There is a newish gray popup in my screen, for changing forum, which I can’t imagine ever using. Can I make it go away? It often blocks the Send button, and interferes with selecting text for copy/paste.
Isn’t this a skin issue? I don’t often read on a phone so I’m not familiar. (I have vision problems that make teeny screens difficult at best.)
What skin are you using?
Try the Straight Dope default “Straight Dope 3.7.3” and see if that resolves it for you.
UserCP / Edit Options / scroll down to bottom of page, select skin option, click “Save Changes.”
Then again, you might do better using the mobile interface “Sultantheme.” That works better for some and worse for others, you’ll have to experiment to see what works best for you.
Hope this helps.
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
I see that sometimes too, under clearly defined circumstances, but I’m not sure if my case has anything to do with OP’s case.
In most browsers you can enlarge or shrink the text size by typing Ctrl+ or Ctrl- (or Command + or - on Apples). Sometimes I prefer to view larger text. When I do that, the forum change drop-down control suddenly appears as a always-on-top pop-up near the bottom right corner of the screen. When I view the text at normal size, that doesn’t happen.
Browsers is weird.
The popup is there now, as I type. As I change the text size, it just changes the size of the offending panel. I can’t find the “select skin” option in the CP. How do I go to 3.7.3?
Firefox is nagging me now to install their weekly upgrade, but this issue has been present through several upgrades. It’s there in Chrome, too, so it must be my SD settings. BTW, I’m on Win-10 laptop.
Further testing, the popup does go away, if I reduce my font size to uselessly unreadable for my eyes.
**As someone with vision problems myself, I understand.
Try the Straight Dope default “Straight Dope 3.7.3” and see if that resolves it for you.
Go the blue band at the top of the page and click on the UserCP link.
UserCP / Edit Options / scroll down to bottom of page, select skin option, click “Save Changes.”
Your options are:
Straight Dope 3.7.3
Sultantheme**
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
Administrator
Jtur88: Try disabling javascript,I always have that disabled (Unless I need it) and alot of things dont happen when you have scripts disabled… (Stuff is faster and all)
This might work for you also… Good luck 
I too run with JS disabled most of the time, and I agree that most things on most web sites run faster and better that way (with some exceptions). But even so, I still see the forum-change pop-up as I described above when I enlarge the text size.
I am using SultanTheme and a somewhat-older version of Safari on an Apple laptop. IIRC I saw this too a while back when I was using a really-old version of Firefox on a really-old Linux system. It doesn’t really get in the way of anything much, that I’ve noticed.
Browsers is weird. Makes me glad I’m not in the business of writing web sites. Write once, debug everywhere.
Disabled java, no effect, but itll be interesting to see.
We-e-ll, that was sure interesting. With Java disabled, Gmail and Facebook would not open at all, and Yahooo tried to pitch me a new glitz face. Re-enabled Java, Face book came back, but Gmail remained Awol until I closed and reopened Firefox. So much for that scary experiment.
You should be reading the Straight Dope on your desktop computer, the way [del]God[/del] Uncle Cecil intended.
Im sorry it didnt work for ya 
Senegoid: I cant figure out why you still see the popup with scripts disabled,ya shouldnt…
Web sites can definitely detect if your browser does or doesn’t have JS enabled, and many will actually behave differently accordingly, Straight Dope Message Board included. I think web sites may remember this fact as you navigate from page to page, meaning they store the information in the browser’s memory, or in cookies. Thus, if you go fiddling with JS or other settings, you MIGHT need to close and re-open your browser, and you also MIGHT need to delete cookies.
I find that gmail works perfectly fine with JS disabled. But there’s a possible but… At the bottom of the gmail message list page is a little menu that says:
“Gmail view: standard | basic HTML Learn more”
that I have set to “basic HTML”. This greatly simplifies the gmail interface, but also disables a lot of stuff. (The same is true of the SDMB web site.) I vaguely recall that I tried to set it to “standard” a while back with JS disabled and found this didn’t work at all.
BTW, all my web-using experience is on various desktop machines. I have no experience to speak of using anything on-line on any kind of smart phone.
@Dude111: Yes, even with JS disabled, I see that Forum Jump thing when I enlarge the text. But, I discovered that even this only happens most of the time, not all the time. WTF? One detail I noticed: If I enlarge the text, the pop-up doesn’t appear immediately, but if I reload the page then it does.
Browsers is weird.
The gray navigation bar at the bottom of the page is a feature of Sultanstheme. It is presumably felt to be helpful to those on a phone who can’t as quickly jump to the top of the page. However, most people just find it obstructive.
Aha’ I thought the Sultantheme panel was to be clicked to choose it, but it’s not, it’s to tell me that I have chosen sultantheme. I love the ambiguity of the toggle. Issue now apparently solved. Tubadiva, like most blind people, is always right.
You are correct; the toggle on the bottom of the page is only an indicator, it’s what you do in the UserCP that counts.
Most often with this sort of thing I’m that blind pig. Glad I found your acorn. 
Jenny
your humble TubaDiva
I think I like Sultantheme better, even on laptop, more relevant things are more visible. Guess I can learn to live with the popups. Thanks fr bearing with my learning curve.