We’ve setup a new menu item, under About Balloon Juice, for all future issue reports and suggestions about the site. That way, we don’t miss important things because we aren’t monitoring the comments 24-7!
We are still working through many of the things listed in John’s post from late last week, so please hold off a few days on re-reporting issues. We are still working through a number of back-end issues, accessibility issues, RSS issues, and mobile refresh issues. And yes, we’re looking into bringing back the arrow navigation functionality that so many mention. Besides many small tweaks, there will be a new commenting system implemented in December, as soon as the plugin we’ve chosen has the functionality we need.
Although this post shows up on the main site, it will be permanently viewable under the About Balloon Juice => Site Maintenance menu. Please note that putting up this permanent post for your suggestions and issue reports is not a guarantee that anything will happen, but it makes more sense to have a central location for this information.
This post and its successors will be checked semi-regularly, so don’t be surprised if your comment isn’t responded to immediately. If we need further clarification, we’ll email you at the address you supply in your comment.
Thanks for your help and support,
The Balloon Juice team
Helpful Info to Include in Your Issue Reports
- Device (PC/Mac/Tablet/Mobile/Screen Reader/etc.)
- If Mobile/Tablet: iOS/Android/Windows Mobile/Blackberry/etc. as well as (for tablets) size
- Operating System/Version
- Mobile Theme or Desktop theme on a mobile device?
- Using Ad Blocker or other content filtering technology?
- Is this is an RSS issue, what reader/OS are you using?
Some quick help for refresh issues
Issue: Old content showing, new content is not showing up.
- Platform – Desktop: In a desktop system, shift-refresh/reload will re-request the entire page and should show the most recent content. This should only need to happen once; if you continue hitting refresh issues, please submit a report.
- Platform – iOS (iPhone, iPad, iPod): Many users of these devices have seen issues with the Mobile Theme not updating content, but when you switch to the Desktop View (at the very bottom of the page), the current content shows. This is a Safari caching issue and should be quick to solve. Close all tabs that have Balloon Juice open. Then, close the browser (click Home button once, then when you see the Home screen, double-click it and swipe to close Safari). Re-open Safari and open a new Tab and go to Balloon Juice. You should be good to go!
Again, if these refresh issues are just temporarily solved by these techniques, please let us know. We are finessing the settings on our caching tool and so in solving one person’s issue, we may inadvertently cause another user an issue!
Elizabelle
FWIW, was reading BJ yesterday on my vintage iPhone and it behaved spiffily.
Thank you for all that you’re doing. BJ seems to be humming nicely, although not for everyone yet …
Soylent Green
iPhone 6 IOS 9.1, often not refreshing. Reverts to posts from Nov. 18.
benw
@Elizabelle: is a vintage iPhone now a 5S or what? I think I bought my current 4S back when cavemen were fighting the dinosaurs.
The site is working great for me. Kudos and thanks, Alain and the crew.
Fair Economist
So, no more site whines in normal threads? Kermit Yay!
Mike J
repost from last night:
I discovered why links without link text lead to automatic moderation. It’s your yoast seo plugin. It rewrites links to call google analytics (even when the user has the “do not track” flag set) and repeats the url enough times to trigger the three links in a comment trap. You’ll need to look at the source to the page to see the repeated urls.
If you aren’t actually using the yoast thing, turning it off would help the end users. If you are, then you need to find another fix.
Someone earlier today was also complaining about the gogardenclub bug associated with the sitemeter widget, but only on the mobile site. I’ve not seen it, but I keep javascript off.
Punchy
@Soylent Green: Sammy Gal 5 has same issues. Wont load latest post until I load the site, then refresh it. Not a huge inconvienence, but god dammit, I hate waiting longer for a BJ than absolutely necessary.
redshirt
Great idea Alain. Keep up the good work.
Wordpress Developers
@Soylent Green: Refresh the page; I added in iOS instructions to force Safari to re-load the page. Once you do that, it should be fine going forward.
Wordpress Developers
@Mike J: Thanks Mike! I turned it on to create the Sitemap, etc. but forgot to turn it back off. I’ll see if I can configure then turn it off so if it’s turned on again, it won’t cause comments to get held.
