Zotero forums update

bwiernik
edited September 10, 2016
Really glad to see the forum software update, but could the separate forum categories be restored? These made it much easier for me to organize answering questions.
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  • adamsmith
    edited September 7, 2016
    2nd the yay! for the update. I don't have an opinion on the categories, but figured we could collect issues here:
    The mobile version of the forum (which is a blessing) isn't themed at all, which doesn't really hurt, but is a bit weird to suddenly be on an all blue site without any sign of Zotero. (That's on Chrome for Android)
  • DWL-SDCA
    All blue on iPhone. iPad display is same as desktop.
  • DWL-SDCA
    I miss the "Return to Discussions" link at the bottom of each forum thread. I'm guessing that the forum software just needs a bit of fine-tuning. One very positive thing, it is much faster.
  • DWL-SDCA
    What is the time zone being used for the post time-stamps?
  • adamsmith
    It's UTC: datetime="2016-09-07T14:34:21+00:00" (the +00:00 determines the timezone)
  • aborel
    I agree with bwiernik, I miss the categories. For browsing purposes, they were really useful filters.
  • bwiernik
    Another slightly annoying quirk with the mobile site: when using Back to return to the discussion list, it always jumps to the top of the page, rather than keeping the previous page scroll location
  • fcheslack
    The mobile version of the forum (which is a blessing) isn't themed at all, which doesn't really hurt, but is a bit weird to suddenly be on an all blue site without any sign of Zotero.
    Thanks for reporting. I've pushed out a quick modification with the color scheme, and more importantly working login/register links. Don't worry though, I'm aware it still has significant issues.
    What is the time zone being used for the post time-stamps?
    This should now be based on your browser settings.
    Another slightly annoying quirk with the mobile site: when using Back to return to the discussion list, it always jumps to the top of the page, rather than keeping the previous page scroll location
    Yeah, I noticed the default seems to include some JS that scrolls you to the top on document ready. It happens on all pages. I'm not sure yet if they have a good reason for it.
  • adamsmith
    Another issue: all old comments that used code snippets in plain text mode rather than using 'code' tags in html mode are now unreadable. I don't have an easy solution here, but it's too bad, so any ideas for fixing would be great. (See e.g. https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/comment/147024/#Comment_147024 )
  • bwiernik
    Also a problem with new threads for users trying to post CSL snippets:
    https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/62325/a-few-changes-to-my-customised-style#latest
  • adamsmith
    Any reason we don't use their rich text editor? https://blog.vanillaforums.com/features/introducing-new-advanced-editor/
    It'd also be nice to allow for including images -- I don't know how often I've written the "post to a free image hosting" site.
    (fcheslack -- again, thanks for the new forum and none of this is meant as criticism, it'd just seem like a good time to fine-tune.
  • bwiernik
    (And yes, just want to echo how happy I am to see the software upgraded! Mobile site and less [no?] spam are so nice.)
  • fcheslack
    I understand. Please keep the bug reports and suggestions/requests coming. I'm paying attention. Just triaging at the moment.

    I forget the details off the top of my head, but we tested the advanced editor and had some problems with it.

    I want to get uploads working, but it's complicated by our server setup so that is down the list a bit.
  • Gracile
    edited September 9, 2016
    Kudos for the great work!
    The current page number of a thread was underlined (in order to distinguish it from the other pages) in the previous version, could that be restored?

    Edit: at the moment, the page numbers are not active at the top; only those at the bottom are clickable.
    Small glitch: when clicking the gear icon (on this forum), the subscribe/unsubscribe button is always phrased "Unsubscribe"…
  • ftr
    Maybe I am blind as I see no reasons given that the forum categories disappeared or or is this a bug ??

    Also: When I enter the zotero website I am already logged in, and when I go to this forum within the website I am logged out. At least this is what the headline of web page says.

    And seeming being logged out I can post !?
    ?!?

  • fcheslack
    less [no?] spam are so nice.)
    All new users have their posts go to a moderation queue. When a post is approved the user is 'Verified' and future posts go through automatically.
    The current page number of a thread was underlined (in order to distinguish it from the other pages) in the previous version, could that be restored?
    Current page should be black now instead of red (I knew that didn't look the same but couldn't remember what the old one did). Underline might be better.
    at the moment, the page numbers are not active at the top; only those at the bottom are clickable.
    They're being floated behind the comment box. Will fix.
    when clicking the gear icon (on this forum), the subscribe/unsubscribe button is always phrased "Unsubscribe"
    Pretty sure this is working as intended. It's provided by an 'Unsubscribe' plugin that overrides other notifications (eg if you commented in a discussion, but don't want any more updates for that one). To subscribe to a particular discussion you can "Bookmark" it with the star.

