Alrighty, then!
By adamg - 11/23/09 - 9:40 pm
Welcome, finally, to the new (and soon to be improved) Universal Hub. Fire away with comments, complaints, etc.
A couple of changes:
If you have an OpenID account somewhere, you can now use it to register/log in here (click on the login/register link in the upper right).
If you post an article, you'll notice a new "Split" button on the posting form. Put your cursor where you want your article to be "split" - the top part will show up on index pages as a teaser to the entire article.
More to come.
And what was it that kept blowing up?
Grr, I feel so stupid about this, but here goes: The new version of Drupal in use here uses a lot of caching to reduce database loading - basically, if you're the first person to look at a page, the database makes a copy so the next person who comes along gets that instead of a freshly made page assembled out of lots of database queries (yes, Drupaloids, I realize I'm simplifying that a bit).
Turns out there was one field in one of the caching tables in the database that never got built when I upgraded the software for some reason. So every time every single page on the site was called up, not only wasn't the caching going on, but there were all sort of errors getting built as the system tried to access that field. It didn't affect the test server because I had caching turned off so I could play with changes in templates and stylesheets and modules. What was first thing I did when I installed the software on the live site? Turn on caching. What was the second thing I did when I installed the software on the live site? Watch the entire server crash as the database went berserk trying to write to and read that field. Grr. It made me appreciate why the favorite saying of one of the IT guys at my old job was "You're killin' me!"
Comments
New Site
By Stevil - 11/23/09 - 9:54 pm
Congrats! I like the blue (at least on my screen) headlines. Looked at your new site "here" before and they were red - blue works better in my book. Also vote for the token - a bit of heritage if you will - had no idea what the bug was til you explained - nice bit of trivia though. One alternative may be a picture of the lovable (but endangered?) Boston drupaloid?
Hope it's stable and everything holds up
The front page shows me the
By anon (not verified) - 11/23/09 - 9:56 pm
The front page shows me the 10 most recent posts... and then the 10 most recent posts a second time. 20 total "posts," but only 10 actual posts.
Lots and lots of duplicate posts
By Ron Newman - 11/23/09 - 10:02 pm
The front page has two copies of at least 10 different posts.
Fixed, thanks
By adamg - 11/23/09 - 10:15 pm
I'm trying something a little different with stuff on the home page and managed to assign the same block of stuff to that area twice.
Drupal? OpenID?
By Alex Howard (not verified) - 11/23/09 - 10:02 pm
I'm a fan. I just wish I still lived in Boston. DCist just doesn't do what you do (sorry, folks.) There's a weird ad bleed on the front page right now but, by and large, looks good. Congrats on getting all the moving parts working.
Well done, Adam!
By Cleary Squared - 11/23/09 - 10:15 pm
The page looks much neater and cleaner - and as my technology only extends to rudimentary HTML, I wouldn't have known what you were talking about.
Thanks
By adamg - 11/23/09 - 10:30 pm
I suppose I shouldn't admit the kidlet read an entire book on Drupal 5 development (I had it in the car for some reason; she took to reading it on trips).
Padding please?
By Arborway - 11/23/09 - 10:17 pm
In Safari 4 the text is absolutely flush with the left edge of the window. It's somewhat distracting.
Will take a look
By adamg - 11/23/09 - 10:20 pm
Sorry - I didn't think to look at the site in Safari. Will take a look tomorrow (you don't want me anywhere near CSS right now).
I use firefox, but I have bad
By JJJJ (not verified) - 11/23/09 - 11:08 pm
I use firefox, but I have bad eyesight so I zoom into webpages by hitting cntr and scrolling the mouse wheel. The old websites would zoom in fine, but this new layout pushes everything to the left edge.
I have no idea how to fix it, and am guessing you dont either, but the old website was fine, so when you have time, could you try to figure out how to make the page zoom better?
my firefox zoom feature is still working fine
By Anonymous - 11/23/09 - 11:54 pm
v 3.5.5
Looks lovely now
By Arborway - 11/24/09 - 7:04 pm
Thanks Adam!
So that's what it's called?
By HenryAlan - 11/23/09 - 10:29 pm
I have the same issue on my Palm Pre (WebOS), no idea what the browser is called. Overall thumbs up, Adam. The site has a nice clean look, and all that caching is making things nice and zippy.
I do find it a bit strange that I have to answer the anti-spam question, though.
