5 5
pchapman

What do you think of the new dropzone.com format?

Recommended Posts

15 hours ago, Administrator said:

Just to confirm that there may be areas where we're starting over in the sense that the blue dots may only appear on new threads and you may miss it for content for the past several days.

The process of moving a site to a new CMS is no small task, especially with millions of posts.

Can anyone confirm whether the blue dot appears in posts that you commented in before the migration but that others have posted in since the migration? 

I'm not 100% sure I understand what you are asking.
But...

Blue dots appear in front of all the posts I haven't read since the change over.

It seems like blue stars appear in threads I have commented in. 

If I click on a thread that I have NOT read since the change over, it takes me to the first post.

If I click on a thread I HAVE read since the change over, it takes me to the first post I haven't seen.
 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
(edited)
5 hours ago, wolfriverjoe said:

Blue dots appear in front of all the posts I haven't read since the change over.

It seems like blue stars appear in threads I have commented in. 

Hi Joe,

It does not seem to work that way for me.  Blue dot vs blue star seems to be random right now.

Bryn, what say you?

Jerry Baumchen

Edited by JerryBaumchen

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I appreciate the site runners working on improving the site, and don't want to be all negative about it. But a thread like this (or the "Welcome to the new speaker's corner" one) is useful for learning about the new features or comparing opinions on changes.

Still, I'm surprised at how much was lost compared to what was gained. Hopefully some of those things were only lost 'accidentally' due to needing new code (rather than deliberately deleted), and hopefully some are on a list to be gradually added back into the coding.

The Like button was definitely something people wanted.

I'd also like to see country flags brought back. Helped to give an idea "where someone is coming from" regarding skydiving rules, even if one flag can't always fully represent a person's background / current location / citizenship / social affiliation etc.

Jump numbers were also nice to see even if they don't tell the whole story. (And they always showed the poster's current reported experience, not the experience at the time of the post -- which can go back nearly 20 years here I guess.)

Quotes could also be more clearly marked on screen, as someone suggested.

More inline images is convenient, although hopefully it doesn't become like facebook with endless joke meme photos. There's always someone who posts the "Looks Good To Me" meme with the walleyed guy (divergent strabismus) ...

I notice there are no blue dots in the page listing the forums. Used to be nice to see a number showing HOW MANY new posts there were in a forum. "Is the forum on fire today, or do I skip it until another day?   Now I would have to memorize that there were 57,391 posts in the Swooping forum and see in a couple days how much it changed..."

There's no way to show the entire thread as there used to be? Sometimes one wants to view it all as one long page.

So far I'm pleased with the advertising that makes it past my ad blocker. It's well labelled, and off to the side of the content. Easily seen but not a pain in the ass distraction. So far, no flashing, moving crap of the type that makes people hate ads.

The messages page has an issue like the white space one: It used to show many many lines of message headers. Great for skimming over old messages.  But now, even on a 24" monitor, it shows FOUR message headers at one time.

That's all for now.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 1/20/2019 at 5:35 AM, pchapman said:

I appreciate the site runners working on improving the site, and don't want to be all negative about it. But a thread like this (or the "Welcome to the new speaker's corner" one) is useful for learning about the new features or comparing opinions on changes.

Still, I'm surprised at how much was lost compared to what was gained. Hopefully some of those things were only lost 'accidentally' due to needing new code (rather than deliberately deleted), and hopefully some are on a list to be gradually added back into the coding.

The Like button was definitely something people wanted.

I'd also like to see country flags brought back. Helped to give an idea "where someone is coming from" regarding skydiving rules, even if one flag can't always fully represent a person's background / current location / citizenship / social affiliation etc.

Jump numbers were also nice to see even if they don't tell the whole story. (And they always showed the poster's current reported experience, not the experience at the time of the post -- which can go back nearly 20 years here I guess.)

Quotes could also be more clearly marked on screen, as someone suggested.

More inline images is convenient, although hopefully it doesn't become like facebook with endless joke meme photos. There's always someone who posts the "Looks Good To Me" meme with the walleyed guy (divergent strabismus) ...

I notice there are no blue dots in the page listing the forums. Used to be nice to see a number showing HOW MANY new posts there were in a forum. "Is the forum on fire today, or do I skip it until another day?   Now I would have to memorize that there were 57,391 posts in the Swooping forum and see in a couple days how much it changed..."

There's no way to show the entire thread as there used to be? Sometimes one wants to view it all as one long page.

So far I'm pleased with the advertising that makes it past my ad blocker. It's well labelled, and off to the side of the content. Easily seen but not a pain in the ass distraction. So far, no flashing, moving crap of the type that makes people hate ads.

The messages page has an issue like the white space one: It used to show many many lines of message headers. Great for skimming over old messages.  But now, even on a 24" monitor, it shows FOUR message headers at one time.

That's all for now.

 

Thanks for the constructive feedback.

The country flag is definitely something I'd like to bring back. It was something I added several years back after the country name was removed, and people do seem to enjoy it. I do want to find a way to incorporate that again. Even if it just pulls through on the hover card you get when you hover over a poster's icon/name.

Jump numbers is also something that was initially planned for release, but needed to become something we add afterwards. So you can probably expect that to return pretty quickly as we start moving to the bugs that don't break functionality.

I've adjusted the quote boxes today and feedback would be appreciated on that. Should make them stand out more.