    We tried to get as close to the old notification options as possible, but there are a lot of differences between Vanilla versions (and the old notifications were from a plugin).
    Maybe I am blind as I see no reasons given that the forum categories disappeared or or is this a bug ?
    Of course I forgot to respond to the question that started the thread.
    The change was intentional. We didn't think they provided enough value to keep them around. People seem to get flustered trying to figure out where to post, and post in multiple categories, or in existing threads so they don't need to start their own.
    When I enter the zotero website I am already logged in, and when I go to this forum within the website I am logged out. At least this is what the headline of web page says.
    I assume on zotero.org you appear logged in though? And logging out and back in makes you appear logged in on both zotero.org and forums.zotero.org?
    Thought I had ironed those issues out, but perhaps not.
  • RintzeRintze
    @bwiernik, maybe you could change the title of this thread to e.g. "Zotero forums update"?

    As I already noted on zotero-dev, I'm curious whether the new version allows for search-by-author at https://forums.zotero.org/search. It used to be that prefixing a search term by "username:" did the trick, but this no longer works.

    In addition, it would be nice if the comment timestamp could be placed next to the username instead of below it (to save vertical space), and maybe changed to a less prominent color (it used to be grey, I think: http://cdn-thumbshot.pearltrees.com/0d/32/0d32622d7b05a5fd88bed04e62f68634-b52square.jpg)

    The line spacing also appears a bit much. A line-height of 1.3 instead of 1.7 looks much better, I think.

    Finally, can the RSS feed be renamed from "Recent Comments - Zotero Forums" to just "Zotero Forums"? It currently shows up as "Recent Comments ..." in my Feedly feed list.
  • RintzeRintze
    Also, it would be useful if there was a link to a page to describe the features of this forum. In particular the code and
    quote
    tags, but explaining how to use gist.github.com for posting large code blocks, a link to the forum etiquette (https://www.zotero.org/support/forum_guidelines), and when it is or isn't okay to post directly to GitHub would be good as well. Could be a link in the side bar, or a sticky post.
  • fcheslack
    As I already noted on zotero-dev, I'm curious whether the new version allows for search-by-author at https://forums.zotero.org/search. It used to be that prefixing a search term by "username:" did the trick, but this no longer works.
    Vanilla 2 got rid advanced search from the core (and added a different one to their cloud product). This was at least partly because of performance issues at scale (which these forums suffered from). Hopefully we'll be able to get the sphinx based plugin set up which would provide both better relevance and advanced search options.
  • adamsmith
    Love Rintze's last idea about a forum techniques and guidelines (should also contain instructions for screenshots)
  • dstillman
    it would be nice if the comment timestamp [...] maybe changed to a less prominent color (it used to be grey, I think
    They don't necessarily have to be red, but note that this is a feature change — these timestamps are now links, for linking directly to individual posts. (No more viewing source and looking for "Item_[n]", which was one of the more annoying limitations of the old forums.)
  • bwiernik
    edited September 10, 2016
    Current page should be black now instead of red (I knew that didn't look the same but couldn't remember what the old one did). Underline might be better.
    With my particular type of colorblindness, distinguishing red and black text on screen is really hard. Underline would work much better for me.
    @bwiernik, maybe you could change the title of this thread to e.g. "Zotero forums update"?
    I don't see how to edit thread titles with the new software. Is that possible?
  • adamsmith
    Spam: apparently now people are using Spam sleeper accounts??? https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/62372/wallabies-match#latest -- account created a week ago.
  • dstillman
    I suspect all accounts created before the transition were marked as verified. Could probably set all of those that haven't yet posted to unverified, but it's also a problem that should go away by itself pretty soon.
  • dstillman
    I don't see how to edit thread titles with the new software. Is that possible?
    Possible that it's not enabled for all user roles, but you should see a gear icon in the top-right corner of the post with a menu option for editing.
  • fcheslack
    Only allows editing posts for a certain time. That probably includes the title.
  • RintzeRintze
    Only allows editing posts for a certain time.
    Can this be changed? I sometimes used the edit button to correct old posts, or to copy/paste the raw post text (especially handy if the post contained quotes or blockquotes).

    (right now, I was trying to figure out whether I could fix the rendering in the opening post at https://forums.zotero.org/discussion/62288/citeproc-js-bug)
  • dstillman
    I've changed it to always allow editing.
  • RintzeRintze
    I've changed it to always allow editing.
    I still don't see any way to edit old posts. Is each post written by me supposed to show a gear icon?
  • RintzeRintze
    edited September 12, 2016
    I now get a gear icon when I hover over the comment above (but not any of my older comments), and clicking it says "Edit (1 hour)", suggesting that the change wasn't retroactive and/or editing is still limited to a certain time.

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