OH GOD HOW I HATE THIS FORUM SOFTWARE

[tg626]

I just gotta share it.  After spending hours to craft a release post and having this and that go all borked up as I was doing so - now I can't seem to find how to SUBSCRIBE to a thread...

I know, I'm 'blind' and probably missing the obvious, but I am so frustrated at this point I want to scream - it's taking enormous energy not to make this a profanity laced rant questioning the intelligence, and ancestral romantic practices of who ever wrote this ...

 

software.

 

 

[GDJ]

Hit the "Follow" button. Same thing as subscribe.

[tg626]

Like I said...  Although that doesn't appear on mobile, I must note.

Thanks for pointing it out, being grey and being where it is above the reply button it just didn't register that it was there - and even when you point it out it's not entirely obvious (to me at least) that you can/should click it.  It looks more that an info box.

Anyway, far more egregious to me is how the editor seems to "crash" an awful lot of you want to do any sort of formatting of your post...  but whatever, I know my fussing about it won't change anything.

EDIT: Since someone may ask... Chrome

Edited October 25, 2016 by tg626

[idamoofus]

I miss the old forum. Straight from Kerbol forum.

[Mad Rocket Scientist]

I hear that the forums is much worse on mobile than desktop, I haven't used it much on mobile myself.

For help with the desktop version, I wrote a guide on how to use it:

And here's the bit about how to make a stream that works like the old settings page:

Quote

Streams:

1. To get a activity similar to the old "Settings," click "activity," then click "my activity streams" then "Create new stream" then make all the settings look like this (aside from the name): https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/61004449/KSP/Moderation/CustomStream.png or use this link: http://forum.kerbalspaceprogram.com/index.php?/discover/25/
2. Click the little box icon on the upper-left corner of any activity stream to enter a condensed view.
3. All other tabs in the activity tab are self-explanatory. You can edit preset streams with the "edit this stream" button on them.
4. Hitting the grey checkbox next to a custom stream title will make it a default stream, so you see a little link to it anywhere in the forums, to the right of the breadcrumbs.
5. You can share one of your streams by posting the URL from it.

 

[Kerbal101]

Yep, at least several times it has eaten my posts. Because the post input fields are not normal forms, whole content is also ignored by Textcache. The posts could at least be autosaved by forum, but they are not. Also can't paste quotes from different threads. And the new line/new paragraph are differentiated and problematic.

On the positive side - it autodetects pictures and allows to visually resize them; autodetects links from other threads and pastes them; and the WYSIWYG allows very good fast visual markup.

[Virtualgenius]

Who do we have to pay to get the image albums fixed in the forum they seem to be all broken can we please have this looked at by someone

[Nibb31]

This forum software is broken in so many ways. My list of bugs that makes it unusable:

- The editor does not support mobile usage. Features like moving and deleting quotes rely on CTRL-right-click. Newsflash: there is no CTRL key and no right-click on mobile devices. Duh.

- To add to the misery, it doesn't support Tapatalk either, so there is no alternative to the broken web interface. Duh.

- Reply to a post with quotes. Come back later and reply again, the same message is stuck there. Deleting it is a whole malarkey that involves logging into a desktop PC and CTRL-Right-clicking, and then you have to requote the new message you were replying to. In general, there is all sorts of weird behavior with quoting and old posts persisting in the editor.

- From time to time, dividing quoted text makes one of the quote blocks undeletable for no reason.

- Today for some reason, the editor seems to have switched to right-to-left text.  taht ekil ,seY

I was mad when they changed the software 2 years ago, but we were told they had reported the bugs and that they would be dealt with.

Whoever evaluated the software at Squad before buying it screwed up badly. Bugs have been reported but there seems to be no effort to fix them. It's time to move on and replace it with something that works.

[Red Iron Crown]

9 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

This forum software is broken in so many ways. My list of bugs that makes it unusable:

Hyperbole. You're using it right now.

9 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

- The editor does not support mobile usage.

Yes it does. Are you actually unable to make posts from mobile?

9 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Features like moving and deleting quotes rely on CTRL-right-click. Newsflash: there is no CTRL key and no right-click on mobile devices. Duh.

It is true that some features don't work as well on mobile, which is not the same thing as "broken" or "not supporting mobile usage". Duh.

9 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

- To add to the misery, it doesn't support Tapatalk either, so there is no alternative to the broken web interface. Duh.

Forum software support for Tapatalk is added by the Tapatalk people, please ask them to support it. Duh.