So that's what it's called?
By HenryAlan - 11/23/09 - 10:30 pm
I have the same issue on my Palm Pre (WebOS), no idea what the browser is called. Overall thumbs up, Adam. The site has a nice clean look, and all that caching is making things nice and zippy.
I do find it a bit strange that I have to answer the anti-spam question, though.
So that's what it's called?
By HenryAlan - 11/23/09 - 10:34 pm
I have the same issue on my Palm Pre (WebOS), no idea what the browser is called. Overall thumbs up, Adam. The site has a nice clean look, and all that caching is making things nice and zippy.
I do find it a bit strange that I have to answer the anti-spam question, though.
Anti-spam-b-gone
By adamg - 11/23/09 - 11:21 pm
Sorry. You shouldn't see that anymore.
it's that the page is too
By anon (not verified) - 11/23/09 - 11:06 pm
it's that the page is too wide, on my macbook, the width safari seems to default is narrower than the 960 px width for the #page.
Tracker
By fenwayguy - 11/23/09 - 10:24 pm
"New" and "Updated" flags in the tracker as alternative to font color change on followed links. Interesting -- I'm sure I'll get used to it.
In both safari and firefox on
By cowsandmilk - 11/23/09 - 11:19 pm
In both safari and firefox on the mac, the "Cancel OpenID login" link seems to be misplaced (shows up after clicking "Log in using OpenID" on the /user page)
All Topics
By plt3012 - 11/24/09 - 4:03 am
I like the new set up. It's always good to change things around now and then. Is there or will there be an "All Topics" section?
On my to-do list
By adamg - 11/24/09 - 7:48 am
Along with a separate page just for news by neighborhood.
Foster Grant
By anon (not verified) - 11/24/09 - 6:08 am
Maybe it is just too early, but I need to find some sunglasses.
links are hard to see
By anon (not verified) - 11/24/09 - 6:52 am
on windows 7 ff 3.5, links (within a post) are hard to distinguish from regular text. their colors seem too similar.
To be fixed
By adamg - 11/24/09 - 7:48 am
You're right.
Ditto
By Lecil - 11/24/09 - 10:06 am
I've got the same issue with IE 7.0.
I like it!
By cubiclegirl - 11/24/09 - 7:13 am
But I really miss having something logo-ish at the top of the page remind me where I am because... you know... forgetful and all.
hmmmm
By johnmcboston - 11/24/09 - 7:54 am
I thought it was just me. Yes - there is no UHub logo/banner on any page...
Am I missing something?
By oddjob60 - 11/24/09 - 7:52 am
When I load the new site, there's no header graphic, just blank space to the left of the search box. I'm using Mac OS X 10.5.8 and Firefox 3.0.1. I usually use AdBlock Plus, but when I turn it off, I see the ads but still no header graphic. In Safari 4.0.4, there's a blue-box-question-mark where the image should be; in Camino 1.6.10, it's just blank again.
Doh
By adamg - 11/24/09 - 8:06 am
Because the logo HTML is pointing to the test directory, which I deleted last night. Will fix, thanks.
hooray!
By abermudez - 11/24/09 - 8:42 am
congratulations! the site looks great!
good luck with the CSS! messing with that stuff can get so tricky.
New site looks great
By Belmont - 11/24/09 - 8:51 am
And is working well on this end. (Using latest version of Firefox.)
Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family.
Links in /atom RSS feed may not be working properly
By Michael Pahre - 11/24/09 - 9:01 am
I previously was using the /atom/ version of the UH feed (i.e., http://www.universalhub.com/node/feed/atom/ ), but in my feed reader/aggregator none of the links work from your new software. This could be a unique "feature" to my reader, not a problem with your new site... Anyone else see the same problem?
Anyway, when using the "standard" feed (i.e., http://www.universalhub.com/node/feed/ ) the links work just fine for me.
Weird
By adamg - 11/24/09 - 9:05 am
When in doubt, it's probably my fault.
I just downloaded the Atom feed and the links seem to be working now. What do you see or get when you click on links?
Probably my feed reader
By Michael Pahre - 11/24/09 - 9:25 am
When I load the /atom feed in a browser the links work fine. But still when loading into my feed reader (akregator) the links don't appear at all. Must be a problem with the feed reader, possibly a need to update it to handle some new tag syntax.