Bringing back numbers on threads to display unread post numbers and new threads etc is something we want to do. Our CMS didn't come with this functionality off the bat, so we may need to build it, but we do want it back.

I don't believe there is any option for showing a full thread, as that kind of thread view isn't very common among modern forums and something that is typically found more in older designs.

Will take a look at the messages issue.

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The highlighting to show what's quoted and what's posted is nice. 
Much more readable.

The 'auto double spacing' went away. I have doubled paragraphs forever. It takes away the 'wall of text that makes some posts very difficult to read.

I prefer it this way, I can take a new sentence to the next line without double space, and still manually double for paragraphs. 


You folks are making progress. Rome wasn't burned in a day.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The overall white is horrible.

 

Other websites I use have a couple or multiple themes, including "dim" and "dark".  If options like that aren't made available I'll just stop browsing dropzone for the most part.  It would be unfortunate, but it is basically unbrowsable to me atm.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 1/19/2019 at 9:32 AM, ryoder said:

I already thought of that, but it won't work.

I was a lurker long before I started posting.

I hear ya. When I first joined, the format of the forums overwhelmed me since I was used to the rec.skydiving newsgroup format as it appeared on AOL.COM, yes, I go waaaay back. 9_9

I'm guessing it took me until rec.skydiving changed their format, that I hated what they did and gave this site another try, months later.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 minutes ago, BillyVance said:

I hear ya. When I first joined, the format of the forums overwhelmed me since I was used to the rec.skydiving newsgroup format as it appeared on AOL.COM, yes, I go waaaay back. 9_9

I'm guessing it took me until rec.skydiving changed their format, that I hated what they did and gave this site another try, months later.

Oh, yes! 

I discovered wreck.skydiving while I was in college.

It was there I learned how badly skydivers need adult supervision (ie mods).

 

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

The amount of white space is nuts, I used to be able to scroll visually down all the forums and then threads once in one domain area and quickly see any update or interesting thread, now its scroll, scroll, scroll, how this is an advancement is beyond me. As it now makes use of the site much, much, slower, I also use DZ.com on phone and there was never an issue, modern smart phone screens are huge so where was the problem. It also appears to be painfully slow to load over the old version, which you clicked a link and where instantly there.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
3 minutes ago, verticalflyer said:

. It also appears to be painfully slow to load over the old version, which you clicked a link and where instantly there. 

Yes, something seems to be wrong with the whole site. Not just the forums. The actual load happens quickly, but there is a long delay before it begins to load. Pretty much globally.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
14 hours ago, gowlerk said:

Yes, something seems to be wrong with the whole site. Not just the forums. The actual load happens quickly, but there is a long delay before it begins to load. Pretty much globally.

Thanks for this feedback, it's quite helpful to know the nature of the load delays. We're busy working on optimizing load times at the moment, we've managed to cut down some big size numbers on the pages, but that wouldn't affect the site the way you're saying here with the long initial page load.

I keep trying to recreate it, but I'm getting full page loads immediately this side. But we're trying to figure it out. If anyone has the desire to help us further, a video grab of the screen when moving to other pages will help a lot too. But we'll continue to try and find what it is causing the load issues.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
5 hours ago, Meso said:

Thanks for this feedback, it's quite helpful to know the nature of the load delays. We're busy working on optimizing load times at the moment, we've managed to cut down some big size numbers on the pages, but that wouldn't affect the site the way you're saying here with the long initial page load.

I keep trying to recreate it, but I'm getting full page loads immediately this side. But we're trying to figure it out. If anyone has the desire to help us further, a video grab of the screen when moving to other pages will help a lot too. But we'll continue to try and find what it is causing the load issues. 

Either you did something to fix it or the problem is intermittent. This morning (0700 CST) the site is responsive to navigation and much more pleasant to use.

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
On 1/18/2019 at 12:09 PM, SethInMI said:

hover over the person's icon at a post and get a pop up with options to ignore or message the person

 

Having a ‘hover over to access’ functionality on a site that has been designed with mobile users in mind is a bit of a mistake. How do you hover when using a touchscreen?

  • Like 1

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, yoink said:

Having a ‘hover over to access’ functionality on a site that has been designed with mobile users in mind is a bit of a mistake. How do you hover when using a touchscreen?

well facebook.com works just that way, so not really a mistake, more like current tech. You can get to the functions other ways.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
4 hours ago, gowlerk said:

Either you did something to fix it or the problem is intermittent. This morning (0700 CST) the site is responsive to navigation and much more pleasant to use.

Agreed; It is much better today.

For the past couple days, I had learned to:

1. Click on dropzone.com link.

2. Go look at some other websites for a couple minutes.

3. Return to see if dropzone.com link has finally loaded.

  • Like 2

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
2 hours ago, promise5 said:

ICK!! 

Did I miss my personal memo on the change?:Phhhhhhmmm same emojis. New website and we couldn’t upgrade the emojis? :D

You can post inline photos of your toes now!:D

And the eye roll emoji you always wanted is here:9_9

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

:o:o:oHow did I miss the eyeroll??????

oooooooohhhhhh let the eye rolling begin!!!! 

Now to figure out the gifs thing

WAIT!!!!!

Did I lose my tag line?????

crap crap crap!!!!!

I want my tag line back.  dang it!!!!!

I worked very hard on earning that!! 

ORANGES!! 

 

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.
Note: Your post will require moderator approval before it will be visible.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

5 5