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TechRepublic's official feedback thread for the 2011 upgrade

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499 replies

by jasonhiner 12 views

Closed to new repliesThis discussion is closed. It stays readable, but it takes no new replies.

This is page 5 of the discussion. Read the opening post

499 replies

by boxfiddler Hot topic

from 'My Stuff', the Discussion is collapsed despite my 'Expanded' default setting. I'm pretty sure this has been mentioned previously, but holy cow finding it in a discussion of this size is way too time consuming.

by dogknees

That is where I'm going but there was nothing for several days. I had posted in that period, but now they seem to have diappeared.

It seems my ability to post comes and goes. These ones appear OK, but I tried to post a question about two hours ago and it failed. Again!

by ansugisalas

Can you please make the post with the bug-sheet link sticky?
Mark it editors choice or something, so that it'll be on the top of the first page.

by 93961

I had saved many articles & Links. All are missing. I checked in My Stuff | My Favirites. None are there

by scarf

While loading the page:

https://www.techrepublic.com/blog/five-tips/five-tips-for-working-with-excel-sheet-protection/574?tag=nl.e101

I have the following error on the webpage:

Webpage error details

User Agent: Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 8.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/4.0; SLCC2; .NET CLR 2.0.50727; .NET CLR 3.5.30729; .NET CLR 3.0.30729; Media Center PC 6.0; .NET4.0C; .NET4.0E)
Timestamp: Thu, 27 Jan 2011 13:57:43 UTC

Message: Syntax error
Line: 1
Char: 1
Code: 0
URI: http://api.facebook.com/restserver.php?v=1.0&method=links.getStats&urls=%5B%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.techrepublic.com%2Fblog%2Ffive-tips%2Ffive-tips-for-working-with-excel-sheet-protection%2F574%3Ftag%3Dnl.e101%22%5D&format=json&callback=fb_sharepro_render

This may come because we are blocking FACEBOOK at the router's level.
I still believe not being a great idea such a high integration with the social sites.
Same as Palmetto said in another thread, I am also an eSocially celibate, except for this site and a forgotten Linkedin account. Probably, many Techrepublic users are, so I really don't see the point of this integration.

by nicknielsen

Thread is collapsed, with no option to expand. It only happens if I access the thread via link to a specific post. If I come in through the Discussions page and access the entire thread, it's not a problem.

etu

by ansugisalas

to combine other tags with off-topic.
For some reason that's not allowed anymore.
So, now, when we want to discuss non-work, or just plain oddball applications of hard- or software or networking or other such, we'll have to choose, IT tags or off-topic tags.

I don't know why off-topic posts can be accessed either from www.techrepublic.com/forum/questions/ or /www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/ but that's how it is. They seem to be in both folders at once... while totally synchronized. You can even choose "the answer" to the discussion you started yourself, if you access from the /questions/ folder...
Non-OT threads seem immune to this though...

by ansugisalas

Yahoo provides throwaway email addresses, so I guess you could put one of those up for gravatar. It'll still be accessable through yahoo, but it's hopefully insulated...

by justin james

I noticed that when you put the first post onto a blog, it still says "The discussion hasn???t started yet. Why don???t you begin it."

J.Ja

by tink!

when I entered from the middle - i.e. I clicked my comment from "My Stuff" page. My default is set to expand and it didn't. I had to go to the first page of the discussion before the preferences kicked in.

by santeewelding

The 24-hour reference clock. It's kinda like a miniature [i]pons asinorem[/i] -- can't get past it; too bad.

I so do not like, as if it has not been bruited enough, the identity absence of [i]who[/i] made the most recent post. Nor, once the post is opened, the poster provenance.

Provenance is so very helpful in the case of outright spam, not to mention the previous death-ray answer thereto, of which we are lately bereft.

Updating of most recent posts still needs work.

And, then, who in their right mind, decided to submerge Questions to subsidiary importance, below even the altogether Crass announcement of "Power Users"?

Get the three of them -- Discussions, Questions, Water Closet -- upfront and on equal par.

I dare you. I double-dare you.

by boxfiddler Hot topic

is dead in the water. :( No more points for boxy.

And whatever is going on with that 'Take offline' is bizarre. Please, don't ask for detail. If I could figure it out, I wouldn't use the term bizarre. :0

by ansugisalas

What then happens to posts we flag as spam?
Total agreement on the triune!
Disco, Questing and WC... what's one without the others?

by apotheon

I hope a more permanent solution is coming in the future at some point, with a less cluttered interface. I'm not complaining about what Tigger_Two did; it's a good stopgap, until TR/CBSi can provide something more permanent. I'll see about making an effort to contribute to it starting tomorrow (it's about bedtime for me now, and somehow I never got notice of these replies).