Soprano2
The problem with the page not refreshing on the mobile platform also happens on Android phones. I have a Samsung Galaxy 3 and it happens on both Firefox and the browser that came with the phone. I can usually get it to refresh eventually but I didn’t mention it before because I figured you knew about it and were working on it.
TooManyJens
Yay!
gratuitous
SITE ISSUE: I can understand why you don’t monitor the comments 24-7; some threads go to 300 or more comments pretty fast. May I suggest that in addition to this handy place for a compendium of reports and issues, you ask your commenters (a pretty perspicacious bunch) to lead off a post with the words “SITE ISSUE” if they want to bring something to the administrators’ attention? It’s not always convenient to get out of a thread to go to the Site Maintenance section, and that way the developers can just do a search for SITE ISSUE and immediately see if there’s a report in a long thread.
I miss the old format, but I’m getting accustomed to the new look, and realize it takes a lot of time and effort to get things working the way you want it to.
Bobby Thomson
Is it baby in the bassinet and turkey in the oven?
Faction
Still can’t navigate Back from a link to an earlier comment.
schrodinger's cat
The site does not refresh for me too when I am on my MotoG using the Chrome browser.
Can you also fix the ugly formatting of the block quotes, two of my suggestions to improve the way block quotes look would be:
1. To put a box around the block quote instead of a thick blue line to the LHS of quote.
2. More spacing between the lines in the block quote text.
piratedan7
in firefox 42 on a desktop, still getting the null article boxes when moving from thread to thread or posting a comment or performing a page reload/refresh
Danack
When opening Chrome browser on OSX and opening my balloon juice bookmark, I’m seeing a ‘no connection’ error occasionally. Once I refresh the page a few times, it goes away.
This might be a webserver setting, with not enough max connections….and once a connection is made, the keep-alive means that everything is fine.
scav
Thanks for continuing the progress updates. A final quick one noting when current round of full-scale tweaking is over would be appreciated — so that we can know that any issues we notice from that point on are more likely to be ongoing and not temporary blips possibly due to fine tuning.
Mike J
Any chance of getting the hosting company to install the http2 apache plugin? It’s faster and reduces load on the http engine, which to be fair, usually isn’t the weak point with wordpress, Still, every little helps. You’ll need to make sure your ssl certs are configured, which you should have any way. That’s why ffox complains that “this website does not provide identity information.”
Wordpress Developers
@Danack: Can you remake the bookmark and with the new one, does the issue remain?
Wordpress Developers
@Mike J: I think they’re looking at that.
Wordpress Developers
@scav: Will do.
rikyrah
I’m fine with the site. the only change I don’t like with the new site is that on my Kindle, there are no previous and future post arrows. outside of that, I’m totally fine with the new site.
Wordpress Developers
@piratedan7: What happens when you do a shift-refresh? Those boxes should be long gone as we removed them late last week! Feel free to email me or post a screenshot
Juju
I have an iPhone 6 and I followed the instructions to clear and get things to refresh on mobile formate and those steps worked yesterday, but not today. No matter what I do the page refreshes to the last post from yesterday.
satby
Alain, credit where credit is due, you’ve done a GREAT job fixing the user unfriendly choices in the redesign.
And the rest are handled by TheOtherChuck’s MBBJ and EBBJ style sheets.
Wordpress Developers
@satby: My goal is to render those unnecessary for most users, but I’m glad they exist. Once I’m all done with what needs to be done, I’ll actually take a look and get them working on my desktop to see what good ideas I can absorb. For now, I want nothing except my current tools and environments to reduce potential confusion and errors.
But for now, it’s “complete the path we’ve chosen”, otherwise things get cluster-fucky quickly!
Again, I’m much more technical and back-end-focused. I don’t have the designer’s eye, so I am every-thankful that Tommy did so much to get the new site looking as it does; I am much better at patching than building from scratch! :)
Keith G
Thank you.
The laughter this caused was very cleansing. Sounds just like the educational bureaucracies with whom I once worked.
