Tech issues on babble

Mon, 2009-07-13 08:04

Refuge

Left Turn wrote:

Though why I ever got logged out in the first place is a mystery, since the "remember me" button should ensure I remain logged-in in perpetuity unless I hit the log out button, which I did not before this incident.

I didn't have the password issues that you had for getting back in but babble has logged me out 3 times in the last two days while I have been on babble. I just switch pages or go onto a new topic and I have to re log in (one time I commented went to my page to check on another thread clicked on that thread and then had to re log in, wierd). Maybe it is a glich right now.

Mon, 2009-07-13 10:25

#53

jrose

Hm. I've had to log-in a few times over the last day or two, which is unusual, but I thought it was just something to do with recently switching computers. I'll let you both know if I hear anything more regarding a "glitch".

Mon, 2009-07-13 12:02

#54

Michelle

Yeah, it's weird. Happens to me too. I'll let our tech people know about it.

In other news, I've noticed that when people don't complete their quote tags, that often throws off the formatting. I know it's a pain, and the old software dealt with errors like that much better than this new software does. (With the old software, formatting errors tended to affect only the post in question instead of all the following posts, except for sidescroll.)

So, if you open a quote tag like this [ quote ] or like this [ quote=Michelle ] then you should be sure to close it again afterwards like this [ /quote ] . If you don't, then you get all this strange formatting, and then for some reason the rest of the posts in the thread don't have alternating colours and stuff.

I've been fixing posts here and there, and I don't have a problem with continuing to do that since it's our software that's causing the problem, but I just thought I'd let people know what they can do as well if they notice at the time.

Mon, 2009-07-27 13:46

#55

Catchfire

Ok, there are still some fundamental bugs and usability problems that were pointed out immediately after the changeover and still we've seen no progress or mention of progress. Is there still a tech team working on babble or are we stuck like this until the next 'upgrade'? I'm talking mainly about the cut/paste function (cf for example, post #1 in this thread by jas on 17 May), which is so essential to babble, and yet it remains a nightmare. Other simple changes like adding a quote function button and fixing that strange formatting problem that shrinks text after a quoted passage have become stagnant. What gives?

Also, and I don't mean to target Sven, but how the h does he still have a tagline?

Mon, 2009-07-27 14:19

#56

Snert

Quote:
Other simple changes like adding a quote function button and fixing that strange formatting problem that shrinks text after a quoted passage have become stagnant. What gives?

Thank you! I've become used to editing and re-editing, and watching entire blocks of text change after I delete a single whitespace, etc.

On a scale of Yes to No, will this be fixed? Soon??

Mon, 2009-07-27 14:26

#57

M. Spector M. Spector's picture

This thread might as well be closed for irrelevance.

Mon, 2009-07-27 14:31

#58

Caissa

LOL, M. Spector.

Mon, 2009-07-27 14:32

#59

Unionist

Catchfire wrote:

I'm talking mainly about the cut/paste function (cf for example, post #1 in this thread by jas on 17 May), which is so essential to babble, and yet it remains a nightmare.

I've almost got it licked. You kind of have to pretend you're looking the other way, maybe after a click on the down-scroll on the right, then right-click, and you may get the "paste" menu without inadvertently selecting some pre-existing text. It's almost within the terms of the Geneva Conventions now.

Quote:
Other simple changes like adding a quote function button and fixing that strange formatting problem that shrinks text after a quoted passage have become stagnant.

The text won't shrink if you form the habit of inserting a carriage return after the [ / quote].

It's been a fun learning experience all round.

Mon, 2009-07-27 14:36

#60

Michelle

Often what I find when people's formatting goes wonky is incorrect quote tags, and I fix them by deleting or adding an open or close quote tag. For instance, there might be an extra open or close quote tag, and that screws up the formatting. Used to screw things up on the old software too, but not to the same extent it does on this one.

Mon, 2009-07-27 14:38

#61

Lard Tunderin Jeezus Lard Tunderin Jeezus's picture

The search function locks up my computer for several minutes, and then generates this message:

"Safari is no longer responding because of a script on the webpage "Search | rabble.ca" (http://www.rabble.ca/search/node/nortel). Do you want to stop running the script, or let it continue?"

Mon, 2009-07-27 15:21

#62

Ze

I still have a tagline too (in most but not all forums). And worst of all, I CAN'T EDIT TO ERASE IT. As far as I can tell, the tagline change has made it impossible for people with taglines to remove them except by doign so manually in every post.

Is this thread really of much use, or should we contact tech support directly?

Mon, 2009-07-27 15:23

#63

Michelle

Oh, that's a drag! I hate taglines! I'll find out how to deal with that. I've been noticing them lately, too.

Mon, 2009-07-27 15:24

#64

Michelle

BTW, in answer to your question about who to contact - if it's about general login problems and such, you can contact oldgoat and I. But if it's about software glitches that we can't fix, you can use the contact form and flag it as "tech concerns".

http://rabble.ca/contact

Wed, 2009-12-09 13:51

#65

clersal

Babble would not accept my password. I re did the whole thing and am in BUT I have a feeling it is not going to last. I have always had the same password.???????

