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Pillock

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1 hour ago, Bfg said:

It was like going to bed and waking up inside a pink blancmange .,  where colour, definition and contrast was more like a four year old's cartoon book than metal car / bus / tractor enthusiasts website where authoritative expertise and experiences are shared, as much as good humour.

Thankfully at the bottom of the window is a button ' Theme' and I could change to 'default'.   Aah at last.,  I can at least read the page  in grey, blues clearly defined against a white(ish) background.   

Next, I looked for the topics I was  following and participating in,  Oh sod, there's no date order to them and the filter doesn't help.  Perhaps in time the still active themes will come to the top. 

It is so very true I am an old giffer  ..but still  I do  understand the need for updates from one server to another, and/or from one package of computer software to the next generation ..but really I don't see why Microsoft nerds, or Windows' computer jockeys, or even an Autoshite Administrator  should keep changing what works well,  is familiar and comfortable.  Please be assured : Your tastes are not mine.   Please stop imposing them on me.   Let me explain :  I'm on Autoshite because I greatly prize and appreciate the fundamentals of basic cars and other vehicles.  I have never wanted a brand new auto-blob - which has moulded plastic wrapping around and over the car and throughout the engine bay,  nor soul-less grey plastic padding throughout the interior.   Please don't tell me that pink blancmange is the new beige -  It is not, it is kiddies poo. !

And please don't tell me that arial font or any other sans-serif font is easy to read for someone who is dyslexic.  I assure you - It Is NOT.   In case you are not aware - we read largely by the shape of a word  ie.,  Shape of a word   and that is for the most part is lost with the economy of sans-serif.  With tired eyes I simply cannot see in arial if the letter i when wlthin a word is an l.   .. so please give me the option to write in Times New Roman or similar.  

And who again says I want automatic  'spacing between lines'.   Surely I am old enough to decide for myself.?   

Sorry,  but this website's new 'style' just looks like someone's ego trying to be noticed.   ...Oh pretty please - say how clever I am !  

Poo !

p.s.  Aside from That :  Great job guys on keeping Autoshite up n' running - Big Thanks. 

I sympathise with all your gripes and share a lot of them myself.

That said, Conrad has worked really hard on the skin so I'd like to say thank you, and everyone please be considerate when raising your complaints because he didn't have any obligation to. I'm sure he'll take the feedback on board, just please keep it constructive.

The update wasn't to get the new shiny. It had to happen because the version of the software we were running was so out of date that parts of it were gradually stopping working, and when things did stop working we couldn't get any support. That's not even considering the fact that it wasn't getting security patches any more.

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So far I much prefer the mobile site. Only just been able to log in without a password change. I’ll check the desktop site later on when I get home.

I keep getting e-mail notifications for immediate replies to posts I follow - whereas I just got digests in the past, so I’m wondering if my settings have been changed with the upgrade

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Great work. All redesigns take time to bed in. My only issue - would it be possible to darken the text to improve contrast? I can otherwise change the page colour to white? Typing this in the box the contrast is good - thick black text on white. I like the beige when posted but could the text show darker for easier reading. Otherwise bravo folks absolutely top notch!

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1 hour ago, marm said:

 In the old forum I used to ignore Bfg's posts because of his choice of a serif font. To me it read like he had chosen to wear a top hat and a monocle and was looking down on the rest of us. I read and enjoyed his post above in a "normal" font, so I think that's one to reconsider. I've always found sans serif fonts more readable, and had always understood that to be a universal thing. The dyslexia thing is an interesting one - it's not commonly known, I don't think, and as someone who has trained as both a teacher and a graphic designer I'm shocked to have missed that one...

My sincere apologies, I never intend to come across as looking down upon anyone, indeed I'm liberal verging on communist in my attitude towards others (albeit I'm non-political and with tongue in cheek humour).  My small 'c'  christian beliefs and lifelong personality is to help others help themselves, not to preach to nor look down on others.  I hate being preach to, but I thoroughly enjoy being taught.  However my dad was a Chief Tech electrical engineer.  He served in the R.A.F. for 25 years - so I had a good schooling and it was demanded I should speak clearly and confidently. My accent is as much 'colonial' as anything ..but I can't help these things - I'm certainly not a toff.  

