New NARGS Forum - Issues, Question, Suggestions

Okay, just spent 1/2hr writing a first reply with information on problems uploading messages, did a Preview of my post, okayed it and the message disappeared (vaporized).  Lesson learned, don't trust composing messages on forums, or even Facebook, always copy and paste the contents of the message into a text editor *before* attempting to post the message.

If you have had problems uploading images to NARGS Forum, please let us know the details.  Personally I have had errors, occurring erratically, when trying to upload "embedded images" or "image attachments", sometimes getting an "AJAX HTTP" error message, even though using the same images that work to upload sometimes, but not other times.  I know that moderator Lori Skulski has also reported the same issue.

The web developer responded to this report by saying "I can't seem to reproduce this issue. Are forum user still getting this error when uploading images? Does the issue occur in a specific browser and/or version? Does it happen when creating the forum topic or adding a reply or both?".

I primarily use Firefox 9.0.1, not Internet Explorer.  I have not created many new forum topics (this is my first on the new new forum), but it has happened many times when attempting to reply to an existing topic.

Any questions or issues on uploading images, please respond here!
 

Hi, Mark,

Re. AJAX HTTP error

I 've had it occur most recently when adding a reply, while using Safari.  

More oddities...

1)  When one attempts to "copy and paste" from other messages or other sites or to post links, a box appears as shown below:

It says that "because of your browser security settings, the editor is not able to access your clipboard data directly.  You are required to paste it agian in this window" .  I haven't changed my browser security settings, but now a simple "copy/paste" appears to take multiple (3?) steps.

Do other users have this problem?

2)  When the process above is accomplished, the pasted message sometimes comes out in a random font size, which does not match the default font size being used in the forum.   I don't see that there is any actual way to change the font size in the reply box.   Perhaps I am missing something... ?

Edit:  Even stranger... the random font size is visible in the posting box while I am composing the message, but it seems to come out correctly when the message is posted (see below)...???

https://www.nargs.org/forum/terrestrial-orchids?page=11#comment-23217

3)  After posting a reply to a thread, I am sometimes basically kicked out of the forum, and have to re-enter the forum form the "Home" screen.  This is very inconvenient. 

4)  The Amazon ad on the right-hand part of the screen is new... which is fine, but I always see it floating inside my Reply box, obscuring any text beneath it (see below):

5)  When replying to a thread now, you only see the last reply or the specific one to which you are replying.  The previous format, where you could see a page-full of previous replies was vastly better, as you could easily respond to comments made by different people in different threads.  

More to follow...

I use Firefox 21.0, and I haven't had anything not work.  But the "oddities" as Lori puts it, abound.

1.  I get the EXACT same dialog box that you do, Lori.  On top of that, when I try to copy something already typed into the reply box by highlighting as usual, I get this

"Your browswer security settings don't permit the editor to automatically execute copying operations.  Please use the keyboard for that(Cntrl/Com+C)."

I never get any ad pop ups anywhere.  Firefox adblock plus does a really good job!

2. The individual message texts that accompany when reply is annoying.  I'd much rather have the entire thread at my disposal, or nothing at all.

3. And I suppose this is due to my browser incompatibility?

When I open a thread to a new message, the word "new" is in red and superimposed on the message heading,  Makes it difficult to read.

4. Firefox use to auto spell check everything I type, everywhere on the web.  Now there is a "special" spell check here that I would have to start teaching all over again.

Very interesting with multiple sets of eyes looking at forum issues, more issues are revealed.

With the switch over to the new forum, USERNAMES defaulted back to be using the forumist's names. Per trial and error, we discovered that only Administrators & Moderators can change usernames.  I did this for "Ronaldo", changing his USERNAME back to his previous one, "Longma".  However, there seems to be a side effect whereby the number of posts under the forumist's avatar is always listed as Posts: 1, not showing his true number of posts, it is stuck at 1.  So, two issues:

1. Is there sufficient level of security granularity on the Drupal site, to allow forum users to change their own USERNAME.  It's not  big deal, if it has to be done by a moderator, perhaps as part of the larger overall security outlook, then fine; just asking the question.

2. If a USERNAME is changed, how to address the side effect mentioned above.  I changed my own username to Mark McD, but for me, the number of posts is showing correctly.

I didn't comment on this Mark, because I no longer see the number of posts for anyone! Not a big issue for me however, :)

I noticed this too, but hadn't discovered why until you said Mark.  I guess we, as moderators, have special consideration, as opposed to guests.  I wonder how a NARGS member username change reacts.....

By the way, when I changed my username, it took a day (or at least more than 2 hours) for the username to change in the very top menu bar (Contact,username,renew,log out), although in the forum messages themselves, the change was immediate.  .....Just a note, in case it may help with some other bugs in the future.

Ron, what browswer are you using?

[quote=RickR]

Ron, what browser are you using?

[/quote]

I'm using Google Chrome.

I haven't experienced any of the other frustrating problems recorded so far. Once I got my head around the structure of this new forum ( I must admit I was seriously daunted when first confronted with it!! ), I find it a real improvement on the old structure. Many of the new features make contributing easier and less time consuming ( auto resizing of pictures, auto layout, good spell check facilities ++ ), and I find the viewing much more focused and cleanly organised, and only having to open one picture per post then being able to enlarge each in turn without going in and out is much smoother. I also think that the picture quality ( a key for a forum ? ) is much improved, for whatever reason. Some of the missing items such as no number of posts, status title of each member etc. are really of no interest to me, and probably are only of interest to administration.

I can even use the English spelling of 'organised' without being constantly corrected ! :)

Oh this just in, regarding the superimposed "reply" mentioned above: I opened 3 updated thread within seconds of each other in succession - the first and third are not superimposes (for the first time), and the second one is....

Also noticed another change when embedding images: the "browse" now shows the image file name rather than the file location in my pc.  I like that.

Fascinating that my posts show as 134 on your picture #2 Rick !!

I am surprised by Ron's comments here, and in another thread, about the automatic resizing of  pictures - when I make a post I see a screen which tells me that pix must be below 800 x 800 .....:

And I must admit I am confused by the difference between Embedded images and Image Attachments.  - tried both and there didn't seem to be any difference?

Neither do I see how to place the picture within text ...... what am I missing?

I do not find the enlarged screengrabs to be as clear as before, either.  Straight photos seem to be okay.

[quote=IMYoung]

I am surprised by Ron's comments here, and in another thread, about the automatic resizing of  pictures - when I make a post I see a screen which tells me that pix must be below 800 x 800 .....:

[/quote]

I see that 800 x 800 also,............. but if you upload something larger ( certainly in the Image attachments facility) you are informed that your image has been resized automatically to fit within the allowed limits. Brilliant! 

Wondering if embedded image means between text, which doesn't work at the moment ( at least for me ) and attached images, i.e. at the end of the text, which do work for me at this time.

This is a test, the image is 1400 x 1100 pixels, it should resize/constrain the image to max XY dimensions of 800 pixels.

Iris odaesanensis seed harvest 2013

After uploading an embedded image, I place my cursor here in the text window before hitting the Insert button that now displays next to the successfully loaded Embedded image.

Now I can add more text under the image, after the Insert button places the embed image.

Here's a screen capture of the Embedded Image - Insert option after the image uploads.

Cheers

Success with embedding following your lead Mark ...

Yesss .... it works beautifully. Resizes and embeds automatically.

[quote=Longma]

I see that 800 x 800 also,............. but if you upload something larger ( certainly in the Image attachments facility) you are informed that your image has been resized automatically to fit within the allowed limits. Brilliant! 

[/quote]

 That IS good!

Mark : not quite sure I understand about your "place the cursor" comment, and I can't see it now ....... back to the drawing board for me!

Okay, here I go....

A Czech Garden

Nope, the embedding thing isn't working for me - but the image attach is... I need more hints, Mark, please

  (sigh)  Puzzled Maggi

Msg from Mark:  Maggi, after hitting Upload on an Embedded Image, it presents a new option next to the list of embedded images, an "Insert" button. Place your cursor in the ext window, where you want the image to go, then click the Insert button for the image you want to appear at your cursor location. Then SAVE and that's it.

Edit - made another try here- took ages to resize the photo  ( could have done it quicker myself) and then it showed on the work page but not in the post.....

In fact the pic is STILL showing on the work page..... I am more confused.... will see if it loads this time....

[quote=IMYoung]

Okay, here I go....

A Czech Garden

[/quote]

May I?

1. type your initial text

2. Click on 'choose file' in embedded images

3. After selecting file click on 'upload'

4. After your initial text, choose where you'd like to embed the image and click there ( i.e.. direct in line or after a return )

5. go back to your image and click insert

6 Carry on with successive text.

7. click on save when complete

Any help or just added to confusion??

