# Major bugs in SDMB re-skin fixed. What do you think? **URL:** \ **Category:** About This Message Board\ **Created:** [September 6, 2017, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663 "2017-09-06T18:32:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 20
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 5:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/381 "2017-09-13T05:55:25Z")
> [@Ed\_Zotti](#): > > To reply to various comments: > As others have explained, as the viewing area narrows, some columns disappear. I think the developers can select which ones go away. If so, I’ll have them keep the “last user” column and maybe drop the thread count column. Would that help? I think so. The last user and jumping to end of thread is useful to me quite a bit. > [@](#): > > As for the quote function automatically italicizing quoted text, I just checked an old board version and from what I can see that’s how quoting has always worked. Am I misunderstanding your concern? > > The unnecessary line breaks before and after hyperlinked text are bugging me. I’m going to get them to fix that. Check out post #66 in this thread. It has a link to a screenshot before the new skin. You can see the quoted text not being italicized, and the font not changing size. Typically users can italicize quote portions for emphasis, but this eliminates that. ---
**Author:** ![thirdname](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/d07c76/32.png) [@thirdname](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/thirdname)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 6:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/382 "2017-09-13T06:25:36Z")
Viewing the SDMB on a 2560x1440 27-inch monitor hooked up to a Mac, this whole redesign looks horrible. It is harder to read than the old design, and I can’t stand that stuff floating in the lower right hand corner. ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 9:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/383 "2017-09-13T09:04:29Z")
> [@Ed\_Zotti](#): > > The overlapping nested quote boxes look pretty screwy. I think that should be an easy fix… It wasn’t for me. I eventually had to just remove the .converttodiv class entirely, because I could not track down what in the skin was actually causing the problem. When left alone it just works like it’s supposed to. If that hadn’t worked, I considered just actually changing the Quotes to DIVs myself. (Why call them “.converttodiv” but not actually convert them to DIV tags?!) There is no reason for Quote boxes–and not other boxes–to be TABLEs. That’s got to be a leftover from HTML3 or something. Also, people really do seem to object to the Quote text being so much smaller than the main text. They are already having to lower the zoom for the regular text, so the quote text gets rather tiny. And it does seem to be a bug–it is using the old smaller text size, while the posts use a larger size. On the other hand, fixing CODE tags was easy-peasy. Just add the following line anywhere in the main stylesheet: pre { white-space: pre !important; } ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 11:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/384 "2017-09-13T11:42:24Z")
> [@Ed\_Zotti](#): > > I have to be honest with you. I looked at your screenshot and it looks normal to me, even when enlarged to fill the screen on my average-size laptop. I acknowledge the font is larger than 12 point Times Roman but it doesn’t seem objectionable. When I get a sec I’ll look at it on other displays with different sizes and resolutions. Meanwhile, this seems like a problem that could easily be fixed with control-minus. > > Not trying to make light of your problem but this may be something that arises from certain combinations of browsers and displays and what have you. Further investigation needed. > > ETA: just came across your image comparing the before-and-after font sizes. I agree the font is a little larger, but I had the idea from your original post it was 72 point or something. For now I need to focus on things that are flat out awful. I’ll get back to this later. Thanks for your patience. OK, thanks, Ed. I’m sorry if my description was misleading, but at least now we’re on the same page and know what we’re talking about. I would agree with you that some of the other issues being discussed here are more urgent. There are a number of us here that have expressed concern about the font size, though, including the discrepancy between “Preview” view and the different size of the quoted text vs. the body of the post (and also the italicizing of the quote boxes), so addressing this a little further down the road would be appreciated. The main thing I suppose is that from the standpoint of typographical aesthetics and usability design, the font just stands out as “too big” on a desktop monitor, and it’s not so much a matter of being used to the old one as the fact of being too big relative to the natural size of a normal reading font and the font sizes that one typically sees on other websites and in other applications like Word. IMHO it makes the site look unprofessional and just “wrong”, and I think you can see this best on my screenshot comparing the “Preview” image with what it looks like when actually posted. It may be fine for mobile devices but it should autoconfigure to its original smaller size on PCs or, if that’s not feasible, at least let the user set that preference manually on a one-time basis. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 12:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/385 "2017-09-13T12:43:54Z")
