Oppo Upgrade Complete - Brief notes on new features/changes
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Hi Oppo!
Maintenance tonight has gone well and we're running the latest version of NodeBB (1.16.1) and a new theme which gives us a lot of functionality. Here are the key new features and differences.
New Features:
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Chat interface works on mobile now
-When you get a chat from another user (or group chat) you'll get a notification on mobile on the chat icon in the upper right. Tap it to view and reply. -
Threaded Replies
-I've removed the quick reply box to help facilitate this. Tap reply to an original post or a comment to allow them to be grouped/collapsed/expanded. It's not a perfect feature but also helps keep track of which comment someone is replying to. -
New Topic Thumbail Engine
-There is a new icon for uploading a thumbnail (shown below) and it also allows you to upload multiples, but there is no use for the second so only upload the first one. There will be future enhancements around this to come.
-The thumbnails on the main page are a bit small, we're still experimenting with tweaks on things that look good on both desktop and mobile -
On Mobile there are now two panes
-Swipe right to see categories, profile settings and notifications
-Swipe left to see chat -
Many more skins
-When you open your profile there are many more skins/color schemes you can choose from. Experiment and see what you like.
-Some things won't work in some skins or better in others. Just bear that in mind when setting one. We did most of our testing on the default skin, as you folks that like dark mode are monsters. -
Google Analytics Enabled
-I've enabled google analytics on the site to track which platform folks are using, where they are coming from and where they are spending time. Feel free to continue to use any blocking bits on this if you do on other sites, it is not being used for advertising only to track usage as the built-in analytics are pretty poor and I want to try to make this place better and more information helps!
Fixes:
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Notifications work better on the home page
-if you loaded the home page you wouldn't see the notification count before
-'see all notifications' now actually shows you all notifications instead of only the last 50(or however many it was) -
Stability upgrades and probably more I'm not remembering.
Other than the changes above and the new look 99% of things work the same as before just looking a little different.
Thanks for the patience as we evolve here - I'll keep this pinned for at least a few days and update it as I remember or notice new things.
Also big thanks to @Jb-boin who put in a bunch of time creating a bunch custom CSS to make this theme look good!
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@jminer Looks great. The highlight on notifications has changed to a pale yellow. I find it difficult to see easily. But then again, I'm an old.
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@jminer Changes? Bah humbug. Improvements? Hrumph. /j
Thanks, guys!
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@jminer Also, I never messed around with them before, but the different themes are pretty good. I like the one called Flatly.
Overall I feel this is a big improvement. The work put into this site and community is incredible. Keep it up!
The only real problem I've discovered thus far is that the reply window at its lowest is too big on my screen to be able to read a single line of text from the post without exiting out and returning.
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@jminer So far so good. I see that the post preview in the reply frame now supports dark mode too!
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I noticed the font changed, and it's so much better now.
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@ttyymmnn said in Oppo Upgrade Complete - Notes on new features/changes:
@jminer Looks great. The highlight on notifications has changed to a pale yellow. I find it difficult to see easily. But then again, I'm an old.
You are not an old, you’re my age.
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Interesting experience, digging thought the different themes. Each theme makes the page look totally different, (obviously), but that extends to formatting as well. I tried a few different themes and looked to see how it affected TDIAH. The results were all over the place. In my email to you I mentioned captions, and different themes now treat captions (for example) differently. So, the same number of hashtags in the composer come out differently in the end product, depending on which theme the user chooses. So, in a certain sense, the author ultimately has no control over how the finished product looks. Not complaining, it's just interesting.
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Dermatological issues
Darkly
Chat interface is illegible
Slate
Notifications page is illegible for unread notifications.
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Can't see who authors are on mobile. Anyone else ?
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@ttyymmnn said in Oppo Upgrade Complete - Notes on new features/changes:
Interesting experience, digging thought the different themes. Each theme makes the page look totally different, (obviously), but that extends to formatting as well. I tried a few different themes and looked to see how it affected TDIAH. The results were all over the place. In my email to you I mentioned captions, and different themes now treat captions (for example) differently. So, the same number of hashtags in the composer come out differently in the end product, depending on which theme the user chooses. So, in a certain sense, the author ultimately has no control over how the finished product looks. Not complaining, it's just interesting.
That's unusual. I thought they would only impact color and such. I only poked at a couple though and mostly stayed on the default skin. We'll probably have to make some skin specific adjustments too.