That's very clear, Ron, thank you.             - it's just not working.........

 Aha!!! Yes, thank you, it is.... I found the "insert" box by the pic...... that wasn't clear to me.... thanks!  I think I've got it now.....

Maggi

[quote=IMYoung]

!  I think I've got it now.....

Maggi

[/quote]

I have found that the speed of resizing is possibly dependant on the upload speed of my connection. Sometimes it does it immediately, sometimes it does take longer. However, I still love the idea of ' set it and forget it' ( with due apologies!), as it means the pictures retained in my files dont need to be duplicated / reduced/ renamed etc. Each to their own ways though, :)

Glad it's coming together for you now Maggi.

Another nuance, figured out why my title text was not showing when mousing over my images, if one edits a message and adds Title text to an image after the fact, newly added title text is ignored.  To fix that, highlight the embedded image in the message, delete it, drop your cursor where you want the image, add your Title text, now click Insert, and that version of the embedded image will use the assigned Title text.

Of course, the best habit will be to add Title Text initially when uploading embedded images, and *before* hitting the Insert button to place the image.

Similar to what Lori and Rick reported, there's some odd lock-down on copy-&-paste operations.  To avoid losing drafted messages in forums and social media if the post fails, I always try to copy the textual portion of the draft before posting, as a backup should the post fail. When I tried tonight, to copy a short paragraph from a message composed on the forum (so I could copy it to Notepad), it gives the following error and prevents the Copy and Paste. This seems to be a bug.

Addenda: after being prevented from copying text in my NARGS Forum message draft, I posted the message, then went back into Edit mode, and then the Copy-&-Paste function is allowed... weird.

1.  What's the difference between "Active Topics" and "New and Updated Topics"?  Seems redundant.   (That reminds me that I looked at the forum once earlier today and did not see the "New and Updated Topics" choice, but I see it again now.)

2. The forum used to allow me to start a message, then do a browser search (e.g. look up a plant or a link to add to the message) and return to the message.  It doesn't work like that anymore... the connection to the original message is severed, and you return to a blank screen.  (I hate websites that do this!)

3.  Posting a photo used to be a one step process ("Upload file"); now it seems to be 2 to 3 steps ("Select file/Upload" or "Select file/Upload/Insert").  The simplicity of one step was nice, however, the abilty in the new system to move photos around by dragging and dropping is nice too.

4.  Do we really need to know that every photo posted has been "resized to fit within the maximum allowed dimensions of 800x800 pixels" (see example, below).  Would it be possible for there to be just a single brief statement that this WILL be done to all photos?

When posting multiple photos, you end up with a long, long string of these messages which takes up a lot of screen room and means a lot of scrolling to get from the dialog box down to the bottom of the page where the photo manipulation takes place.

5.  I'm not sure what "My Workbench" and "My Drafts" are meant for, or whether they are different.  

I just noticed in "My Workbench" that "My Edits - Five of the most recently updated pieces of content" is inaccurate.  Or at least it isn't "THE five most recently updated items", as I'd assume it's meant to show.

6.  I don't see how you change the font size or font colour anywhere?  

7.  A downside of only being able to see the last reply (or the particular posting you are replying to), as opposed to seeing a page-full of past replies in the old system, is that one can't add quotes from different replies.  This was handy to be able to do in the old system.

8.  Looking back through old threads in Plant Travels and Excursions, it seems that the photos from some of my posts are gone.  It seems to happen in the first post in a thread, if it's going to happen (and doesn't happen in every thread).

Good points Lori, let me share and compare thoughts on each of your 8 points.

1.  Regarding "Active Topics" and "New and Updated Topics", active topics shows a listing of topics that most recently had replies (thus active). In lieu of having the ability to "subscribe" or "set notification" for topics as we had in the previous NARGS SMF forum, this comes closest.  I REALLY MISS the ability to set a topic as "new"; I check the forum and click "New and Updated Topics" which shows those topics you have not actually visited since a new response has come in, then think "I really must respond to that", and I do that for several messages, but previously I could set that those topics "as new" so that I wouldn't miss responding to them later. So, looking through "Active Topics" comes closest, unless Daniel knows of a way to flag a topic "as new".

2.  I see what you're saying about browser window back-and-forth continuity, but the workaround that I use, open a second tab, even if to look at a second instance of NARGS Forum; I'm okay with that.

3. Yes, there are more steps uploading/posting photos (sort of), but there's more flexibility here. Doing "inline" or embedded photos previously, one had to write out [attachthumb=1]  [attachthumb=2], etc; a manual process.  In this forum, upload the image, add Title Text (mouse-over pop-up text), place the cursor, and hit insert... don't like it's placement, highlight-and-delete it, reposition the cursor, hit Insert again; lots of flexibility, I actually like it now that I understand it.  The first hour or so working with it, I was rather befuddled by the process... it may be challenging for forumists, we'll have to recreate some How-To docs.

4. So far as the notification about the auto-resizing of images, I'm good with this.  It reinforces what the Max image size is.  I'm a firm believer of actually resizing images to fit within agreed upon maximum constraints, for best image quality, so will continue to do so rather than allow auto-resizing.  However, the fact it will auto-resize images to fit, is awesome, sort of the best of both worlds.  The resizing doesn't happen to all images, only those that have an X or Y dimension > 800 pixels.

4a.  I agree regarding the long list page size when uploading multiple images, requiring scrolling, the developers of Drupal could have made the interface more concise, but overall I like the flexibility the upload process provides, so scrolling is the small price to pay.

5. "My Workbench" and "My Drafts", I have no idea, I haven't looked at these yet.

6.  I'm truly surprised, given this day and age, that there are no controls here to change font size and color!!!  Nor change the font itself. Seems almost prehistoric to not have full "rich text" capabilities, these basics have been in web pages and every email editor for the past 15 yrs or more.  I don't think most users here will want to fiddle with HTML tags to get some effects.  Daniel, can the forum Edit window be allowed to use Rich Text, with selectable font, color and size?  And no emoticons!  What a joy-kill that is, its these personalizations that can make the forum experience fun, like Skype chat.

7. Seeing only the last message when composing a message, I agree completely, I really liked the old forum where one could see a whole page of previous messages.  No I resort to my workaround, open two NARGS Forum browser tabs, one for reference, one for active edit.

8. Missing images in the first post of many topics.  Yes, this appears to be a bug in the data migration from the old forum to the new one.  Another question for

Daniel: what corrective actions can be taken to find the photos that existing in the old forum, that have been missed by the data import, to get them restored?  Similarly, can a scripted "search and replace" be done to fix the hundreds of NARGS Forum urls from the old form, to correct the path to work on the new forum?  Or, are the hundreds of broken URLs too different to be automatically fixed, thus stay broken? Please advise.

-------------------------

New one (9.):  Lori mentioned this earlier.  When I deleted a topic today (it was just a redirection type of message created after I split a topic in the old forum), it throws me out to the root of NARGS.org, not sure why it does that.  I was in the "Unanswered" topics view, which I like, a good reminder to taken action on such topics, but deleting a topic there should remain in that view, not throw me out to NARGS home page.

I seems odd that when I open a thread that has more than one photo posted in it, sometimes it is possible to flip through the enlarged photos one by one using the right/left arrow keys, and other times it isn't and the photos have to be enlarged one by one.

Yes, you're right, Mark - the photo posting function is much more versatile now.

The enlarged photos have worked for me, that is, they display for the user's post, and right/left arrow keys work.  The anomalies I've seen, is that the right/left arrows will continue on to other posts (sometimes) ... need to figure out if it happens to other posts from the same user, or randomly just other posts from any user.

Feature Fix Request:  In the Private Message view, some messages do not show the "participant" name (the person(s) who sent you the message), and the time stamp is only by year which is sort of ridiculous, needs to be normalized to show regular date format of day-month-year and time.

[quote=Lori S.]

4.  Do we really need to know that every photo posted has been "resized to fit within the maximum allowed dimensions of 800x800 pixels" (see example, below).  Would it be possible for there to be just a single brief statement that this WILL be done to all photos?

When posting multiple photos, you end up with a long, long string of these messages which takes up a lot of screen room and means a lot of scrolling to get from the dialog box down to the bottom of the page where the photo manipulation takes place.

[/quote]

I find this very anoying also.  When posting many photos, having to scroll through a page and more of "your photo was resized" messages each time, to load----place cursor in text where needed----insert.........and for each photo, is not at all effective.  If we can't get rid of the multiple resizing messages, can we at least make them not take up so many lines of space?

I really miss the "mark as new" (or "mark as unread" feature, too.

New one (10). I also miss having the ability to go to any page of the thread from both the top of the page and the bottom.  (As it is now, it's only available at the bottom.)

I've also noticed that using the arrows in the enlarge photo mode can continue to the next message.