Complements on the good idea, though.
piratedan7
@WordPress Developers: will do… it’s possible that my firefox version is off
scav
@WordPress Developers: Baseline expectations for site behavior adjusted: transient funhouse mirrored maze settings ON. Objects seen in the mirror may be further away or closer than they appear, if they have not disappeared entirely like the Cheshire Cat. Please keep your arms within the moving vehicle.
Elizabelle
@benw: It is an iPhone 3GS. Hold my breath as to how much longer it will work. Does not support duolingo, etc. But I am a cheap ass and late adopter of technology, sad to report.
It matches my vintage 2007 MacBook, which is still humming along well (although regarded dubiously at the genius bar; I think I’m an upsell failure for them).
benw
@Elizabelle: wow, that’s oldcore!
Danack
@WordPress Developers: I don’t think it’s the bookmark…I should have said it sometimes happens when I type the URL in as well.
I can’t get it to happen right now (as usual when trying to report bugs)….possibly I see it more on buy times.
Tomtofa
Device, system: IPad 2 (not Air, just the older iPad 2), iOS 9.1 (current iOS). No ad blockers or other plugins, just the basic Safari that comes with the device.
Issue: Contact and Blogroll drop downs in right column are non-functional. A name/website can be chosen, but nothing happens. Archive works as it should. Haven’t heard this one before, so it may be something on my device misfunctioning.
ETA: Desktop version; iPad theme works (but I like the desktop version).
different-church-lady
Keep your chin up. Things have been much more smooth and fast for me lately.
Steeplejack
On mobile version of site, Android phone, default Chrome browser, I have been getting the GoGardenClub.com site hack (occasionally pointing to a dead MySpace page or another site) since the upgrade. Never got it previously.
Google suggests it is related to the SiteMeter widget.
Germy
Why does “http://deleted” keep appearing in the “website” field for leaving a reply? One day I noticed my nym was blue. I didn’t put anything in the website field, but that’s the link. Why?
John Revolta
Funny thing. I used to use Firefox because BJ didn’t work well on Safari………..now the site doesn’t work AT ALL on Firefox but it works much faster on Safari than it USED to work on Firefox. So, long story short, yay.
Mind you, I’m using really old versions of these browsers on my crusty G4 Mac. Interesting though.
Thoughtful Today
SUGGESTION: POST TITLES > Title first | Then Site name
For example, this post would be titled:
Site Issues and Feedback | Balloon Juice
(Helps navigating multiple browser tabs and finding bookmarked pages, so we can bookmark this page and find it when we have suggestions:)
Wordpress Developers
Everything so far has been added to my giant list. I am working on a few tweaks and getting this list into some kind of prioritized state.
I’ll check back here often next few days, and will reply to new comments when I do.
Thanks to all, Alain
Wordpress Developers
One more note for readers – the stale content on mobile devices issue has been identified!
Unfortunately, every time I uncheck the option and save, the screen refreshes and the option stays “on”.
We’re on it, hope to have that major issue solved.
And I’d be remiss to not mention a number of Accessibility Issues we’re working on for those who use screen readers, etc. We’re on it!
gogol's wife
@Faction:
Same here (laptop, desktop, Firefox, Safari, Chrome).
Scout211
@Tomtofa:
This happens to me, too.
Desktop version on iPad Air 1 with iOS 9.1 and using Chrome for iPad. It lets you choose a blog in the drop-down menu but it is not an active link.
Germy
“http://deleted” keep appearing in the “website” field for leaving a reply…
One day I noticed my nym was blue. I didn’t put anything in the website field, but that’s the link.
I fill out name and email, but leave the “website” field blank, and yet “http://deleted” shows up, and my comment nym turns blue.
Scratch
The Contact Author selection box in the sidebar seems nonfunctional. I’m using Chrome, Windows 7. If I select an author, nothing happens and I see nothing obvious that needs clicking to move things along. In contrast, if I use the Archives selection box, when I click on something to see posts from that month, the webpage advances to show posts from that month.
Of course, maybe the site authors don’t want to be contacted so non-functionality is intended…
Mike J
BUG:
strong tag used to be blue instead of bold, and that issue was fixed (thank god). Sadly, instead of letting the strong inherit text color, it appears to have had black explicitly set. This means that if a hyperlink is bolded, black will override the default blue color of the link. Remember, the reason why bold being blue was bad was because it looked like a link. It’s just as bad to make something that is a link look like it isn’t.