On a separate issue (just trying to helpfully point things out as I find them) the “Reply” and “Reply with Quote” boxes are now a reasonable size, no longer squished to the left. However, the icons at the top are now spaced across the whole width of the screen instead of being clustered on the left. With a wide browser window this puts the icons far apart from each other with lots of empty space between them. That’s just bad usability design. They should be grouped together on the left like they used to be and all visible at a glance. ---
**Author:** ![Ed\_Zotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 2:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/386 "2017-09-13T14:16:22Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > On a separate issue (just trying to helpfully point things out as I find them) the “Reply” and “Reply with Quote” boxes are now a reasonable size, no longer squished to the left. However, the icons at the top are now spaced across the whole width of the screen instead of being clustered on the left. With a wide browser window this puts the icons far apart from each other with lots of empty space between them. That’s just bad usability design. They should be grouped together on the left like they used to be and all visible at a glance. Do you have an extra large display? I’m working in the reply-to-quote box now. The box is centered and takes up maybe half the width of the screen. The formatting icons are spread across the width of the edit box, not shoved left, but on my laptop they look OK. If I had a super wide display I might have a different opinion. If you can send a screen shot that would give me a better idea. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![Ed\_Zotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/387 "2017-09-13T14:23:06Z")
> [@thirdname](#): > > Viewing the SDMB on a 2560x1440 27-inch monitor hooked up to a Mac, this whole redesign looks horrible. It is harder to read than the old design, and I can’t stand that stuff floating in the lower right hand corner. Please post a screen shot. We’re getting into things that are a problem for some but not all users. Display size seems to be a factor. I can scrounge up a big monitor but let me see what you’re looking at first. Thanks. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 2:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/388 "2017-09-13T14:24:36Z")
This has probably been brought up already, but I’d think that there’s an easy fix to all the white space between thread titles on the forum pages. If you look at the “Last Post” column, each entry in that column has 3, 4, or even 5 lines, because the column is so narrow. And then there’s a line between threads, so that’s why the thread titles are 4-6 lines apart from one another. It _should_ be easy to adjust the width of the “Last Post” column so that the date and time fit on a single line, and the last poster’s line would usually take up just one line, or occasionally 2 lines. That would get rid of the vast majority of the excess white space on the forum pages. Can TPTB either do this, or explain why it can’t be done? ---
**Author:** ![Ed\_Zotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/389 "2017-09-13T14:39:29Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > It wasn’t for me. I eventually had to just remove the .converttodiv class entirely, because I could not track down what in the skin was actually causing the problem. When left alone it just works like it’s supposed to. > > If that hadn’t worked, I considered just actually changing the Quotes to DIVs myself. (Why call them “.converttodiv” but not actually convert them to DIV tags?!) There is no reason for Quote boxes–and not other boxes–to be TABLEs. That’s got to be a leftover from HTML3 or something. I’ll pass this along to the developers, thanks. > [@](#): > > Also, people really do seem to object to the Quote text being so much smaller than the main text. They are already having to lower the zoom for the regular text, so the quote text gets rather tiny. > 're > And it does seem to be a bug–it is using the old smaller text size, while the posts use a larger size. Not sure if it’s a bug or a feature. On my average-size laptop having quoted text italicized and smaller looks nice, but for some evidently it’s a problem. I can have this reverted to the old way, with the quoted font size and style the same as the main text. WARNING: this will make it tougher to distinguish quotes from the main text if the quote box can’t be easily seen. This seemed to a problem for **Bone**. Pls advise. > [@](#): > > On the other hand, fixing CODE tags was easy-peasy. Just add the following