1998/1999 Compaq running windows 98 on a pentium II and 64 Meg Ram. All I could afford at the time, and a lot more then I can afford now.
I have had NO problems accessing any of the features of the EA. I was even able (finally!) to vote in one of the polls, although I could not find the comments section to the polls.
I have been testing with Opera 7.1 using XP Pro, a 2.26 P4, Comcast Broadband, and the new frontend is GREAT!!!
Keep up the good work and don't let the less than 1% slow you down.
Times change, people change and I see no reason why user's browsers cannot change. There is no rule that says the EA must stand still. We strive for excellence and that includes the presentation layer.
My only issue with Opera, is the width of the message window when entering this babel, it is too wide and there is too much blank space on the left between the entry box and the outside border... it must be Opera. I can't see your new code doing this. Windows IE does not do this on the same machine.
I don't have any problems using the new format, but certainly believe it's not as good as the former version.
I always liked the listing of stories that were currently being read, as well as the notice of new posts on the Message Board. The most significant missing part, though, is the Story Statistics. Since the reader feedback is virtually non-existent on the EA, about the only confirmation that an author ever gets that people actually read his or her stories is to check the statistics. If there is a way to do that now, please tell me.
The only pages that have currently been replaced is the warning page, the main menu, and the poll review page.
Shortie. You should be able to view your stats at the "Enhanced Story Stats" page under "Story Submission". In that is really isn't enhanced I suppose I should change that. By the way, the new story stats page is almost ready to roll out.
Bella and Shortie. The features that you were mentioning you missed are almost ready to be put back in place. I am glad you liked them and I want to include them in the new look, but just haven't figured out the best way of sticking them back. Will happen soon.
Andrew. I'm glad you are able to vote. Your ability to vote on a topic was one of the reason why we chose this polling software. The comments section was a program of my design and has yet to be incorporated. Good things take some time.
Again all, thanks for the kind words. I do intend to assist those that cannot view The Archive in the new format, but it will probably be minimal navigation pages.
Don't get me wrong, guys. I can still navigate the site just fine. My comment was only to point out that tabbed browsing no longer works from the main menu. In other words, it makes Mozilla work just like Microsoft Internet Explorer, and in my view, that's taking a step backward, that's all.
My normal method of browsing the site has been to enter the main page, then open the new stories listing on a new tab. From there, I open any stories of interest in another new tab, leaving the listing open in the previous tab. That way, I don't have to reload the listing or the main page as I step back out. Saves a lot of time, especially when I'm away from home and dialing in. When personals were working before, I did the same thing with them. Only after checking out all of that did I step over to the message base without opening a new tab, because I no longer planned to come back to the main page. (Those of you out there who have never used anything other than Microsoft's McBrowser don't know what you're missing!)
I've tried it with Netscape 7.02, Opera 7.21 and Mozilla Firefox 0.8 (Beta), and in none of them is it possible to open a new tab from the pulldowns. I suspect that the Mac browsers are having the same problem. This is typical of Microsoft-designed software packages. For years now, they've habitually gone out of their way to sabotage other companies' products, and it wouldn't surprise me a bit if they were attempting to destroy the functionality of competing browsers, rather than improve their own. It's why I was so pissed that DOJ let them off the hook so easily in their Netscape caper.
I'm not suggesting that you guys stop what you're doing or change your schedule in any way, only that if you can figure out how to allow tabbed browsing, then please do so. Consider it a suggestion for a future upgrade.
The new front page looks good, and it works as it is designed to (with my 5 browsers) so long as one does not want anything in the way of browser services not provided by MSIE.
I also use much more modern browsers than the 'abandoned by Microsoft' MSIE 5.2.3 for the Mac.
The 'problem' the others are speaking of is not being able to use the tabbed browsing feature available as a key feature in modern browsers.
By making all choices fancy drop-down menu choices the page itself looks nice, and one can certainly choose to go to a new page, but there is no way to keep the existing page open so one can return to it without pulling it up again.
Those folks who use only the more limited MSIE are often unaware these features the rest of us use daily even exist. Because of this, and because so many web designs are Microsoft-centric, when others complain that something broke the functioning of a page, the folks not running MSIE on MS Windows are incorrectly blamed.
Those of us who have been able to use products not made by Microsoft, or not supplied with the machine when we bought it, are not the ones at fault, expecially when MSIE-Only code is used on a page rather than code which meets the W3C international standards.
Most modern browsers actually handle standards-compliant pages better than MSIE.
My only real complaint about anything in this thread is about comments further marginalizing those people who are already marginalized by society (us, my friends, us).
Looking at those of us out here not wed to Microsoft in some unholy union and saying "ignore them, they don't count, they don't use the same software *I* do" is a sad viewpoint. (I'd use stronger language, but I'm being polite.)
As I said above, the new front page looks great, and all the functions work as designed. The "problem" (if there indeed is one) is that the design ignores the preferred browser use and features of those of us with more up-to-date browsers.
One of these days the rest of you folks should try a modern browser that allows tabbed browsing - there are at least 20 different ones and they are available in current versions (unlike MSIE) for most operating systems.
I love the new main page. It seems easier to find things. I don't have to scroll up or down to get to any thing and the drop down menus are very sensibly laid out. I do have a little trouble getting to my Java Chat client "pJirc" but other than that I do love it.
Got a big shock when I logged on to the new main page today. There was a message that said, "The Archive Does Not Recognize You". I had to browse the menus to get to the message board page and attempt to log on. Fortunately I was in the Archive Database. I am not sure what happened.
The best browser on the market is the one that your using, why because you know all the little things it does. Is it better or worse then other browsers? If my productivity is hampared by some great best browser on the market it does nothing for me.
In business is were this becomes critical. When the IT department is over a 100 people and you have 3000 users, using a multitude of different software on every kind of machine, you just dont upgrade to the newest version. You must make sure that everything works with the new upgrade. This is why most business use IE. Not because it better, but because its works.
this has pleaged software venders for years. Will my soft ware work with all machines using different sets of software, It is not just a slam dunk. You need to resolve every issue which takes time......