Regarding "Participants" in my Messages list, it seems the only ones listed have (or had) some sort of administrative access: me, Mark, Lori, Todd Boand, Chris K., Peter George, Hugh, McGregor...

Although, since the big change, I haven't had any pm's from "plain" forum members.

[quote=RickR]

Regarding "Participants" in my Messages list, it seems the only ones listed have (or had) some sort of administrative access: me, Mark, Lori, Todd Boand, Chris K., Peter George, Hugh, McGregor...

Although, since the big change, I haven't had any pm's from "plain" forum members.

[/quote]

In the screen capture of my Inbox, participant names appeared from regular forum users and admins, all messages prior to the forum migration do not list who the message is from, and at the top was a message sent to myself as a text, the participant field is blank.

Gene and Lori brought up the issue where the "Last Post" listed in "Family, Genus, Species" on the main Forum Home page, does not update properly.  This is true, appears to be a bug, and might be related to the fact the "Family, Genus, Species" area is actually a collection of sub-boards, or as they're called on this new forum, sub-forums, and because of this nested structure it gets confused and doesn't show the correct "last topic". 

In my test example, I responded to Lori in "Family, Genus, Species"  >  "2) Astragalus, Oxytropis, Lupinus, and other Fabaceae" board on the Indian Bread-root plant, yet on NARGS Forum Home page, it shows that a post in Terrestrial Orchids was the last post 14 hours prior.

Yet, if you actually go to the "Family, Genus, Species" page, it now shows a listing of all of the categorized boards, and scanning down the list, it does properly show my recent post in "2) Astragalus, Oxytropis, Lupinus, and other Fabaceae".  Unless there is a fix, go to the actual "Family, Genus, Species" page to see the status of new or "last posts" for that area.

Question for everyone:  in the old forum, if, while you were composing a message and then went to post it, someone else had posted to the same topic just moments before, the forum would prompt you that you're not responding to the lastest post, asking whether to proceed or not.  Did you like that behavior?

Here on the new forum, it just posts without such a check.  On the old forum I got burned a number of times where I lost my message because of that pop-up message.  I don't have a strong opinion on this one way or the other, but I'm okay with how it works here, what's your opinion?

I found that pop up message annoying, and disruptive, so am happy with the fact that it doesn't occur here in the new Forum.

Mark, in your "Reply to 31", you identified the situtation I was trying to describe!  Thanks,

I like the pop-up message about not responding to the last post - seems useful.

I also like the message that appears if a post has be uploaded since my last refresh.   Often, in my replies I need to go out and check something in the garden, verify a name on a tag, etc. that requires a temporary absence from the computer.  A considerable amount of time may elapse by the time I return, and it prevents cross posting and messages that seem confusing to readers.  If I know a new post has since been posted during my composing, I can refine it to make sense in the natural flow of the thread, rather than posting again, explaining why the first post didn't make a lot of sense.

  I've never had that pop up message (or in fact, anything) kick me out of log in status, or nargs.

"My Messages" still seems to be acting a bit weird.  

I only have 4 messages present in my "Sent Messages" file (out of many dozens that should be there).    "All Messages" shows more, but is still missing some.  Anyone else seeing this?

My first real error experience here.  I had posted a message, and it showed it actually went through, but now I can't seem to find it anywhere.  I only thought about it when Lori mentioned her Sent box was abbreviated.  In fact in my missing message, I had mentioned that my Sent messages box was also vastly incomplete.  So here is the missing message again:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is "interesting"....

I received this email, notifying me that I had a nargs pm........from myself!

Nope. Didn't do that.

I went to my inbox and nothing was there

Nor was there anything in my Sent box.  (And I have sent more than four messages over the years, too.)

So I went back to my original email, and used the link given there.

The "new" message was the very first pm I received on the old forum.

Now just prior to this, I had been flipping through my old message pages to see who was listed in the "participant" category.  And I did open the last (oldest) page.

But I didn't do anything, I swear!

The forum search engine works, sort of. 

I put the word "participant" (without the quotes) in the search box, and I get results, but this thread we are in now does not come up.  Why the format is configured to show the oldest (year 2010) results first, I don't know.  But, when I filter for 2013 results, this thread (NARGS forum - Issues, Suggestions, Questions) does not show.  These words: participant, participants, "participants" - they are all in the texts of this thread multiple times.

Additionally, the forum search box itself hides the forum thread title, if the title is too long (i.e. this threads title).

Hmmm, lots to sort out with private messages it seems. Rick, in your last screen capture on message #38 I see something that I noticed in my mail as well, when sorted by date, there are two entries without any description, dated 1969!  I don't even think there with computers back then [here's-where-we-would-normally-insert-grin-emoticon].

Here's one that I think has not yet been mentioned.

It is possible to copy a link to a particular thread, e.g. Pulsatilla patens:  https://www.nargs.org/forum/pulsatilla-patens

However, it does not seem to be possible to copy the link to a particular message within a thread, e.g. the fourth response in the above thread.  

Surely it must be possible to do this somehow?  What am I missing?

EDIT:   Just noticed something else.. When I composed the message above, and when I view it in Edit mode, the words "particular message" are underlined, as I intended.  However, when I view the posted message, there is no underline.

EDIT #2 (by Mark McD):  I see what you're saying Lori, the two words are underlined, but not displaying as such. The last part of my note here, should be underlined, hope it works.  Hmmm, it seems underlining does not work.

[quote=Lori S.]

Here's one that I think has not yet been mentioned.

It is possible to copy a link to a particular thread, e.g. Pulsatilla patens:  https://www.nargs.org/forum/pulsatilla-patens
However, it does not seem to be possible to copy the link to a particular message within a thread, e.g. the fourth response in the above thread. 
Surely it must be possible to do this somehow?  What am I missing?

[/quote]

I'm not sure I understand this one Lori.  I went to the Pulsatilla patens thread per your link, went down to message #4, went into Edit mode on that message, and pasted the link cited above into it, then saved, and it worked just fine.  I went back and deleted my edit to clean up afterwards.  Do you get an error message of some sort when attempting to copy and paste a link into a message thread?

I'll try to explain... (Sorry, Mark!  You know, I really feel for the IT people at work, having to deal with descriptions of computer problems from the computer-illiterate like myself!!  ;-)   No, no error messages.

In the old forum, when you clicked on a particular message in a thread, the address bar at the top of the computer screen would show an address that included a  unique identifer number for that particular posting.  Thus, you could go to the 23rd response which was on Page 7 (or wherever) in a long thread and copy the exact address to that response, and post it elsewhere, so that someone could go directly to the 23rd response.

Now, it appears to me that the address bar only shows the general title of the thread, no matter which of the messages within the thread I have clicked on.  

EDIT:   Okay, I have to correct myself from what I claimed immediately above about the general title... It IS possible to get it down to the PAGE within a long thread, though still not to the iINDIVIDUAL POST.  (Capitals for emphasis, since underlining doesn't seem to work!)   In the following example, I was trying to post the link to the 3rd message down on Page 9 of this thread, but the closest I can get is starting at the top of  Page 9, not to the message itself.

https://www.nargs.org/forum/seed-starting-chronicles-2013?page=9

I hope I've explained it clearly... apologies if not.

Lori, have you noticed that the message number in the right-hand corner of each post, is a live link.  If you click that link, it should show you the URL to that specific link, giving the exact same capability as in the previous form.

I went to the example link you gave:
https://www.nargs.org/forum/seed-starting-chronicles-2013?page=9

...scroll down to a specific message, then click the message # on the right of the message, then copy its URL from the Browser, works for me.

https://www.nargs.org/comment/22186#comment-22186

Ah ha!  Okay, thank you very much!

EDIT:

Here's a quicker (I think) way to do the same:

Go to the specific post you want a link to.   Click on the post number which is on the right hand side of the header area:

The address for that particular message then shows up in the address bar at the top of the screen:

The address bar can then be coped and posted into a message.  Viola!

I think we said the same thing :-)

Oops, you're absolutely right!  (I thought you were describing something a little different but no.  Sorry, I need to read more carefully!)

With my Firefox browser, if I right click the post number at the right, my drop down menu opts a "Copy link location".  This also copies the URL for that page, beginning with that particular post, and it is faster and easier.

[quote=RickR]

With my Firefox browser, if I right click the post number at the right, my drop down menu opts a "Copy link location".  This also copies the URL for that page, beginning with that particular post, and it is faster and easier.

[/quote]

Good observation Rick, that certainly is quicker than the slower two-step process I had been using (clicking the message# > it loads the page starting from that message# > then copy the URL at the top). 

A similar shortcut is available in Internet Explorer browser, right-click on the post number on the right, use the "Copy Shortcut" option from the drop-down menu.
 