9 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

- Reply to a post with quotes. Come back later and reply again, the same message is stuck there.

This is a legitimate issue, and one that will be addressed in the next forum software update. Apparently you will be given the option to keep or discard saved drafts when coming back to a thread, and drafts will expire after 48 hours in any case.

9 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

Deleting it is a whole malarkey that involves logging into a desktop PC and CTRL-Right-clicking, and then you have to requote the new message you were replying to. In general, there is all sorts of weird behavior with quoting and old posts persisting in the editor.

The editor saves drafts, yes. See above.

9 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

- From time to time, dividing quoted text makes one of the quote blocks undeletable for no reason.

Haven't observed this one. Can you provide reproduction steps?

9 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

- Today for some reason, the editor seems to have switched to right-to-left text.  taht ekil ,seY

That happens when splitting quotes and is trivial to workaround by moving your cursor. Bug has already been reported, not sure if a fix made it into the next release.

9 hours ago, Nibb31 said:

I was mad when they changed the software 2 years ago, but we were told they had reported the bugs and that they would be dealt with.

Forum software changed in December of 2015, which is one year ago, not two. We are dependent on a third party for bug fixes, all we can do is report them in good faith.

[steve_v]

I'll add a few to that list:
Editor is almost completely unusable on mobile, quoting anything traps the cursor in the quote box, any attempts to add text below it jump right back in. Android, observed in both GNU IceCat (Firefox 38.8) and Firefox 45.0.2
As previously mentioned very few of the "advanced" editor features work, as they depend on the CTRL key.

Refreshing the activity stream stalls my browser (Script is not responding dialog) repeatedly, untill I get frustrated enough to outright kill the browser window. Observed on 3 different PCs (Firefox 45.6, 48.0, 50.0.2) and above mentioned mobile browsers. I'm guessing this is due to the fancy "infinite page" thing it does (and all the crud it loads in the background to do it), please make it go away and just give me ordinary pages. No blurring, fade-in or any other frippery required.

The editor itself is unreasonably slow, often lagging behind by several keystrokes, this on a fairly quick (3.8GHz/quad) machine. Right now, adding a newline in this window takes anywhere between 0.5 and 3 seconds. This is ridiculous.

The forum hijacks my browser history, and then screws it up, preventing me from using "back" to reach the first page of a thread.

Most importantly, very few of the feedback items from the launch (most importantly to me: plaintext, non javastupid editor) have actually been addressed.

Vbulletin is better (and faster) than this, as is PHPBB, MyBB, IceBB... the list goes on. In fact this is the single slowest, most infuriating piece of forum software garbage I have ever encountered.

Edited December 28, 2016 by steve_v

[Red Iron Crown]

5 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

Wrong!
I found multiple complaint threads from before December 2015.

Pardon, late November 2015.

5 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

But the date is irrelevant. What's paramount in this discussion that this forum is a travesty. The main reason people stopped complaining about it is the knowledge that complaints are useless.

And yet here we are.

[nascarlaser1]

2 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Pardon, late November 2015.

And yet here we are.

and so we are...

[steve_v]

6 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Pardon, late November 2015.

So it was over a year ago that these complaints were first aired, and over a year ago that I (and others) asked for a plaintext+BBcode editor... What happened? Nothing has been fixed, nor improved, no editor provided.
This thing is still as shoddy as day one, and I still can't quote on mobile.

Edited December 28, 2016 by steve_v

[Red Iron Crown]

4 minutes ago, steve_v said:

I'll add a few to that list:
Editor is almost completely unusable on mobile, quoting anything traps the cursor in the quote box, any attempts to add text below it jump right back in. Android, observed in both GNU IceCat (Firefox 38.8) and Firefox 45.0.2

Cannot reproduce, on mobile quoting without manipulating the quote works as expected for me, text entry works correctly. (Chrome as the browser, fwiw)

4 minutes ago, steve_v said:

As previously mentioned very few of the "advanced" editor features work, as they depend on the CTRL key.

Refreshing the activity stream stalls my browser (Script is not responding dialog) repeatedly, untill I get frustrated enough to outright kill the browser window. Observed on 3 different PCs (Firefox 45.6, 48.0, 50.0.2) and above mentioned mobile browsers.
The editor itself is unreasonably slow, often lagging behind by several keystrokes, this on a fairly quick (3.8GHz/quad) machine. Right now, adding a newline in this window takes anywhere between 0.5 and 3 seconds. This is ridiculous.