Wed, 2009-12-09 15:08

#66

Polunatic2

Quote:
I can only log-in by requesting a new password.

I have the same issue. I don't bother even trying to change my password anymore. I just doesn't seem to "stick".

I also agree with JAS sentiments in Post #1 about cutting and pasting. I guess I've taken Control-V for granted all these years - sigh.

Wed, 2009-12-09 15:13

#67

Michelle

That's weird about the passwords! I don't know why that would happen. :( So clersal, does that mean you can't

Yeah, the cutting and pasting is a pain. Sorry about that.

Regarding formatting issues - I've found that a great number of formatting issues (where the shape of the posts goes screwy) is due to people's quote tags. Almost always there's a open quote tag without a corresponding close quote tag, or vice versa.

I fix it wherever I see it by simply editing people's posts and removing the extra tag, or adding the missing tag. But it's handy to always remember - if you have an open quote tag that looks like this: [ quote], then you also need to have a close quote tag, which looks like this: [/ quote]

Wed, 2009-12-09 16:13

#68

Snert

I find that sometimes (lots of times) when I've pasted a line and am typing the closing [/ quote] tag, it ends up on the next line down, and if I use delete or backspace to move it back up, all of the whitespace in my post collapses. If I post that as-is, all of my quoted text will be in a smaller typeface. The solution seems to be to go to the end of each line, use delete to get rid of the return and bring the next line up, then hit enter to restore the return. That's pretty tedious. And honestly, I can't think of any reason other than a bug for this kind of heuristic. Why should anything I do on line #1 start changing line spacing and font size on line #20?

Techies: I'm throwing down. Do you have the mad CSS skillz needed to fix this? Or are you just posing?

Wed, 2009-12-09 17:18

#69

Fidel

Boom Boom wrote:

I find that when I cut and paste from an article on the web, I have to disable rich text first, or I get this message:

"Do you want to allow this webpage to access your Clipboard?" If I allow, then the formatting gets screwed up. If I don't allow, then it won't cut and paste.

You can disable that annoying pop-up. [url=http://www.mydigitallife.info/2006/09/25/disable-allow-this-webpage-to-a... instructions here[/url]. (I'm just not very security conscious very much at all and most of the time.

Warning: But you should also remember not to leave sensitive personal information in clipboard, like: passwords, personal banking info, credit card information etc in clipboard's memory buffer. You can't see what's in clipboard's memory buffer without some extra work)

It seems to work better for me now, and especially if I click on disable rich-text as Michelle said to do before.

And then any words and sentences surrounded with "p" tags is going to force a new line after it. Just remove them to make it all one, if that's what we intend to do.

Fri, 2017-03-10 10:49

#70

Unionist

Until babble lets me open a new thread, I'll revive an old one. I'm inviting babblers to list here any technical problems, missing features, suggestions stemming from the latest babble "upgrade". Here's my list so far:

We have lost huge amounts of necessary functionality:

embedding images
quote function (the blockquote thing sucks - and the "Reply" button is useless, and not only because the message numbering system is broken)
ability to link to a particular comment (at least, I don't see it) EDITED: Correction - I just found it!
mailboxes (but these are supposed to be coming?)
inability to open new threads.

And the "Active Topics" page is ugly (IMHO). We don't need to know what precise day of the week and time a thread was opened, maybe not even the date, nor how many "pages" a thread occupies - too much busy text. And how about, for a change, a simple "jump to the end of the thread" or "latest post" button that actually works?

Fri, 2017-03-10 13:23

#71

NorthReport

The latest post button actually does work.

Fri, 2017-03-10 17:36

(Reply to #71) #72

Unionist

You're right, NorthReport, it does work. I meant I'd just like to see it right on the "Active Topics" page, so you can immediately skip to the end of a thread. But the way it is, is better than nothing.

Fri, 2017-03-10 20:04

#73

Mr. Magoo

I've noted this elsewhere, but in the interest of one thread listing deficiencies, that developers/techies can refer to, here it is again.

When quoting a multi-paragraph post, the first paragraph of the quote is rendered in a different typeface than the rest of the post, but any subsequent paragraphs are not. Given that quotes no longer appear in a bounding box, it could be nice if the entire quote were rendered as per the first para. Example:

Quote:
This is paragraph 1, in sans-serif bold.

This is paragraph 2, and it's gonna be in regular serif, like the rest of my post.

This is paragraph 3 -- same.

Mon, 2017-03-13 17:27

#74

epaulo13

..when setting up a post i insert a pic and hit post. i see that the pic is in a postion that is to low so i press edit. in edit mode i no longer see the pic so hit post and the pic is gone. i reload the pic and it's there but can't edit the post in any way or the pic disappears.

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