Just tried this on the SRGC Forum, it works for both Firefox and Internet Explorer as described above, except one must click on the Message Title link in a specific message (just above the Reply # text).

Good to know!  It works in Safari also.   Just right click on the Message #, then "Copy Link".

I had my first AJAX HTTP error when trying to upload a pic.  For me, it is linked to the use of the quote button when I reply.  I tried it twice both ways, using the quote button and using the larger regular reply button at the bottom of the page.  The only way I could upload a pic was with the reply button. 

And a new twist:

I clicked okay on the AJAX error dialog box to get rid of it.  Then (for a reason I don't remember) I click the back button to view the page before, then the forward button to return to the page, and the pic I was trying to upload was uploaded!  Silly me, I tried it again (back button, then forward) and the document was timed out, so I never saw if I could actually post that pic or not.

I had an error too last night after attempting to show a quote also - this was in the "What do you see in your garden walks" thread.  It wasn't the AJAX HTTP error; instead, it said the photo could not be loaded as it was probably larger than 16 MB... although both photos were actually less than 100 kB.   I had to "Save" the message without photos, then was able to add the photos one by one, saving in between.

This post of interest for forum Moderators.  I set a topic for "No Comments" (thus locked).  I'm trying to remember, but if I remember correctly, if a topic was locked, a forum Admin or Moderator still had a reply button to add new posts (because they're Admins).  Under the new NARGS Forum, if close a topic to comments, it closes it for myself and other Admin Moderators to reply, although the Edit button should still function for you (moderators).

So, the only way I see to add new posts to a locked topic, is to temporarily unlock the topic by editing the first message and allowing comments, make your post, then go back and re-lock the topic by setting it back to no comments.  It's an inconvenient work-around, but it will work.  To avoid forumists posting while the topic is unlocked, best to have the message mostly composed in a text editor beforehand.

Here's a report of not being able to renew membership via the new site facility:

https://www.nargs.org/comment/23477#comment-23477

[quote=Mark McD]I primarily use Firefox 9.0.1, not Internet Explorer.[/quote]

Browser version can sometimes be relevant. Firefox 9.01 was released in Dec, 2011. Firefox 22 was released in June, 2013. In addition, Internet Explorer has become known as the 'problem child' of the web browser family. I do check some things in Internet Explorer when developing a web site, but I don't browse the internet with it. I use Firefox mainly, Chrome, and on my Mac, sometimes Safari. On my PC, I use Firefox and Chrome.

I should've been more explicit in my browsers used; on my laptop I use Firefox 22 (browser set for auto-updates), it's my work laptop so only use it to view Nargs Forum or other non-work related web sites as a test, it also has the latest Chrome and IE.  I have 4 VDI (virtual desktop machines) that I work on, again, each with the three Browsers at latest version. On my older home PC, I maintain Firefox at a version that works with FAFSA, have just one more year of filing on FAFSA (notorious for being browser finicky and incompatible, no matter what their browser specs say).

All users can now change their username. Previously, just members could.

Just added to the "Fitlered HTML" format in CKEditor (the wywiwyg text editor):

• Autogrow (text editor will elongate downward with your message)
• Font Selector
• Font Size
• Font Colour
• Spell Check

Right-Click Copy is a browser function vs. Ctrl-C is an operating system function. As far as I know (a euphemism for I don't really) Internet Explorer allows both.

The "(Reply to #3)" header text will be moved farther to the right momentarily.
 

Until this new forum system came about, I never realized the difference between the "post reply" and reply" buttons.  I know that other non-nargs forums have these different reply buttons, but I never thought much about it. But since I am moderator here, I investigated.  I think the nuance here, "reply to message #blah blah", is lost to the casual forumist.  I don't think many people know the difference.  I think there are a lot of people (including myself before I realized the difference) who erroniously use the "reply to message #blah blah" when they post a general message, and vice versa. 

This inadvertent erasing of other posts by association is a bad thing.  In addition, on forums like this or SRGC, a "reply to message #blah blah" almost always contains useful information relevant to the general topic subject.  Relevant information that is beyond the content that actually associates with the message #blah blah.  General discussion is compromised.

Another thing I forgot to mention regarding the edit function:

Why does the heading still say "Post New Reply" when you are in the edit mode?  It should say "Edit Reply", or some such.

[quote=RickR]Until this new forum system came about, I never realized the difference between the "post reply" and reply" buttons.
[/quote]We can change the text on the 'Reply' button to 'Reply to this post', or something to that effect, and 'Post Reply' could be changed to 'Reply to Original Topic', or whatever. [quote=RickR]Why does the heading still say "Post New Reply" when you are in the edit mode?  It should say "Edit Reply", or some such.[/quote]We can also change the text "Post New Reply" to something more logical. Would you like "Edit Reply"?

[quote=Mark McD]

Daniel: what corrective actions can be taken to find the photos that existing in the old forum, that have been missed by the data import, to get them restored?  Similarly, can a scripted "search and replace" be done to fix the hundreds of NARGS Forum urls from the old form, to correct the path to work on the new forum?  Or, are the hundreds of broken URLs too different to be automatically fixed, thus stay broken? Please advise.

-------------------------

New one (9.):  Lori mentioned this earlier.  When I deleted a topic today (it was just a redirection type of message created after I split a topic in the old forum), it throws me out to the root of NARGS.org, not sure why it does that.  I was in the "Unanswered" topics view, which I like, a good reminder to taken action on such topics, but deleting a topic there should remain in that view, not throw me out to NARGS home page.[/quote]I will look into both of these items.

I added subscription capability. You will notice it in 4 places.

On your Member Dashboard, accessed by clicking on your username, top right. There you will have a new tab, "subscriptions". You can enable or disable subscriptions. After 3 years, a subscription will automatically be disabled.

On an original Topic post. In the links section at the bottom of the post you will see "Subscribe". You will receive notification of any replies.

When you post a new Topic, there will be a checkbox to receive notification of replies.

When you Reply to a Topic you will see a trio of checkboxes. You can subscribe to all replies in the Topic or only replies to your Reply.

I will make the "Subscribe" link look like the other 'buttons' in the links section. Just not today.

I don't think anyone denies that there is some logic to deleting child posts if the parent post is deleted, but for us, it's not what we want.  So often in child posts, there is a lot of pertinent, useful and wanted information that is not necessarily related to the parent post, but should be kept as part of the general discussion.  In addition, that someone can delete other people's posts, AND without even knowing it, is alarming.

Can we just get rid of the reply button that is "reply to this post" altogether?  Then there could be no child posts.  This would solve everything, in my opinion.

What do you think, Lori and Mark....?

The regular post reply buttons at the top and bottom should remain named as is, in my opinion.  The discussions may take some some turns a bit off topic, and this is not always a bad thing.  "Reply to original topic" is too limiting, I think.

[quote=Daniel Dillon]

RickR wrote:

Why does the heading still say "Post New Reply" when you are in the edit mode?  It should say "Edit Reply", or some such.

We can also change the text "Post New Reply" to something more logical. Would you like "Edit Reply"?

[/quote]

I like "Edit Reply", unless Mark or Lori have another idea....

Thank you.

I like "Edit Reply" also.

Managed to successfully renew online tonight.

Cheers Dave.

I guess I don't mind the idea of the child thread (though on the other hand, it seems needlessly complicated) but I agree that I don't like the Delete command removing the ENTIRE child thread either!

[quote=RickR]

Daniel Dillon wrote:

RickR wrote:

Why does the heading still say "Post New Reply" when you are in the edit mode?  It should say "Edit Reply", or some such.

We can also change the text "Post New Reply" to something more logical. Would you like "Edit Reply"?

I like "Edit Reply", unless Mark or Lori have another idea....

Thank you.

[/quote]

I agree, "Edit Reply" seems sensible.

[quote=RickR]

I don't think anyone denies that there is some logic to deleting child posts if the parent post is deleted, but for us, it's not what we want.  So often in child posts, there is a lot of pertinent, useful and wanted information that is not necessarily related to the parent post, but should be kept as part of the general discussion.  In addition, that someone can delete other people's posts, AND without even knowing it, is alarming.

Can we just get rid of the reply button that is "reply to this post" altogether?  Then there could be no child posts.  This would solve everything, in my opinion.

What do you think, Lori and Mark....?

The regular post reply buttons at the top and bottom should remain named as is, in my opinion.  The discussions may take some some turns a bit off topic, and this is not always a bad thing.  "Reply to original topic" is too limiting, I think.

[/quote]

Well said Rick, the most alarming thing about the issue of deleting a message, is that when or IF a user decides to delete a message, they will be deleting other people's posts as well, which should not be allowed!  I would underline the last part of my sentence for emphasis, but underline still does not work.

