babble is rabble.ca's discussion board but it's much more than that: it's an online community for folks who just won't shut up. It's a place to tell each other — and the world — what's up with our work and campaigns.
First of all, I refuse to download IE7. I have heard bad things about it, and I don't need it. IE6 works fine with every other website I visit EXCEPT babble. I don't think I'm the one who's out of step here.
Second, the solution is not to force babblers to use a particular proprietary browser, but to make the site work with all of them.
Unless, of course, Bill Gates wants to give babble a shitload of money in exchange for making its pages work properly only with IE 7 or IE 8 or whatever other crap browsers they come up with.
Here are some screen captures made using Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6.
The first one shows a segment of a thread page. Note the tiny type, which I cannot increase by using the browser settings. Note the empty white column on the right side, because I clicked on "Create Content" in the "Your Menu" box and the entire contents of the right side, advertising and all, dropped down the page and appears only after the end of the thread. Note the various shades of grey background and grey type - very hard to read. Note the navigation line above the thread title: Home » Forums » current events » international news and politics, where the words "current events" are rendered in virtually unreadable light-grey-on-light-grey type. Note the horizontal scrollbar across the bottom of the page, completely unnecessary, except to view the right 2 mm of the page. Note the wording on the browser bar at the bottom left: "(1 item remaining)" which is telling me that the browser is still not completely finished downloading and rendering the page. This wording is there constantly - it never goes away - as the browser continues to try in vain to complete the download of the page; when I move my cursor over the navigation and other information bars of the browser, the arrow changes to an hourglass because of this.
The second one shows the bottom right corner of the web page. I scrolled down to the bottom as far as the vertical scrollbar would go, but I did not scroll horizontally. You can see that the end of the word "Feedback" is partly obscured because of this sidescroll. The "[ + ] Feedback" by the way is embedded and fixed at the bottom of the page; it does not hover or float over other content on the page as I scroll up or down, the way it does in Firefox.
The third one shows the upper right corner of the web page. Again, I did not use the horizontal scrollbar to correct the sidescroll, so you can see that the right side of the Search button and the words "My account" are clipped. More important, the vertical lines that are supposed to separate those five hotlinks above the Search button are crowded against the words themselves. On Firefox, I have seen them rendered the same way sometimes, and at other times rendered correctly - or at least in a way that I assume was intended.
Ya, it wouldnt look a great deal different in IE7. I can see everything you've captured on my screen, except I can see a few pixels clear to the right of "Feedback" at bottom right. But I have a size large monitor, which isnt supposed to be a problem for Windows what size or who manufactures it, because rendering graphics and fonts is the job of the OS and is "device independent" wrt hardware ie. monitors and printers. I dont know, M. I'd hate to sell you a used car is all I have to say. I think I'd end up paying you to take it off my hands, or something.
IE 6 is reviled among web developers because it doesn't support very much. While you may feel that the new babble is the only site that you have problems viewing, there may be a lot on pages that you're not seeing--most sites with stuff like rounded corners and transparencies will turns the nicer look off for IE 6 because it's very hard to support. It will be quicker and easier to build sites once IE 6 no longer needs to be supported.
IE 7 runs much better than IE 6 almost everywhere, download it, it will be worth it (unless your machine is very old).
A friend of mine who does a lot of css work will state flat out to clients that if they want to support IE 6 then the cost triples. It will definitely cost Rabble more money to support IE 6.
The sidescroll I do have is because I sized up rabble to make the font size the same as it was on the old babble.
Increasing the font size using the browser doesn't make the window any wider. It just causes the text to reflow and makes the page longer. That won't cause horizontal sidescroll.
I used the ctrl+ command to size up rabble, and it does cause sidescroll. I didn't use the Firefox zoom function.
The second one shows the bottom right corner of the web page. I scrolled down to the bottom as far as the vertical scrollbar would go, but I did not scroll horizontally. You can see that the end of the word "Feedback" is partly obscured because of this sidescroll. The "[ + ] Feedback" by the way is embedded and fixed at the bottom of the page; it does not hover or float over other content on the page as I scroll up or down, the way it does in Firefox.
I prefer the feedback button in the location you get it in IE (minus the sidescroll issue), rather than it hovering in a fixed location on my monitor, and sometimes hovering over content.
We were promised that open threads from 2007 would be migrated. They haven't been. The threads in the International news and politics section only go back to August, 2008.
