Forum Updates Coming on Wednesday (3/10)

[Darcy]

Hi all,

We're working through these errors related to the Forum upgrade. It's quite a process, and I hope to be able to update everyone soon. I'm sorry things haven't gone more smoothly, though I do think everyone is putting their all into this project.. it's just kind of a big project!

More soon, I hope!

[G42]

Hang in there Darcy and TB team! Moving such a massive database is fraught ... we'll all muddle through as long as you folks keep making such nice bags

[aungrl]

@aungirl, @Ardtime,

With the caveat that I have no special knowledge about vBulletin version 5, this is how I would handle navigating to the end of a sticky thread.

First of all, let’s assume that you want to navigate to the end of a sticky thread in the General Bag Discussion Forum First navigate to that forum instead of starting from the top level where all the different forums are displayed. Once you are in the General Bag Discussion Forum with its listing of topics, and with the stickied topics showing grouped at the top, the right-most hof the page will show you a listing of who made the last post and the date/time, with a set of red double pointing right arrows to the right. Clicking on that double right arrow will take you to the last post of the thread (stickied or not).

For folks dealing with Captchas on mobile devices (e.g. to run a search), that should only show up if you’re not logged in, I think. At least, that was my experience. I know there was a problem early yesterday with people having to do multiple password resets, but as far as I know, that was fixed.

HTH

moriond

Thanks, Moriond, but I no longer have the double red arrows pointing right. That's how it worked for me before the upgrade, I believe. The approach you've outlined above is the approach I was taking yesterday, without success - and it still isn't working.

Any other ideas?

[aungrl]

I also miss that functionality! For now, you can just type in the page number of the last page and it will take you there. A lil cumbersome I guess, but it works.

Thanks for the tip. Silly question, but....where do you type in the past number of the last page? I seem to recall that I was able to do that prior to the upgrade, but in the view I"m getting now, there doesn't appear to be any place to type it in. I'm wondering if this is an iPad issue? (I've been logged in to my account for all attempts at this, so I don't think it's due to not being logged in.)

[Artdime]

Thanks for the tip. Silly question, but....where do you type in the past number of the last page? I seem to recall that I was able to do that prior to the upgrade, but in the view I"m getting now, there doesn't appear to be any place to type it in. I'm wondering if this is an iPad issue? (I've been logged in to my account for all attempts at this, so I don't think it's due to not being logged in.)

Hi - not sure if it might be an iPad issue. On a desktop it looks like this:

[moriond]

aungrl I’m also working entirely on an iPad. That search display that Artdime shows appears at the top of the screen on an iPad. It’s a floating control, meaning that if I”m reading a post that is on the bottom of my screen, I won’t see it. However, if I scroll up to view items further up , it will appear. On the left side of the floating bar is a “Post Reply” button; to the right side we see what is shown in that illustration.

I still personally find it easier to navigate to the specific forum in question (in this case, the General Bag Discussion Forum ) You can just scroll to the top of the page and tap the link at the end where it says Forum > Tom BIHN Forums > General Bag Discussion (in grey letters). Tapping on “General Bag Discussion” there will be the same as tapping on the link you see in red on the line above. Then you’ll see a listing on the right of all the most recent posts in this forum’s thread, and can tap on a double red arrow beside the last post to go to the end of that thread.

You can also tap,on the New Topics link at the top left corner of the page, but the problem with that is that as soon as you move to the last post in one of those threads it is no longer considered a “new topic” with double red arrows.

HTH

moriond

[moriond]

Hi All,

Another way to control the time range or content of what you’re viewing is to use the “Filter” control. Tap the downwards pointing triangle to the right of “Filter” to view two columns of filtering suggestions, each with a set of radio buttons to make selections. By default, the Time selections in the left column are set to “All Time” and the Content sélections in the right column are also set to “All” types. But you can change the time settings to “Today”, “Last Week”, or “Last Month”, and when you dismiss the pop-up menu by tapping on what has turned into an upwards pointing triangle to the right of the word “Filter”, your new filtered selections will be applied. For example, you will only see posts that were made “Today” or within the “Last Week” within the parent thread, if that’s what you have chosen. Remember to reset this to turn filtering off if you want to view all posts in the thread.