I'm not sure I expressed it clearly enough, but I think the part I was trying to illustrate is, the Delete function warns that it will delete all messages that were directly responded to the message being deleted, but I believe it is worse than that... it also deleted messages that were in response to any message subsequently, in other words, any message that came after the message being deleted.  I plan on testing this theory out.  I will post a new disposable message in a new Topic, with the premise that I will delete a message at some point in the thread, and I believe it'll delete every message *after* that deleted message.  Not sure why standard users's would have the ability, security and permissions-wise, to delete other forumists' posts. 

In fact, we don't want that to happen even for administrators, it should be possible to go to a message that needs to be deleted, and have ONLY the selected message be deleted, regardless of any subsequently posted messages.

I changed some permissions. Only Forum Moderators will be able to delete a Topic or Reply. If they do, everything the follows that particular post will also be deleted. The recommended approach is to Edit the post you want to 'Delete' to read, "This Topic (Reply) has been deleted." All forum participants have permission to do this as well. I placed an instructional note under the 'Text Format' section beneath the WYSIWYG editor.

Daniel, why should it be that all posts AFTER the deleted one are also deleted???  Why can't a single post be deleted by a moderator without these huge repercussions!!   

Each item of content in Drupal can exist in either of 2 states, unless you add more. They are Published and Unpublished. The difference is obvious. Now you see me, now you don't, but I still exist and administrators can see me; So it is a checkbox.

In this method you could Unpublish a Reply. All its children will still remain Published and visible to all site visitors. If you Unpublish a Topic however, the children also become unpublished. The permission to publish/unpublish is rolled in with some other administrative permissions and affect all content types, so it cannot be given to Members or Guests.

There is a module that gives you a bit more granular control over who can publish/unpublish what. I have not tested it as I am not in favor of installing more modules unless absolutely necessary, as every additional module slows the site.

I think I used the word 'after' in error; it is ambiguous in this context. When a Reply is deleted, only its children, grandchildren, etc are deleted.

Yes, I think I understood you.  If there is one "offensive" post, that the moderators possibly don't see for a couple of days, when it is deleted, everything after it, valuable or not also gets deleted?   Why would we want this?  

[quote=Daniel Dillon]

I think I used the word 'after' in error; it is ambiguous in this context. When a Reply is deleted, only its children, grandchildren, etc are deleted.

[/quote]

Not really, based upon my experiment, deleting a message will delete all that follows (children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc), with the exception of a "Reply to #" where the number is "less than" or "previous to" the message being deleted.  Hairs are being split semantically, the point is deleting a single message on this New NARGS Forum has the undesirable consequence of deleting much more than it should delete, only the selected message should be deleted.  So, the question remains, does this Drupal forum have the technical capability of just deleting a single message or not?  From what you're telling us Daniel, it does not.

Which leads me to another question asked before but was not answered, is it technically possible on this New NARGS Forum under Drupal format to SPLIT a topic?  Being able to Split or Merge topics or portions of topics in the previous forum was incredibly useful.  Based upon what you're telling us here about the underlying "parent-child message thread behavior", this too is not technically possible on this new forum?

There exists a module for splitting forum posts. It has no 'stable' release, but it works for the most part. I will look into correcting a bug that results in the new Topic, after the split, having the posting date change to the date of the split. I will report back on my progress.

[quote=Daniel Dillon]

There exists a module for splitting forum posts. It has no 'stable' release, but it works for the most part. I will look into correcting a bug that results in the new Topic, after the split, having the posting date change to the date of the split. I will report back on my progress.

[/quote]

Please wait a minute, before heading off to look for a module that might add more issues to the fray, let's focus on the primary issue in the first paragraph above; the issue of deleting a single post.  I repeat the paragraph here:

------------------------------
Not really, based upon my experiment, deleting a message will delete all that follows (children, grandchildren, great grandchildren, etc), with the exception of a "Reply to #" where the number is "less than" or "previous to" the message being deleted.  Hairs are being split semantically, the point is deleting a single message on this New NARGS Forum has the undesirable consequence of deleting much more than it should delete, only the selected message should be deleted.  So, the question remains, does this Drupal forum have the technical capability of just deleting a single message or not?  From what you're telling us Daniel (about the Published and Unpublished states), it does not.

------------------------------

The "Post Reply" button at the top and bottom of every topic page creates a generic response without creating a linked child or grandchild response, without the live link saying "Reply to #x" in the reply.  If the "Reply" button that appears in every reply were to be removed, and only the top and bottom "Post Reply" button remained, would that have the effect of creating a consecutive linear stack of messages without the parent-child-grandchild thread-linking?

Update: testing this further, using the "Post Reply" button shows the first message in the topic as its context, so therefore I'm now assuming that even using the "Post Reply" button, the reply might be considered a child to the first message in the topic.

I noticed in the Roscoea topic, that at the top of page 2, after Longma's latest post, there is a time zone error at the top. What is causing that?

Email Notifications:

I notice that I sometimes get two email notifications for the same reply.  They're slightly different, one indicates who made the comment, and the other one does not. And, the unsubscribe link is different. I prefer the version with the commentor's name.  I attach a photo showing the two messages in my email InBox side-by-side.  Is there a reason why the first line of the text is cut-off then the full line of text appearing on the second line?

For other's to know, under your Profile, there is now a Subscriptions tab, where you can see what you've subscribed to, each with an option to unsubscribe.  Or, one can use the unsubscribe link in the email notifications for specific topics.

[quote=Mark McD]

I noticed in the Roscoea topic, that at the top of page 2, after Longma's latest post, there is a time zone error at the top. What is causing that?[/quote]

Not sure. It goes away on a page re-load and a stray away and hit 'Back' sequence, so it probably relates to the previous page; likely the anonymous post with no date. I will see if I can clean that up.

[quote=Mark McD]

Email Notifications:

I notice that I sometimes get two email notifications for the same reply.  They're slightly different, one indicates who made the comment, and the other one does not. And, the unsubscribe link is different. I prefer the version with the commentor's name. ... ... Is there a reason why the first line of the text is cut-off then the full line of text appearing on the second line?[/quote]

I believe the first one is saying you explicitly subscribed to a post, either Topic or Reply, whereas the second one is saying your default is set to always subscribe to your posts. You'd think you would only get one in the end. I will see if I can change the second one to show the commenter's username too.

The first line, chopped off after a few words, is the Title (or Subject) of the Reply. By default, if the field is left blank, the first few words become the 'Subject' in all output of the Reply. The 'Subject' field is disabled in the forum as it would be a nuisance. The subject line should therefore also be removed from output as well. I can see about removing that.

It's awfully quiet around the Forum across many of the threads, which must mean folks are finding it difficult to come to terms with the new setup. Does anyone know if the many points raised by Mark and others have been worked on, or are being worked on?

Hi David,

I've only recently returned to this Forum after sorting out my password, etc.

As I said earlier  it will take some getting used to, but it's probably because I'm of the generation that thought this computer lark would never last!

I'm a bit curious as to why I (and many others) am listed as "guest" rather than member -  I am paid up!<grin>

cheers

fermi

Fermi, I have no idea why it says "guest" but will ask to have it looked into.

Hmm, I think the best remedy for inactivity in this forum is for all of us who are here, to post and post often!!   :-)  I would love to see more discussion and more photos, so please join in!

Friends,

I posted what follows on 8 August (I had to jump through all kinds of hoops today to perform what should be a simple task of using a quote from a previous post and it now appears at the end of this- don't ask!). To date, apart from Mark who replied to me privately, no-one of NARGS authority has taken the trouble to respond to my main point and I repeat it here:-

"Does anyone know if the many points raised by Mark and others have been worked on, or are being worked on"

In my opinion the new Forum is entirely deficient and not fit for purpose and is the root course of the number of posts now falling to negligible proportions. IT DOESN'T WORK PROPERLY AND BECAUSE IT'S TOO DIFFICULT  TO USE PEOPLE HAVE GIVEN UP ON IT!!!!! ARE YOU LISTENING, OR DON'T YOU CARE!

 Similar views are being expressed currently on another thread.

I think the lack of response from NARGS Officers, and I have written personally to Peter George (without any reply) is bordering on contemptuous.

"It's awfully quiet around the Forum across many of the threads, which must mean folks are finding it difficult to come to terms with the new setup. Does anyone know if the many points raised by Mark and others have been worked on, or are being worked on?"

I share the same thoughts as David! Although I have learnt how to post in this new forum I have still not managed to orient myself in the topics and threads here.

And it is clear that a lot of contributors have disappeared.

