LinuxMusicians

GraysonPeddie wrote:I think there's a very valid reason for not switching over to Discourse: Ctrl+F.

if you press ctrl-f twice, it overrides the in-built find and gives the browser find, works for most sites that hijack ctrl-f.


the there's too much whitespace in the default Discourse theme, though I guess that could be customised, but in general i've no real opinion on changing or not.

Luc wrote:

falkTX wrote:things trying to work well on phones and ignoring desktops is really irritating.

Very well said!

Now, get off our lawn!

Please, no Discourse! Dunno why, but I find its UI vague and unclear. It's only bling bling and no user friendliness.

I used Ctrl+F to do a search for JavaScript, but at least Firefox told me no matches until I mention it.

Here's another reason why not to have Discourse: No JavaScript? You can't browse the forums and threads at all. The page will just be white. I know that sounds silly, but have you guys ever used NoScript in Firefox? It's a handy tool for blocking out malicious scripts.

And please, don't bring up Java. JavaScript and Java are not the same.

GraysonPeddie wrote: Here's another reason why not to have Discourse: No JavaScript? You can't browse the forums and threads at all. The page will just be white. I know that sounds silly, but have you guys ever used NoScript in Firefox? It's a handy tool for blocking out malicious scripts.

This is outdated. I don't know the exact status right now, but for a while now Discourse is totally readable with NoScript. Some functions don't work, it's not a fully-JavaScript independent tool, but it's not a plain-white broken thing. It's at least readable.

GraysonPeddie wrote:And please, don't bring up Java. JavaScript and Java are not the same.

Hehe, yeah. I don't allow Java on my PC. Too bad I can't do the same for JavaScript. Also, I'm really tired of removing OpenJDK from new Debian installs, I think LibreOffice requires it by default.

discourse is inconvenient.

After watching this talk at Edinburgh Techmeetup last night, my opinion is now weighted toward a transition to Discourse.

In an attempt at revitalising the conversation here, might anyone have any actual specific concerns against Discourse, rather than vague notions or things that could be fixed with CSS/plugins?

For me this forum is fine, but I suppose I could live with Discourse also. Haven't used it, but I believe this old forum is slightly more my cup of tea. But what really matters is what admin thinks is best. Admin is the one who does all the work, so it (s)he makes decisions.

In my opinion Discourse is unsuited for sharing info, how-to's etc. It's a nice discussion platform, but this forum is more than that. I would never, ever join Discourse. Except for shouting my opinion 'bout something unimportant.

milk wrote:my opinion is now weighted toward a transition to Discourse.

Could you share more details about what changed your opinion? I don't know much about discourse, but I can say that for me, phpBB doesn't facilitate following and participating in conversations that are relevant to me. I find myself spending a lot of time navigating around. Specifically, sometimes I will skip conversations in a sub-forum because I don't care to read them. Then I will arrive at the front page, see a red icon on the left, and on the right it shows a topic that I wanted to follow. I will go to it only to find out that it doesn't have any more posts, the icon was red because I didn't read another topic in the same sub-forum. If Discourse were to provide a better user experience than this, I would be willing to try it.

Michael Willis wrote:I don't know much about discourse, but I can say that for me, phpBB doesn't facilitate following and participating in conversations that are relevant to me. I find myself spending a lot of time navigating around. Specifically, sometimes I will skip conversations in a sub-forum because I don't care to read them. Then I will arrive at the front page, see a red icon on the left, and on the right it shows a topic that I wanted to follow. I will go to it only to find out that it doesn't have any more posts, the icon was red because I didn't read another topic in the same sub-forum.

Personally, I use search.php?search_id=newposts a lot.

Michael Willis wrote:If Discourse were to provide a better user experience than this, I would be willing to try it.

I've been using Discourse in some other communities, and while it has somewhat grown on me, I don't see a huge advantage (and some definite costs) in switching.

I met the head of phpBB at OSCON a couple months ago, and he seemed aweomse and made me feel good about phpBB as a project still.

Furthermore, he supported all my ideas about better moderation / conflict-resolution / staying-on-topic and will build out suggestions when I get around to formulating them as clear proposals.

So, I support STAYING with phpBB, just keep the forum updated to latest version of it!

raboof wrote:Personally, I use search.php?search_id=newposts a lot.

Thanks, that helps (although admittedly that feature isn't exactly very discoverable).

falkTX wrote:Personal experience here:
I have used discourse (as user on their a couple of forums), and I just dont like how it works. Using it feels quite subpar compared to what we have here.
The fact that it relies on javascript so much is also a PITA

Discourse is superior to most other Javascript-heavy options and can be set up in ways that work quite well. But it is *very* heavy compared to phpBB. The *reliance* on JavaScript is obnoxious.

After seeing how phpBB as a project is still active and well-supported, I really think leave well-enough alone. We can anticipate future updates to phpBB to keep it usable etc.

Michael Willis wrote:

raboof wrote:Personally, I use search.php?search_id=newposts a lot.

Thanks, that helps (although admittedly that feature isn't exactly very discoverable).

I prefer this one:
search.php?search_id=active_topics

These and others are found in the "Quick links" drawer on the top left corner of every page. Quite discoverable IMO.