New format

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billie
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Posts: 122
Joined: Mon Dec 02, 2013 7:44 pm

Re: New format

Post by billie »

If anyone has a story that they submitted at the old site and would like it associated with their new username at the new site, please just drop me a note with the url of the old story. I am having a new feature written so that I can re-assign stories from SoloTouchArchive to the original author. I'm waiting for this to be finished, but if you send me your story(ies) now, I'll take care of it as soon as I'm able to.

The lovely new story formatting in one giant paragraph is most definitely NOT supposed to be that way. It seems that we fix one thing and break another. No worries....just a few growing pains. Devs are working on this formatting issue as I type this.
madhatter
Site Admin
Posts: 1
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 11:04 pm

Re: New format

Post by madhatter »

I also find the small font and wide lines difficult to follow. It would be good if we could make personal changes, but a quick fix would be a larger font for the width of the line. News papers use narrow columns for a reason. For now, I copy the text of the longer stories to word and change the font size. It takes time but it works. I also agree that losing the stories posted by date makes it harder to keep track of what I have read. Just please don't ever add stories in on "yesterdays" list so that it ends up a new story lower in the line than ones that may have been read. Keep them in order and always add to the end of the line. I have not had time to look the site over much but I am sure I will get used to the new format. I am just an old grouch that hates change too.
spurtz
Site Admin
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 5:37 pm

Billie....a suggestion

Post by spurtz »

Maybe this is just me but when I log onto the site the first thing I do is look to see if there are new stories. And there usually are. So then I sign in so that I am able to post comments on any stories that I feel I have some input to contribute. But after signing in, instead of taking me back to the Home page where the new stories are, the site takes me to my personal page. That's not where I want to be. This wouldn't be the end of the world if I could navigate back to the home page quickly and easily but when I click on "Home" sometimes it can take several minutes for the page to come up. In fact I have experienced very slow response trying to navigate through the site. I want to blame it on high traffic but I never had that issue with the previous version of SoloTouch.

Anyway, after logging in I would like to be taken back to the home page. I suspect many other members might feel the same way.

Also, and I mentioned this once before, but why the very low limit on the number of characters you can post in the comment box? I can see reasons for having a limit but it should be at least twice what it is now.
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billie
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Posts: 122
Joined: Mon Dec 02, 2013 7:44 pm

Re: New format

Post by billie »

Hi!
The brand new servers we moved to are shit. Not sure how else to say that. I could have been more eloquent, but if it looks and smells like a rose, you've probably got a rose. Ok, ok, I'm peeved and just felt like swearing. LOL

I've been working with our hosting company and receiving lots of push back. They put us on some overly complicated setup that is causing serious issues. To name a few: the bizarre chat issues, site speed issues, weird forum issues (like only my avatar showing up), I could go on and on. Our devs have been looking for resolutions to these issues when they actually lie at the server level and we need the host's help to fix this. This has wasted A LOT of our time and that is why these things are not being resolved more quickly.

For anyone working online, you know what a nightmare a hosting move is. We just completed one, which is why it nearly brought me to tears to decide that we need to move again. There is no reason to perpetuate what is turning out to be a non-productive partnership because it is hard to fix. So here we go again.

Speed issues will be significantly better in about a week or two. And in case anyone is wondering why we're moving at the speed of snails, this is why. **Sigh** When we can just fix issues and the fixes work without fatal core flaws, we'll be moving much more quickly.

Sorry for rambling, but if you have the dirt, you won't think I'm hanging out drinking martinis by the pool all day and not making ST better. In any case, I'm in Seattle and we don't have enough sun for such frivolity. ha!
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iluvgirls
Site Admin
Posts: 49
Joined: Fri Dec 20, 2013 9:18 pm

Re: New format

Post by iluvgirls »

billie wrote: Sorry for rambling, but if you have the dirt, you won't think I'm hanging out drinking martinis by the pool all day and not making ST better. In any case, I'm in Seattle and we don't have enough sun for such frivolity. ha!
Billie-- thank you for the updates. I don't think anyone here thinks you are slacking off and ignoring the issues. We all know how hard you are working to get things perfect. Keeping everyone informed on the progress is a great idea, even if that progress is slower than you'd like. We will get there eventually :)
spurtz
Site Admin
Posts: 22
Joined: Wed Jan 08, 2014 5:37 pm

Re: New format

Post by spurtz »

Thanks for the update Billie and the explanation for some of the problems and why they can't seem to be fixed.

Here's a couple more issues, as if you need to hear of any more.

1. After reading a story the link changes color to show it's been read. I know that's a fix that you put in after some people commented it would be a nice feature. But for some reason after a couple of days they are changing back to the original color so a reader can no longer differentiate a "read" story from an "unread" one.

2. I just posted several pix in an album. They all show up as thumbnails but only the first one I posted can be clicked on and made larger. I get some kind of message saying the file is unavailable or something like that. Don't recall the exact wording. As a result none of the comments I posted with each photo can be read.

If someone else has already commented on these glitchs, I apologize for beating a dead horse.
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billie
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Posts: 122
Joined: Mon Dec 02, 2013 7:44 pm

Re: New format

Post by billie »

Hey Spurtz,
I know about the photos issue and that is next on my list to fix.

I believe that the visited links issue has been caused by our attempts to fix various items and clearing the cache on our end. This should be resolved now, but if you continue to see the links changing back so quickly, let me know please.
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