The new NARGS Forum could be fixed, if only there was a responsive process to get it fixed. I don't want to even discuss why NARGS needed to change the forum to this new format, it wasn't something that was needed, but let that point end there; I think I speak for the NARGS Moderators that we just want to fix the current problems and make new NARGS Forum a better experience.  The single high priority improvement to the site, would be the addition of a "Mark Unread" button, to flag a topic as New.  I have asked repeatedly, is it technically feasible in the new NARGS Drupal web format, to add a button to mark a topic as Unread; this would enhance the ability to have meaningful responses, but so far in two months of trying, it meets with silence, we're powerless (the Moderators) to improve the experience.  Response from NARGS Leadership is basically nil as well, not sure why, perhaps the project is an embarrassment.

If some high priority items could be addressed by the "NARGS Web Helper Guy" Daniel Dillon, then we could move forward and get the improvements enacted and be in a better situation. The NARGS Web Master position appears to have been terminated, but impossible to get a direct answer from NARGS Leadership what the status is for having a NARGS Web Master.

In terms of using the new NARGS Forum, and how to post photos, new instructions can be made. BUT, we need to hear from NARGS Leadership on the issues that have been raised, and ways to address those issues, to feel confident there is a process in place.

I did find it a bit different to start with, but think I'm getting the hang of it now!

Still a bit pathetic at posting pics but I find it very easy to post comments using the iPad.

Can't wait to show you the Iris aucheri which has flowered today - from NARGS Seedex 2005! - but it'll have to wait till I can download the pic at work tomorrow! <grin>

cheers

fermi

It's unfortunate that the forum is so little used.  When I check who is on the forum, I usually see only one or two other names.  Now the NARGS forum has never been as active as the Scottish Rock Garden Forum (with 71 users today, for example), but the drop-off in activity since the changeover to Drupal is dramatic.  Before the change, I thought the activity was picking up.  The discussions were certainly livelier.

As a retired techie, I have pretty much figured out how to use the forum as much as I want to use it.  I find it incredibly slow compared to the old forum, and no improvement in any way over the old format.  It is distressing that so much money has gone into creating a product that does not meet expectation.

Actually Fermi, once one understands how uploading embedded photos work on this site, I find it much more flexible than with other sites, even moreso than SMF forums (such as SRGC and previous NARGS).  I like the easy ability to reposition embedded photos (no need to reload them), add caption text, automatic resizing if uploading images larger than the stated max size, and many more photos allowed during one upload session.  Feel free to send me a PM or Moderators Lori and Rick if you have some questions on uploading photos. Much better than Facebook too, where it's nearly impossible to control the order of images when uploading multiple images, then needing to separately caption each photo otherwise they will float around FB captionless, to the frustration of FB users.

[quote=Cockcroft]

It's unfortunate that the forum is so little used.  When I check who is on the forum, I usually see only one or two other names.  Now the NARGS forum has never been as active as the Scottish Rock Garden Forum (with 71 users today, for example), but the drop-off in activity since the changeover to Drupal is dramatic.  Before the change, I thought the activity was picking up.  The discussions were certainly livelier.

As a retired techie, I have pretty much figured out how to use the forum as much as I want to use it.  I find it incredibly slow compared to the old forum, and no improvement in any way over the old format.  It is distressing that so much money has gone into creating a product that does not meet expectation.

[/quote]

Claire, I think you expressed it well, this changeover to a Drupal-driven forum, versus keeping the SMF forum (software expressly developed for forums) that we had before, has had the net effect of dampening forum traffic.  In part, this might also be due to people having difficulty logging in initially, we know fof some actual cases where the password reset feature didn't work for some people who attempted to login, so some users might have just given up.  The lack of a "mark unread" feature on topics, is a real deterrent to "conversation", because after looking briefly at what new messages came in, one forgets which topics they were when returning to the forum at a later point. If we could just get a few of the main issues resolved, I think traffic would increase.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts here :-)

Although it seems as though I've been 'missing' these past few months, I've followed the introduction of the new website and Forum extremely closely. Rather than insert myself into a process and a project about which I know very little, I've left the discussions to those who have a real understanding of the issues, and whose input would be helpful. The people who have managed this project are competent, and have my trust, but at this point the Administrative Committee is going to get involved to delve into where we are today, and where we ought to be. I'll be sharing as much information as possible over the next few weeks, and hopefully we'll all understand a good deal more about the process, the current status, and what we can expect over the next 2-3 months.

I just want to affirm the fact that I have some authority as President of NARGS, but I'm not a monarch. And given the level of knowledge I have about technical issues (very little), any interference from me during this process would have been................well, unhelpful. Let's see what the next couple of weeks brings. And please continue to offer suggestions/criticisms. They are not being ignored.

Peter

I'm afraid I've become one of the NARGS Forum dropouts.  I find it difficult to use, and most importantly, difficult to have a good overview of what's new.  Things seem to disappear from view and it seems much harder to keep track of conversations.  Personally, I really liked the old forum (probably because I understood how to use it), and I miss it.  I like the concept of a Forum - so much useful information from so many very talented growers - but I don't have the time for what seems to be a very steep learning curve.  The old Forum was getting better, and now it is back to zero.  "If it ain't broke, don't fix it". 

Hi Anne.

We all are facing the task of learning where the buttons are, and perhaps accept that a couple of buttons may no longer be there. After reading your complaint, above, I can offer no solutions as the complaint was vague and seemed to be more a venting of frustration rather than a request for help. If you have a specific question, I can answer it for you, and maybe help to reduce the incline of the learning curve. Please feel free to ask me, or Mark McDonough if you have a concern. We are here to help.

Hi Anne, as always please feel free to contact me (or the other Moderators) with questions you may have on using the forum, and in the evenings after work I can help out.

So far as keeping track of conversations, two things can help:

1. Mouse over the Forum tab at top of the forum page, and select "Active" from the drop-down menu; it displays a list of topics most recently having active posts.

2. For topics you're most interested in, you can Subscribe to them and get email notification when new replies arrive. Do this by going to the first page of a topic, then at the bottom of the very first message, click on "Subscribe".

I urge you to try using the forum, it's really not all that different than using SRGC or even Facebook, as Daniel says, we're here to help.

It might be "little different" in many ways Mark but it isn't in the same street as far as good old "user friendliness" is concerned and maybe this is what Anne is getting at.

I do miss a spell checker and I do miss smiley faces that give a wonderful emphasis to posts. When I'm composing a reply to a post I miss too the ability to just scroll down the page and refer to other posts a little further back in the thread. 

Thanks for your feedback David, there is re-invigorated momentum to get some issues taken care of.  The ability to see more than just one post when replying is being looked at. 

As for spell checker it is built-in, in fact, I will spell baddly to shoow that it is werking, misspelled words in blue, haha. See screen capture of this message in progress. The blue background ABC button has been enabled to always be turned ON, and wrongly spelled words become underlined. If a word becomes underlined as you type, right-click the word for spell checker suggestions. Or wait until finishing your draft and spell check underlined words at the end, select only the underlined words you want, and don't bother spell checking Nomocharis, Fritillaria, and Helleborus, because you know you spelled them right, or add them to your spell checker dictionary.

Also, click on the blue-background ABC toolbar button, for more spell check options.

I hope that helps :-)

Thanks, David, for supplying the appropriate words.  For me, the new forum is not user friendly.

Having probably got over the issue of uploading photos which I found to be an absolute pig of a thing my biggest problem is the time it takes for the forum to load. It is like watching paint dry sat in front of my screen with the message 'waiting'.

As we are at the end of my season for a few weeks I will probably have to re-learn the picture posting.

I am trying to be supportive but it is very frustrating compared to the previous programme.

Not sure where NARGS.ORG web server is hosted geographically in the US (in terms of getting a sense of potential internet latency location-wise).  There have been times where something is being done on the "back-end" of NARGS.ORG that's slowing things down, and other times we all experience when internet is slow (probably due to high traffic).  Just did some testing on loading NARGS Forum pages, most pages, boards, and even the initial loading of NARGS Forum from a bookmark, currently taking approx 2 seconds, there were a couple 3 second loads. I'm using a stopwatch feature on my smart phone, not scientifically accurate, but good enough to get a sense of load times. In about 10 minutes doing this, I did hit only one page load that took longer, 13 seconds.  By comparison, loading pages on SRGC Forum took on average about 1.5-2 seconds, occasional longer loads are possible depending on traffic.

With my testing, I am running 3 of my own computers each going through my wireless router to a single internet connection, and have multiple browser windows open on each, with 3 different remote-desktop connections going to computers in another State, and my wife and daughter also access our single internet connection via wireless ; a lot of traffic going though our single internet connection.

Maybe some of our European friends can try something similar, use a stopwatch and report average page-load times.

Tony, I'll be happy to assist if you forget how to load images here.

My bookmarked forum opening page is the "New & Updated Topics".

I go directly to what I have not read by clicking the "View new" in the replies column, or by clicking the topic title if it is a brand new topic.  This works just like the old forum. 

--------------------------------------------------------

I do have a scrolling complaint, too.  With the old forum, I was able to see all the topic titles on the monitor all at once.

