Major bugs in SDMB re-skin fixed. What do you think?

[TroutMan]

@kayT

I am curious to know why any of you are using the new version. At the very start of the change, as soon as I could, I reverted to the original and never thought of trying the new one once I saw some of the problems, so I don’t really see what’s the benefit of the new one. Educate me?

It’s much better on mobile, but there aren’t many benefits on desktop. I like seeing location and post counts for guests. I think it has the potential to be a better interface, if they’d fix the remaining problems.

I’m using it mostly because I work in software and I’m endlessly frustrated by users who resist any change, so I feel like I have to eat the dog food and live with change that is foisted on me. Before everyone jumps on me, I’m not arguing that people who returned to the old skin are resistant to change - there are some real problems with the new skin, both aesthetically and functionally. But every new visitor to the site, and most existing visitors who haven’t seen the posts about changing the skin or can’t be bothered, will see it. So I’ll use it and continue to complain about the things that need to be fixed.

[gnoitall]

@TroutMan

It’s much better on mobile, but there aren’t many benefits on desktop. I like seeing location and post counts for guests. I think it has the potential to be a better interface, if they’d fix the remaining problems.

I’m using it mostly because I work in software and I’m endlessly frustrated by users who resist any change, so I feel like I have to eat the dog food and live with change that is foisted on me. Before everyone jumps on me, I’m not arguing that people who returned to the old skin are resistant to change - there are some real problems with the new skin, both aesthetically and functionally. But every new visitor to the site, and most existing visitors who haven’t seen the posts about changing the skin or can’t be bothered, will see it. So I’ll use it and continue to complain about the things that need to be fixed.

I’m glad you acknowledge the distinction. Not all “defenders of the new” do that, systematically deriding “stick-in-the-muds” for hating “having their cheese moved.”

See also Windows 8.

Yes. There are important things objectively broke, as well as other things subjectively but persuasively broke, in the new theme. It has great potential, but I don’t feel any ethical obligation to beta test on behalf of SDMB. I flip the toggle every few days to see if there’s been any movement, but until my buglist is addressed I’m sticking with the old skin, because the new skin solves no problem I have but currently creates others.

[Ed_Zotti]

@gnoitall

You ever get the sense that TPTB have… well, if not “given up”… at least “severely de-prioritized” fixing SultanTheme because the original skin is now available? The fact that BigT has identified working fixes and provided them, but they’re not being implemented… tells me that the new skin isn’t being fixed any longer, or under the terms of the original implementation contract (that was paying for the contractor tech to set up the new theme).

No urgency. “WONTFIX Workaround available”

Just guessin’ here. TPTB don’t owe us much in the way of insight into their site development process, so all we can do is speculate.

We haven’t given up, but it’s fair to say fixing the remaining problems with the SultanTheme skin has taken a lower priority while we take care of other issues. One such issue is getting the ads working. I realize no one is enthusiastic about ads but they’re how we keep the lights on. We hope to get the necessary code loaded on the beta site during the week of 10/16 and will invite your feedback when we do. Thanks.

[BigT]

Don’t know if that means you’re ready for testing or not, but I went ahead and checked it out, with adblock disabled.

Currently, at least, the ads over there just never seem to stop loading. I let it go for at least a few minutes, and it was still resolving URLs, waiting on sites, etc.–even though, as far as I could tell, the ads were all loaded and visible.

I also notice that the ad that appears on the bottom does something sneaky, opening a new tab when you click to close it so you can actually read posts on the forums. And, no, it is not a “popunder.”

[BigT]

Upon reloading twice, I did finally get a set of ads that didn’t load forever. So it may be a rogue ad. Still, I suggest people be on the watch for it.

I do notice, however, that you are still displaying the fake ads. If you got the real ones there, you probably want to get rid of the fake ones.

Everything else seems to be the same as before, current bugs and all.

[Heracles]

One annoyance left: Traditionally, when I was reading the SDMB and wanted to go to the SD home page to check out today’s column, I would just click on the big friendly THE STRAIGHT DOPE banner at the top-left of the page.
Since the Reform, clicking on that banner leads to the SDMB landing page, and I have to type in the URL by hand to get to the real home page.
I know, I know. But still. :o

[cochrane]

@Heracles

One annoyance left: Traditionally, when I was reading the SDMB and wanted to go to the SD home page to check out today’s column, I would just click on the big friendly THE STRAIGHT DOPE banner at the top-left of the page.
Since the Reform, clicking on that banner leads to the SDMB landing page, and I have to type in the URL by hand to get to the real home page.
I know, I know. But still. :o

There’s a link to the Straight Dope Homepage on the very bottom blue bar on any page.

[Siam_Sam]

@cochrane

There’s a link to the Straight Dope Homepage on the very bottom blue bar on any page.

Thanks. I hadn’t even noticed that. :smack:

[Heracles]

@cochrane

There’s a link to the Straight Dope Homepage on the very bottom blue bar on any page.

Thanks! I’ll have to get used to Ctrl-End instead of Ctrl-Home…

[jz78817]

I did a quick thread search, and didn’t see this addressed: the “multi quote” function only works if you click the icon next to the text “Multi Quote.” Clicking the text doesn’t do anything even though it turns red on mouse-over.

[engineer_comp_geek]

Multi-line code blocks do not display correctly.

Example:

if (foo())
{
    bar();
}

This displays properly in the old skin but does not work properly with respect to newlines in the mobile skin.

From here:
http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=844725

[Senegoid]

But multi-line code works just fine if you use [noparse]

 ... 

[/noparse] tags instead. As a bonus feature, you get to look at the code in full carnival colors!

ETA: Example from the current example that brought this up (again):

if (foo()) { /* only valid when foo() is true */ 
    if (bar()) { }
}  

[septimus]

@jz78817

I did a quick thread search, and didn’t see this addressed: the “multi quote” function only works if you click the icon next to the text “Multi Quote.” Clicking the text doesn’t do anything even though it turns red on mouse-over.

When the new skin was installed, and before the Disable-Broken-Sultan option was offered, I glanced at the actual html/css to see what was causing this. Horrifying it was to see code that was kluge on top of kluge; the misbehavior you describe is due to old conflicting codes, hanging stupidly along for the ride like useless appendix. It’s impressive any of it works at all!

What makes the Sultan skin fiasco especially comi-tragic is that BigT has solved most of the bugs and provided, free of charge, fixes for them … fixes which SDMB refuses to install.

If the SDMB “thinking” is that Sultan skin is a well-oiled software machine and they don’t want it polluted by BigT’s fixes, I can advise SDMB management that their opinion of Sultan’s programming is … overly sanguine.