Thanks for trying out the idea of a bug tracker.

by ansugisalas

Goes beyond the links at the top of the Q&A...
Here's how to reproduce it for any WC discussion:
Go to the discussion in the Water Cooler : In the browser URL field, change /discussions/ to /questions/. Load the page, et voila: your DaaQ of choice.

Here's the link to my latest, the thread about the WC pic, where I just marked a post as The Answer. BTW, I had the option to choose one of my own contributions as the answer; that's another thing to get rid of...

https://www.techrepublic.com/forum/questions/103-340623?tag=content;discussion-table

by darpoke

take up way too much space in this new roomy format, whether you restrict the entries/page or not. Could you display only the post for each post, perhaps, and have the voting and replies available only on mouseover, or something? Just trying to envisage a more efficient format. It looks great, don't get me wrong, but it's quite a lot to process visually and scrolling takes a lot longer now... Otherwise, I'm liking it!

by jasonhiner

Thanks for the detail on how you'd prefer it to work. We're noting this and considering it for the tweaking/tuning that we're doing.

The Water Cooler discussions should be showing up in there, but sometimes it's taking a long lag before they appear. This is a known bug that we will fix.

by nicknielsen

It's really the most convenient way for me (and apparently Chad and others, too) to track the discussions I'm interested in. My off-line time due to work makes it nearly impossible for me to track activity using email or rss without dealing with a flood of email or feeds.

by ansugisalas

You're right. You can put them there, but they don't show.
I also don't see a way to search for discussions bearing a certain tag...

by boxfiddler Hot topic

for the few contacts that still show in my contacts. Four to five in each category, and categories aren't clickable to display a full list of posts. Again, no indication per post what thread was posted in.

by sterling "chip" camden

Even though I, too, convert my feeds to email, I deposit them into a different folder so I can scan them more quickly. They don't mix well with correspondence.

by sterling "chip" camden

Others should chime in, too, but here's what I would like ideally:

One page, on which I can find, organized by discussion, an individual link to every comment *that I haven't visited yet* on every discussion in which I have participated. Added bonus: a way to mark one of those comments as "read" without visiting it.

by sterling "chip" camden

Furthermore, the font used for rendering code samples needs to make clear distinctions between ' and `, as well as between all other characters -- especially between members of the following sets:
0O
|l1
S$
.,
;:

Personally, I prefer when sites leave that up to the browser's interpretation of the <code> tag -- I can set that to Deja Vu Sans Mono and be happy.

by apotheon

That would involve just setting it to monospace in the CSS, and not setting any other options. Unfortunately, most users just use whatever defaults came with the browser, which in many cases is downright hideous -- and would totally break up the look and feel of a Website.

In general, though, that's much less a problem for code blocks than it is for other fonts being set to sans-serif or serif. In fact, I'd say that usually serif fonts are the biggest problem, because of how many people go with the default, and on MS Windows that's generally Times New Roman (a downright awful font for digital display). It's great for narrow-column justified text in black-on-white print media, though.

by tink!

1) There is no "View" option other than on the front page of the discussion. Really need to have that on each page so that you can expand from the last page or middle page etc. Members revisiting a thread don't want to have to go to the front page first, they want to go to the place they left off at.

2) The page links are way down at the bottom. No big deal if you only show 25 posts, but when you show 50 or 100, and especially if you View Expanded, it's annoying to have to scroll all the way down just to jump to the page you want. Would be nice if the page links were also at the top of the discussion pages. After all, regulars here know how quickly a thread gets into the hundreds of posts!

by nicknielsen

The Community Preferences only seem to apply correctly when you click on the title of the discussion; clicking any individual post collapses everything and doesn't allow you to expand. I'm waiting for "All" to be made available as a view setting. As it is now, I have to select it each time I open a thread. It's doesn't make a difference in most threads, but in others (this one, for example) it makes all the difference in the world.

by apotheon

For some reason, people call those "smart quotes". They're pretty stupid in a digital context.

by apotheon

I wondered if this might be the result of using a character data type to store the numbers instead of a numeric data type, but even when sorted in ASCIIbetical order the dash character normally used to indicate a negative number comes before the full set of decimal digits.