We were promised a better Search Engine. We got one that doesn't even work on the threads that got migrated, not to mention the older threads that were not migrated and remain totally inaccessible to us.
I won't go through the whole list of what's wrong. I've religiously used the defective "Feedback" box. But on the single issue of old threads: What was wrong with just leaving the entirely old babble site intact while the new one was being test-driven? It was mostly just text, so storage costs couldn't have been the issue? How did our experts even manage to make the old links disappear so quickly from Google's cache?
Anyway, for all you nostalgia buffs out there, the best I can do is this:
Clersal, whom are you asking? None of us here know anything. Why not use trial and error?
ETA: OK clersal, and everyone, in the name of science I have self-sacrificingly changed my username to Trade Unionist. Now, someone send me a PM to my old name (unionist) and see if I receive it.
Hurry up - I don't know if I can maintain this weird name for long...
No one is able to send a message to unionist right now--i just tried and the send message form validation requires that the recipient username be a valid user. Since "unionist" is not a valid user while your name is changed, i got an error message.
So clersal if you were able to send a pm on the new system and it didn't give you an error then you likely got the message sent before the user changed their name. The privatemsg module tracks by user id, not username, and so they should still have the pm in their messages.
I used the ctrl+ command to size up rabble, and it does cause sidescroll. I didn't use the Firefox zoom function.
I think it's a microsoft bug. This web page is XHTML error free according to the markup validation service. But that page is also plagued by the mysterious horizontal scroll bar problem.
1) It is absolutely a pain in the ass that one can not copy in the "rich text" mode. It is possible with "rich text" off, but this environment is confusing, and adds annoying processes to what should be a simple function. This makes it very difficult to speedily isolate part of quoted post and text and edit for brevity.
2) A quote tool would be useful. In other words a simple icon driven tool that makes it possible to select a section of text and put quotes around it. Also very useful for speedy editing for brevity.
I'm running Windows XP and IE version 6.
That Ctrl + stuff only works with Firefox.
IE7 download should take care of that
First of all, I refuse to download IE7. I have heard bad things about it, and I don't need it. IE6 works fine with every other website I visit EXCEPT babble. I don't think I'm the one who's out of step here.
Second, the solution is not to force babblers to use a particular proprietary browser, but to make the site work with all of them.
Unless, of course, Bill Gates wants to give babble a shitload of money in exchange for making its pages work properly only with IE 7 or IE 8 or whatever other crap browsers they come up with.
Here are some screen captures made using Windows XP and Internet Explorer 6.
The first one shows a segment of a thread page. Note the tiny type, which I cannot increase by using the browser settings. Note the empty white column on the right side, because I clicked on "Create Content" in the "Your Menu" box and the entire contents of the right side, advertising and all, dropped down the page and appears only after the end of the thread. Note the various shades of grey background and grey type - very hard to read. Note the navigation line above the thread title: Home » Forums » current events » international news and politics, where the words "current events" are rendered in virtually unreadable light-grey-on-light-grey type. Note the horizontal scrollbar across the bottom of the page, completely unnecessary, except to view the right 2 mm of the page. Note the wording on the browser bar at the bottom left: "(1 item remaining)" which is telling me that the browser is still not completely finished downloading and rendering the page. This wording is there constantly - it never goes away - as the browser continues to try in vain to complete the download of the page; when I move my cursor over the navigation and other information bars of the browser, the arrow changes to an hourglass because of this.
The second one shows the bottom right corner of the web page. I scrolled down to the bottom as far as the vertical scrollbar would go, but I did not scroll horizontally. You can see that the end of the word "Feedback" is partly obscured because of this sidescroll. The "[ + ] Feedback" by the way is embedded and fixed at the bottom of the page; it does not hover or float over other content on the page as I scroll up or down, the way it does in Firefox.
The third one shows the upper right corner of the web page. Again, I did not use the horizontal scrollbar to correct the sidescroll, so you can see that the right side of the Search button and the words "My account" are clipped. More important, the vertical lines that are supposed to separate those five hotlinks above the Search button are crowded against the words themselves. On Firefox, I have seen them rendered the same way sometimes, and at other times rendered correctly - or at least in a way that I assume was intended.
Ya, it wouldnt look a great deal different in IE7. I can see everything you've captured on my screen, except I can see a few pixels clear to the right of "Feedback" at bottom right. But I have a size large monitor, which isnt supposed to be a problem for Windows what size or who manufactures it, because rendering graphics and fonts is the job of the OS and is "device independent" wrt hardware ie. monitors and printers. I dont know, M. I'd hate to sell you a used car is all I have to say. I think I'd end up paying you to take it off my hands, or something.
