Forum: Site Announcements

Yes, now I see what people are talking about. Hmm. Modern, the column of download formats makes for a visually unappealing display; vast tracks of white space in the middle of everything. Prefer the Classic theme, if I want to see the download formats by default.

Minimalist is exactly the same as Modern with some data hidden until you're interested in seeing it. The only colour difference is the blue arrow down that reveals the data.

Ah, OK.

I opened up a couple of windows with Minimalist & Modern next to each other, and expanded the Minimalist theme boxes.

The story name/link in Minimalist is a smaller font size than in Modern, and there is no space between the story description and the Tags line (on a my screen 6 stories v 5).

With Modern, after the Story description (and the space) comes Sex contents & Genre, then Tags, downloads etc.

With the hidden data showing, and even with the blue arrows there I'd chose Minimalist. The Genre, downloads, size etc data in Modern appears fainter (probably due to the space between the Story description & other data).

Even in Minimalist it'd be nice if it were (very) slightly darker; just to increase the contrast with the box it's in.

Each person uses a different set of criteria to decide whether to read a story or not.

I suppose you could make it so each user selects what they want in a view.

and most readers will opt for "Modern" anyway.

I'll stick with classic.
Everything's there & it's easy to see.

I actually preferred the original layout to the new "classic" layout.

?
Not sure what you're looking at, but my Classic theme is the same as the one when I first joined up about 6 years ago.
The Modern & Minimalist themes are the new ones.

Ah - I've found out what's happened.

The changes to introduce themes set a new default of automatic screen, whereas before I was using big screen, even on my tablet (which I operate in landscape mode except when some poxy app forces it to portrait orientation).

As soon as I forced "big screen", the classic theme returned to how I had always seen it.

The changes to introduce themes set a new default of automatic screen, whereas before I was using big screen, even on my tablet

That would definitely mess things up.

Yes to the "Old School" theme!

I'm staying with Classic just for the non-serif font.

You can change the font in your browser defaults. For Instance, I'm reading this in Times New Roman, because that's what I have Firefox set to. If it were being forced into a sanserif font, it would be in Comic Sans, and if into a fixed font it would be Century Schoolbook Monospace.

P.S. I like serifs and I hate Arial.

I'll see how many of your suggestions I can incorporate. The changes will be slow of course.

That was just food for thought, do not rush, those things need to be done carefully with a global vision and the authors and readers experience and expectation in the forefront.

If there are improvement to be made it's the ease of use and UI consistency currently it's a bit of a mess. Too many parts of the site feels like juxtaposed experiments.

Also, I do not expect any of my suggested changes to draw more readers or authors to the site, so it's really not a priority.

For that, adjustment to the business model as I suggested few year back need to be done.

In that regard, I find strange that you did not try to leverage finestories to do more experimental moves (like removing the login requirement for reading or allow public feedback or adding covers/illustrations or remunerating premium content or let author promote pay content, etc).

Having to press one button is a serious convenience to me in terms of changing size.

Sounds like the description of something I might read on here.

'Mom presses son's buttons and he gets bigger.'

Then lucky me - my mother (bless her soul) didn't known how to read :D

Error message depends on the browser; apparently the security protocols supported by the storiesonline server have changed. I now have to enable TLS 1.0 (First noticed the storiesonline problem several hours before the scheduled SOL maintenance.)

Thanks for the quick work, Lazeez

On that note it seems pertinent to refer to today's blog by Wyden Long headed Thanks Lazeez. It starts

It seems appropriate at the end of the year to acknowledge the enjoyment I have experienced during the past year from the services provided by SOL.

Wyden Long also thanks a number of authors.

I had occasion to suggest a slight selfish change in the Home and Forum header pages which he enacted almost instantaneously.
I am constantly amazed that a comment may be made in the Forum and he replies or seems to start acting almost immediately; does the man work a 36 hour day?

Whatever, my thanks also.

I will also thank our web master. Thank you for the easiest-to-use online reading experience on the web!

Having to scroll on down through the comments is a pain in the ass.

Try hitting the 'end' key on your keyboard to jump to the bottom of the page.

Did a change get made to the default? I seem to suddenly have Modern as my setting.

In Dark mode, the header lines on the my_account page are light gray on light backgrounds, and the box where the change-theme selection is still has a white background, though the text switches to light gray. This makes it difficult to read.

Me, I like the dark mode color scheme, I hate the modern layout.

I've updated the author pages.

That makes a big difference. Before it was like a bright light right in your eyes :D

The forum has been updated. It works now in the dark mode theme. I had to change the link to reply/report/top/DM.

That looks good. I'm gonna try out this dark mode for a while and probably stick with it if I don't encounter unreadable parts. Will report those, like: the headers "Forum: ..." need a lighter font color because they are hard to read. No problem for me since I always use the all threads listing.

Urgh, with the background highlighting for read vs. unread gone from the forum, I can't easily tell which threads I have already read. Annoying at the least.

Test

It's not gone. The difference I see: Read background is 30%-40% grey and the unread is 70%-80% grey, significantly darker for the unread.

