Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

At some point, the ability to learn is a factor of character, not IQ.

The rest of the comments were smacking Boebert like she was a piñata.

Not all heroes wear capes.

The way to stop violence is to stop manufacturing the hatred that fuels it.

Not so fun when the rabbit gets the gun, is it?

… riddled with inexplicable and elementary errors of law and fact

Today in our ongoing national embarrassment…

That’s my take and I am available for criticism at this time.

Fundamental belief of white supremacy: white people are presumed innocent, minorities are presumed guilty.

You’re just a puppy masquerading as an old coot.

If rights aren’t universal, they are privilege, not rights.

Never entrust democracy to any process that requires Republicans to act in good faith.

People really shouldn’t expect the government to help after they watched the GOP drown it in a bathtub.

The words do not have to be perfect.

President Musk and Trump are both poorly raised, coddled 8 year old boys.

You cannot shame the shameless.

Find someone who loves you the way trump and maga love traitors.

I really should read my own blog.

Dear elected officials: Trump is temporary, dishonor is forever.

Rupert, come get your orange boy, you petrified old dinosaur turd.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Come on, man.

If you tweet it in all caps, that makes it true!

It’s always darkest before the other shoe drops.

You are here: Home / z-Retired Categories / Previous Site Maintenance / Site Update Open Thread

Site Update Open Thread

by | 82 Comments

This post is in: 

So as Alain has said, he is updating the site tonight and it will be constantly changing while he slowing adds and subtracts things in what sounds like a tedious process.

Since it looks like many want to comment on these changes, and you’re ignoring the post he put up for comment, here’s a shiny thread to do it.

Complain and compliment to your heart’s content.

Ready, set, go….

Reader Interactions

82Comments

  2. 2.

    dmsilev

    Huh. The scroll wheel on my mouse doesn’t work on this page, but does on other tabs and so forth. That’s an interesting …quirk.

  3. 3.

    Mnemosyne

    G insisted on watching our brand new copy of “The Force Awakens” tonight. John Boyega is adorable, so I’m willing to go along with it. I should probably eat something now that I’m almost done with my rum and ginger beer.

  5. 5.

    The Lodger

    I’m on my phone and can’t switch to the mobile version. I once saw a link at the bottom of the page that allowed such a thing, but it’s vanished.

  8. 8.

    Alain the site fixer

    There’s lots to love with the new stuff. Lots to bitch about, but it should be considered an improvement to most.

    There are a few cosmetic things to adjust tomorrow but that’s like font size or color for a widget and similar small stuff. The heavy lifting is done.

    But please folks, I’ll look at these comments, but not likely until the morning as I’m tired and have a few more things to tidy up before sleep.

  11. 11.

    Librarian

    I don’t know about anybody else, but I’m still getting the autoplay ads that you supposedly got rid of weeks ago.

  13. 13.

    Davebo

    The up and down arrows are annoying to me. But then I know keyboard shortcuts, some will probably find them useful.

  16. 16.

    Steeplejack

    @Alain the site fixer:

    It looks good so far, Alain. The pages load very quickly for me, and when I click on a comment’s time stamp it pulls that up to the top of the screen immediately, without the “cool” but tedious “sliding” effect from before. Ditto when I click on a commenter’s name to see the comment being replied to. And the back button seems to work! (Firefox on Windows 10 here.)

    ETA: Haven’t tried the site on my phone or tablet yet.

  18. 18.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Baud: Not sure if going to improve the combo box or return to the two separate boxes. I prefer the combo but I’ll see what folks here have to say.

    Let me double check mobile site.

  26. 26.

    Ked

    Ooooh, I

    LIKE

    the blockquotes.

    Something’s wonky with the scrolling – I’m in current firefox on w7, and I have what looks like an extra scroll bar on the right side of the window. Why I try to use my scroll wheel, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t, and sometimes it works if I try twice. Hard to explain, but I’m sure it’ll get fixed.

    I still wish the background was less grey, but fonts are looking nice.

  28. 28.

    kdaug

    Yeah, mobile’s borked on my droid, too. (Although I seem to remember it just defaulting to the mobile site on my phone – I didn’t have to set anything… In any case, it’s gone now. Defaulting to regular site now)

  30. 30.

    Alain the site fixer

    The untested assumption will bite you in the ass!

    So the mobile site seems to be not coming up for me on my iPhone either. And the switcher doesn’t show at the bottom of the page. Not sure what’s going on but I didn’t touch the settings for it as all my work was on the desktop site. It looks like some config got screwed up.I won’t be working on that tonight, not sharp enough.

  31. 31.

