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A few days ago my screen, when reading CP forums, started moving up and down, blinking and flashing in all kinds of ways. Now it seems this has become intended behavior. Well I can tell you I hate it.
I hate it.
A hyperlink is supposed to move you from one page to another page; you expect a total window repaint and hope it will be quick and with minimal visual pollution.
Most of the other control types, such as a drop down, when clicked should not influence anything above it, it should simply operate from where it sits downwards. And the pointer, which was on top of the control when it got clicked, should still be where it was, on top of the control, after the click.
On the CP forums, the message titles are supposed to operate like a drop down, they expand/collapse part of the page, they should not, repeat not, cause any vertical motion.
Example: go visit the poll results page, and try to have a look at some of its messages. While any of them could simply open and close, when clicked, the page first gets repainted with Bob and the "Survey Results" title (so the subject line you just clicked is now off-screen), then it moves again to a position almost identical to where you were before. Crazy. Absolutely crazy. And useless, counter-productive. Creating headache, nausea and seasickness.
I want the old way back, that one worked great, the new one stinks.
To make myself clear, I do not want the "feature" further "improved", debugged or whatever.
I want it taken out again.
BTW: I use FF3 most of the time, have a DSL internet, and use normal forum layout; the system
I use most of the time runs Vista and has a 1440*900 monitor.
It may well be that other systems, browsers, providers, layouts etc result in better or worse
behavior, I couldn't care less. It may also be that some people like the change, that does not
make a difference either. For me it worked fine the way it was, there was no need to install
this harassment, and it does not work the way it is now.
If someone really wants it, make it optional and off-by-default. Don't inflict this on everyone.
PS: in general "optional and off-by-default" is the one and only approach for new features;
let users decide individually what they like and dislike.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
- before you ask a question here, search CodeProject, then Google
- the quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get
- use the code block button (PRE tags) to preserve formatting when showing multi-line code snippets
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Luc Pattyn wrote: Example: go visit the poll results page, and try to have a look at some of its messages. While any of them could simply open and close, when clicked, the page first gets repainted with Bob and the "Survey Results" title (so the subject line you just clicked is now off-screen), then it moves again to a position almost identical to where you were before. Crazy. Absolutely crazy. And useless, counter-productive. Creating headache, nausea and seasickness.
That's freaky but I'm not noticing reloads on any of the other forum pages..
Today's lesson is brought to you by the word "niggardly". Remember kids, don't attribute to racism what can be explained by Scandinavian language roots.
-- Robert Royall
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Yep I agree - the automatic page scrolling is horribly annoying  Very often it's hard to focus on a post because it moves up in the middle of your reading it.
I think Shog has something to do with that though - so it's not fully Chris's fault. In my opinion, automatic scrolling is nearly as bad as browser resizing as it forces you to reposition your eyes.
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Nishant Sivakumar wrote: I think Shog has something to do with that though - so it's not fully Chris's fault. In my opinion, automatic scrolling is nearly as bad as browser resizing as it forces you to reposition your eyes.
FWIW, the "automatic scrolling" has been around for... a long time. According to archive.org[^], it was in place at least as early as December of 2007. There have been four changes in the last week: the first broke the previous behavior (resulting in an extremely unpleasant "jitter"), the second restored it, and the third changed the behavior from "instant-pop-the-whole-message-into-view" to "smoothly-scroll-the-message-into-view-over-the-course-of-400-milliseconds". And the final change restored the classic behavior (instantly pop the message into view).
The final result is the same: only messages that would be wholely or partially out of view trigger the scrolling. IMHO, this is essential, as without it moving from a long post to a shorter one below it can easily result in the entire message ending up out of view (moving from a short post to a longer one below it is hardly better, as you must then manually scroll the full message into view).
Again, the auto-scroll logic has been around for over a year until it broke suddenly a few days ago due to an unrelated site update. After which, i suggested using the smooth-scrolling animation because to me it seemed to reduce the jarring effect of the page suddenly scrolling to a new position when switching to/from a very long post. Initial feedback was good; now it seems, not so much. C'est la vie.
Citizen 20.1.01 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
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I don't know what you're talking about, but I agree with this:
Luc Pattyn wrote: in general "optional and off-by-default" is the one and only approach for new features;
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Do a Ctrl+F5 and let me know if this helps.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: Do a Ctrl+F5 and let me know if this helps.
Note sure if this is the change you did - but now it only scrolls if a post won't otherwise fully show up on screen. That's much better in my opinion 
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things clicked are still moving away from the pointer. 
I want NO VERTICAL MOVEMENT whatsoever.
I want one click perform expand and the next click at the same location perform collapse of the same text.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
- before you ask a question here, search CodeProject, then Google
- the quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get
- use the code block button (PRE tags) to preserve formatting when showing multi-line code snippets
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Luc Pattyn wrote: things clicked are still moving away from the pointer
Here's what is meant to happen:
When you open a forum all the messages are collapsed. You click on a message and it opens up and the cursor stays exactly on the link you clicked unless the body of the message extends below the bottom of the page, and then the title moves up to make room for as much of the body as possible.
If you click a message above the message you have opened, the opened message closes, the top message opens, and the link/cursor positioning doesn't change
If you click a message below the message you are on then you are closing the top message, meaning the link you just clicked moves upwards the height of the message that was just collapsed, then the body of the new message opens. Your cursor hasn't moved, but the title of the message you clicked (necessarily) has.
Is this what you are seeing? If so, it's always been that way. The only way to stop the title/cursor issue when clicking on a lower message is to scroll the whole page down so the title is back under the cursor.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: When you open a forum all the messages are collapsed.