As a teacher (..had you read my posts) you might also have been annoyed by my repeatedly breaking  sentences up  ..with using pause dots or a dash - rather than a comma or even a full stop. That too is a tool of my working around dyslexia, as it provides a more distinctive visual break in sentences which I would otherwise have difficulties in reading.   Similarly it is very rare that any paragraph I write is longer than four or five lines. Then a distinctive space is needed, so you see this website's new auto-spacing is a hindrance.

I hope that helps you with your children,

Bfg.          

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36 minutes ago, Slartibartfast said:

I sympathise with all your gripes and share a lot of them myself.

That said, Conrad has worked really hard on the skin so I'd like to say thank you, and everyone please be considerate when raising your complaints because he didn't have any obligation to. I'm sure he'll take the feedback on board, just please keep it constructive.

Thankyou Conrad! I personally think it’s a big step forward, looks great and it’s easy to use! I love things like the logo and ability to upload photos on mobile! 

Once the bugs are ironed out (which every new thing has) it’ll enhance our AS experience! 

 

Great work!! 

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26 minutes ago, Bfg said:

I hope that helps you with your children,  

Thanks, I'm not a teacher...otherwise all my posts would probably be in comic sans or something...I didn't really go any further than training as one... but who knows what will happen in the future... it's good to be aware of this stuff.

And no need for apologies. Sorry if I offended, too. It's an interesting one re written vs spoken tone. Me, I find it hard to write conversationally. In real life I mostly mumble, grunt and swear in a semi-cockney accent, but on a keyboard I probably come across... I don't know... like I'm writing an essay? I wish I was more like the other lads on here... As for your "colonial" accent then it's probably right to represent that in a serif font, obviously I was wrong about the top hat and monocle, but the R.A.F. association gives me a nice picture.

I should try to be more accepting. But I'll always be put off those car listings on eBay where everything is written in huge rainbow coloured capitals.

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2 hours ago, Bfg said:

 

Thankfully at the bottom of the window is a button ' Theme' and I could change to 'default'.   Aah at last.,  I can at least read the page  in grey, blues clearly defined against a white(ish) background.   

 

Boom, that makes mobile look better!

Nothing against the new theme, right now on a proper desktop it's fab, but I prefer clear and simple on my phone as it renders better, and better for one handed use whilst pretending to be asleep, working or wiping my arse!

The whole thing certainly looks alot slicker, if I find any bugs I'll report them but haven't really clicked about yet

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8 hours ago, Eddie Honda said:

Screenshot_20190502_035020.thumb.png.8ff6f53683ee5fb370e4b37f5081e73b.png

Make the reply box font the same size and font as the actual post that appears.

Yes, this is a problem. For some reason the reply box is using the headline font and it shouldn't be. I will figure it out. 

8 hours ago, Eddie Honda said:

Country shows in text when I go into Profile, but not showing below avatars next to posts. Bring back flags.

I was asked to remove the country field because the flags were an add-on which didn't work with the new board software. All I could do was try to hide the broken "Country :" display with CSS, which IIIRC was working on the test board but doesn't seem to be working here. 

5 hours ago, skattrd said:

I've just clicked in top right corner of mobile page and there are buttons there, they're just not visible, maybe the same colour as the background? 

Yes, this is a stupid oversight, sorry. The icons are just the wrong colour, or no colour or something. Will fix.

1 hour ago, marm said:

Agreed though that there are some readability issues. The font in the editor here while I type is pretty awful, too small and bold, and there is, I think, something wrong with the overall colour scheme, which is making my eyes go a bit weird. Can't quite put my finger on it but I think it needs a tweak. Generally it feels to me that there are too many different fonts, font sizes and variations used overall, and maybe too many tonally similar colours.

1 hour ago, somewhatfoolish said:

Not beige enough, this is more of a very weak cup of lukewarm drinking chocolate with too much milk, or Horlicks. It's all new and I don't like it. Change it some more so I can not like that too. Regardless of my petty griping well done to the boffins adjusting the virtual knobs, as the electrons seem to be flowing again.

 

Edit to add; my name has wrapped and now looks shit. That is actually a real gripe, albeit an utterly trivial one.

I will tweak the colours a bit and replace the font in the editor so it matches the font in posts.

Name wrap looks shit, I agree. I will make the usernames a bit smaller. 

