Changes to (Hopefully) Enhance Your Forum Viewing Experience
Another day, another bunch of miserable whining ingrates valued forum users catered for: yes, there are some new facilities and fixes available to you all, you loveable rogues 
And I think that's it. Although I've linked to some individual bug reports (or, in Spod's case, mere whingeing
) above, a number of these issues have been reported by several people, and I hope those who haven't been directly acknowledged will forgive me for not getting around to tracking down all the relevant posts at half past four in the morning. I do appreciate it when people go to the trouble of providing feedback that either helps me get rid of bugs, or prompts me to restore features that seem to have been lost by the vBulletin "upgrade" process 
Oh FFS, have you seen the time?
I'd better just check that IE8 is really OK with those smilies... and, after having been inveigled into installing a load of sodding Windows Updates on that virtual machine, it seems that IE8 is indeed able to cope with the realities of the modern world as long as they're presented to it in just the right way
And now it's an hour later than it was three sentences above, and I'm wrapping this post up. Let me know if things don't work for you, either here if it's a minor issue with the above, or over on Forum Feedback if it seems to be more than minor or is unrelated.
They may have to prod a few times if it's earlier than lunchtime, but my sig still stands
- Long demanded by many people, the breadcrumb trail is now replicated towards the foot of those pages where it makes sense (which is just about everywhere) near that "Quick Navigation" menu that nobody likes - sorry it took so long, but seriously, that was a real bastard to sort out despite seeming so simple on the face of it;
- Talking of breadcrumbs, they now have the "Forum" link at the start on every page: previously, things like "Settings" or "Calendar" only offered a poxy little icon of a house which nobody noticed, and that was rubbish, so now there's also a proper link, with a word and everything. FWIW, it took me ages to realise that the house icon was a link as well - I think I only noticed it when viewing the source after
ChurchillSupremeSpod started whining (and no, Spod, it never did what you thought it did in the first place, but many thanks anyway for bringing the breadcrumb fail to my attention);
- If you've voted on a poll, the option you voted for is italicised when you view that poll, as was the case with the old forum (thanks, Zippy );
- If you don't want to use the breadcrumbs and prefer the "Quick Navigation" menu, and you're using IE6/7, you'll find that it no longer does that ugly thing of stretching off under the sidebar for no good reason;
- Nobody but me will have seen this, but the footer breadcrumbs broke horribly on IE6 (despite being styled exactly the same way as the breadcrumbs at the top) so I hacked the bastard to kick it into line;
- Smilies on the last line of a post should no longer cause a vertical scrollbar to appear in IE8 - incidentally, that's the only bug I've ever come across that only happens in IE8 but not any other versions of IE (props to both PRC1964 and VectraMan for independently pointing out that IE8 failed where every other browser, even IE6, succeeded);
- When viewing a forum page (such as /general/ or /technical/ or even /technical/index2.html) the title of the forum at the top of the list of threads is now a link to the same page, thereby replicating the same functionality as appears within a thread - I don't know how many people wanted this, but I for one was fed up of manually reloading forum pages via browser chrome or keyboard shortcuts to see if there were new posts. The old forum had such a link, so now the new forum has one too ;
- Speaking of forum pages, the "Quick Navigation" menu (that nobody likes) is now properly positioned to the right, adjacent to the sidebar, as it should be - it was previously getting a double-dose of the margin-right intended to accommodate the sidebar, and this was not only inconsistent with other pages but also caused hideous breakage on IE6 if the browser window was below a certain width;
- The "Advanced Search" page now defaults to the "Single Content Type" search, which is more akin to the way it used to work, including the option that the results be listed as posts rather than threads (somebody did post mentioning the lack of that specific functionality, but I can't remember who, can't find it in my notes, and can't find their post right now - sorry, but post your claim below and I'll track down the original post once I have a username and give you credit, insofar as an internal link on a forum can constitute "credit"
). The "Multiple Content Types" search is only really appropriate for the entire overblown vBulletin suite which includes irrelevant crap like blogs and such, none of which is used here. Late result: vB's marketing people imposing poor user interface decisions in the hope of flogging more of the expensive suite licenses despite the developers' objections: 0 CUK: 1 (It reminds me of Brendan Eich explaining how Netscape's marketing division forced him to rename "LiveScript" to "JavaScript" and make the language's syntax "more like Java" back in 1996...)
- The tabs on the "Advanced Search" page are now in kilter with the colour scheme you've selected: despite vBulletin having a good system for abstracting style values so they can be easily modified, those colour values had ended up being hard-coded by the vB devs. Not any more, or at least, not on this site;
- One that only the moderators and admin will see: on search results pages, the unloved "Quick Navigation" menu should no longer butt up against the "Moderate" menu in an ugly and bullying manner, but should instead drop gracefully below it. (If it doesn't, well hell, you've got the "Moderate" menu, ban me for my fail!)
And I think that's it. Although I've linked to some individual bug reports (or, in Spod's case, mere whingeing
) above, a number of these issues have been reported by several people, and I hope those who haven't been directly acknowledged will forgive me for not getting around to tracking down all the relevant posts at half past four in the morning. I do appreciate it when people go to the trouble of providing feedback that either helps me get rid of bugs, or prompts me to restore features that seem to have been lost by the vBulletin "upgrade" process Oh FFS, have you seen the time?
I'd better just check that IE8 is really OK with those smilies... and, after having been inveigled into installing a load of sodding Windows Updates on that virtual machine, it seems that IE8 is indeed able to cope with the realities of the modern world as long as they're presented to it in just the right way
And now it's an hour later than it was three sentences above, and I'm wrapping this post up. Let me know if things don't work for you, either here if it's a minor issue with the above, or over on Forum Feedback if it seems to be more than minor or is unrelated.
They may have to prod a few times if it's earlier than lunchtime, but my sig still stands
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