Cannot reproduce. My machine is slower than this and does not lag the way you describe on Firefox 50.1.0 or mobile. Maybe one of your add-ons for the browser is misbehaving?

4 minutes ago, steve_v said:

The forum hijacks my browser history, and then screws it up, preventing me from using "back" to reach the first page of a thread.

This is a tradeoff. The browser doesn't reload the entire page (and thus reduces bandwidth use) when switching between pages. If you use the page navigation buttons rather than the back button it works fine.

4 minutes ago, steve_v said:

Most importantly, very few of the feedback items from the launch (most importantly to me: plaintext, non javastupid editor) have actually been addressed.

If there was a plaintext option we'd have it, sorry but this one is out of our hands. None of the available plugins provide this functionality. Perhaps you'd like to write one?

4 minutes ago, steve_v said:

Vbulletin is better (and faster) than this, as is PHPBB, MyBB, IceBB... the list goes on. In fact this is the single slowest, most infuriating piece of forum software garbage I have ever encountered.

Your opinion has been noted.

[Dman979]

1 hour ago, Red Iron Crown said:

This is a legitimate issue, and one that will be addressed in the next forum software update. Apparently you will be given the option to keep or discard saved drafts when coming back to a thread, and drafts will expire after 48 hours in any case.

I'm actually glad to hear this, I think it's going to be a good update! I found the persistent replies helpful, especially when I was writing something and then accidentally went to a different page. I didn't complain, because I thought it was a feature, not a bug.

 

One thing, though- can we get more notice when you are going to update the forum? I want to be prepared in case anything like losing friends or avatars happens.

[Tex_NL]

21 minutes ago, Red Iron Crown said:

Your opinion has been noted.

How does noting an opinion help anybody? Opinions and complaints have been 'noted' for over a year and STILL nothing changed.

[HoloYolo]

2 hours ago, Tex_NL said:

How does noting an opinion help anybody? Opinions and complaints have been 'noted' for over a year and STILL nothing changed.

Nothing's changed because it's their choice to change it back, and have they changed it?

[HebaruSan]

When I tried it on iOS, the most painful thing was having to hunt and peck (and inevitably backspace far more than usual) on the tiny on-screen keyboard. A moderately-sized paragraph took on the order of 30 minutes (or just felt like it?). I guess autocomplete is supposed to help, but then I had to split my attention between the keyboard and constantly re-reading the 3 available words; do I move my finger to the next letter, or up there? Since there's no way to predict what the next group of autocompletes will be, I had to give up on a steady typing rhythm to use it. Integrated holographic keyboard cameras can't arrive a moment too soon.

(Obviously this is not something I expect SQUAD's forum mavens to address.)

[Red Iron Crown]

13 hours ago, HoloYolo said:

Nothing's changed because it's their choice to change it back, and have they changed it?

There is no migration path back to the version of vB we were using, and newer vB was found to be unsuitable (it was originally planned to just move to that instead of IPS).

[Stone Blue]

As much as I also hate this forum software, and as much as I have not been happy with the lack of customization by the Squad team, (especially something other than the "stock" software theme), and also by the sometimes dodgy answers and seeming lack of action or caring by Squad, I would encourage people to check out the IPS website or forums before replying/posting issues with the forum software.

Red Iron Crown DOES have valid points that issues or bugs specific to the software are out of Squad's hands.

If you want things fixed that are/should be in Squad's hands, then an informed request/complaint, with SPECIFICS, and maybe even reference links from the IPS website or forum, on what can/can not be done with the software, by "customers" (in this case Squad), may get better results...

If you're gonna call Squad out on their choice of using IPS, or the lack of customization by Squad, then take some time to get the facts directly from IPS (Invision Power Services, Inc), concerning exactly what is/is NOT in Squad's power to change/fix/deal with...

Also, I'm sure its been posted somewhere, but I'm pretty sure KasperVid, who IIRC, was in charge of Squad's web/forum stuff, has been replaced?
 

Edited December 29, 2016 by Stone Blue

[Tex_NL]

1 hour ago, Stone Blue said:

As much as I also hate this forum software, and as much as I have not been happy with the lack of customization by the Squad team, (especially something other than the "stock" software theme), and also by the sometimes dodgy answers and seeming lack of action or caring by Squad, I would encourage people to check out the IPS website or forums before replying/posting issues with the forum software.

Red Iron Crown DOES have valid points that issues or bugs specific to the software are out of Squad's hands.