The content filtering selections are more complicated to demonstrate, because they rely on new forum features. Here’s an example that you can try out in the Where did your TB Bag go lately thread
https://forums.tombihn.com/forum/tom...-bag-go-lately
Try setting the radio buttons on the content colum of your Filter to “Photos Only” in that thread. Because some forum members have already uploaded photo attachments to their new posts in those threads, your Filter will show those to you when you apply it. Pretty cool, huh? But notice that this feature only applies to photos uploaded under the new forum support. It doesn’t identify photos that you’ve simply linked to, because otherwise there’s no way to tell what kind of content might be at the other end of the link. This will also be a search option for the new forum content.

Hi - not sure if it might be an iPad issue. On a desktop it looks like this:

HTH, and thanks to @Ardtime for his helpful attachment that I’ve used for this description. The Filter control is also visible in that screen capture.

moriond

ETA: You can also dismiss the Filter menu by tapping anywhere outside the displayed menu. At least, that’s how it works on my iPad.

[bartleby]

Another way to fast forward is to scroll down to the bottom of the page: The page count on the right displays the numbers of the five next pages and then it fast forwards ten pages and then it skips to the last page. So you can always jump to the last page of the thread.

[moriond]

bartleby This is a good hint

Another way to fast forward is to scroll down to the bottom of the page: The page count on the right displays the numbers of the five next pages and then it fast forwards ten pages and then it skips to the last page. So you can always jump to the last page of the thread.

The forum pages are designed so you use controls that are either the top or the bottom, so I’ve used this means of navigating, too.

moriond

[aungrl]

aungrl I’m also working entirely on an iPad. That search display that Artdime shows appears at the top of the screen on an iPad. It’s a floating control, meaning that if I”m reading a post that is on the bottom of my screen, I won’t see it. However, if I scroll up to view items further up , it will appear. On the left side of the floating bar is a “Post Reply” button; to the right side we see what is shown in that illustration.

I still personally find it easier to navigate to the specific forum in question (in this case, the General Bag Discussion Forum ) You can just scroll to the top of the page and tap the link at the end where it says Forum > Tom BIHN Forums > General Bag Discussion (in grey letters). Tapping on “General Bag Discussion” there will be the same as tapping on the link you see in red on the line above. Then you’ll see a listing on the right of all the most recent posts in this forum’s thread, and can tap on a double red arrow beside the last post to go to the end of that thread.

You can also tap,on the New Topics link at the top left corner of the page, but the problem with that is that as soon as you move to the last post in one of those threads it is no longer considered a “new topic” with double red arrows.

HTH

moriond

You all are going to think I'm completely clueless, but I'm doing it EXACTLY the way you outline in this post. That's the way I've always navigated within the forum. I did just go out of this chain and into one of the really long ones, tried typing in the page number as illustrated above, and then hit 'enter'. Nothing. It just sits there on the first page of 244 pages.
Since it's working for you on iPad, I have no idea why it no longer works for me. I really do appreciate everyone leaning in and trying to help me problem-solve.

Figured it out - I have to hit the right arrow to get it to "accept" the go-to-this-page page number. So at least I have that as a work-around if the double-arrow to advance to the last page never reappears.

This is maybe less important/frustrating, but is anyone else experiencing the teeny-tiny font issue? It is so small on the iPad that I can barely read it.

[aungrl]

Eureka!! I just noticed the two tiny red arrows pointing right in an entirely different location! Success in skipping to the final post/page. Now that I've actually spotted these double arrows in their new location, I totally get what moriond was trying to explain. Again, sorry for taking up everyone's time with this, thanks for all the help, and if anyone has an idea on the font size, lmk!

[G42]

Eureka!! I just noticed the two tiny red arrows pointing right in an entirely different location! Success in skipping to the final post/page. Now that I've actually spotted these double arrows in their new location, I totally get what moriond was trying to explain. Again, sorry for taking up everyone's time with this, thanks for all the help, and if anyone has an idea on the font size, lmk!