Sure.
Chris Maunder wrote: and then the title moves up to make room for as much of the body as possible.
It does that. In my book it shouldn't.
Chris Maunder wrote: If you click a message above ... positioning doesn't change
That holds true now, it has been different one or two hours ago.
Chris Maunder wrote: If you click a message below ... the link you just clicked moves upwards the height of the message that was just collapsed.
It often does that OK, but not consistently. Sometimes scrolling occurs, more than I could possibly
justify. Unable to reproduce so far.
FYI: I tend to collapse the open message by clicking it again, and only then expand another one.
That's how my earlier "click=expand, click again=collapse" makes sense; it does not take into
account another messsage could be expanded to start with.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
- before you ask a question here, search CodeProject, then Google
- the quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get
- use the code block button (PRE tags) to preserve formatting when showing multi-line code snippets
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Luc Pattyn wrote: PS: in general "optional and off-by-default" is the one and only approach for new features;
let users decide individually what they like and dislike.
FWIW, that's a perfect recipe for ending up with an "options" screen to rival MS-Word... 
Citizen 20.1.01 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
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Only if you keep adding features. 
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One can organize all kinds of options in a nice hierarchy, the Visual Studio options dialog
comes to mind. VS may or may not insert spaces, line breaks, replace tabs, etc but the user is in charge, and that's how it should be. What is missing is the ability to support different settings and
easy switching between such sets (say one wants a completely different behavior for a particular
solution).
Also I am willing to accept a new set of default values when a major release occurs, adding major functions that one is expected to want switched on.
Luc Pattyn [Forum Guidelines] [My Articles]
- before you ask a question here, search CodeProject, then Google
- the quality and detail of your question reflects on the effectiveness of the help you are likely to get
- use the code block button (PRE tags) to preserve formatting when showing multi-line code snippets
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From a statistical standpoint it might be nice if questions made in forums could be ranked, by members, as to the level of the question. It would then be easy to do trend graphs to see the needs of the site and when. From a purely cost-benefit stand-point you could more accurately direct your ads.
When I think of Levels I mean something like:
1) RTFM
2) Homework
3) Beginner
4) Intermediate
5) Advanced
6) Wow, you can do that?
Need software developed? Offering C# development all over the United States, ERL GLOBAL, Inc is the only call you will have to make.
If you don't ask questions the answers won't stand in your way.
Most of this sig is for Google, not ego.
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How would that give the true picture? For someone who regularly posts Homework questions, beginner might be "Wow, you can do that?".
The word "politics" describes the process so well: "Poli" in Latin meaning "many" and "tics" meaning "bloodsucking creatures."
जय हिंद
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Gold and Highers and a weighting scheme to bias the number of "votes" for a particular questions level.
Need software developed? Offering C# development all over the United States, ERL GLOBAL, Inc is the only call you will have to make.
If you don't ask questions the answers won't stand in your way.
Most of this sig is for Google, not ego.
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In short: Unless the poster has brain and guts to mention the true quality of his question.
Longer version:
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote: Gold and Highers
Lets assume maximum number of memebers in this zone fall between 4 and 5 on a scale of 5. So for them, even a question say which falls in category 4 can be a category 2 question. If you give more weightage to their votes, then better questions might be labelled as homework. Moreover, even a troll can hit gold memebership with time(AFAIK) so his/her votes might be wrong.
Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote: a weighting scheme to bias the number of "votes" for a particular questions level
This seems a good idea to counter my first point. But still it will be opinion of few and not the truth. Number of gold memebers(assuming they give correct vote according to question's standard) is too less than beginners.
The word "politics" describes the process so well: "Poli" in Latin meaning "many" and "tics" meaning "bloodsucking creatures."
जय हिंद
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Ennis Ray Lynch, Jr. wrote: 3) Beginner
4) Intermediate
5) Advanced
I don't like those categories. They mean nothing to me. Is it "every Beginner knows this" or "if you don't know this, you're just a Beginner".
That brings to mind a memorable experience from about ten years ago. I needed an OpenVMS version of "touch", I asked the company guru, his response began with "Well, the obvious solution is...". [ append nl: filename ] It wasn't obvious to me, I had never heard of the append command, I still only use it this way if at all. 
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I apologies, if it is a wrong place to ask this.
I have found some members are continually rating 1 on articles without any reason. And they are not submitting a single article on codeproject.com. And all are using same text while rating (My vote of 1 [^])
Are they not able to find good articles on codeproject.com or they are doing with a purpose?
Thanks and Regards,
Ajit
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You only have 1 articles it's hard for me to see a pattern to this person's voting.
If you don't agree with his comment then vote for it to be removed.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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His 1-votes are accompanied by valid comments. He does seem to come across as a rather negative person but that doesn't mean he should be disallowed to vote.
Interestingly even where his 1-vote was accompanied by a reasonably valid justification, his vote has been removed by people voting the comment down
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To be fair, your article deserved it.
Now, i don't agree with codeguruj's reason, and consider him lazy for failing to put more thought into his vote-comments... but the article is really not up to par, and i find it puzzling that you would expect others to put proportionally more effort into their comments than you did into writing the article itself. You would do well to put more effort into critiquing your own work before complaining about the responses of others.
---- You're right.
These facts that you've laid out totally contradict the wild ramblings that I pulled off the back of cornflakes packets .
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The cursing in forum posts seems to get worse all the time. Is it appropriate to flag a message as "Abuse" if it has inappropriate words in it? Or is that abuse of the "Abuse" flag?
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Report the post as abusive. Any particular ones?
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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