Here’s a bold hyperlink. That text should be blue and bold.
And while we’re on the subject:
Bold
Strong
Em
Ital
The Other Chuck
@WordPress Developers:
Glad you’re looking at MBBJ/EBBJ for ideas, and definitely make either/both of those as obsolete as you can :)
The single thing that EBBJ does now is to undo the damage that avia.js is doing to links, and that is a one-line fix: somewhere in avia.js (I dont have it handy atm so no line#) is a call to window.location.replace() being activated by an onclick event listener. Just replace that with window.location.assign instead and the bug is bye-bye. Might really be better to just remove the listener entirely.
The Other Chuck
No idea why my last comment went into moderation (maybe those object paths looked like links?) but to add to it, the easiest way to find that rogue listener would be to search avia.js for “no-scroll”, which is the escape hatch that EBBJ uses to block the backlink misbehavior.
Ruckus
@piratedan7:
For me updating Cleek’s pie filter got rid of all the null article business. Haven’t seen one since and I was getting one with every page load, refresh or opening a new thread. Now if you don’t use the pie filter….. However I’d check to see if you have an old one hanging around, maybe downloaded and didn’t like it or whatever.
a different chris
@Thoughtful Today:
I would like to see some form of distinct page title no matter what the format. They’re completely gone now, every page gets the same generic “Balloon Juice” title. Bookmark the main page, and two individual posts, and three individual comments, and your bookmark list is:
Balloon Juice
Balloon Juice
Balloon Juice
Balloon Juice
Balloon Juice
Balloon Juice
———-
A ‘Preview comment’ button would also be extremely useful.
The Other Chuck
The “Site Maintenance” category doesn’t show up in the menu on the mobile theme. Also, I get screamingly annoying interstitial ads on mobile, which don’t even redirect back to the site (they end up opening a popup and then about:blank). Not sure if they show up on desktop; BJ’s style of ads long ago chased me into activating the adblocker for the site.
This is just the start of things broken with the mobile theme, which perhaps should just be scrapped outright in favor of one that works. Shame, because it doesn’t look all that bad, but it just don’t work.
NotMax
Win 7, Firefox 42, 1280 × 1024 screen res.
Text size in comments appears to have been reduced (again) to near have-to-squint level from what it was only a couple of days ago.
Text size inside the reply box is now suddenly even more minuscule, approaching illegibility even with reading glasses specifically for small print being worn.
Dashed lines between comments make the comments look like supermarket coupons. Or as someone else has pointed out, against the nearly white background, like scrolling down a roll of toilet paper. Solid lines (as those used on front page) would ameliorate that unfortunate comparison.
Bluish circle with number of replies is super redundant, as the number of comments is already listed twice within the post itself. It serves no apparent purpose other than as something else to scroll past.
Blockquoted text within comments still seems to (randomly?) show up in GIANT FONT within comments, resulting in blockquoted text in two different flavors on the same page (not consistently but still often).
Blue vertical bar on left of blockquoted text: Strictly opinion – Tiresome and positively yucky on long blockquotes. Shaded, indented box much preferable.
Echo Mike J in #46 above. Including acceptance of <i> and </i>: not difficult and cannot see any downside to doing so. Deprecated <b> and <:/b> tags already allowed.
“Support the site – shop via this link”
The hyphen is showing at the beginning of the second line of text, which just looks awkward and clunky. Suggested alternative:
“Shopping Via This Link Helps Support This Site”
The title “Shop” for the BJ stuff might cause confusion with the other shopping title text in the sidebar. Suggested change:
“Balloon Juice Store” or “Merchandise” or “Products.”
On the privacy policy page, would also gently suggest changing the words “We allow” to “This site allows.” Mr. Cole, as sole proprietor (and not of the blood royale), is not a we.
Noted, with AdBlock Plus & NoScript both running:
HTML buttons at reply box area go completely bye-bye (which they did not pre-rebuild).
