New look Stafford Forum, October 2012 - Responsive style

[The Stafford Beast]

If something on the Forum doesn't work for you, first port of call is pressing Ctrl+F5 on your keyboard, or if you haven't got a keyboard, get your options menu up and do a refresh.

 

[Rikki]

Looks fine on my andriod tablet in the stock browser, however on my iphone I have the same issue as Tek in both safari and dolpin. Right hand half of screen is blank apart from adverts that stretch the whole width.

 

[littleme]

This is terrible! (for me anyhow) I use my phone to access Stafford forum, I use Opera mini as a browser. Sometime on Saturday evening I started getting the error message "Oops Failed to transcode url Transcoder: z12-1" This happened all over the weekend until this morning when it would only show me one thread, wmr computers. All of the text is appearing in tiny boxs (width wise its only showing 4 letters, so its very hard to read) None of the buttons seem to work, ie "Forum " brings up "contact us" etc. I have switched my phone to mobile view to post this (which is pants), and lots of the buttons/links are out on this to Please put it all back to how it was!

 

[db]

This is terrible! (for me anyhow) I use my phone to access Stafford forum, I use Opera mini as a browser. Sometime on Saturday evening I started getting the error message "Oops Failed to transcode url Transcoder: z12-1" This happened all over the weekend until this morning when it would only show me one thread, wmr computers. All of the text is appearing in tiny boxs (width wise its only showing 4 letters, so its very hard to read) None of the buttons seem to work, ie "Forum " brings up "contact us" etc. I have switched my phone to mobile view to post this (which is pants), and lots of the buttons/links are out on this to Please put it all back to how it was!

have you tried using the normal phone browser instead of opera? afaik opera mini works by processing web sites on their servers, then just pushing the end result to your phone, so something must be getting lost in translation there i reckon.. also, try clearing your cache and refreshing your browser, as stafford beast mentioned above.. the fact you can only see one, old thread suggests that you have caching i reckons..

i used to hate using the forum on my ipad, to the point where i would never actually log-in - i would use logmein on the ipad to connect my computer upstairs, then log-in from there, cos the old forum design was so horrible to interact with on mobile devices - but this new one is gorgeous imo! the sidebar totes disappears so you have more space for the actual content, and everything is really clear and well laid out, with nice big buttons for fat fingers..

i agree about the phone thing, though - it looks a bit cack on my HTC desire browser, and seeing as loads of people have android phones & tablets these days it's something that needs looking at..

(in the mean time, you can change back to the old style if you want - just click where it says "responsive style" at the very bottom-left of the forum and choose "stafford forum style")

 

[Admin]

Would it be possible to have the new forum style with the old sans serif font?

Yes, this will be an option before too long; I just need to concentrate on getting the major bugs ironed out first (i.e. the few people who are saying it doesn't look right at all)!

I am using an iPad , everything is fine. Portrait & Landscape both good. Will check it out on a Laptop and Desktop when I get home next week. Amazing how change - any change - appears to provoke such an almost visceral rejection response ! Your patience is positively saintly!

Excellent, thanks for the feedback. Glad you like it.

This is terrible! (for me anyhow) I use my phone to access Stafford forum, I use Opera mini as a browser. Sometime on Saturday evening I started getting the error message "Oops Failed to transcode url Transcoder: z12-1" This happened all over the weekend until this morning when it would only show me one thread, wmr computers. All of the text is appearing in tiny boxs (width wise its only showing 4 letters, so its very hard to read) None of the buttons seem to work, ie "Forum " brings up "contact us" etc. I have switched my phone to mobile view to post this (which is pants), and lots of the buttons/links are out on this to Please put it all back to how it was!

I'm sorry to hear that, littleme. As you can see from the other responses in this thread, it works fine for most people, so I think this might be a problem with your specific phone. Can you try clearing the data/cache for me, please? As others have said, this can cure all manor of ills.

Can anyone provide screenshots of the problems they are seeing on mobile handsets? It looks fine for me, so it's hard to troubleshoot.

Thanks.

 

[littleme]

have you tried using the normal phone browser instead of opera? afaik opera mini works by processing web sites on their servers, then just pushing the end result to your phone, so something must be getting lost in translation there i reckon.. also, try clearing your cache and refreshing your browser, as stafford beast mentioned above.. the fact you can only see one, old thread suggests that you have caching i reckons..

i used to hate using the forum on my ipad, to the point where i would never actually log-in - i would use logmein on the ipad to connect my computer upstairs, then log-in from there, cos the old forum design was so horrible to interact with on mobile devices - but this new one is gorgeous imo! the sidebar totes disappears so you have more space for the actual content, and everything is really clear and well laid out, with nice big buttons for fat fingers..

i agree about the phone thing, though - it looks a bit cack on my HTC desire browser, and seeing as loads of people have android phones & tablets these days it's something that needs looking at..

(in the mean time, you can change back to the old style if you want - just click where it says "responsive style" at the very bottom-left of the forum and choose "stafford forum style")

 

[db]

hmm.. over the weekend, the forum looked fine for me in dolphin on my htc phone, and cuffy in the stock browser.. i've just gone to take some screengrabs, and now it seems to be the other way round!

stock htc browser, looking all purdy:



dolphin browser, looking all cuffy:

 

[littleme]

Hi db and Admin. db, your suggestion of changing back worked although I had to do this in mobile view then change the phones browser back to desktop. Thank you very much Admin, I think it must be my phone (its an old LG touchscreen) I tried clearing cashe, I tried my phones own browser, and also UC Browser, all had the same error message, and the same small boxs of text only 4 characters wide but hugely long, and the buttons were all 'out' and weirdly it would only let me see the wrm computers thread from the RSS feeds. Hope this info helps. Think Im going to have to put a new phone on my Christmas list!