I imagine there must be an attempt to do some kind of magical time-averaged heuristic going on, and it's broken.

by k6lw

I'm color blind and don't have any issues with the page color scheme. I do however dislike that I have to view it with ie as Opera 11 doesn't like it.

by tobif

My Opera 11 doesn't complain. Maybe you have some old CSS-file in your cache?
Try refreshing your cache and/or restarting Opera. (Oh, there was an update to Opera some 12 hours ago. Why not run it...)

by tobif

It seems that when your discussion tree goes deep enough, the "reply" link is replaced with a "take offline" one.
Does the "take offline" spawn a new discussion altogether?
Will there be some automatic linking forth and back if I do?
And, if that's the case, why not have the possibility to "take offline" even higher up in the tree?
Oh, remembering how we handled the limited depth before: Couldn't we get a "fill in" link instead of the "reply", which would automatically enter your "fill in" as a reply to the "parent post"?

by nicknielsen

Many discussions reach the maximum level, then continue at that level for tens of posts; we've both played in those types of threads. The reasoning, as I understand it, is that the topics in those "maxed out" discussions are quite often much different than the original topic of the thread. Clicking the "take off-line" link opens a new discussion in the Water Cooler, the new off-topic area. The off-topic discussion can then continue without making the original discussion thread too unwieldy to browse or load. A notation–This discussion has been taken off-line– is inserted at the point where the new discussion was spawned. The original discussion is accessible from the spawned discussion by clicking on the discussion title.

Interestingly, the same thing happens to discussions in the Water Cooler, where one would assume off-topic branches are not as much of an issue... ?:|

Happy weekend, Tobi.

by boxfiddler Hot topic

To quote a friend, "One of the things I think Jason and the rest lost sight of in the planning for this upgrade was that most of those on TR (and almost all of the regulars) don't track individual posts, they track discussion threads. And for those that do track posts, it's not the post that matters, but the person who made it."

Spot on. :D
And, thank you, for putting it so concisely, and allowing me to share it.

by jasonhiner

Don't forget, we use the site, too. A lot. And, all of us track threads (not posts) just like you do. So, no, this isn't accurate.

We actually had a new beefed-up feed in "My Stuff" that was going to help with this, but we had to pull it out at the last minute due to technical difficulties in UAT. However, we're still working on getting it back on. Not having that has left a bit of a gap, admittedly.

To make a long story short, any pain that you feel, we feel the same because we use this site every day to track the discussions that are most pertinent to our areas of specialty.

by boxfiddler Hot topic

between tracking content, and tracking people. While TR content is what originally drew me here, it's the forum members who keep me here.

Vast difference.

by nicknielsen

All we saw from this side was that our primary means of tracking new posts in our subscribed discussions was gone, with no explanation. Many of us, I think, would have been less vocal about it if we had known a fix was in the works.

Looking forward to the solution.

by tigger_two

The problem is that many of us are trying as hard as we can to use it too, and are getting frustrated. At least, that is what I am hearing people say. Knowing that y'all are feeling the same pain isn't really helpful.

What I am hearing Nick say is that the less we hear from the PTB, the more we are likely to shout about the problems that we see.

I find it extremely frustrating that I can't see at a glance if there is a new post in a discussion that I have been involved in. I can't tell who made a post. I either already know who [i]started[/i] a thread or can easily find out. What I don't know at a casual glance is if someone added new information to a post... or if I care [b]more[/b] about that addition because that is a person I enjoy reading- who may or may not be in my contacts. P.S... The "Posts from My Contacts" tab has never been useful for me.

I understand- possibly more than many- how difficult it is to keep communication lanes open. You are trying to fix the issues and do that on the fly, while not asking your folks to work horrific hours. I know that is a difficult task. But we really NEED a way to communicate on a two way street.

If there is a way to facilitate better communication, I am willing to do all that I can to help with that. Tell me what that might look like from your perspective and I'm there.

Something else to consider is that you probably [b]don't[/b] use the site the same [i]way[/i] that we do. Our pain may NOT be your pain. You care deeply about your specific AREAS, we care deeply about our specific PEOPLE.

Right now, it SEEMS like many of the things that we- the users- consider to be extremely important are being relegated to the "who cares" bin. I have no doubt that this is [b]not[/b] what you mean to communicate.

I think that all of us "get" that your primary interest is identifying and fixing bugs. This is a reasonable thing. But lack of feedback to things that currently exist as suggestions (and some that exist as bugs) isn't helpful. As Nick put it, "The silence [is] deafening."

How can I help to bridge this gap?

by tobif

Wow - Great job!

We really need to make sure nothing bad happens to such a useful document.
In the shared document, I went to menu
File - Download as - Excel document.
So I got a 42 kb snapshot a couple of minutes ago.
I suggest everyone, who notes this comment, does the same.after editing the shared document.
This way, if the document should get broken, chances are we'll be in a better position to recreate the document.