Random Quote on front page not showing at all (which it did pre-rebuild). Just an empty area under the words “Random Quote.”
a different chris
@NotMax: For the HTML buttons check to see if you have quicktags.js or quicktags.min.js blocked; either of those will make the buttons disappear.
(fun & useful trick: if you block quicktags.css, the buttons are still there, and still work, but it removes the awful unnecessary white background overlay thing and gives you a nice legible white text on blue background.)
NotMax
@a different chris
Thanks for pointing that out. Never use the buttons myself, so their disappearance is of no mind personally. Just pointing out it may impact others.
White text on a blue background, however, would be a wonderful improvement to the look of the comment numbers.
Redshift
My only real complaint is the page jumping to the top on refresh instead of maintaining its previous position. (Mobile theme, Android.) This was the case with the old site, and was briefly fixed at one point on the new site.
I can click on a link to a previous comment in a reply and use the Back button to get back, which is an improvement, but clicking on an external link and going back will also reset to the top. It’s definitely something in the page-load code, because it’s scrolled to the right place until the page finishes loading, and then jumps to the top.
I’d also like to have next post/previous post arrows at the bottom of the page in the mobile theme, since that’s usually where I am when it would be useful to know if there’s a new post, and go straight to it.
Ruckus
Mac, FF.
Two issues new this morning.
First, I get a popup box which says Children of the Cite with an OK box. I don’t click OK but use escape and it goes away. Never seen that before.
Second, I refreshed this morning on the home page and saw two new posts. I clicked on the comments at the bottom of the post and the two new posts disappeared. I refreshed again and clicked on comments at the top and went to the post.
Scapegoat
iOS 8.4.1, viewing the Desktop site (not the mobile site) in Safari.
The “link” button crashes Safari instantly and repeatedly.
Also, a minor glitch, but where there is a long front page post, when one clicks to “Read more” below the fold, the site reloads to the very top, instead of continuing the text.
Thanks for all the great work updating things!
debbie
For a brief time, the mobile site worked as it should, but now when I come to the site, it’s back where it was the last time I visited. I have to reload the page to bring it up to date. When I post, I have to reload the page to see my post, too.
Riley's Enabler
Device – Mobile (Samsung Galaxy 4)
If Mobile/Tablet:Android
Mobile Theme or Desktop theme on a mobile device? BOTH
Using Ad Blocker or other content filtering technology? Nope
Is this is an RSS issue, what reader/OS are you using? Not applicable
New content *never* shows – I have to go back to the home page, refresh that, then click on the section I was reading, and refresh THAT when it loads with old content. Also, when I refresh it always goes back up to the top of the comments necessitating a scroll down to wherever I was in the comments – which are not numbered in the mobile version, making it a royal PITA. The site didn’t do this previously; I read it on my phone 80% of the time.
I’ve tried the Mobile and the Desktop themes. Desktop has comment numbers but is impossibly slow.
debbie
@Riley’s Enabler:
Even if you have a tab open on a thread (that’s up to date), you open a new one and it will be outdated.
Amir Khalid
Has there been another, unannounced site redesign? Everything that was in the right-hand column is now under the comment box.
Mike J
I know people complained about extra text around a commenters name, but yesterday I ran into a situation where it would have been helpful.
It used to be that each comment was prefaced with “commentername said:”. If you were googling for a particular commenter, you could include the ” said:” in your search string. If you’re looking for a comment by a person whose name appears on every page, like in the sidebar, it’s more difficult now.
I actually 99% agree with the “get rid of extra words” crowd, and think you were right to change it. I’m just trying to come up with a work around for my own problem.
Mike J
@Amir Khalid: I have a guess. They may be attempting to reposition those elements using css but keep the code at the bottom of the page. Doing it that way means screen readers for the blind don’t have to wade through all that stuff on every page load.
Sadly it’s tricky to get right when you didn’t build the page from the ground up with that in mind. You can bolt it on later, but it’s almost always harder to do.
Mike J
Text in B tags inside a blockquote is properly black and bold on the front page. The same text is blue and bold when you go to an individual post page. Look at this post by itself and then find it on the home page (even if you have to go back a page or two.)