line anywhere in the main stylesheet: > > pre { white-space: pre !important; } Can you post a screenshot of where this is messed up? I’ll pass along that plus your fix to the developers. ---
**Author:** ![Ed\_Zotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 2:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/390 "2017-09-13T14:42:51Z")
> [@RTFirefly](#): > > This has probably been brought up already, but I’d think that there’s an easy fix to all the white space between thread titles on the forum pages. > > If you look at the “Last Post” column, each entry in that column has 3, 4, or even 5 lines, because the column is so narrow. And then there’s a line between threads, so that’s why the thread titles are 4-6 lines apart from one another. > > It _should_ be easy to adjust the width of the “Last Post” column so that the date and time fit on a single line, and the last poster’s line would usually take up just one line, or occasionally 2 lines. That would get rid of the vast majority of the excess white space on the forum pages. > > Can TPTB either do this, or explain why it can’t be done? Take a look now. I think this is fixed. The “last post” column still drops out on phones, but I think that’s a separate problem. ---
**Author:** ![wolfpup](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wolfpup/32/10618_2.png) [@wolfpup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wolfpup)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/391 "2017-09-13T14:45:16Z")
> [@Ed\_Zotti](#): > > Do you have an extra large display? I’m working in the reply-to-quote box now. The box is centered and takes up maybe half the width of the screen. The formatting icons are spread across the width of the edit box, not shoved left, but on my laptop they look OK. If I had a super wide display I might have a different opinion. If you can send a screen shot that would give me a better idea. Thanks. Not really complaining as it’s not a big deal (the fonts still are, IMO!!) but just thought I would point it out. [Here is a screen shot](https://imgur.com/a/93BtV). On my monitor with the browser window more or less at the usual width, the 16 icons are spread out over a space of nearly a foot! There’s no reason to have to literally scan such a wide space to find the function you need – they could all be grouped together on the left as I believe they were before, so they could be seen at a glance. At first I literally thought the “Insert Link” icon was missing! ---
**Author:** ![Ed\_Zotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 3:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/392 "2017-09-13T15:02:29Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Not really complaining as it’s not a big deal (the fonts still are, IMO!!) but just thought I would point it out. [Here is a screen shot](https://imgur.com/a/93BtV). On my monitor with the browser window more or less at the usual width, the 16 icons are spread out over a space of nearly a foot! There’s no reason to have to literally scan such a wide space to find the function you need – they could all be grouped together on the left as I believe they were before, so they could be seen at a glance. At first I literally thought the “Insert Link” icon was missing! There’s a lot of variation in how different browsers render things. For me, the reply box doesn’t fill the entire width of the window. For you it does. I’ll have them make the format icons flush left. ---
**Author:** ![Francis\_Vaughan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/francis_vaughan/32/3093_2.png) [@Francis\_Vaughan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Francis_Vaughan)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 3:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/393 "2017-09-13T15:10:27Z")
> [@Ed\_Zotti](#): > > I’m not crazy about this. To my eye the smaller italics make for a nice contrast with the roman of the main text. Do people really object to this?. _Very much so._ Forcing quoted text into italics makes some original postings meaningless when quoted. It isn’t just that an original post might use italics for emphasis - which then gets lost in any quote, but in a posting that addresses a scientific or mathematical question the use of italics may have meaning crucial to the meaning of the post. Again, as soon as the quoted text is forced to all italics the quotation becomes meaningless, or at best, unreadable. Overall, the forcing to italics has no sensible justification. If someone insists on it, the only rational thing to do is to remove the ability to use italics from the original posting mechanism, since clearly it is now deemed that italics have no role in posting. Posters will otherwise henceforth have to remember not to ever use italics, since their post cannot be quoted and retain the meaning they intended. ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/394 "2017-09-13T15:16:26Z")