If you want things fixed that are/should be in Squad's hands, then an informed request/complaint, with SPECIFICS, and maybe even reference links from the IPS website or forum, on what can/can not be done with the software, by "customers" (in this case Squad), may get better results...

If you're gonna call Squad out on their choice of using IPS, or the lack of customization by Squad, then take some time to get the facts directly from IPS (Invision Power Services, Inc), concerning exactly what is/is NOT in Squad's power to change/fix/deal with...

Also, I'm sure its been posted somewhere, but I'm pretty sure KasperVid, who IIRC, was in charge of Squad's web/forum stuff, has been replaced?
 

I, and probably the vast majority, do not blame Squad for not being able to fix certain things. I blame Squad for getting involved with crappy software. And THEN ignoring all complaints and acting if nothing is wrong.

If you buy a car without properly looking at all the details and it turns out it does not meet the requirements you need. Who's to blame? The manufacturer? Or you, for buying a crappy car?

[Kerbart]

16 minutes ago, Tex_NL said:

I, and probably the vast majority, do not blame Squad for not being able to fix certain things. I blame Squad for getting involved with crappy software. And THEN ignoring all complaints and acting if nothing is wrong.

If you buy a car without properly looking at all the details and it turns out it does not meet the requirements you need. Who's to blame? The manufacturer? Or you, for buying a crappy car?

There are several extenuating circumstances though that make it understandable that we are where we are:

• The existing forum software was a security liability and needed replacement. Last thing any software publisher wants is their forum getting hacked and now all their users have their email passwords exposed. Email passwords? Yes, most users will pick the same password for all their online services, be it their email or the forum of a game they play. The blame is of course with the user in that case but the headline “SQUAD WEBSITE HACKED: THOUSANDS OF USERS EMAIL EXPOSED” will still be there, unfair as it is.
• Migration from one forum to the other is a giant headache. A let’s throw spaghetti against the wall and see what sticks approach simply will not work. And who's to say that the next candidate is not exposing other liabilities?
• I'm not saying this software is perfect. I've had cases where I couldn't put text inside a quote block, or not outside a quote block. Splitting up a quote in multiple blocks to address several issues is dodgy at best. The lack of tag-coding (be it HTML or BB) is infuriating if you’re used to the accuracy it comes with, compared to the “let’s roll the dice on what you’re getting” approach of the WYSIWIG editor, but in most cases, it does work (kinda)

I'm going to assume this forum is low-maintenance on Squad's side, as being a reason why they picked it. They're not charging for forum access. It delivers what they need, and it delivers what we need—in a kinda, sorta, most-of-the-timish way.

What incentive is their for them to replace it with a new system that might (again) not deliver what it promises, taking away resources from actual KSP development? Yeah, it sucks, I particularly don’t like it either, but the expectation that it is going to change is overly optimistic.

I wouldn’t compare it to buying a car. I’d compare it to buying No Man’s Sky. It shiny and pretty and slick when you start out with it. Two weeks in you discover that it’s not quite what was promised on the website, but sadly the judge will tell you that technically they delivered what they promised, you just interpreted their promises the wrong way (the basic standing in the UK at least). So what are you going to do at that point? The forum works, maybe not at a level we want it to work, but I think it’s unrealistic to think Squad is going to spend time and money on it at this point. Not for a service that’s offered for free.

[John FX]

The question I have is, what was so wrong with the old software that it needed to be changed?

I quite liked it.

edit: Ah, didn`t refresh, seems my question was answered while I looked at the thread and typed.

Edited December 29, 2016 by John FX

[Dman979]

4 hours ago, Kerbart said:

The existing forum software was a security liability and needed replacement. Last thing any software publisher wants is their forum getting hacked and now all their users have their email passwords exposed. Email passwords? Yes, most users will pick the same password for all their online services, be it their email or the forum of a game they play. The blame is of course with the user in that case but the headline “SQUAD WEBSITE HACKED: THOUSANDS OF USERS EMAIL EXPOSED” will still be there, unfair as it is.

Yes, this is possibly the single largest reason I like IPS better. I seem to be one of an ever-shrinking number of people concerned about online privacy, so I am very happy that the forums were ported.

 

5 hours ago, Stone Blue said:

Also, I'm sure its been posted somewhere, but I'm pretty sure KasperVid, who IIRC, was in charge of Squad's web/forum stuff, has been replaced?

 

[Stone Blue]

@Dman979 I know KasperVid left, but who's his replacement?