For every fix you make to the css on the front page, you’ll need to repeat it on the post page, or vice versa. Both places should probably inherit from the same css, but I haven’t actually dug into it enough to suggest a fix.
Riley's Enabler
@Riley’s Enabler: Muchmany thanks to the workerbees, the mobile issues have magically been corrected! It not only updates automatically on my Samsung Galaxy 4 Android Phone Mobile Desktop…but I HAVE NUMBERED COMMENTS also too.
Thankyouthankyouthankyouthankyouthankyou.
Scout211
I can edit my comments on my Mac just fine but when I try to edit on the iPad, I get a large dark pop-up that obscures the edit box.
IPad iOS 9.1, Chrome for iPad.
Chyron HR
Device: Desktop PC
OS: Windows 7
Using Adblock Plus
Browser: Firefox 42.0
Selecting a site from the Blogroll drop-down list on the BJ homepage opens the selected site in a separate pop-up window. The pop-up window does not have a menu bar or scroll bar, which makes it difficult to read the page that was just opened.
Riley's Enabler
@Riley’s Enabler: Maybe I had more of that wine than I thought, but the comment numbers are gone – as is the updating. Did I DREAM all that? Surely not?
Anyway – mobile site, Android, Samsung Galaxy 4 – not updating, no comment numbers.
Wordpress Developers
@Amir Khalid: That is a new twitch. I see it sometimes too. I suspect it’s flakiness caused by the temporary lack of caching going on. But I will take another look through all the layout stuff again later today.
piratedan7
just as a follow up, my Firefox issue has been resolved with the pop up boxes appearing with each comment and thread movement.
thank you.
Roger Moore
Device: Linux PC
OS: Fedora 23
Browser: Firefox 42.0
Huge post numbers are huuuuge! Also, too, drop shadow effect spreads all the way to the poster name. Please consider a tiny bit of moderation in these things.
WaterGirl
Comment numbers are suddenly giant! I thought they looked great once you had made them blue and smaller, Hoping this is just a temporary change.
The text on BJ is still too big for me, so I have to press “Apple minus” on my keyboard to make it smaller. Now when I do that, the regular text is smaller but the new giant numbers remain giant sized.
Alain
Yeah, they’re a bit big for my taste too. I’m trying to improve readability with a bit of style. I’ll try a few more things until it looks right. But size is too big, for sure! I’ll reduce in a sec.
Wordpress Developers
@Chyron HR: Fixed. If not, please let me know.
Wordpress Developers
@The Other Chuck: Gonna try that in a bit. Thanks for the help. If you read this, please pop me an email I’d love to throw some questions your way. [email protected]
WaterGirl
@Roger Moore: Doesn’t seem to be device related.
Device: MacBook Air
OS: OS X Yosemite
Browser: Safari
Amir Khalid
Drop shadow not necessary. Makes comment number slightly less easy to read.
Wordpress Developers
@Germy: I think this is bad info stored in the cookie on your machine. We don’t store that info. So if you delete the cookie in your browser and then comment anew as Germy I think it won’t re-appear.
Wordpress Developers
@Amir Khalid: Yeah, it looked more impressive bigger. Just an experiment; I’ll try one or two more things. I’m glad you mentioned the sidebar appearing below the content on pages other than the home page – I had noticed it but figured it was a glitch. It’s not, but I’m still trying to figure out what/why it’s happening.
WaterGirl
@WordPress Developers: Alain, I agree with Amir. The shadow makes the numbers less readable, while at the same time it draws your attention to the numbers.
We need the numbers for functionality, but I don’t think they need to be highlighted or bolded or big to do their work. Otherwise, the numbers jump out more than the nym. I am not
an animala number! :-)MattF
@WordPress Developers: Me too on the sidebar stuff appearing below the comments to a post. Makes it tedious to navigate to the last comment, since if you navigate to the bottom of the page, you then have to scroll upward a fair amount to get to the last comment.
Wordpress Developers
Sidebar shouldn’t be happening. I am looking into it!
NotMax
Per your request for feedback a few minutes ago –
Line spacing on comments makes things look better now.
Blue bar on left side of blockquotes remains aesthetically problematic.