Working as of 12/1
By MichaelPahre (not verified) - 12/2/09 - 8:29 pm
Atom feed in my reader now has working links as of 12/1 afternoon. Did you do something? Or is it a mysterious issue that required an animal sacrifice?
P.S. Can't figure out how to log into my UH user account... Hidden link behind the red horizontal bar?
Coupla things
By adamg - 12/3/09 - 12:26 pm
The reader must be an animal-sacrifice thing; I haven't touched anything with RSS since before last week. Chicken bones rule!
The login thing is probably related to the font sizes set in your browser, which I need to take into account. In the meantime, though, www.universalhub.com/user will let you log in.
Aggregator feed no longer working?
By Michael Pahre - 11/24/09 - 9:04 am
I also read the UH aggregator feed itself ( http://www.universalhub.com/aggregator/rss ) but this seems to be blank now.
Is this a dead feed that is being decommissioned? Is it now elsewhere?
Dead feed that will rise again
By adamg - 11/24/09 - 9:06 am
That's one of the things I'll be working on today, sorry for the inconvenience.
No inconvenience
By Michael Pahre - 11/24/09 - 9:26 am
It's not an inconvenience for me, just fix it at your leisure wherever it is in your to-do list. Thanks!
Nice overall, plenty of new ideas
By ShaneCurcuru - 11/24/09 - 9:05 am
Looks like you were up late over the weekend too. Comments on existing design:
1- Header and top nav bar look good. Keep the token.
2- Styles are nice; very fresh and open. If you're picky and know a good CSS/style designer, they might be able to tweak the fonts and/or spacing a tiny bit. It looks good, but it feels like very open and whitespace-full sites like this can have one tiny extra bit of CSS magic applied to make them feel... artistic too or something. (Not a priority though).
3- Use the right hand bar more! No-one wants to scroll to the bottom of the page to see the mini-summaries of MBTA/Crime/Politics/Media postings. Either move those into the right hand bar under comments, or just add a single list item of MBTA | Crime | etc. links so people can more obviously get to them.
4- What's your strategy for what categories appear in the top red bar, versus the MBTA/Crime/Politics/etc chunks? It's not always obvious what the different category-oriented navlinks point to.
5- Keep "The T" and "Photos" links prominent - those are always fun.
- Shane, since his old drupal.org based login no longer works.
P.S. Note to OpenID users: you need to both authenticate with your OpenID provider, and tie that OpenID into a specific UH username and email address, which might not be obvious the first time you do it.
Thanks
By adamg - 11/24/09 - 9:21 am
Sorry about the Drupal ID not working. I guess that's no longer part of core Drupal in 6?
The toolbar will be filled out with more "key" topics today, for example, to a listing of Boston neighborhood news. Are there particular topics folks would want a quick link to?
Will also fill out the right side, too. Maybe with those mini headline boxes.
Font too small
By Ron Newman - 11/24/09 - 9:10 am
On my MacBook with Safari, everything looks too small and I have to bump up the font one or two notches. At which point text starts to hug the left edge of the window without any margin or padding.
Ah, fonts!
By adamg - 11/24/09 - 9:22 am
Will try bumping it up a bit today.
Red links overlap with horizontal bar
By Michael Pahre - 11/24/09 - 9:31 am
On Firefox 2.0 (linux) some of the upper-right links in red (UH on Twitter, UH on flickr, etc.) that wrap around on a second line overlap with the horizontal red bar and make them unreadable. (Text/links in question are those after About/Contact.)
At least that's what I think the text is, since I can only see 5% of it peeking up from underneath the horizontal bar.
If you haven't done so already, make sure to check the layout with the opera browser -- it can often look very different, so is a good way to check that the layout works generally in many browsers.
Looks pretty good. I
By anon (not verified) - 11/24/09 - 12:01 pm
Looks pretty good. I appreciate the hard work. The blueish purple is a bit much for me, maybe I will get used to it. Also, the line separating posts on the main page could be a little more noticeable.
edge/ blue
By Taylor (not verified) - 11/24/09 - 12:10 pm
Sorry, but I don't like it so much. I have a vision problem that makes it almost impossible to read the standard blue of links, which is now the color of the headlines. I have to make the text really big to read it, and I also have the problem with the text being up against the left edge of the page (firefox on mac).
If anyone knows how to change the color of links WITHOUT changing the background color (which screws up menus, etc) I'd love to hear it. I'd switch to Safari if I could do it there.