I could click on all the new replies without scrolling.  Now on the new forum, each topic takes up so much room that I have to scroll down just to get to all the topics with new replies.

Even better, making a bookmark to the "New and Updated Topics" page, good suggestion Rick.

Regarding scrolling, I don't share the same level of concern; here's a side-by-side space comparison looking at the General Forum on NARGS (left) and SRGC (right), seeing a few more topics listed on the SRGC site because it is more compact displaying text; I don't feel is cause for concern.

Mark,when I look at the general board topics, that is what I see, too.  But that's not the "New and Updated topics" page.  Everything is spread out there,  as I showed above. 

But it is a minor item in the big picture.

Would someone correct and add an ‘up to date’ entry to the first topic “Announcements from Moderators and Administrators” in relation to this new forum’s functions, please!

Also, why does copying text from the new forum format to an excel doc or word doc take a lot more time than the old forum did?

Could you put post instead of save when replying?

Hello Sharon, responses in blue color text, I have numbered your demands and questions.

1. Would someone correct and add an ‘up to date’ entry to the first topic “Announcements from Moderators and Administrators” in relation to this new forum’s functions, please!

All former "Announcements from Moderators and Administrators" that pertain to the old forum have been moved to archive, new announcements and FAQ documents forthcoming as time allows.

2. Also, why does copying text from the new forum format to an excel doc or word doc take a lot more time than the old forum did?

Need much more definitive information to address this. Are you copying purely just text, or text and photos, what versions of Word and Excel are you using, what operating system are you using, how much longer are you talking about... 2 seconds, 6 seconds, 12 seconds?  So I tested copying and pasting posts from new NARGS Forum vs. SRGC (SRGC uses the Simple Machines Forum SMF software, same as the previous NARGS Forum), testing from two different computers and operating systems, and my results are that copying-&-pasting from new NARGS.ORG & SRGC Forum are about the same.  But we're talking about a second or two here or there, one way or the other, splitting hairs.  In my testing, copying & pasting a post (that include a couple image files) from forumists who cross-post to both NARGS and SRGC, the results are essentially equal, a message with about 2 photo images takes on average 3-4 seconds from both sources, a message with just text 1-2 seconds.  Is this really an issue?

3. Could you put post instead of save when replying?

Are you asking, when editing a forum message, can the button at the bottom say "Post" versus the current nomenclature of  "Save"?  I suppose it can anything, it's a matter of semantics.  Hitting "Save" at the end of an edit window is very common, as is "Post", it's a toss of the coin, on NARGS Forum the term is "Save".

Mark, as to the answer to #2, I use old 2007 Word and Excel programs when needed and have no formal training on how to use.  We are connected to what we've been told is a "turned down' fast internet connection (the last available on this rural road on ancient telephone wiring).  The operating system is IE and I connect to internet via wireless.

I tested again last evening the copy and paste issue and admit it is probably is our connection speed even though the copy and paste from SRGC was quick, 3 seconds, and from NARGS took 15 seconds. Both were two sentences, your typing in blue on white and theirs randomly picked out in black on blue. I use copy and paste mostly for genus and species when I see something new to try.  Not to worry I bet this old laptop will get to know this new site better as time goes along. Smile!

The more explanations given whether in difficult or easy computer speak will help us non experts to acclimatize eventually.

#3.  Looking today I see a “Post Reply” button.  Confessing to being confused by the “Save” button at the end of Image Attachments when I was posting only text .  I’ll eventually ‘get it’.

Thanks!

Thank you Sharon, the additional information really helps.

Word and Excel 2007 isn't that old.  The times reported for copy-&-paste were done on my older Windows XP desktop computer, using Word 2000, now that's old.  When I try copy-&-paste from my Lenovo laptop (Windows 7) into Word 2010, from both NARGS and SRGC, pasting is instantaneous, even with 4-5 images selected.

Aha, I think I discovered a problem, it's with pasting into newer versions of Excel. Taking a 4-5 paragraph message, in either SRGC or new NARGS Forum, and paste it into old Excel 2000, it comes in instantly.  Repeat, and select "Paste Special" (to get a chance to paste as regular "Text" instead of "HTML formatted text"), and likewise it comes in instantly.

Now, let's move to Excel 2010 (I don't have access to 2007).  From SRGC, pasting a 4-5 paragraph message takes 10 seconds (HTML text with formatting). If I choose "Paste Special" and paste as Text, it comes in instantly.  From NARGS, pasting a 4-5 paragraph message (HTML text with formatting) takes 40 seconds!  Repeat and select Paste Special (choose Text option) it comes in instantly.

Try using the "Paste Special" option and choose regular text, to see if that helps.  Another trick to remove HTML formatting, is to have Windows NOTEPAD open (assuming you're on Windows), paste into Notepad; it instantly strips text formatting and comes in as simple text, then highlight the text in Notepad and copy-&-paste into your Word or Excel documents, it'll come in instantly. I use this technique when getting weird results copying-&-pasting from web pages.

Amongst us Moderators, we too discussed whether the button at the bottom of the "Post New Reply" page (when you're writing a new post), should say "Post" instead of  "Save" at the bottom.  A few forumists posted messages that were not finished, thinking they were saving the draft.  We'll add this suggested change to the list.

The "Post Reply" button located at the bottom of each topic page, will reply to the very first message of the topic, and show that first message for reference.  This is not self evident.

Thank you again for taking the time to offer your input.

[Moderator - edited several times, color highlighting not working for multiple paragraphs, you might get several email notifications if you're subscribed to this topic]

Paste special is the trick to faster copy and paste issue from the new NARGS site.  Wow!  Have added Notepad to my start up choices.  Thanks again Mark.

I have been trying to find out what I've been doing wrong as far as adding links to my posts. In the "Plants I Should Be Growing" thread, I tried adding a few links to my post about Hebe benthamii by copying the url of the flickriver page (Ctrl c) and pasting it into my reply using "ctrl v" but it doesn't work. What should I be doing?

Gordon, when you use "ctrl v" within the text window, does anything show up, in other words, is Ctrl-v even working for you?  If you open up a normal text editor, like Windows Notepad, after copying a link with Ctrl-c, then move to to the Notepad window, does Ctrl-v paste in the text?

Back to your NARGS Forum posts, before hitting Ctrl-v to past in your link, did you click your cursor into the text window where you want the link to appear?

I just copied and pasted a link to one of your posts in the "Plants I Should Be Growing" topic, the link is below, and in your message where you discuss Stenanthium occidentale, I added a link to a flickriver image, just as a test, all worked okay for me.  Give it another go.

https://www.nargs.org/comment/24755#comment-24755

Hi Mark,

I tried using ctrl c and ctrl v to copy and paste a link into my latest comment on Stenanthium occidentale in Plants I should be growing and nothing happened. I selected  the url address in the original pnwflowers page, clicked ctrl c, and then returned to my forum reply and placed the cursor where I wanted the link to appear before clicking ctrl v. Nothing happened. I then opened Windows Notepad to see if ctrl c had even picked up the url I planned to add. When I clicked ctrl v, the address appeared.

I ended up simply manually typing in the complete link for it to show up in my last post about Stenanthium.

Daniel,

All three "Paste" buttons are active. I just tried using the edit button to add to a post of mine in "Plants I should be growing" where I mention Hebe benthamii. After hitting ctrl c to copy the url, placing my cursor where I want the link to appear , then choosing any of the paste buttons, I get a message from Internet explorer asking if I want to allow this site to access my clipboard. I clicked on "allow" but there was still no link pasted into the post. Is this happening because of security settings in IE?

This sounds very much like a browser issue. IE has fallen behind Firefox and Chrome in several ways. To confirm this is a browser issue, try a different version of IE, if you have it installed on another computer, or Try Firefox or Chrome or a Mac. I work on a Mac most of the time, but when I am working on a PC I'm afraid I never use IE any more because of its idiosyncrasies.

Daniel

I checked it out by using Chrome, instead of IE. Figure now that the issue is with IE, since I was able to use ctrl c and ctrl v in Chrome without any glitches. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction!

I was delighted that the Bulletin was up on the site.  Wanted to find Norman Deno on sandbeds, but daunted to think about browsing every issue.  Google to the rescue, though.  Appears that Google has come here and gone through the Bulletins, so it may be possible to find NARGS articles referred back to this site from a Google search.  Does seem to refer to issue, not page, but not much of a problem

Charles Swanson -- MA USA

Did we loose the option of placing a personal webpage address on our NARGS profile?

Figured out I can use the signature line, though.

[quote=externmed]Did we loose the option of placing a personal webpage address on our NARGS profile?[/quote]

Yes. It is one of the minor things we "gave up" in favor of certain needed changes.

As you found, the signature block is quite versatile.