 

[littleme]

Ooo! Forgot to say, I also tried turning it off and on a few times and that didnt work either!

 

[1JKz]

i've been away a week and come back to change!

...not a fan of change, got myself logged back in though wihtout too much trouble.

Admin!

 

[Admin]

i've been away a week and come back to change!

...not a fan of change, got myself logged back in though wihtout too much trouble.

Well, given how much trouble you've had with logging-in in the past, the fact you've succeeded here suggests that the new style is easier to use & navigate, if nothing else.

Ooo! Forgot to say, I also tried turning it off and on a few times and that didnt work either!

Always a good place to start!

Glad you got sorted, one way or another. Yes, I suspect it is related to your phone being non-compliant with newer web standards (although this style is supposed to be compatible as far back as IE7, so it's not supposed to require 'bleeding edge' technology or anything).

I have put a conditional in which means that the adverts won't display if your screen size is too small; hopefully this will go some way to placating the 'dodgy screen width' problems. I have noticed, from my own testing, that the problem only seems to crop up sporadically, and if you refresh your browser the correct screen width should eventually come up.

 

[1JKz]

"Well, given how much trouble you've had with logging-in in the past, the fact you've succeeded here suggests that the new style is easier to use & navigate, if nothing else. "

haa, true!

just when i was getting used to the old (but still new to me) version.

Admin, the Stafford Forum branding (font, colour, picture fade background etc) isn't quite there for me, i'm a designer and it's jarring with me something chronic.

...hey, other than that keep up the good work!

 

[Noah]

Erm the old style is still available. Bottom left hand corner, click on the style name and choose the original theme.

Thanks, hadn't spotted that. No more comments from me about the new responsive style because I've got it firmly set back in the old Stafford Forum style, and that is the way it will stay

 

[Admin]

Admin, the Stafford Forum branding (font, colour, picture fade background etc) isn't quite there for me, i'm a designer and it's jarring with me something chronic.

Well, that's half the problem; I am definitely not a designer, and I don't have an eye for such things, unfortunately.

I personally hate the faded photo banner along the top; it wasn't there until yesterday, and that was in response to someone specifically asking for it. I think it makes The Forum look dated and a bit antiquated, but as I say I am far from an authority on these things - I was just giving the people what they wanted!

I would appreciate opinions of others on that particular element; should the photo banner stay or go? As I say, I personally preferred it when it was just a plain background, with just the Forum logo and title.

On that note, if anyone wants to knock up a better one, please go ahead! The logo is here to stay, as I got a third party in to design that, and it appears on all of our social media sites, literature, etc. and that is the one part that I really do like - but the "Stafford Forum" text next to it can easily be replaced completely, so if anyone wants to save the image to their computer & knock up a better one, go right ahead.

I appreciate your feedback, 1JKz.

...hey, other than that keep up the good work!

Thanks very much. I am investing a lot of time and money into The Forum at the moment, so whilst I know it isn't perfect, please rest assured that I am trying my best!

 

[Admin]

I think I've fixed the problem of The Forum not displaying correctly on very small screens (e.g. Android phones). I have wrapped the adverts and the RSS widgets in conditionals, so that they will disappear if your screen size isn't wide enough to accommodate them. I have tested it on my phone, and it seems to have fixed it.

 

[joshua]

Yep, works fine on my sammy galaxy though still throws up a security warning ( name on site does not match name on certificate) at first (mind you facebook throws up three).

 

[age'd parent]

I think the faded banner is too faded, I liked the old stile full colour better and faded is just too wishy washy, so one vote for lets see the pic properly.
By the way it dosent show as much as it did, the top seems to be missing.

 

[Admin]

Yep, works fine on my sammy galaxy though still throws up a security warning ( name on site does not match name on certificate) at first (mind you facebook throws up three).

Well, we don't even have a certificate (you can't even access The Forum via SSL, as far as I'm aware), so no wonder you're getting a warning! Do you have some kind of weird browser add-on that tries to force HTTPS for every site? Or any 'Internet Security' software installed? If so, that will be the culprit.

I think the faded banner is too faded, I liked the old stile full colour better and faded is just too wishy washy, so one vote for lets see the pic properly.
By the way it dosent show as much as it did, the top seems to be missing.

It's deliberately smaller; one of the things I wanted to achieve with the new style was to minimise vertical scrolling. One of the main complaints levelled at the old style was that the header was too big, and took up too much space unnecessarily, so I shrank it to address this!

I can make the background photo more opaque, if that's what people would like? Or does anyone think I should do away with it altogether? Or, as I mentioned before, if anyone has any better images, let's see 'em.

 

[proactive]

I like the size of the new photo and I think the style of the forum would be missing something without a header pic. From an aesthetic point of view it might look better if we could see the bridge in its entirety (as that is a Stafford landmark) and lose a bit of the water. Or at least have a try to see how it looks. Whatever the outcome more opaque will definitely be better.

 

[joshua]

Well, we don't even have a certificate (you can't even access The Forum via SSL, as far as I'm aware), so no wonder you're getting a warning! Do you have some kind of weird browser add-on that tries to force HTTPS for every site? Or any 'Internet Security' software installed? If so, that will be the culprit.

No, its the standard browser that comes with the galaxy and no other security software.