Discourse Changes & Enhancements

Hardware and technical stuff
1

This post is a wiki, add/edit issues you care about. Reply below to discuss.

OUTSTANDING ISSUES

  • none

RESOLVED ISSUES

  • two errors in the site’s FAQ: incorrect reference to Likes, “Rather than posting “+1” or “Agreed”, use the Like button.” and a broken link to the site feedback category
  • large portions of user profile “summary” have no function - top topics, top replies, most liked, most liked by, top badges. These presumably operate based on likes and badges and these are disabled. Removable?
    • pending likes experiment outcome
  • The categories page is a nice muted white/gray. Can the topic pages be the same?
    • covered by user theme preferences
  • Mobile theme is reportedly very bright when compared to the old Qt3 mobile theme.
    • covered by user theme preferences
  • The background changes from grey to white at the bottom of the categories view at high resolutions/browser sizes.
  • covered by user theme preferences
  • Set up Patreon recognition/privileges
  • plugin is installed, stable and tested… Tom needs to take it from here… or not.
  • user selectable dark theme (solarized!)
  • now possible, see your user prefs at the bottom
  • On mobile, thread title should sticky in the blue title bar beside Qt3 logo, just like how desktop behaves
    • bring up the mobile progress panel to see topic title
  • Integration with front page/replacing Disqus
    • Disqus comments was migrated, front page now syncs with one Discourse topic per WordPress blog post.
  • Amazon affiliate links
    • this has been working for a while now
  • HTTPS support
    • We are Snowden Approved™
  • include started by and last poster in topic list
    • Tom OK’ed this, as avatars for now
  • Request larger font on mobile
    • Changed from 14px to 15px as a default, for now
  • polls don’t responsively scale horizontally
    • They do now
  • No persistent link to front page
    • See qt3 eyeball at upper right
  • avatars should be square on mobile
    • Answer: fixed
  • Show more than 3 posts in each category in the (All Categories) landing page.
    • Answer: we tried this (was at 5 at one point), and it took up a ton of space.
  • removing infobar at bottom of first post in threads_
    • Answer: this one is controversial, and needs discussion before changing, but Tom says it will remain for the time being
  • Show name of started by/last poster instead of avatar
    • Answer: this is supposedly not possible yet, but it will be implemented as soon as it’s enabled in Discourse.
  • change mobile to display less thread content to make more room for thread titles
    • nevermind, stickied posts are the problem as they display more content, but can be unpinned client side per user.
  • Something that explains the vetting system for new registrations
    • registration is now open

Postponed or not currently planned

  • why do join date years show as '03 or '11 instead of 2003 or 2011? were they imported as text or is it fixable?
    • dealwithit.gif hover mouse over to see full date as needed
  • Add traditional banner ads
    • Tom decided to be ad-free
  • There is no way to view the full-size version of spoilered images, and some large images aren’t even close to the original size. An example is here.
  • Configure site icon to comply with “Add to Homescreen” feature of Chrome for Android (see post for image)
    • this already works
  • include My Post, Bookmark and Read in the top, beside Latest, Unread and New (no CSS needed, part of Admin setting). My Post will show all subscribed/tracked thread regardless of Read/Unread status.
    • take advantage of your user page for this

Click here for 3 Mission-Critical Issues that just may save your life one day!*

  • Mandatory shit/bonerz option at end of every poll
  • rename P&R to “The Hurt Locker”
  • replace likes with IGN 7-9 ratings

* made ya click

3

What should be the default forum homepage?

  • Categories
  • Latest
  • Latest with P&R muted by default
  • New (note this works differently than the old forums)
  • Unread
  • STRAIGHT TO P&R! (s/b option)

0 voters

4

I give this an 8.

I’ll make avatars square on mobile now, since that is super easy.

5

How are the Suggested Topics determined? Right now it is a bunch of old threads that I started.

6

Suggested Topics prioritizes topics you have a tracking or watching state on, first.

But after it runs out of topics you have started, read a lot, replied to, or manually set notification state on, it backfills random, which, as I have found out here with THIRTEEN YEARS OF ARCHIVES… is not ideal. So we’ll be adding a setting to limit that to say the last 365 days or whatever number of days is better. Soon.

8

Visit the unread page and use the Dismiss Unread button, either for all or for individual categories.

(it’s OK to duplicate this information, I am sure lots of people will have the question and having it in a few places is a good idea.)

9

OK, I’ll put it back! :) I had moved it to the How do I … thread.

  • How can I mark all Unread posts as Read, since they stem from posts I may not have visited on the old boards for months or even years?

  • What’s the closest equivalent to the New Posts view on vB that shows all unread posts across all categories since last visit? Or else, what’s a suggested new way to navigate this place?

10

Going to take a while to get used to things. The giant eyeball faveicon in my iOS dock is a little aggressive!

image.jpeg745×244 29.7 KB

11

Can we get a border around the content area? I’m afraid all my text is going to leak out into the ether.

12

Well, crap. I guess Discourse can’t handle user names with just 2 characters.

13

Still don’t like having the “most frequent posters” column in the thread list or the little infobar at the bottom of the first post in each thread. Any chance of getting those gone?

Also, personally I’d rather not have the suggested topics at all.

14

What do you mean by most frequent posters? The thread list only shows ONE user, the most recent poster.

I don’t use the suggested topics either, but wumpus loves them, and says others do too. Just ignore 'em, they’re after the last post.

15

@JD fixed for you.

16

So it does. I think I was thinking of the test site, since I was poking at that earlier today. So, cool. I’d still like the infobar at the bottom of first posts gone if that can be managed.

17

Suggested topics does seem pretty dumb IMO. Not really appropriate for this kind of forum…

18

It suggests topics you’re watching, that were recently updated, etc. Not watching anything yet, and it’s picking from 13+ years of cruft, which @wumpus says he’s fixing.

19

Is there anyway we get a theme with a larger font? I’ve tried both the Desktop and the Mobile version and the font is too small for me. As I’ve gotten older, even with progressive bifocals, it’s difficult to read small size text. When I’m reading on my iPad Discourse does not appear also to let me pinch and zoom in as I could in our older software. So it’s pretty painful for me to try to read the posts.

20

I feel this poll is too early. In the forum test forum, after using it for a while, I didn’t really like the Categories anymore as the default and prefer Latest, as that makes it easy to jump into a discussion immediately.

I also notice, from feedback from friends, that new people coming into a forum and seeing Categories, get very, very confused.

21

Yes, THIS! On iOS we don’t seem to get a font choice and it is a wee small.