April 21, 2013 - 11:23pm
What happened to the buttons for new content and own posts?
The view own and view new posts buttons aren't visible, and they were the easiest way to see what was new or what I might have been following or contributing to on the site. I'd like to see the titles of threads that have new posts, without having to open each section of the forum. What happened?
Thanks!
--Kent
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The lack of "new since last visit" or even the previous "recent posts" is a serious problem.
The home page is now showing recent posts and recent comments, so that's an improvement. My guess is that Floyd updated the base software package and is now fiddling with the customizations.
Anyway, don't mean to complain too much -- thanks for the great site!
The tracker is still there. In the navigation on the right, it is listed as "Recent content." I think that is what you are looking for, yes?
Yes, I'm still unpacking and restoring a few bits of functionality that went missing.
-Floyd
on the home page - not on the right, not on the left.
(I use Chrome and Firefox - they display similarly)
There is no left or right nav on the homepage now, freeing up more space for content.
When logged in, there is a little nav bar right on the homepage right above the feature, and when you drill into any content there should a right rail with more thorough navigation.
-Floyd
You must scroll to the very bottom of the page. There you should see, in a brownish/beigish box (in caps at the top of this box) links - the last link in the line is ACTIVITY TRACKER. That's what you want.
You may, as I do, find the text in this brownish/beigish box very difficult to read, given the color choice of some sort of off-white / yellowish white for text that blends into the background quite effectively.
If you are viewing on a smart phone or tablet, scrolling to the bottom of the home page is not fun.
Workarounds for now (the site is still being tweaked)
> to skip the home page and go directly to the tracker page use http://thefreshloaf.com/tracker
> to skip the home page, login and then be taken directly to the tracker page use http://www.thefreshloaf.com/user/login?destination=tracker
Just be aware that the "activity tracker" is something we have less control over the way it works than the other stuff. Floyd's been trying to make it so that new content shows up on the front page in a more navigatable way - with recent comments and most recent forum and blog entries showing up there, plus with the way those, when clicked, actually jump to the place with the new stuff when clicked. The Activity Tracker link exists, but it is part of core drupal, new to us too (so we're still learning about how that works as well), and consequently something that Floyd will have much less control over when it comes to the various complaints folks are coming up with regarding how that particular page works.
So if you choose to make that instead of the homepage we're actually working on your "home base", please take it as a buyer-beware sort of thing, though he is looking into tweaking what he can there.
Regarding the scrolling to the top thing - this was one of my first annoyances with the behavior of the site when viewing it on a phone, and Floyd has actually addressed this by adding a neat little jump button that shows up in the lower right hand side of your screen.
It's semi-transparent so that it shouldnt mess up being able to read the comments if it shows up in a layout where it's slightly overlapping, (looks like a little "up" arrow in a circle) - he's currently only got it even showing up when you scroll down a ways and there's enough "jumping up" to make such a button worthwhile, though that exact amount we're still tweaking as we play with it.
You don't have to scroll to the bottom: the tracker is also available as "Recent content" in the navigation in the right rail.
-Floyd
Hi Floyd,
Not sure if this is what you are talking about here because my computer language skills are minimal :-O
but one thing I have noticed that I miss is 'NEW' showing up on blogs to indicate when a new comment is added. As I recall the word 'NEW' would appear and remain for at least 24 hours on each new comment added. There could be several 'news' within one blog or post throughout the day. This always made it easy to see when new content had been added on blogs/threads that I followed.
I get it sometimes on threads but the lettering is really small and light (I am on an Apple MacBook Pro) which makes it hard to see easily when scrolling through topics with old eyes....
'NEW' does show up in bright red in my message box at makes it really easy to see but I still don't have the ability to post pictures or links etc in my message box. The tool bar at the top of the box is still missing or is that the way it is going to be now?
Hate to keep bugging you about these little things....you have done a great job here and I really appreciate it!
Take Care,
Janet
New comments now have a yellow border around them and "*new*" in teeny faded text.
Getting the formatting bar back in the private message area is one of the next thing on my to-do list.
-Floyd
Thanks for your speedy reply! Any chance of the text for the 'new' to be darker since it seems they aren't going to be bigger? I am not getting them in the blog section or if they are there they disappear very quickly. I just made several replys on the blog I wrote yesterday and no 'NEWs' showed up at all.
Nice to know that the formating bar will still be a part of the message area. I do hope your list is getting shorter!!!! and that you do get time to take a bread!
Take Care,
Janet
New should show up on a comment you've never seen. I don't think that includes your own comments, since presumably you saw them while composing them.
Once you've view a comment, the "new" goes away.
I'm not positive but I think that is the same behavior as before. I'll look into whether there were any changes in that behavior. I'm not sure if there were whether I could do anything about it since that new designation is handled pretty deep in the machine, not in any in any of the code I manage. :-/
The formatting bar on PMs should be back now for everyone, I believe?
-Floyd
The issue with putting big bold "NEW" all over the comments is a little more technically complicated than it sounds because the way this stuff is flagged, is all things that havent been viewed in your browser before show up that way (it's not something that expires based on time but rather by whether or not it's "new to your browser"), so basically, that's what it's going to look like by default when a person loads a long thread for the first time too, which can get pretty annoying when it shouts too much.
The brighter highlighting yellow border around the comments makes a pretty bright visual cue though - stuff you've seen already is without the border and sort of blends in more, and we played with making the word new more and less bright but it has a couple of drawbacks in terms of creating a lot of visual clutter and also because it's not actually in the comments Floyd had to do a web-trick to make it show up and you will find it's not actually in the actual text so for example a search on the word "new" won't take you to the entry the way for example, searching on a word appearing in the comment itself would. We'll continue to tweak the settings but hopefully people are getting the highlighting effects on the brighter border to clue folks into where the new stuff is showing up in a post.
The good news is, it looks like he just figured out what was making the formatting bar not show up in the private messages so that should be fixed now.
Anything relating to programing a computer is more complicated than it appears to me :-O I took a programming class long ago and enjoyed writing programs until one wouldn't work and I had to hunt for 'bugs'. That led me to hunting for a different profession more suited to my abilities. :-) I am very grateful there are people out there who can do what you and Floyd are doing and understand what you are doing!!!
Thanks for explaining how the 'new' stuff works. It kinda makes sense and I am sure it will slowly sink in. I will wait to see if the bright yellow helps since now there is no box around it thus it blends in with date and time on my screen.
Thanks so much for pointing me to the message area. It looks great - which means it looks familiar :-) How easily I get attached to things is scary!!!
Again, thanks so much for taking the time to explain this all to me. I really appreciate it!
Take Care,
Janet
Thanks Floyd (and all)! For now I'll just bookmark the tracker Floyd linked to.