Upgrading Forum, Expect Anomalies

Walter

Walter

Administrator
Staff member
So I wanted to let everyone know that we are currently in the process of overhauling the back-end of the forum. This will lead to some visual oddities until we fully bring it up and online. So if something seems weird, please know that we are working on it!

Unfortunately part of the cost of maintaining a forum with more than 20 years of legacy parts is working to ensure that it still functions when it needs to get upgraded.
 
Known anomalies I've spotted:
  • if you like a message in the chat, your like will appear as [object HTMLDivElement] in the message:
  • nuurdGf.png
    this seems to apply only if the post has exactly one like, if there are more than one like the [object HTMLDivElement] isn't shown
  • when I click the bell with notifications, I think in the past it used to automatically mark them as read immediately. Now, to mark a notification as "read", I need to explicitly click on it (just clicking on the bell does not mark them as read). To help investigate, clicking on the bell sends out an HTTP GET request to the following URL:
 
Thanks, @Goat.

Issue 1 [object HTMLDivElement]: Yes, I thought this was resolved with a theme/style update, but it wasn't. I've observed users on other sites having this issue, too. So I'm hoping it'll get resolved in a future update. I'll keep my eyes peeled for a solution.

Issue 2 [Notification Bell]: It's apparently a known bug with the current forum software (XenForo 2.3), even though this was a "final release." So like the above, all i can do is wait for it to be resolved.

Other than these two, like Aaz mentioned, the DARK forum style was changed in this version. It's no longer a separate style, but built into the LIGHT theme. I'm still navigating how to adapt it, though. Because right now it's fugly as hell when I switch it on in testing. In the meantime, I've enabled the old DARK theme, which you can switch to through your profile preferences.
 
Walter said:
Other than these two, like Aaz mentioned, the DARK forum style was changed in this version. It's no longer a separate style, but built into the LIGHT theme. I'm still navigating how to adapt it, though. Because right now it's fugly as hell when I switch it on in testing. In the meantime, I've enabled the old DARK theme, which you can switch to through your profile preferences.
Click to expand...
Speaking of the dark theme, there are a few "annoyances" I've had for quite some time, if you're already in the process of improving it, that'd be awesome!

When replying to a post, it's really hard to see the border and username (I can't at least, maybe it's not even rendering).
Light theme
9qeQrFf.png

Dark theme
bUl4VlQ.png


Also, I'd love the text to be a bit brighter to be easier to read, either the same as posts which have a white-ish colour or at least a bit brighter so that the contrast is high enough. When you don't have anything typed into the text field, the colour even is a bit brighter compared to when text is put into it. I'd expect it to be less visible when nothing is written inside the box, not the other way around how it currently is.
JoZPj2D.png

Manually choosing a white color would probably make it hard to read on the light theme (and not automatically reverted to black text), although I haven't tested it.
Same goes for messages in the chat but I'd expect that to be resolved for all text boxes once the theme is updated, without differences between chat and posts, right?

edit: this behavior is both on the Brave browser (Chromium based) on Mac and Safari (WebKit) on iPhone so I don't think it's hardware or software specific
 
Yeah the Dark theme is only BARELY ready for prime time. It's something I haven't optimized since we switched to Xenforo back in 2019, and over the years and updates, it's broken some of the color contrasts.

So if you want a fully working experience, I'd stick with Light for now.
 
Yes I also realized it's better if I'm submitting posts or use the chat. If I'm just reading I still prefer the dark theme, though.
I think I also found a bug that wasn't there before the update but I could be wrong. In the chat the timestamp uses the light theme
WasR5gd.png
 
I don't know if it's intended, but is it normal that the string of the "liker" goes to a new line after the +1 symbol or should it stay on the same line? Screen from the chat:

YlQEOkR.png


* Walter slowly putting on the Berserker armor *
 
The chat module has known bugs that need to be fixed by the developer. Same goes for the notifications, it's a known issue with the new forum version that the developers will be fixing in a later update. We'll have to bear with it for now.
 
It looks so fantastic! Very nice reading and posting experience now in both light and dark mode! Also thanks for fixing the bugs so quickly :ubik:
One bug I saw is in chat where underline and inline spoiler symbols are hidden by the three dots, with both the wide and a bit more compact width (in the screenshot I clicked on the right dots and hovered above the left ones). Happens on both desktop and mobile. I'd expect them either both hidden by one three dot symbol or preferably just normally included
jMBLZE4.png


edit: not sure how it's been before the update but I noticed on both dark and light theme the Skullknight symbols to be different. I haven't found a pattern if there is a reason for some to have the lower contrast version but maybe there is one and it's expected behavior
5Vg5btN.png
 
hsvfan-jan said:
One bug I saw is in chat where underline and inline spoiler symbols are hidden by the three dots, with both the wide and a bit more compact width (in the screenshot I clicked on the right dots and hovered above the left ones). Happens on both desktop and mobile. I'd expect them either both hidden by one three dot symbol or preferably just normally included
jMBLZE4.png
Click to expand...

This is an old issue related to the way the chat module and the forum template system interact. Because the chat window shares the same template as the forum window for smartphones, it's not possible to completely disable the dropdown menu (with the dots) because forum posts require a large array of functions. Squishing them all together is also not optimal.

It'd be a non-issue if we could control how the chat displays separately from forum posts. This is why the chat module doesn't display all icons normally while there is enough space for it to do so. I'll see if there's a way to force it to display them properly but it's not easily fixable.
 
hsvfan-jan said:
edit: not sure how it's been before the update but I noticed on both dark and light theme the Skullknight symbols to be different. I haven't found a pattern if there is a reason for some to have the lower contrast version but maybe there is one and it's expected behavior
5Vg5btN.png
Click to expand...
Thanks, fixed this one.
 
Walter said:
Thanks, fixed this one.
Click to expand...
When logged out, all icons but Speculation Nation and Anime Asylum are fixed but I noticed the translation category and its pages are completely missing/locked behind an account (seems to be intended then?).
When I log in, even in a different browser or device, the bright images (e.g. Creation Station) are updated with the new round logo but the others like Podcast are still the same.
Let me know when my findings become bothersome since they are basically nitpicks, I just like having it all coherent :griffnotevil:
 
hsvfan-jan said:
When logged out, all icons but Speculation Nation and Anime Asylum are fixed but I noticed the translation category and its pages are completely missing/locked behind an account (seems to be intended then?).
Click to expand...
Yep, it's always been that way.

hsvfan-jan said:
When I log in, even in a different browser or device, the bright images (e.g. Creation Station) are updated with the new round logo but the others like Podcast are still the same.
Click to expand...
Sorry, I'm not sure what you mean. There are two icons: On (new posts to read) and Off (no new posts to read). These icons are the same in both Light and Dark modes, and I'm looking at both icons ion my page and they're functioning correctly:

on-off2024.ong
 
I don't know if it's related to the upgrade or not but I think I found a bug here, avatar selection seems to be broken:
3z2bsUP.jpeg

While this is a mobile screenshot, it also appears this way on the desktop version to me. The options in the gallery all seem to be appearing as a series of dots that looks like a line there, because I can chose new avatars by tapping different parts of the line but can't get the images themselves to load :???: (and I need to find my old avatar of the colored flashback panel of Flora and Schierke)
 
Makes sense, the avatar selection is a mod that hasn’t been updated to the new version of the forum yet. I’ll try to remedy. Thanks!
 
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