    Ruckus

    @Alain the site fixer:
    As I said on the test site, given the restrictions that were placed and the restrictions of things that are necessary and the various and opposing desires, I think it’s a damn nice job. Things seem to work for me just fine.
    I’m used to the separate recent post and recent comment areas but this works fine, it’s just different.

  32. 32.

    Omnes Omnibus

    Scrolling seems to be just a bit off.

    ETA: Thank you for removing the redundant “suggestions” under the Leave a Comment prompt. And for removing the silly label on the rotating tags.

  35. 35.

    Davebo

    I haven’t looked at the mobile version but overall I’d say the upgrade didn’t suck!

    Nice job Alain.

  42. 42.

    Mnemosyne

    Crap. I’m getting the “there is a problem with this website and it had to be reloaded” message on the iPad again. Since other people are saying they’re still seeing the autoplay ad, it may be related to that. It seems to show up a lot when a takeover ad doesn’t load the way it’s supposed to.

  43. 43.

    Ked

    Ia! Ia!

    Blockquote

    ftagn!

    They do look a little portalish. But the fantastic thing is they just seem to work – in all the previous systems they seemed to get away from anyone who tried.

  44. 44.

    CaseyL

    The new quote blocks are

    adorable

    .. the up and down arrows are quite large and occlude some of the screen. Not complaining; just pointing out.

    Otherwise, all seems well on my laptop.

  45. 45.

    FlyingToaster

    I’ll reiterate my comments from the “14” thread:

    Site in general is great!

    There is a pseudo-scroll-bar (much like the one you get in a comments box when you go over 6 lines) on the right, next to the real scroll bar. It’s solid grey, as if it’s a scroll bar running the length of the page.

    The ads are no longer cropped.

    The ora.tv Flash thing is still there. Because it tends to s l o w e v e r y t h i n g d o w n for me, I’m blocking it. If John isn’t being paid for it, you really need to kill it. It’s also giving me a security alert (some non-https content warning), if I don’t block it.

    With ora.tv blocked, the site loads and reloads instantaneously.

    Mac El Capitan, Firefox 46, Chrome 49.

    Well done, sir!

  46. 46.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    I put my objection in that thread, and appreciate this one as well. My problem means I can’t read the results thread, but I recognize that it is my problem and perhaps no one else finds it problematic. Editing also doesn’t work in Win10/FF, so any other users of that combo might be troubled.

  47. 47.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Davebo: Can you give me a keyboard short cut to scroll down (comment at a time…) with keyboard arrows? used to could, and up/down arrows featured go straight to top/bottom.

  49. 49.

    Alain the site fixer

    Last Update…Till Brooklyn (really, my bed)
    Mobile site should be back soon. The plugin behind it stores site data in its Cache directory so since we ignored all Cache directories when making our set of files, we wiped out the mobile site config. Our new approach is making recovery simple – we’re pulling in the mobile site plugin files from what was on the live site before the new files we copied over.

    Besides that, I’m not sold on the combo box for Comments/Posts. Some like some don’t. It was more a design thing for me; this takes up less space for an interface to similar information. I might go back to the two separate widgets. Either way, some tweaks and font fix will need to happen.

    Not sure where second scrollbar is coming from but I will remove it tomorrow.

    Good night all, but please do put feedback here as I will read it tomorrow and incorporate what makes sense and can be done easily and quickly. Anything broken will of course be fixed.

  50. 50.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Librarian: Adblock addition of player was suggested to me and worked.

    @Anoniminous: Waht kind of scrolling? No matter where I put my curson – either side, within a commeny, or in light or dark gray gutter on the R, I can’t scroll with keyboard arrow, and up/down arrows go all the way.

  51. 51.

    Alain the site fixer

    @Gin & Tonic: Which one? He was removed as a placeholder for default images for posts months ago. I’m not aware of him being missing from anywhere else.

  53. 53.

    Gin & Tonic

    I know he was removed ages ago. I like him and will whine about his absence whether it’s appropriate or not. I think I whined about it in the last redesign, too.

  54. 54.

    Ked

    I’m just noticing the lines between comments and solid on the right side of the comments area. I really like the open left side – it’s a happy medium between some of the more claustrophobic boxed-in things and the white-space-everywhere ethos we’ve seen at some steps. Might be nice to have another pixel or three of padding on the right side. Nothing’s literally running into it but there’s some text that runs close enough to it to be legitimately described as a visual collision.

    …or maybe it’s been like this for a week or three and I just haven’t noticed? Still, I like it.

  55. 55.

    Alain the site fixer

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): OOh that’s a good one. We all missed that one in testing!

    I’ll have to do some research on that one. Likely it’s related to the new scroll bar. GREAT catch!

    I wasn’t seeing it but once I click in the text box then those controls don’t “come back” once I click somewhere else in the browser window. That’s not right.