Glad you figured it out!

I don't have an iPad, but you're viewing the Forums through a browser... usually there's a setting under 'View' that lets you zoom in

[Surrealle]

Could it be a browser or ipad setting on the font size? I'm using Brave on my iPhone and the text is fine -- a little too big for my taste, in fact.

[moriond]

@aungrl
Hi,

Since you have an iPad, my suggestion is that you use the accessibility options under Settings to let you Zoom up your screen view with a three finger double-tap. This can be used anywhere on your iPad — whether you want to make a close-up examination of the icons on your home screen, get an enlarged view of the information in your Contacts, use this while reading your mail, or work in any app. In this case, you can use this feature to enlarge portions of your web browser view of these forums where the text font or red double arrow icons are smaller than is comfortable for your reading.

Once you have set this up, you simply use the three finger double tap gesture to enter Zoom (screen magnification) mode, place three fingers on the screen and drag the position center of the magnified text display to match the section you want to view, including using such a drag action to allow you to scroll to different parts of the magnified screen, then do another three finger double tap when you want to exit zoomed mode.

Eureka!! I just noticed the two tiny red arrows pointing right in an entirely different location! Success in skipping to the final post/page. Now that I've actually spotted these double arrows in their new location, I totally get what moriond was trying to explain. Again, sorry for taking up everyone's time with this, thanks for all the help, and if anyone has an idea on the font size, lmk!

Here’s how to configure Zoom from Settings → General → Accessibility → Zoom

You can tap on the embedded screenshots at the top to see slightly larger versions of the image attachments.

1. In the first screenshot of the Settings menu, select General on the left hand column then tap Accessibility where I have circled in red on the right
2. Under the Accessibility menu you want to tap the circled Zoom item in the second screenshot to go to the Zoom options and turn this on
3. The third screenshot shows that I’ve selected to use in full-screen mode as the Zoom region. I’ve turned on Zoom and I’ve turned on Follow Focus

Everything else is set at default values. The bottom slider lets you adjust the maximum Zoom amount. It’s usually a good idea to try out the default values before you change things. Follow focus means that as you scroll around the screen to view different areas, if you try to start entering text, or double-tapping on those right pointing red double arrows, your typing or taps will activate the correct portion of the screen in your zoomed mode. There are other options that I would leave off, like showing up a Zoom controlle. Many of these additional settings are helpful as aides for more extreme low vision conditions. For example using a Window Zoom region is like having a small magnifying glass because you need so much magnification that you could easily lose track of where you are in the overall zoomed region if you magnified everything in the screen at a really high level.

I can’t take a picture of how much clearer things would look under Zoomed magnification unless I used a camera to photograph my iPad screen. But I can point you to an (old) YouTube video that shows you what using this setup is like:

How to Zoom on the iPad (Chris Prillo, April 7, 2010)

You don’t have to drag your fingers vertically up and down the screen as he does to enter Zoom. Just watch him do the three finger double tap to enter and exit the Zoom mode, and observe how he changes the region of the screen under Zoom focus by placing three fingers in contact with the screen and shifting their position.

As a final comment: Apple devices have some great accessibility options, but please don’t turn on VoiceOveror and explore it while having this Zoom mode option turned on unless you have someone knowledgeable about how it works with you. VoiceOver has a separate set of gestures, and since its users include totally blind individuals, there are commands to completely turn off the screen and also to turn VoiceOver’s spoken announcements off or on if it would interrupt other listening or speaking activities. These gesture commands involve three finger triple taps or quadruple taps. If you inadvertently execute one of these, with the wrong number of taps, you’ll hear “screen curtain on” as your screen goes completely black, and “speaking off”as VoiceOver stops updating your actions, and you’ll appear to have a dark, unresponsive iPad.

HTH

moriond

[b1gsky]

Is there still a way to see when someone has quoted or mentioned me? Moriond quoted me in the Café bag thread, I saw that before I was logged in. When I logged in I had a red number on the notifications at the top of the page, but it vanished after a few seconds on its own. When I open the notifications page there’s nothing to see. I also can’t see anymore which people liked a post.