Forum Issues - Update Released

[RacingPete]

LordGrover said:

RacingPete said:

I am away this weekend rallying in Yorkshire, so won't be updating further till Monday morning... maybe one of my colleagues might

It must seem like we're all against you, but we're just frustrated. Sorry.
Enjoy your weekend.

Then get it sorted next week!

Well... rallying didn't go too well - lost the lead of the championship after finishing 18th overall

Completely understand the frustration - I would be frustrated too, especially with my stuff as it is my starting page for PH.

We are working on the My Stuff issue and the last post issue at the moment, and will update when we can - we are hoping to have it sorted by tomorrow.

[RacingPete]

Update on this - today we have fixed the following:

• My Stuff on iPad working (apart from tabs on portrait view)
• Desktop view on iPad for both landscape and portrait orientation
• Some tweaks to the styling of the page
• Performance fixes to the site

Still working on

• Zoom on Tablets
• Overlapping 5th post with advert on Tablet
• Go to last read post in My Stuff
• Icon alignments on footer bar on some phones
• Menu navigation not working on Phone on some pages
• Can't edit favourite forums on Phone
• My Stuff - no tabs on iPad portrait view
• Some small styling tweaks

[RacingPete]

illmonkey said:

The links take me to page 1 on my mobile in my stuff, even if I go to the last page to update the tracker.

And how about a 'quick reply' box at the bottom of every page, would save a click and bandwidth for you. You would still have the 'full reply' button.

Are you talking mobile phone here, as that still needs to be sorted out for last posts.

I am not sure how quick reply is different to what we have now - there is a reply at the top and bottom of every page?? uzzled:

[RacingPete]

AW111 said:

My Stuff is still broken on Samsung Galaxy tablet / default browser.

Still looks like the iPad screen shots.

Is it a Galaxy Tablet 2 - 7"?
And if you rotate it to landscape is it better?

Just wondering if we are detecting it as a phone instead of a tablet...

[RacingPete]

Funk said:

Galaxy Tab S 8.4 portrait, Chrome browser:



and landscape:

It's not detecting your tab as a tablet - will look at that tomorrow.

[RacingPete]

BorkFactor said:

I am still getting the desktop site on my mobile, how do I get the mobile site back?

If you go to my preferences then you can change to GTI skin.

If you have already done that, and still not seeing mobile site post here and will look tomorrow.

[RacingPete]

They here....

I can assure you that if it is as easy as all say, then it would have been done. The issue is that the way My Stuff works is not the same as all the other pages - we are working on aligning that at the moment.

[RacingPete]

Craikeybaby said:

Craikeybaby said:

Over the last week or so I have noticed Safari is using a lot more of my battery power than it used to on my iPhone 6, I hadn't linked it with the changes on PH, but it kind of figures. Will try not using PH on my phone for 24 hours and see what happens...

My battery usage has stayed the same over the last 24 hours, despite not using PH on my iPhone, it is doesn't seem like PH is to blame.

Good to know... we are monitoring this though.

[RacingPete]

Vaud said:

I think it is a valid question, but as non-paying users our views are like aholes, everyone has one.

The board functionality and pace of update seems poor compared to many commercial systems and sites. That said, I do also question if any off the shelf software could cope with the volume that PH has.

I guess there are two connected discussions:

1) The efficiency of the current development, test, QA and release cycle

2) The ability of the platform to provide both the functionality and the agility needed to build the desired capability

Yep, agree on the validity of the question, so I will give a brief answer here...

Why do we not move off this forum software to something new?

The main reason is time and resource, and the cost effectiveness of changing platforms.

With 39 million posts, where the posting information stored has changed over the 14 years the forum has been going, will require some intensive analysis work to make sure that migration doesn't break anything. And with the addition of Videos, News, Polls, and Wikis this is extended to making sure the new software can interpret that content and migrate it correctly also.

There is also integrating the login information to the rest of the site
Searching across the forums
Any RSS/APIs we have for the data
Connectivity of commenting on news articles, videos, and anything else we choose to do in the future
Maintaining our SEO rankings, (especially if the URLs change and we have to create a lot of rules for these)
And then integrating the new forum software into the rest of the site, and all our analytics, ad systems, etc

As a project it is not trivial, and though the forums are a huge part of the functionality of the site, it is not as easy to monetise as the classifieds or news.

So to invest in a platform move will be a major investment for us, and one that has only indirect value back (in cash terms), and thus hard to measure the ROI in pure financial terms....

Though we may look at it in the future, but not this year, as we have other major projects ongoing to make PistonHeads brilliant.

[RacingPete]

Update from the mother ship on a Friday.

We have released a hotfix for:

• Go to last read post in My Stuff - If you click on the topic title then you will go to your last read position automatically (assumption that if it is in My Stuff then you have previously read it and thus will always want to go to the last read position)

We have fixed, but releasing early next week:

• Overlapping 5th post with advert on Tablet
• Menu navigation not working on Phone on some pages
• Can't edit favourite forums on Phone
• My Stuff - no tabs on iPad portrait view
• Galaxy Tab (and some others) showing the correct view on My Stuff

Still working on:

• Zoom on Tablets
• Icon alignments on footer bar on some phones
• Some small styling tweaks

[RacingPete]

Funk said:

tog said:

illmonkey said:

Can you sort the font sizes out too. Some stuff is too big, some too small.

Also, a bit of margin on the table in 'what's new' please, it's all really close together.

I would echo both of those requests. On the full site, using a Safari on a Mac, the fonts are mostly too small.

Add another from me. The font size falls uncomfortably between the 'zoom' sizes in Chrome and either looks too small or like a kids' book.

It's been a week, still getting the borked layout on the Tab S as well...

Will look at the font sizing issue and spacing with the team on Monday morning.

[RacingPete]

illmonkey said:

RacingPete said:

Will look at the font sizing issue and spacing with the team on Monday morning.

Must be a friday, all off to the pub at 3pm

Off to the pub??? We haven't left since lunchtime

[RacingPete]

LordGrover said:

But on Nexus 9 it's rubbish! Portrait & Landscape.

The fix for that will go out at the beginning of next week.

[RacingPete]

FreeLitres said:

Why do I keep getting logged out?

I used to always be logged in but now it automatically logs me out at random about once a day.

What device is this on?

[RacingPete]

Update on this...

We are working through the top 25 mobile devices that hit the site to make sure the markup looks right on them - this is taking longer than we imagined (testing all forum pages in both orientation on device) so we have delayed a few releases based on this work.

Feedback on the spacing of buttons, font sizes etc are also being reviewed at the moment and will be discussed by the product team.

[RacingPete]

I'm on holiday at the moment till 2nd September, but will make sure one of the team keeps this thread updated.