Changing font colors
By Kaz - 11/24/09 - 12:39 pm
You can change four colors in Firefox on any system within the preferences.
http://www.w3.org/WAI/changedesign
On the latest Firefox on Windows XP, you'd go to Tools(menu)>Options>Content(tab)>Colors(button)
You can edit the text, background, unfollowed link, and followed link colors independently and then force those colors on any page you go to.
Sorry
By adamg - 11/24/09 - 12:43 pm
I've changed the blue in links, which should help some folks, now to look at the other stuff. What link colors are good for you?
Anyone else's comment counter off?
By Lecil - 11/24/09 - 12:42 pm
The main page continues to tell me that there are new comments even after I've read them all...?
Refresh
By fenwayguy - 11/24/09 - 12:54 pm
If you're using the Back button, you also have to reload the page.
I coulda sworn...
By Lecil - 11/24/09 - 12:58 pm
That I had refreshed...But that's the sort of week I'm having. Seems to be okay now, naturally. As with most IT-related issues, the moment you contact tech support... :)
All of a sudden
By Stevil - 11/24/09 - 3:34 pm
since you returned from the last server fever I am getting a warning on EVERY page " this page contains both secure and nonsecure items - do you want to display the non-secure items" - I get this once in a while on other sites with some type of graphic - but not every page I navigate to - appears to be something to do with the logo banner at the top of the page - a setting on my computer possibly but I don't typically get this from other sites.
OMG
By Kaz - 11/25/09 - 11:31 am
It's a Brookline Turkey!
GobbleGobbleGobble
By Lecil - 11/25/09 - 9:17 pm
Okay, while I'm firmly in the Token camp in the Token-vs.-grasshopper wars (there is a war involved, right?), I'm *LOVING* the Turkey! I'm fairly new, have there been seasonal icons before, or is this new with the new coding?
One of Dedham's finest, no less
By adamg - 11/25/09 - 9:43 pm
Thanks! I've occasionally done seasonal stuff before (once had a token with icicles for a blizzard), but when I first started talking about this redesign, somebody here (Anonymous, I think) suggested more topical banners, so there you are.
And here are a couple of much larger photos of the tom you see above.
Tracker? Am I going blind?
By merlinmurph - 11/27/09 - 8:13 am
You used to have, at the top of the page, a "My Acct" or "LOgin/Register" type of link. "My acct" had a Tracker tab so you see all the topics you posted to, and see if there was any new activity.
OK, I've looked and can't find anything like this. I know my hearing is going ("What???") - do I need stronger glasses, too?
It should still be there
By adamg - 11/27/09 - 10:50 am
Look under the search box in the upper right corner - but let me know if you don't see anything there (what? me screw something up? no!) In the meantime, if you're logged in,
www.universalhub.com/user
will get you to your account page.
There's nothing there
By merlinmurph - 11/27/09 - 1:02 pm
Using Firefox 3.5.5
IE has it, so I see where it is supposed to be
I see it
By Kaz - 11/27/09 - 1:06 pm
Try this. Select all text between your user name on the /user page and the words "About me". This is what I get when I paste:
That is using Firefox 3.5.5 on Vista64. I can see all 5 of those tabs on my page. Does the "OpenID identities" tab show up? Is it abutting the right column? Maybe the page layout is trying to show the Track tab but it's pushed too far to the right and getting overwritten by the righthand column?
Still nothng there
By merlinmurph - 11/27/09 - 1:26 pm
With Firefox, immediately under the line that says:
UH on Twitter UH on Flickr .......
There is the bold red title bar - not even enough space to put the username line in.
OK hold it. Just noticed something.
The "Search" button is underneath the search entry box, which probably steals the space needed for the username stuff. I've got the window maximized. There just isn't enough room on the form for the "Search" button, so it gets squeezed underneath.
I'm no web programmer, so I'm no help here.
Ah, a clue
By adamg - 11/27/09 - 1:44 pm
What browser are you using?
Firefox 3.5.5
By merlinmurph - 11/27/09 - 1:53 pm
n/t
Hmm
By adamg - 11/27/09 - 2:11 pm
Do you have your browser window expanded to the full screen, or do you have it in a smaller window?