> [@Francis\_Vaughan](#): > > _Very much so._ Forcing quoted text into italics makes some original postings meaningless when quoted. It isn’t just that an original post might use italics for emphasis - which then gets lost in any quote, but in a posting that addresses a scientific or mathematical question the use of italics may have meaning crucial to the meaning of the post. Again, as soon as the quoted text is forced to all italics the quotation becomes meaningless, or at best, unreadable. In addition, while quoting a poster like I’m doing now, the italicized format takes over. But if I quote something freehand, like this: > [@](#): > > Overall, the forcing to italics has no sensible justification. Then this isn’t italicized. So in the first above we lose the italicization of the “Very much so.”, but this isn’t applied globally. That’s sub-optimal. ---
**Author:** ![Ed\_Zotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/395 "2017-09-13T15:20:44Z")
> [@Bone](#): > > In addition, while quoting a poster like I’m doing now, the italicized format takes over. But if I quote something freehand, like this: > > Then this isn’t italicized. > > So in the first above we lose the italicization of the “Very much so.”, but this isn’t applied globally. That’s sub-optimal. OK, but didn’t you have a problem with the box around the quote not displaying clearly? Can you see it OK now? ---
**Author:** ![Bone](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bone/32/407_2.png) [@Bone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bone)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 3:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/396 "2017-09-13T15:23:59Z")
> [@Ed\_Zotti](#): > > OK, but didn’t you have a problem with the box around the quote not displaying clearly? Can you see it OK now? I think it’s not great. But that’s more of an aesthetic, and it does seem like the appearance of the quote box changes based on platform. The changing font and size is more than aesthetic, so I’d say that’s more important. My preference would be to have the quote box more offset with the outline, but I see that as much lower priority. ---
**Author:** ![Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eyebrows_0f_doom/32/3119_2.png) [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eyebrows_0f_Doom)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/397 "2017-09-13T15:25:52Z")
Is there a way to turn off the floating “About This Message Board” & “Go” links in mobile? I don’t see it when reading the board on a laptop but on my phone (iPhone 7) it covers a lot of reading space and is not necessary to have both that \*\*and \*\*the giant arrow. ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/398 "2017-09-13T15:25:52Z")
> [@Ed\_Zotti](#): > > Take a look now. I think this is fixed. The “last post” column still drops out on phones, but I think that’s a separate problem. Thanks, that’s much better! I see that in threads where the last post has a date (e.g. ‘09-11-2017 11:50 PM’) the PM is still on a line of its own, while ‘Yesterday 11:50 PM’ stays on a single line. So near the top, the extra white space is just about all gone, but there’s still a lot of excess white space in the lower parts of the forum pages on account of the extra line for AM and PM. So if that column could be _just a couple of characters wider_, that would solve the problem altogether. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/399 "2017-09-13T15:45:00Z")
> [@wolfpup](#): > > Not really complaining as it’s not a big deal (the fonts still are, IMO!!) but just thought I would point it out. [Here is a screen shot](https://imgur.com/a/93BtV). On my monitor with the browser window more or less at the usual width, the 16 icons are spread out over a space of nearly a foot! There’s no reason to have to literally scan such a wide space to find the function you need – they could all be grouped together on the left as I believe they were before, so they could be seen at a glance. At first I literally thought the “Insert Link” icon was missing! Wow, the more they tinker the worse it gets. ---
**Author:** ![Ed\_Zotti](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/fbc32d/32.png) [@Ed\_Zotti](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ed_Zotti)\ **Post date:** [September 13, 2017, 3:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663/400 "2017-09-13T15:50:56Z")
> [@Eyebrows\_0f\_Doom](#): > > Is there a way to turn off the floating “About This Message Board” & “Go” links in mobile? I don’t see it when reading the board on a laptop but on my phone (iPhone 7) it covers a lot of reading space and is not necessary to have both that \*\*and \*\*the giant arrow. The staff needs the floating forum-jump box to simplify navigation between forums. The go-to-top arrow is helpful when you’re in the middle of a long thread on a phone and need to get to the nav bar at the top. You’re dealing with a limited amount of space on small devices and some compromises are unavoidable. The floating elements can be annoying at first but you get used to them. Once everything else is fixed we can revisit these things; we’ll see how people feel about them then. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663.md?page=19) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/major-bugs-in-sdmb-re-skin-fixed-what-do-you-think/795663.md?page=21)