35 replies to this topic

[Wonko the Sane]

Go complain to Microsoft for not making things "easier" and "happier"..

Rest assured I do, on an almost daily basis.


Wonko

[PaPeuser]

Hello

I am still checking this all out ,,, so ....

I have 2 computer running XP Sp3 using IE8 and both have display problems. Using 911CD is best but 1 post can fill up complete page displayed
or some posts have so much blank space after posted message i have to scroll, now whats funny is some posters like Dave7 whos on line now.

if i view his posts there is a large message box with blue box saying Currently viewing all posts. change Threshold... ???

I have tried different settings and view options but with Win XP Sp3 and IE8 i can not get display correct..

on a Win7 comp running IE8 everything is perfect... so its not just using IE6 that maybe a problem

added
using Vader with WinXP Sp3 and IE8 useful links is on right... below everything on right is where latest news and recent comments starts,, i have to scroll to read recent comments.....

PS:: welcome back Dave7

[Brito]

For the moment there's isn't much that can be done to ensure compatibility across a wider array of browsers.

I'll keep this in mind.

[Mikorist]

Everybody may use Lunascape *Hybrid Browser like me:

(*uses 3 rendering engines (Trident), (Gecko), (WebKit))

http://www.lunascape.tv/


Lunascape have Triple Engine Side-by-Side Split Tab Display:



Lunascape comes with its own Trident engine and i can log into my bank like with IE...

http://help.lunascap...em_Requirements

System Requirements

* OS:
o v.6.2 ~: Windows XP SP1 or later/Vista/7/Server 2003/Server 2008
o ~ v.6.1: Windows 2000/XP/Vista/7/Server 2003/Server 2008
* Memory: 1GB (recommended 2GB or more)
* Internet Explorer 6 or later

reboot.pro work perfect in Lunascape

[sambul61]

Regarding IE6, its not really a technology or philosophical issue as I see it, but plain costs issue for most software developers, and ideology issue for some of those.

Starting from ideology and market & fiscal goals MS pursued while developing IE6 awhile back (Browser Wars), MS vision of that period what web commerce is going to be, and their role in the new economy, US Gov. fight against MS in monopoly games, including strategic security concerns and resulting massive funding of alternative browsers and OSs development.

So, from these history lessons, and coming to today's limited funding of product development for most software companies, there is absolutely NO reason for ppl to keep using, and companies to keep financing R&D in support of IE6.

The best solution may be to educate ppl on this site among others by suggesting use alternative browsers while referencing known IE6 deficiencies and lack of support from MS. I suggest everyone to try Opera for its comprehensive smart feature set in a small fast package. Unfortunately, Chrome is featureless browser, one can hardly recommend for daily use.

[Wonko the Sane]

The best solution may be to educate ppl on this site among others by suggesting use alternative browsers while referencing known IE6 deficiencies and lack of support from MS. I suggest everyone to try Opera for its comprehensive smart feature set in a small fast package.

Exactly. (for the part about trying to politely tell people how this site does not support IE 6), about suggesting using Opera, no matter how I do appreciate it, it may be seen as trying to push a particular (very good BTW) browser over another one .


The philosophical issue, once discarded the guys @IPB, still remains valid among us.

• The whatever ran boot-land.net did support IE 6.
• The whatever now runs reboot.pro doesn't.

The peeps that made the change "philosophically" should have made this fact public, and this is also "technologically" valid (still if we are seeing technology and advances in it as something that should make people's life easier).

The general idea when introducing a new technology is to make sure to know with WHAT it is compatible with (if the new technology introduced is a replacement for an existing one AND it introduces incompatibilities) and warn user/customers or more generally the public about such incompatibilities and possible workarounds/solutions.

Mind you I do understand how difficult the choices taken and the actual impementation of the new board have been, and I do recognize the very good and hard work both Nuno and Mikorist undertook , but I also want to take at least a little bit of the merits for the attention that Nuno and Mikorist dedicated to the "broken links" problems, as I do suspect that without yours truly making such a fuss last time the software was changed, a few examples:
http://reboot.pro/3338/page__st__7
http://reboot.pro/3749/page__st__9
http://reboot.pro/3962/page__st__16
has something to do with it.