    Really, off to be for me now. I will look for more issues reported tomorrow!

  58. 58.

    Mike J

    @Steeplejack:

    Checking to see if I can edit this comment . . .

    ETA: Can I? I can. (Firefox on Windows 10.)

    Still b0rked for me. Popup takes the whole tab, accepts a click on the button but nothing happens.

  59. 59.

    Steeplejack

    @a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q):

    If you click on the time stamp under a commenter’s nym, does that not pull that comment to the top of the screen? Or is that even what you’re trying to do?

    ETA: Okay, I see what you mean. Up and down arrow keys do not scroll. And I discovered that the Home and End keys no longer take you to the top and bottom of the thread, respectively.

  60. 60.

    Mike J

    @efgoldman:

    When I go to a new thread, the keyboard scroll arrows work fine. But once I do anything within the thread – comment, reply, edit – only the mouse scrolling works.

    Editing not needed, just clicking on the text will screw it up. When you move to a new thread, cursor focus is outside the div with the extra scrollbar. When you click on the text, mouse focus is inside that div, and there’s no place to scroll.,

  61. 61.

    a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)

    @Steeplejack: Nah, that wasn’t my issue, but Alain answered above and will check. Thanks for asking; you’re a mensch for that.

    Now he needs some well deserved rest. Thanks Alain.

  63. 63.

    Kay (not the front-pager)

    Yay! the Amazon link is near the top again! Now I don’t have to scroll down the gazillion times a day I go shopping at Amazon.

    Also, I can now go to previous pages again. Thank you Alain! And the site looks great. Different, but really pleasing.

  64. 64.

    Mnemosyne

    Finn: We’ll figure it out. We’ll use the Force.
    Han Solo: [irritated] THAT’S NOT HOW THE FORCE WORKS.

    Yeah, it’s not great cinema, but it’s a fun ride.

  65. 65.

    Alain the site fixer

    Mobile fixed. It may or may not have all the settings as they were before so if you spot something, please do tell. I didn’t write them down because I didn’t move or touch its settings, but I’m sure you daily mobile users will spot something that’s wrong.
    Shutting down and heading to sleep.

  67. 67.

    Mike J

    To get rid of the extra scrollbars and allow scrolling with the cursor keys, add overflow:hidden to the body selector. Just tried it by bringing up the dev tools in chrome and turning it on and off.

  70. 70.

    Mike J

    @Davebo: Not so much comment to comment, but scroll down smoothly as you read. If you’ve clicked inside the page, you can’t scroll with the keyboard.

  71. 71.

    WaterGirl

    @Mike J: What do you mean by “you can’t scroll with the keyboard”? Do you mean with the up and down arrow keys on your keyboard? Because they are working for me just fine in Safari on my mac.

    My kitty has decided it’s play time, gotta go.

  74. 74.

    Prescott Cactus

    Alain By Prescott Cactus

    Alain Site Fixer
    Questions answered and more solved
    Deluxe Web guru

  76. 76.

    frosty

    PageUp, PageDown, Home, End, and arrow keys don’t work.

    Wow, and my typing in the comment box is invisible!

    IE and Windows 7

  78. 78.

    Luthe

    @Alain the site fixer: The mobile site is currently lacking comment numbers and timestamps on comments. Not huge issues, but it does make it a little inconvenient to track the pace of conversations and find the comment you’re looking for.

  79. 79.

    NotMax

    Just in case Alain doesn’t peruse Mr. Cole’s thread above on this same topic, my own list of positives and negatives there.

  80. 80.

    proterozoic

    Scrolling is broken now. I’m guessing it’s some really bad implementation of “smooth scrolling” that achieves nothing other than an annoying user experience – there is a delay on the scroll wheel, so when you scroll up and immediately down or vice versa, the first scroll isn’t recognized, and you have to do it again.

    It’s pretty horrid.

  81. 81.

    Cookie monster

    iPhone user here. Scrolling is unusable (mostly just didn’t work, occasionally moves a half screen) unless I disable scripts in safari (using purify). Chrome on iOS unaffected, oddly.

  82. 82.

    worn

    @Omnes Omnibus: oo@Ruckus: @Omnes Omnibus: i@Gin & Tonic: o@proterozoic: Same annoyance when visiting the regular site via iPhone. One touch for focus, another required to fingertip scroll. If you lift your finger off the screen, it’s two touches again to reactivate scrolling. This showed up at one point during one of the early permutations of the evolving site design, but was killed. Very sad this feature/bug has been re-implemented.

    Also, the go to top or bottom of page arrows cover a portion of the content. The way they react to zooming (on mobile) is also quite strange: they hold their edge padding for a portion of the zoom, then move offscreen of continuing to zoom in.

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