IE 6 is reviled among web developers because it doesn't support very much. While you may feel that the new babble is the only site that you have problems viewing, there may be a lot on pages that you're not seeing--most sites with stuff like rounded corners and transparencies will turns the nicer look off for IE 6 because it's very hard to support. It will be quicker and easier to build sites once IE 6 no longer needs to be supported.
IE 7 runs much better than IE 6 almost everywhere, download it, it will be worth it (unless your machine is very old).
A friend of mine who does a lot of css work will state flat out to clients that if they want to support IE 6 then the cost triples. It will definitely cost Rabble more money to support IE 6.
IE6 is still much more popular than Firefox, with about one in four internet users supporting it. These are October 2008 figures:
I will ask again, if someone has changed their name will they recieve a pm under their old name?
I used the ctrl+ command to size up rabble, and it does cause sidescroll. I didn't use the Firefox zoom function.
I prefer the feedback button in the location you get it in IE (minus the sidescroll issue), rather than it hovering in a fixed location on my monitor, and sometimes hovering over content.
We were promised that open threads from 2007 would be migrated. They haven't been. The threads in the International news and politics section only go back to August, 2008.
We were promised a better Search Engine. We got one that doesn't even work on the threads that got migrated, not to mention the older threads that were not migrated and remain totally inaccessible to us.
The font is altogether too small and faint to read.
Also the speed sucks-as slow as molasses in January in Moosonee and the emoticons are pathetic.
Altogether an underwhelming 'upgrade'
I won't go through the whole list of what's wrong. I've religiously used the defective "Feedback" box. But on the single issue of old threads: What was wrong with just leaving the entirely old babble site intact while the new one was being test-driven? It was mostly just text, so storage costs couldn't have been the issue? How did our experts even manage to make the old links disappear so quickly from Google's cache?
Anyway, for all you nostalgia buffs out there, the best I can do is this:
Today's Active Topics of October 10, 2007
ETA: And here (*SOB!!*) is Rabble's front page on the second day of publication:
rabble.ca, April 19, 2001
And again:
I will ask again, if someone has changed their name will they recieve a pm under their old name?
Clersal, whom are you asking? None of us here know anything. Why not use trial and error?
ETA: OK clersal, and everyone, in the name of science I have self-sacrificingly changed my username to Trade Unionist. Now, someone send me a PM to my old name (unionist) and see if I receive it.
Hurry up - I don't know if I can maintain this weird name for long...
Clersal:
I will ask again. Please advise whether you have sent a PM to "unionist" as requested. I have not received one yet.
No one is able to send a message to unionist right now--i just tried and the send message form validation requires that the recipient username be a valid user. Since "unionist" is not a valid user while your name is changed, i got an error message.
So clersal if you were able to send a pm on the new system and it didn't give you an error then you likely got the message sent before the user changed their name. The privatemsg module tracks by user id, not username, and so they should still have the pm in their messages.
Thanks, wage zombie. Would you mind trying one more test? I'll change my name to "Unionist". PM "unionist" again and see if it is case-sensitive.
No it it wan't you unionist,
but thanks I guess you answered my question.
Another one: What is this envelope beside the name mean?
Thanks again.
It means "send money".
I think it's a microsoft bug. This web page is XHTML error free according to the markup validation service. But that page is also plagued by the mysterious horizontal scroll bar problem.
I get hscroll on that page with IE7 but not FireFox v2.0.0.17, and I'm running Vista. hmm
I have to qualify something I posted in the previous thread.
The "improvement" that I identified only applies to IE. The phenomenon does not occur in Firefox.
Ya-but, how do you get that underscore line beneath your hyperlink to stay there without a mouseover? Do tell.
eta: okay I think i know now. I think bolding cancels the underscore, or something
1) It is absolutely a pain in the ass that one can not copy in the "rich text" mode. It is possible with "rich text" off, but this environment is confusing, and adds annoying processes to what should be a simple function. This makes it very difficult to speedily isolate part of quoted post and text and edit for brevity.
2) A quote tool would be useful. In other words a simple icon driven tool that makes it possible to select a section of text and put quotes around it. Also very useful for speedy editing for brevity.
[ url={URL}][ u]{Text label}[/u][/url]
without the spaces.
We should all copy that bit of code and use it everyone.