<b> </b> still showing up as blue,. <i> </i> still disallowed.
Wordpress Developers
@NotMax: I’ll take a look. Italic
Wordpress Developers
italicitalic
Wordpress Developers
italic
NotMax
@WordPress Developers
And before I forget, a huge THANK YOU for now providing solid lines between comments.
Wordpress Developers
Max, instead of an i use em for italic. use strong instead of B
And yes, I used the other for demonstration purposes (bolded the em and italicized the strong).
Wordpress Developers
@NotMax: My pleasure. It took a while to figure out where and what to change and then, thanks to browser caching, I didn’t see the change for a bit so it was temporarily very frustrating! I intend to keep hammering away on some of these things, so even if you don’t see something taken care of immediately, I do write these down and dig into them. Once the new year starts, I intend to be much busier with other responsibilities, so it will be more like the occasional edits over a night or two, or a weekend.
Wordpress Developers
@The Other Chuck: I need help with this Chuck – please contact me. window.location.replace() is not in that js file so not sure what to replace!
NotMax
@WordPress Developers
Thanks, but already aware of that.
Fix for certain deprecated HTML is fairly straightforward (leaving out the symbols in this example):
if deprecated HTML markup, recognize and translate into new HTML markup.
endif
Wordpress Developers
@NotMax: Try B now; it should behave like strong. Not sure where or what stops I from being allowed as markup. If I can determine that, I’ll try to open it up for links, i, ol, and ul.My goal was originally to have a full set of editing tools and thus support for much more html but that’s not how the plugin works.
NotMax
@WordPress Developers
Both responses and efforts appreciated.
Testing <b>
sempronia
As of the original site modification weeks ago, the site scrolls jerkily and only after repeated attempts (iPad 3, safari). As of today, it does the same thing on my Android phone (moto x, chrome, Android 5.1). Very annoying, please fix! thanks!
Wordpress Developers
@NotMax: test bold Well that didn’t work as it was supposed to!
Grumble. I’ll take a fresh look; the custom css is supposed to take precedence; I’ll just edit the right file next time.
Wordpress Developers
@sempronia: Is this for the mobile site (text version, basically) or the normal site, just viewed in Safari on your iOS device?
Wordpress Developers
@NotMax: I and many like the blockquote line; it’s common and current for visual communication of blockquotes on a number of sites. Assuming we’re keeping the line (because at this point, we are; we can setup a vote another day, including some other features), what can we do to improve it – make it a bit skinnier? A different shade or color (suggestion welcome, I’ll copy into the code)
Amir Khalid
@WordPress Developers:
How about a light-blue box to enclose the quote?
Mike J
@WordPress Developers: Is there anything worthwhile in the avia.js file? From what I understand it was only added to support an image carousel that’s not being used. Why not axe it? Removing 2000 lines of javascript has *got* to be a win.
WaterGirl
@Amir Khalid: Amir must be speaking for me today! I came here just now to beg and plead for the box enclosing the block quotes like we used to have, only to find that Amir has beat me to requesting the thing I came to request.
(Thank you, Amir.)
WaterGirl
Comment from another thread: (I second this request from Paul in KY)
72
Paul in KY says:
December 3, 2015 at 1:57 pm
@WordPress Developers: Alain, would there be a way to get an old feature where we could see who had posted a recent comment to a particular thread? Used to show up on right side of page 1.
NotMax
@WordPress Developers
Inherent problem with the slim bluish vertical line is it looks goofy when nesting blockquotes are utilized and is a potent distraction from the content with lengthy blockquotes.
If a shaded background for the blockquote box is not an option, some alternatives, possibly:
1) Instead of a singleton vertical line, a sort of angle bracket – partial line down the left, partial line across the top.
2) Larger than font size (but not gigantic) quotation marks in either the bluish color or else the darker gray of the delineation lines – one set on the top left at beginning of blockquote, a second set on bottom right at end of blockquote. Have seen those on some blogspot themes (no link, that was years ago) and they looked pretty spiffy.