If I'm totally off on this one, please let me know. Before yesterday nights, I've never used Google docs before.

by mzbcracker2

i'd recommend putting advanced articles about microsoft and cisco networkinhg, virtualization,security,linux,voip, storage and etc... . in fact at the moment you are perfect and great.i don't know how to thank you.thanks...

by mzbcracker2

when we search something in the 2011 upgrade of site ,at first, every thing is okay and the result is shown.but when we go to the next page of results , no result is shown.for example i searched "voip configure" and there was 151 results.when i clicked page 2 or any page other than the first page , no search result was shown.the website is perfect but i found this problem in it.that can affect the efficiency of the search results.if possible correct the code of this part(search).

by santeewelding

"Areas of specialty" -- would they be pertinent to poignance, too? Or, has poignancy nothing to do with the "Information" of IT?

Edit: something else awry. My post was in direct reply to yours, Jason; only, it ends up down here.

by seanferd

Someone was looking into the future, apparently. Re-sizable text entry fields FTW.

Hopefully a better browser when this is out of beta. It isn't as "nice" as the 2.0 beta, which was even beyond RC-quality.

by john3347

You guys must have spent a lot of sleepless nights to have screwed up something SOOOOO badly that wasn't even broken to start with. Looks like the work of a crack team within Microsoft bowels. The only good thing about the "new look" is that now you have something that actually does desperately need fixing.

by darpoke

I was pleasantly surprised to find someone had voted my earlier comment +1 (thank you, unknown TR member!), but less pleasantly surprised to find I could 'plus one' myself. Now I am unable to 'minus one' to return my original vote status! I feel like Governor Elbridge Gerry himself... :-/

Might I suggest (i) that one is unable to vote at all on one's own posts; and (ii) that if one votes one way or another on a post, that they are allowed to undo this action. It's quite right to allow me to +1 a post only once (as long as I didn't write it!) but I ought to be able to -1 it back to its original state, in case I mistakenly supported a sentiment with which I disagree - not so difficult to achieve given the proximity of the two discreetly small buttons.

It appears that voting is anonymous - quite rightly - but I would still hate for an accidental mouseclick to inadvertently strengthen apparent support for the rantings of some chump - sorry, esteemed TR colleague - especially given the frequency with which I have encountered such individuals among the fine people that make up this community. Why is it that they are often among the most vocal? Ah, a question for another time.
</rant>

by gechurch

I must be alone because I haven't seen anyone else mention this, but I subscribe to email alerts when new discussion posts are added, and for at least a week every one of these gives me an HTTP 500 (internal server error) message.

I have tried the links in mutliple browsers, and also from a terminal server that I've never visited TechRepublic on before. An example of a link that does it is:
https://www.techrepublic.com/forum/discussions/102-340163-3414420&alertspromo=100901?tag=nl.rCOMBINED

Does anyone else have the same problem?

by nicknielsen

I have found that stripping the tags from the end of the link ("&alertspromo=100901?tag=nl.rCOMBINED") fixes the problem. It's a pain, but it works.

by mckinnej

Was getting Access Denied error on the new site when I tried to post comments. Testing to see if issue is resolved.

by seanferd

At the time, once search results were displayed, there was no search terms entry box on the page. I see there is one at the page bottom now.

I would guess that it was just odd behavior during the initial shakedown.

by old-fart-iv

Was much easier to read and follow discussions -- Why remove/update/break a feature that was useful??

by hartkl

I have to say I am finding navigating this new layout is not as user friendly as it should be. I like to review the downloads and software section and finding it much harder to quickly review. Time is short in the day and I like to be able to quickly look over and pull out what I need and go. The old layout was much easier to navigate.

by hckradm2005

Before in the old view I was able to view a list of saved items with key words that I have made Ex: Certain posts/blogs I found interesting towards PC Tool tips I would save a link/save them with the words PC Tools. Then when ever I wanted to see all the posts/blogs that I liked for PC Tools I would click on the link PC Tools.
Is that Hiding somewhere else now or is that completely gone???

by slayer_

It will say your user name is already in use, of course it is, it is MY user name :)

by tink!

(470+ posts - I am NOT reading through them to see if this is already posted)

I miss the "last posted by [i]TRMember[/i]" on the Discussions Home Page. It was an easy way to tell if someone had added something after you posted. Time and date CAN do that if one were to actually note the specific time you posted, but seriously...name of last poster would be much more helpful. :)

by santeewelding

That would turn this place back into a bedlam of conflicting personalities as opposed to the sanitized version.

by michael jay

so as a workaround I find myself right clicking and opening the post in a new tab to find the last poster to the thread, time consuming, but better than losing your place in the discussions home page.

by who am i really

I attempted to reply in a discussion and the page froze
so I reloaded the page and tried again
after which my post was doubled

by jackofalltech

What could possibly be so hard about just letting us upload a small pic directly from our own PCs? FB does it and so do any number of other, smaller sites.

by nicknielsen

If I select and individual post, I get collapsed. If I click on the thread title, I get my default selections.