48 minutes ago, lesapandre said:

Great work. All redesigns take time to bed in. My only issue - would it be possible to darken the text to improve contrast? I can otherwise change the page colour to white? Typing this in the box the contrast is good - thick black text on white. I like the beige when posted but could the text show darker for easier reading. Otherwise bravo folks absolutely top notch!

It's on my list!

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Uhh slight issue

it seems like if I upload a big picture something is compressing/shrinking it down which means important detail is lost

for example in this photo, in its orignial form I can clearly make out the Invacars registration plate, however when uploaded to the forum it gets compressed and shrunken down...

XEV95S.thumb.png.7c580b7d9aad9ced5e326f1c1585c6fb.png

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Ah.... just noticed you can't see the "location" and "country" bit... I think it's got chopped off.

I'm finding the upgrade a definite upgrade generally though. The "all activity" page is sucking all my time and attention today, especially as I'm stuck at home looking after a sick 5 year old. You don't even have to hit refresh.

Oh god. I really should do something useful.

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32 minutes ago, LightBulbFun said:

Uhh slight issue

it seems like if I upload a big picture something is compressing/shrinking it down which means important detail is lost

for example in this photo, in its orignial form I can clearly make out the Invacars registration plate, however when uploaded to the forum it gets compressed and shrunken down...

 

There’s a size the image is stored at, and a size that the image is displayed at inline in the forum

If you click the image it gets bigger, do you know what size that original image is? There’s a balance where huuuuuge images inline make the forum hard to read, but we can perhaps make the stored (the version you get when you click on it) version larger.

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aye when I click on it to see what size its stored at its shrunken down, im happy with the size of the image as they are displayed in a post, but its when I click on it to see its originial size I see its been shrunken down

 

the original image is 3444x2166 (which lets me zoom into the plate on the invacar :) )

 

(I also noticed the image starts out as 4MB, but ends up about 120~KB or so )

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Yeah I think OldAutoshite was unlimited and the default settings for NewAutoshite was 1200x1200 or thereabouts. 

Can you try uploading again? (I’ve changed it but there might be a compromise made at some point as there’s a direct link between the size of image stored, and how much our disk space for backups costs. I just wanted to understand whether it was that setting or not)

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Had a bit of a wobble last night when the board wouldn't recognise my username/password combo and I couldn't remember the old email account I'd used 10+years ago when I joined, but thanks to some old tech (bit of A4 paper in a drawer with all my old passwords written down on it) I managed to reset and I'm in.

Well done admin for a smooth change. Quite like the new shade of beige too. ?

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19 minutes ago, Pillock said:

Yeah I think OldAutoshite was unlimited and the default settings for NewAutoshite was 1200x1200 or thereabouts. 

Can you try uploading again? (I’ve changed it but there might be a compromise made at some point as there’s a direct link between the size of image stored, and how much our disk space for backups costs. I just wanted to understand whether it was that setting or not)

 

4988661991_3496140baf_o.thumb.jpg.857e9019861f6f637f70fc079404e83d.jpg

 

testing

 

ah yay much better thanks :) (the file size still shrunk to 500KB but the important thing is the image aint super shrunk any more :)

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3 hours ago, treehugger said:

My contents gone. Suppose thats permanent?

 

2 hours ago, loserone said:

He means the "my content" link

Aaaah. Use the “My Activity” link which is top right on the desktop forum, you can search your own posts and topics there

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2 minutes ago, Pillock said:

 

Aaaah. Use the “My Activity” link which is top right on the desktop forum, you can search your own posts and topics there

I can't see this 'My Activity' tab. As search isn't functioning correctly yet, I can't actually find my own threads at the moment.

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Yo LBF - the compressing of images is built into the forum software. The issue is that even a shitty phone can and will take 5MB photos these days. As you can imagine if the pictures weren't compressed then the database would be enormous very quickly. Appreciate there is a balance to be struck with the level of compression but yeah, its intentional.

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2 minutes ago, Stanky said:

Yo LBF - the compressing of images is built into the forum software. The issue is that even a shitty phone can and will take 5MB photos these days. As you can imagine if the pictures weren't compressed then the database would be enormous very quickly. Appreciate there is a balance to be struck with the level of compression but yeah, its intentional.

aye yeah I figured it was something like that :)

what Pillock has done seems to work well :) 

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