Why is page 58 and page 59 exactly the same?

(What do you see on your garden walks? 2013)

I see what you mean Rick, obviously some drupal error or corruption there, the whole page of 10 posts is repeated, the only thing changed is the post#.

Daniel, any way to fix this before people start adding new responses to the "What do you see on your garden walks? 2013" topic?

It was clearly a paging issue, perhaps overlapping page counts. I replied to the topic and deleted my reply. That seemed to straighten it out, oddly enough.

Glad you were able to fix that so quickly :-)

Would it be possible to have the threads on posting images on a sidebar or in a prominent "How To" section to make them more visible?  Right now, they are in the "Announcements from Moderators and Administrators" forum, where newcomers to the site are unlikely to look.  

A comment I hear about this site is that people don't see how to navigate around it.  Once the basic functionality of the site has reached the desired levels (and I'm guessing it's pretty close now? - many thanks to those responsible), perhaps making the site more user-friendly in ways like the suggestion above could be added to the "To Do" list?  

Also, assuming the main forum site is reaching a desired level of functioning, or once it does, are there any plans to look at the plant photo site (Plants/All Rock Garden Plants)?  A lot of info that was provided along with the photos (e.g. contributor names, provenance, comments) seems to have gotten lost - could it be restored?  This is an excellent resource and once a few wrinkles get ironed out with it, I'd like to start using and contributing to it again and also encourage others to add their photos and info.

In the seedex order page, has the "Save" function worked for you?  It doesn't seem to be working for me.  (Fortunately, I realized that and also did a screen capture of my choices to reload.)  

Edit:  I think it worked today when I tried it though.

When I tried it, was adding some items to my selection, got distracted with other things and left the window open.  When I went to save the selection, it saved, but wiped out all but two line items, one of those two being an empty field. There might be a time-out threshold of some duration, I don't know. Tried deleting the two items one by one, was finally able to reset it so that I could start from scratch. Haven't tried again yet.

I just read an email from Ger van den Beuken about the spam filter.  Here's the message from him:

This is a question, I don't know how the spam filter plugin works in much detail.  Thanks Claire for adding the information. We will need to hear from Daniel, I don't know if anything has been tweaked in terms of the spam filter.  If one does get prevented from posting because of a "false positive", typically one gets a "Captchas" screen with which to validate what one is posting is not spam.

Daniel, any suggestions?

Not meaning to divert Daniel's attention from the previously-mentioned issue, but here is another another... When messages are sent to me  via the "Contact form", they are not recorded in my Messages area on the NARGS site; instead, they are only viewable in the e-mail program on my computer (a desktop Mac and an iPad).

I rather doubt that this could be how it's intended to work, as there is no way to directly reply to the original message (in the usual e-mail manner, where the original message is shown beneath the reply), since the original message is completely disconnected from the subsequent reply back in the NARGS Messages area.  

Anyone else see this happening?  (I know Mark and Rick don't from a previous discussion about this.)

Hi Steve,

I’m not sure exactly what you tried, but this is exactly how I replace my missing photos.  My browser is Firefox, so it might be slightly different if you use something different.

1. Go to the post in question.

2. Click "edit" below the post.

3. In the text editing box (titled: Body(Edit summary)), there are "picture icons" where the original photos were. Right click on one, then click "Edit link" or "image properties".

4.  The URL box shown contains the original name of the photo file that you had uploaded from your computer.  Click or double click in the box to get the cursor there.  Move the cursor to the right until you recognize the file name.  (for my original files, the space between words is replaced by computer code.  You may find similar anomalies.)

5. Now that you know which photo was used, close the box to return to the edit page.

6. Under “Embedded Images”, add a new file.  Click on “Browse” and upload the photo from your computer.

7. Go back to the text editing box and delete the picture icon.   Leave the cursor where you want the newly uploaded photo to be.

8. Scroll down to your embedded image and click “insert”.  Momentarily, the photo will appear in the text editing box, right where the cursor was left.

On Friday evening from 1900 hours (UK Summer Time)  until I gave up at 1940 I tried to upload pictures to accompany a post. I checked my own Wirelss Broadband speed which gave me a download speed of 11.01Mb/s and an upload speed of 1.36Mb/s. This is really not the first time the site has either taken an age to upload once having connected to it or has failed to upload pictures. Is anyone else having problems?

For best results, images of not more than 2 or 3 Mb should be used. What size of images are you attempting to upload?

Daniel, neither Rick or I could post photos to this site last night and I've tried it just now again and still can't.   

Exceeding the photo size is not the problem.

Photos can be uploaded but "Insert" doesn't work.

The thread I gave up on was the Lewisia 2014 thread and the picture that refused to upload was 59.3Kb the others I was intending to post were 48.3Kb and 61.2Kb

I see from looking at the Lewisia thread today that inspite of my giving up on it the first of my pictures eventually loaded.

OK. I see the problem with "Insert" as well. We will look into it and get back to you.

Fixed. Sorry for the trouble.

Thanks for fixing it, Daniel.

Hi, 

Here's another oddity... photos and text in the text box are posting across the address area at the bottom of the message window:

#5

#10

#52

#50

Could you take a look at it, please, Daniel?

Thank you.

This morning my browser said the NARGS site was "untrusted".  It mentioned that the certificate may have expired.  Was that a hiccup in my browser or is there a problem with site security?

Google Chrome told me the same thing today and I also note that where a Web Address is shown that the https element is now scribed through with a red line. There would seem to be a serious point here that needs to be answered very quickly for us all to be sure we are working in a safe environment.

You sure are an adventurous bunch!

I opted not to open this site when Firefox warned that "If you usually connect to this site without problems, this error could mean that someone is trying to impersonate the site, and you shouldn't continue."

Anyway, the problem has since been corrected.

Rick, fortune favours the brave! Thanks for the reassurance.

Another baffling oversight is the "Contact" box that appears at top of each page on this site. 

When you click on "Contact", it says "This Contact form will send an email to the specified recipient(s)"  and below that, you are supposed to fill out your own identification info and your message.  There is, however, no facility for choosing the recipient of your message. 

   Whenever enigmas like this come up, I search the page for places that are clickable, and often find the answer.  You can click on any of the options under "Boards and committees" at the right, and then choose you recipient.  Unfortunately, I can't find any option for sending to multiple destinations as is indicated.

I sent an email today using the website and got this message:

The specified file temporary://filexbnfQm could not be copied, because the destination directory is not properly configured. This may be caused by a problem with file or directory permissions. More information is available in the system log.

It is irritating to get errors when performing normal functions.  Often I get a stream of error messages at the top of the forum.  Do we blame this on drupal?  I don't know whether the email got through or not.

...Claire

I searched for ages trying to find a way to send a personal mail to another Forum member and failed miserably. At least you found a way Claire. This is a rum old Forum!

To send a personal message:

When you are logged into the Forum, click on your own user name at the top right of any page.  From there, you can click on "Messages" and then you will find the option to "Write new message". If you receive a message from someone else, you should get a notice in your regular email that you have a forum personal message if you checked that option (not sure what the default is), but there is no automatic pop up that alerts you that you have a message waiting to be read, as is with the SRGC.  Yet another deficiency we have been unable to get corrected.

There are so many things that could be done to improve this forum toward a very basic standard, but I think we are on the back burner, when considering priorities with other things that need attention on the site.

Claire, don't know the answer there.  Sorry.

[quote=Lori S.]

Another baffling oversight is the "Contact" box that appears at top of each page on this site. 

When you click on "Contact", it says "This Contact form will send an email to the specified recipient(s)"  and below that, you are supposed to fill out your own identification info and your message.  There is, however, no facility for choosing the recipient of your message. 

[/quote]

This particular shortcoming has now been fixed by Daniel, at the behest of Ben Burr.  Thank you for responding to my request, Ben, and thank you for enacting the solution, Daniel!   

Now, when one clicks on "Contact" at the top of any page in the forum, there are instructions to show how this feature is intended to be used... that is, to contact Site Administrators - see screenshot below (click on it to enlarge; red box added for emphasis):

Thanks for your help Rick. Since I'm only a Forum member I suppose I shouldn't have a view on how NARGS chooses to priotirise  but I do know that this Forum used to work very well and easily and now it don't and this doesn't reflect well on NARG's public face.

I got the same message yesterday when attempting to upload a new picture foe my profile

I also see an error message at the top of the page lately, the same or similar to what Claire reported:

And adding the screenshot above as an attachment generated another error message:

I found the same last evening on the front page of the main site and also the Forum home page. They haven't appeared this morning.....................yet!

Hi folks. There was an issue that was solved this morning. Sorry for the trouble.

It's hard not to believe that the increase in problems of this kind is a result of the introduction of the new Forum software. The missive if it's not broken don't fix it eminently fits the bill with the previous Forum