***HUGE PLCs.net forum upgrade coming mid-February***

[PreLC]

My opinions: Me likely a lot.

 

[TheWaterboy]

I like the moderation dialog. All the options in once place so it's not a 2 step process to boot an obvious spammer.
I like the email notifications but the clickable link at the top was not immediately obvious.

Nice work Phil, very much appreciated and grateful you stuck with this BBS format and not the SalesForce template that is all about style and flash but poor on function. (AB site for example)

 

[TheWaterboy]

May I suggest one more thing? Limit the signature field to a few lines or a specific height, some are too long and disturb the flow. sure I can turn them off but this is middle ground.

 

[busarider29]

Navigated to the website today for the first time in a couple weeks, and.....Wow! What's this?!? A modern looking website with modern controls and visuals? No way!! Woo-hoo!!! It felt like being instantly transported from the year 1997 to the present day! Kinda how I felt after moving away from WinForms and moving to WPF. Or how I felt after moving away from RSLogix world and into TwinCAT world! Smart-ass comments aside, nice work! Looks great!

 

[OkiePC]

I just want to say you did an outstanding job bringing everything over from the old forum. Even my 96% full message box still has all those old messages in it, the look and feel is familiar enough that I'm not lost here and the website operation seems to be smooth and clean. Great Job Phil!

 

[OkiePC]

I have one suggestion:

Can we get a header button to jump to the live Q&A like in my mockup pictured?

 

[PreLC]

First of all, this is a great change to the forum!

I wanted to check if this is possible: Currently when we zoom out, the width of the text column decreases. Old forum behaviour was that the width is non-constant, and we could fit more stuff on the screen. This was a great feature(At least to me) that we don't have anymore..
Attaching image, one with normal zoom, second with more zoom. Now there is a lot more whitespace.

 

[Phil Melore]

I have one suggestion:

Can we get a header button to jump to the live Q&A like in my mockup pictured?

View attachment 68225

Thanks for the suggestion!
I see where you're driving and understand the value but if I add a tab there it goes to the mobile view pull down menu as well which isn't necessarily the best option. I might be able to have it show only when screen is wider than x pixels though to avoid the mobile issue. I'll have to mess around when I get a few...

 

[OkiePC]

I just noticed that clicking on Home or clicking on Forums (not the drop-down arrow, but the text) do the exact same thing. Could maybe the Forums button jump to Live Q&A?

 

[TheWaterboy]

I just noticed that clicking on Home or clicking on Forums (not the drop-down arrow, but the text) do the exact same thing. Could maybe the Forums button jump to Live Q&A?

Or make "Home" destination user configurable?

 

[Phil Melore]

First of all, this is a great change to the forum!

I wanted to check if this is possible: Currently when we zoom out, the width of the text column decreases. Old forum behaviour was that the width is non-constant, and we could fit more stuff on the screen. This was a great feature(At least to me) that we don't have anymore..
Attaching image, one with normal zoom, second with more zoom. Now there is a lot more whitespace.
View attachment 68230

How are you getting that?
It's a responsive design meaning it responds by resizing to whatever screen size is being used since phones, tablets, monitors, etc are all different. If I resize my screen as shown attached here it responds by resizing as it should. But once it hits x (maybe 980 pixels?? I forget) it stops widening.

 

[TheWaterboy]

Same here Phil, I have BIG monitor and it stops expanding at 1180 pixels wide. The Header expands, but nothing else.

 

[PreLC]

How are you getting that?
It's a responsive design meaning it responds by resizing to whatever screen size is being used since phones, tablets, monitors, etc are all different. If I resize my screen as shown attached here it responds by resizing as it should. But once it hits x (maybe 980 pixels?? I forget) it stops widening.

My screen resolution is 3546x2234 pixels. 2021 MacbookPro 16".

Widening my browser after about 2000 pixels seems to be your x with 100% zoom on chrome.
Is the 'x' a value you can change to be infinite(For all intents and purposes)?

 

[Phil Melore]

Same here Phil, I have BIG monitor and it stops expanding at 1180 pixels wide. The Header expands, but nothing else.

Is the 'x' a value you can change to be infinite(For all intents and purposes)?

OK, I checked into worldwide desktop screen resolution stats and while width of 1920 pixels was the leader if I set the forum to that it looks like
So, I've moved it up to #2 which is 1366 pixel width. Still not a mile wide lol but hopefully a nice compromise. (It was 1200 pixels wide)

Desktop Screen Resolution Stats Worldwide | Statcounter Global Stats

This graph shows the stats of desktop screen resolutions worldwide based on over 5 billion monthly page views.

gs.statcounter.com

Thanks,

 

[Phil Melore]

I just noticed that clicking on Home or clicking on Forums (not the drop-down arrow, but the text) do the exact same thing. Could maybe the Forums button jump to Live Q&A?

Sure, I can see the value too. I'll try doing that

Or make "Home" destination user configurable?

That would be useful... but sadly way above my programming ability. I'm more a jack of many trades but master of none kinda guy