desktop+zoom fine.

Not sure what model but its running 9.3.5.

Ah, right, there lies the problem, I think.
I’ve got an iPad 3, which must be five or six years old, in fact, March 2012, just checked, and mine has the same version of iOS as yours, the older machines, like anything with an OS, just can’t cope with later versions.
My phone is an iPhone 6+, running the latest version, 10.2.1, and I can double-tap and zoom on that, with no problem.
I believe the issue is that the recent update to the site is no longer backwards compatible with older OS, for whatever reason, probably something to do with voodoo, human sacrifice or fluffy kittens, but I’m sure that’s where the problem lies, nothing to do with Apple, any more than those having issues with different flavours of Android can lay the blame at Google’s door.
My pad will be replaced very soon with a new Air, it’s getting far too slow, now, and it’s bloody heavy to hold for extended periods, I’d suggest it might well be worth keeping an eye on what Apple announce at the end of the month, as there may well be a bunch of new Pads, including Minis, and there’s a suggestion that there may be one the same size as the regular version, but with an almost edge-to-edge screen.

My wife iPhone is on 10. something and zooms. Its still apple’ s fault for abandoning me!

I don’t know how it’s happened but one of my chrome tabs (out of 20ish currently open) is permanently returning the desktop version of any site I visit. I now have this tab designated as my STW tab and is much nicer. One of these days I am going to accidentally close it and will have to go back to either requesting the desktop version every time I click on a link or accept the piece of shit mobile version.

Jeez. You guys are so impatient. It hasn’t even been three months since the cock-up update!

When my tab count is past 99 my android stays on desktop.
Just closed all my tabs and it’s back to me having to request it.

Can anyone from up on high confirm that fixing the zoom on iPads is on their to do list?
My birthday is coming up and I either get a new tablet (which I don’t really need) or some new bike bits which I don’t really need but would rather have.

New forum being rolled out today apparently

Hope it’s before midday.

Gosh, page three of this thread is getting alot of hits…

[Northern] Page 3 for t’ hits.

Is this how the forum is designed to look on an iPhone?
It looks terrible and is a pain to navigate.