Weird.

by jackofalltech

Seriously, TR looks like a FB wannabe now. Did you invite a random sample of members to give their opinions? Did you do any mock-ups?

I honestly don't think I can stand it. This is so ugly. Wouldn't it be much more user-friendly to have a just plain text theme for serious business users?

by jasonhiner

We've made a couple fixes in the past 24 hours.

You should now be able to see all of your contacts in your profile. It's no longer limited to just 100 contacts, which is the way it had been since the upgrade.

Also, some of you had reported that your favorites were either completely or partially missing. They should all be restored now.

If you check profile and find that these bugs aren't fixed, please let us know.

by michael jay

I would guess that is because I had less than 100, but I would like to be able to see those who have added me as a contact.

by specialfx63

Reported my issues of missing articles and links to the Tech Republic Support staff and Lo and Behold, Monday a.m. , here they are! All restored. I know we are all quick to bash everything we don't like. But a round of thanks is in order when things go right. Kudos and a thank you for the fast fix. ;)

by cg it

in the Q&A and also Discussion sections, the font for when last post was made is way to light. Even with my bifocals, it's tough to read..... can that be darkened up maybe one shade more? maybe make it blue or darker grey?

by Member 19291532

I like the format, it is clean. I've been giving it a chance, because I know change is hard, and the old, clunky way may seem better simply because it is familiar.

But I am really missing the going into the "forums" and into "my posts" and seeing a nice cohesive, sequential list of MY posts in the old presentation format. I think the closest thing is going to My Account and selecting My Stuff which gives a reverse chronology, top-to-bottom, sequential list of forum posts. I'd be less interested in seeing the # of posts and votes in this list than a display of what forum topic the message was in response to - that is, the title of the ORIGINAL post that this discussion is attached to. Still easier to track your conversations here than on ZD-Net. :)

by Member 19291532

So, is it in fact, the only way to track your posts is now the "My Stuff" area of "My Account"? Is there a better way to do this? I've having a lot of difficulty tracking conversations under the new format.

by rayjeff

I haven't been paying attention to the news of the upgrade, as I've had alot going on since my last visit to TR, Imagine my surprise when I logged in today, I saw the change. I was surprised, as others have been about the missing avatar. I don't think (as like others) I want to go through the process of having a picture on another website just to have it posted here. And the avatar I had, I don't think I will be able to find it, as it was pre-2000 picture.

The main issues I have are with the listing of all of the posts a TR member makes. Umm, there is no listing anymore. All I see is the recent postings, but not a total listing of postings, as which are shown in the old layout.

I (like others) don't like the Expanded/Collapse view. I like the Print/View of the old layout. It would've been nice to not be forced to use the current options like Gravatar and the old format.

by michael jay

Welcome to the new format, things are still being adjusted, and for now this is what we have.

by Member 19291532

have both expressed to me on numerous occasions that they appreciate that I and other site contributors engage in ongoing discussions in the forums that our blogs generate. A site that doesn't facilitate my ability to easily track conversations makes it harder for me to do this. Currently that is the situation with the Tech Republic user forums. That is less than desirable, but it is what it is. Hopefully the adjustments that are made to the site will consider and accommodate this, will happen quickly and we'll have more ability to easily track conversations in the future than what we have now.

To TR readers - the easiest way right now to track your conversations is to hover over "My Profile" in the blue bar at the top of the TR page. A drop down menu will appear. The 4th option down in the menu is "My Stuff" Click that link. That will bring up a list of your last 100 discussions. You can also change the tab to My Questions or My Favorites. It isn't perfect, but it is the best alternative to the old "My Forums" display that I've been able to find for now.

by nicknielsen

The My Stuff area provides a list of your last 100 [u]posts[/u], not the last 100 discussions you have participated in. As you have already noticed, there is no easy way to track subscribed discussions on the site itself.

by Member 19291532

My last 100 posts generally are the last 100 discussions I ahve participated in - so it does the job for me. But it is awkward, compared to how things used to work. I don't think they should throw away the features they've added, but I don't understand why they removed something that worked so well. I think otherwise I wouldn't have any complaints at all about the new site format.

by slayer_

Lately, the site no longer highlights the post currently select. This makes it even harder to read the posts in a tree. Though I would prefer the posts open in line, rather than at the top of the page each time, I would at least like the post I am reading to be highlighted

This discussion is closed to new replies.