And thanks for asking and being receptive to responses.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@WordPress Developers:
I believe this will help (me) quite a bit. Thank you for your responsiveness and the graciousness of your replies to our many demands requests. I suspect many of us would be quite satisfied with a zipper (less of a server hog?) version of the old design, especially if that was accessible for AT site users.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I still believe the blue for bold is a bad thing, and many of us will default to out of habit, and typing is always faster than going to the mouse for a button.
Test (longer typing)…
Wordpress Developers
@WaterGirl: I’ll add it to the list. At first, the current setup seemed to crawl from the server requests to fill that list (tons of folks running a “most recent” comment query against a ~4 million comment database makes for issues). I’ll see what things look like soon, but I expect it will be the same.
Wordpress Developers
@Amir Khalid: I’ll try the light blue box tomorrow.
Wordpress Developers
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):I’ll fix the final blue-bold issue.
Wordpress Developers
@Mike J: I don’t feel like trying to exclude it right now as the theme makes lots of calls and references to it. Adding more issues is not my preferred path, but I will keep my eyes open and it may happen, sometime, maybe, but not likely.
NotMax
@WordPress Developers
If it’s of any help, the recent comments list appears just fine on the 404 page.
Less of a server load in the hinterlands of the site, I know, but felt ought to point it out.
NotMax
@NotMax
Screenshot of 404 page as mentioned.
sempronia
@WordPress Developers:
Mobile on Android, the full site on my iPad. Thanks!
Ahasuerus
Good news, everyone! It appears that refresh is now working properly on Android (Nexus 5x, latest Android version).
The Golux
@Amir Khalid:
I am still seeing this, even after shift-refresh (Windows 10/Firefox/Adblock Plus). Just checked IE (no Adblock) and the problem does not appear there.
Amir Khalid
@The Golux:
I’m Win 7/Firefox/Adblock. all the righthand column stuff is still under the comment box for me too.
Mike J
@Amir Khalid: I get the stuff at the bottom with and without adblock, chrome and firefox, but only on windows. On mint linux the sidebar is on the side, with and without adblock.
NotMax
Woo-hoo! Recent comments are back!
redshirt
Well done on the return of Recent Comments! Bravo.
Mike J
@Mike J: After restarting chrome, the sidebar now appears of the side, even with adblock. No luck on ffox (on windows) though, restarting, clearing cache, shift reloading, with or without adblock,
Mike J
Ok, getting the sidebar on the side in firefox and chrome, with and without adblock, linux and windows, but only on the front page. Still at the bottom on individual post pages.
J R in WV
Tommy, Alain,
Thanks again for everything you guys (and whoever is anonymously toiling away!) have already accomplished. When I noticed at the bottom of the front page that there are nearly 3,000 pages of FOP posts, well that’s an amazing amount of data. Plus comments, also, too !!! Wow.
I’m going to mention one little detail that has been mentioned before. Not a bug, but a feature that kind of went away – When I click on a comment’s replied to person back up the thread, to see what the current comment is talking about, and zoom up to that previous comment, the back button is not engaged with the address of the bottom comment where I started.
This used to work for multiple levels; in other words I could zoom up to a previous comment, then to the grandparent, and g-great grandparent, and then back down, back down, back down. Now I have to remember the comment number I reached at the bottom of my scrolling.
I just dipped my toes into web and windows programming, enough to know how to develop functional specs for expert window/page developers as a subject matter/database expert. So I don’t know if this became really hard when you fixed some other random broken thingy. But if you get a chance to push a stack of pointers to the last comment selected, its parent, etc and hook it to the back button, GO for it!!
Thanks again, and keep up the good work, except for weekends and holidays!
JR
Amir Khalid
I see you’ve had no luck putting the sidebar stuff back in the sidebar.
Debbie
@WordPress Developers:
Thinner lines would be better, and also the same size font.
redshirt
@Amir Khalid: Is it there for you on the side on the main page? And then at the bottom of a thread? If so, that’s by design, I think.
Amir Khalid
@redshirt:
Yes. If it’s by design, it’s a stupid design.
pat
Both IE and Firefox on laptop (vista) and laptop (W7) giving an invalid url or some such, can’t remember exactly what, but BJ was not available for some time both last night and today. Then came back, thank goodness.