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@ttyymmnn said in Oppo Upgrade Complete - Notes on new features/changes:
@jminer Looks great. The highlight on notifications has changed to a pale yellow. I find it difficult to see easily. But then again, I'm an old.
I'll agree I don't love that color in the notification pane.
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@p5guy-now-gtiguy said in Oppo Upgrade Complete - Notes on new features/changes:
Can't see who authors are on mobile. Anyone else ?
This theme doesn't show them right now. We'll look at adding them back in the future.
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@jminer Thumbnail management: is that something that can be reverted per user? I imagine the new tool is easier for most, but I’m going to miss being able to specify URLs.
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@barnie said in Oppo Upgrade Complete - Notes on new features/changes:
@jminer Changes? Bah humbug. Improvements? Hrumph. /j
Thanks, guys!
I agree with your sentiment, there were just enough things broken with the previous layout it was worth the change.
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@just-jeepin said in Oppo Upgrade Complete - Notes on new features/changes:
@jminer Thumbnail management: is that something that can be reverted per user? I imagine the new tool is easier for most, but I’m going to miss being able to specify URLs.
That's a good point - it's a server-wide change not theme specific so there's no way to opt out of it. I imagine in the next couple versions we'll see that feature improve. This version the Devs just implemented the engine with a note about future enhancements coming around it.
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@jminer Everything looks great on Mobile. I am a 50/50 mobile/desktop user, so the functionality improvements on mobile are welcome. We'll see about desktop tomorrow.
Good night!
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@jminer said in Oppo Upgrade Complete - Brief notes on new features/changes:
@p5guy-now-gtiguy said in Oppo Upgrade Complete - Notes on new features/changes:
Can't see who authors are on mobile. Anyone else ?
This theme doesn't show them right now. We'll look at adding them back in the future.
I hadn't noticed that until it was pointed out, but I think it's a big thing. I hope it can be brought back.
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@jminer said in Oppo Upgrade Complete - Brief notes on new features/changes:
@ttyymmnn said in Oppo Upgrade Complete - Notes on new features/changes:
Interesting experience, digging thought the different themes. Each theme makes the page look totally different, (obviously), but that extends to formatting as well. I tried a few different themes and looked to see how it affected TDIAH. The results were all over the place. In my email to you I mentioned captions, and different themes now treat captions (for example) differently. So, the same number of hashtags in the composer come out differently in the end product, depending on which theme the user chooses. So, in a certain sense, the author ultimately has no control over how the finished product looks. Not complaining, it's just interesting.
That's unusual. I thought they would only impact color and such. I only poked at a couple though and mostly stayed on the default skin. We'll probably have to make some skin specific adjustments too.
I've been doing some more experimenting. Aside from different themes having different fonts (serif vs sans serif), the caption behavior is determined by the number of hash tags. Five give you an all caps caption, six create a smaller caption. Still not sure why pictures are narrower. On the old version, the upload would indicate "resize" if it was too big to begin with.
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Top work, much appreciated!
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Hmm, so I've noticed that on the Darkly theme, the Reply links beside usernames become white-on-white, and post tags become a light gray on white.
I'm unsure if this happens in other themes.
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@winterlegacy said in Oppo Upgrade Complete - Brief notes on new features/changes:
Hmm, so I've noticed that on the Darkly theme, the Reply links beside usernames become white-on-white, and post tags become a light gray on white.
I'm unsure if this happens in other themes.
Some of the skins will work better than others. For now you'll have to experiment with what works. We have done many changes outside of the default skin.
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@jminer Oh gawd, it's so awful it burns! Gonna need to chose a different "dark" one now. Cyborg is not gonna fly with that orange thing there.
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@sn4cktimes That is a pretty awful color there.
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@ttyymmnn said in Oppo Upgrade Complete - Brief notes on new features/changes:
@jminer said in Oppo Upgrade Complete - Brief notes on new features/changes:
@p5guy-now-gtiguy said in Oppo Upgrade Complete - Notes on new features/changes:
Can't see who authors are on mobile. Anyone else ?
This theme doesn't show them right now. We'll look at adding them back in the future.
I hadn't noticed that until it was pointed out, but I think it's a big thing. I hope it can be brought back.
Agreed - it was a major downer when that functionality got borked on kinja: it will be here too.