It's maxed
By merlinmurph - 11/27/09 - 2:24 pm
However, the UHub form(??? the part with the white background) doesn't go all the way to the sides
Will try to fix
By adamg - 11/27/09 - 2:35 pm
Thanks, and sorry for the inconvenience. May take me a bit - the kidlet has some money burning a hole in her
pocketpiggy bank, so we must brave the crowds ...A work around
By Michael Kerpan - 11/27/09 - 8:23 pm
Go to View->Page Style and you will find a choice between basic style and no style. Pick no style -- and you can see the log-in link. Log in -- and then change back to basic style.
I was able to replicate the problem
By adamg - 11/27/09 - 8:53 pm
A favor: Could you let me know if you have the option to let the page set the styles turned off?
Click Tools / Options / Advanced and you should see a box. If you could check the box, save and click on a link to the UH home page, let me know if that fixes the account-box issue. If yes, I'll see if there's a workaround.
Don't see it
By merlinmurph - 11/30/09 - 10:13 am
Sorry, I was away over the weekend.
Here's the latest.
At home where I initially had the problem, I have Firefox 3.5.5 (?). I went to Tools/Options/Advanced and see nothing about turning styles off. There are 4 tabs in the Advanced dialog box:
General/Network/Update/Encryption
Nothing like you asked for.
Here's something.
Here at work I currently have Firefox 3.0.1 (though it's updating as we speak), and I can see everything fine. The Search button is to the right of the entry box.
On my Linux machine, I've got Firefox 3.0.15, and the Search button is squeezed underneath the search entry box. I can just see the tops of the letters peeking over the red bar across the top. ;-) If I get a "Page not found" page, there is no red bar and I can see everything fine.
Did you look at the place I suggested?
By Michael Kerpan - 11/30/09 - 10:51 am
That's where I found the "no style" option using Firefox 3.5.
OK, that works
By merlinmurph - 11/30/09 - 11:07 am
Thanks, Michael - I can see everything when I do as Michael suggests. It's ugly, but it shows what we're looking for.
"No style" is something I can relate to. ;-)
Once you get yourself logged in...
By Michael Kerpan - 11/30/09 - 11:11 am
You can make yourself stylish again. ;~}
Oh.
By Kaz - 11/27/09 - 1:46 pm
Ah, I get it now. You are looking for the line that says:
"Welcome, USERNAME: Post!/My Account/Log out"
between the search box and the red horizontal line. I thought you were already on the user account page looking for the "Track" tab.
Yes, your page width sounds like it is shoving the "Search" button down a line and thus shoving the Welcome line underneath of other page elements.
Post a story pages not getting CSS?
By Kaz - 11/27/09 - 1:08 pm
Just posted something on the UHubTalk channel and noticed that the page styling doesn't seem to be the same as the main site's layout/colors, etc. It's this pale blue color and weird layout.
EDIT: odd, this comment's subject line didn't get listed at the top of the "Recent Comments" box on the right column either...
EDIT2: ok, this subject line is there now, but the two comments above this one aren't...yet...it seems there's some sort of significant delay right now between comments appearing down here and their subjects appearing in "Recent Comments"...however on the tracker page, the stories are being advanced to the top of the list correctly as to when the new comments are being added (not being based on when Recent Comments thinks there's a new comment worth pointing out)
Ah, caching
By adamg - 11/27/09 - 1:19 pm
The new version of Drupal has all sorts of caching mechanisms for all sorts of elements. I probably set the "Recent comments" cache to something like five minutes, while the tracker page doesn't have that.
I'll look into that - and why pages seem to be coming up more slowly than they should.
Ok then...
By fenwayguy - 12/3/09 - 12:23 pm
I've saved up a couple, even though I must say that overall, the new design looks great.
o The blockquote tag changes font color to a light gray that fades into the woodwork. Something more forceful and readable would be my suggestion.
o I still haven't trained my brain to interpret the big red 'new' tags as intended, as a separate piece of information. Brain wants to construct things. Things like
It'll take some time...
So, nu?
By adamg - 12/3/09 - 12:24 pm
Hmm, you're right. Maybe I should put it in superscript, so it floats above the subject line a bit.
Oh, wait
By fenwayguy - 12/3/09 - 12:51 pm
I'm wrong about the blockquote font color change -- it's the followed-link font color that I'm seeing. Which does kind of fade away...
Yep
By adamg - 12/3/09 - 1:54 pm
It's especially annoying when there are a lot of them, such as on the tracker page. I need to fix that followed-link blue.
Purple's kind of trendy
By fenwayguy - 12/4/09 - 6:11 pm