Hence the "philosophical" approach, it may be useful as a reminder for next time.



Wonko

[sambul61]

Giving all the credits, I haven't seen a shade of proof that the selected forum engine is better in any way that other popular engines on the market. It may be merely more familiar to the web developer. There was a single "opinion" posted on this forum, but no comparative analytics that I suspect didn't make anyone believer.

I do however see deficiencies of the selected engine, making apparently (although taking merely a word for it) somewhat difficult to introduce any changes to it that would improve forum readability and usability as discussed in other threads.

[Mikorist]

It may be merely more familiar to the web developer instead.

Reboot.pro Web Developer

[Brito]

The general idea when introducing a new technology is to make sure to know with WHAT it is compatible with (if the new technology introduced is a replacement for an existing one AND it introduces incompatibilities) and warn user/customers or more generally the public about such incompatibilities and possible workarounds/solutions.

With all due respect Vulcan, that is your perspective as end user. Despite correct (from your perspective), it fails to encompass higher priorities that a site administrator must uphold.

Security comes as top concern to us, positioned well above incompatibilities with browsers released 10 years ago.

The previous forum version was 2.3.x and these series were discontinued in 2008 to proceed with works on version 3. Given the reliable behavior of series 2, we kept with them while the initial versions of series 3 kept on being released until we could consider them stable as well.

In the meanwhile, keep in mind that just like IE6 that contains numerous exploits, so does IPB version 2.3.x and earlier versions. Many of these problems are only addressed in more recent versions.

So, our concern is to ensure that we can run our board up to date with security releases and react on time if some exploit is published, rather than sit waiting for others to attack our forum. Here is one example (others exist also): hxxp://www.waraxe.us/ftopict-3340.html


You see. There is a trade off here where you choose either security or retro-compatibility with ten year old browsers. We chose the first since we can solve compatibility later if there is time for such.

I haven't seen a shade of proof that the selected forum engine is better in any way that other popular engines on the market. It may be merely more familiar to the web developer. There was a single "opinion" posted on this forum, but no comparative analytics that I suspect didn't make anyone believer

This is odd since you mentioned to have read the documentation that I made available earlier. Inside you'd find some of the reasons why an upgrade is necessary.

As an end-user, you can certainly comment on the lack of retro-compatibility with older browsers, but as an administrator you are not really in conditions to judge this type of decision.

-----------

First of all, you would need to have worked with the "other popular" engines on the market.

Second, you would need to evaluate the feasibility of porting the data already available on the previous forum system.

Third, you should look in long term and question licensing costs, guarantees of support and ease of customization (amongst others)

We came from a IPB 2.3.x board, the initial goal was porting it over to myBB (as documented) but tests showed that the provided converter did not worked on large boards and it would cause the loss of some data.

IPB is very expensive, but I bought a perpetual license a long time ago that allows continuous updates. Of course that it is not open source as MyBB but it does give guarantees of upgrading the board without loss of posts.

------------

This is just an example of the considerations that took place. They are not up for public discussion, especially if the best you can complain about is the loss of retro-compatibility as if it was a great loss while I would indeed be more worried to see everyone's email being sacked from our database.

[Wonko the Sane]

Nuno, you are missing entirely the point.

I do trust your judgement about the necessity of the update and the correctness of the choice.

I also understand that support to an old browser may be impossible (though I presume that it is due mainly by a non-attempt by the IPB guys at it ).

BUT what I was saying is that seemingly noone gives importance to user experience, a simple - as said polite - warning to the users would have been enough, and would have costed nothing.

If you have to re-pave a road, you do have to re-pave it, but since it costs nothing, or next to nothing, it is a good idea to issue warnings on local radios and newspapers AND to put a few nice signs to reduce the inconveniences to the public.


Wonko

[Brito]

BUT what I was saying is that seemingly noone gives importance to user experience, a simple - as said polite - warning to the users would have been enough, and would have costed nothing.

Yes, I agree.

Visitors shouldn't have to be greeted with a frozen browser window as it currently happens to 4% percent of the Internet population.

I'd like to address that matter, but for us it does come with a cost in terms of available resources to address issues with more priority that still impact the other 96% of visitors.

Nevertheless, I hope we can indeed address this matter later.

Having all been said and done, this discussion is closed.