Also the text for unread is slightly darker and the button marker is big and green for unread and small and light grey for read.

@karactr

Urgh, with the background highlighting for read vs. unread gone from the forum, I can't easily tell which threads I have already read. Annoying at the least.

Test

It's not gone.

Gone for me - zero difference between read/unread threads, and between read/unread posts. Also, the reply/report/top/PM icons have been replaced by text labels. I'm (still) on Classic theme. The read/unread posts can be worked round by the read dot being not-green, the posts with more difficulty by checking back to the threads listing page for the last post timestamp, and comparing.

ETA: on refresh after posting I got some icons back, bot no highlighting. I'll try again later.

read/unread posts can be worked round by the read dot being not-green, the posts with more difficulty by checking back to the threads listing page for the last post timestamp, and comparing.

Let Lazeez know what device/os/browser you are using and it might help if you can send him screen shots.

Classic theme on 2 machines,
Xubuntu 18.04.5 Firefox 83.0
ChaletOS 16.04 (a spin of Xubuntu) Firefox 82.0
--both 32-bit Firefox on 32-bit Xubuntu (they're 10+ year-old laptops)

Since @Grant is having the exact same problem with the only common element being Classic theme, perhaps that's it? Any more info, just request it.

Also, the reply/report/top/PM icons have been replaced by text labels. I'm (still) on Classic theme.

Hadn't noticed till i read this post- same here (Classic theme with shading issues), those Labels/buttons appear as text- mouse over and they appear the way they used to (slightly different colour though).

Reply box is unshaded.

I'm having the same problems Grant is/had with Classic theme. I'll try exiting and restarting browser ... sometime. With some 30 Ffx windows open with about 10 tabs each, I don't want to quit Ffx (I loose too much context) nor reboot (I lose even more context, like which files I'm editing in which directories); I'll either let it run 'til it crashes (then I can do a Restore Tabs), wait for a software update, or if you want feedback quickly, I can in Ffx 'Restart with Add-ons Disabled', then 'Restart with Add-ons Enabled' - a bit of a pain, especially since Ffx never seems to quite get correct which workspace to restore windows to.

With some 30 Ffx windows open with about 10 tabs each, I don't want to quit Ffx (I loose too much context)

If you kill the Ffx process from the OS, it will restore tabs on restart the same as if it crashed.

I do this on Windows occasionally (kill Ffx from task manager).

@madnige
I'm having the same problems Grant is/had with Classic theme.

Fixed the forum on the Classic theme.

Yep. Shading issue of read/unread fixed.
reply/report/top/DM buttons still just text unless moused over (but not a significant issue IMHO- i didn't notice the change till it was mentioned).

With some 30 Ffx windows open with about 10 tabs each, I don't want to quit Ffx (I loose too much context) nor reboot (I lose even more context, like which files I'm editing in which directories); I'll either let it run 'til it crashes...

Firefox has this nifty little feature when you right click on a tab: "Bookmark All Tabs". After restart you can restore them all with "Open All in Tabs" from the bookmark menu.
You really should use bookmarks because the 'crash method' doesn't always work.

These changes being discussed apply to the 'Dark Mode Beta" theme. If you're on classic almost nothing should change for you.

I switched over to Dark briefly to check it out, but then almost immediately back to Classic, and I've got text labels instead of icons for "Reply", "Report", "Top", and "DM", too. Edit and Delete are still showing icons.

@BlacKnight

I've got text labels instead of icons for "Reply", "Report", "Top", and "DM"

I liked those :-(

The icon buttons are back, at least in classic.

The icon buttons are back, at least in classic.

In dark too. But still I still have to click 'Start Topic' to save this reply ;)

Urgh, with the background highlighting for read vs. unread gone from the forum, I can't easily tell which threads I have already read. Annoying at the least.

??? I still see a difference in read/not read. It's different from the non-dark themes. Read is the lighter gray background, dark gray background is unread.

Settings page looks much better.

Bug found. In dark mode when you reply to a forum post the save/post button says "Start Topic".

Not just dark mode. I'm seeing the same thing in Classic mode.

I was scratching my head trying to figure out what you meant by that, doing all kinds of tests, then I kept reading and discovered the problem is no longer there.

Lazeez is our resident Speedy Gonzales, very fast :D

Lazeez is our resident Speedy Gonzales, very fast :D

And he's getting faster, now he fixed an error (js exception on the forum page) and the color in dark mode for "Read" in the blog column on the author pages before I could report it :D

Whoops! There seems to be a problem. (A bug? I suspect so.)

When I go to "New Stories" or "Updates", it seems to randomly choose "classic" or "modern". I have saved "classic" in my preferences, so it should always come up "classic". But by switching from one to the other, it might change, and sometimes even refreshing the page. Fortunately, I have never seen it change when going from one "update" page to another.

I use classic and I'm not seeing anything like that on Win10 with FireFox 83. What OS and browser are you using?

Right meant to post that and got distracted by swapping back and forth. OSX 10.13, FF 82

This is curious. The stylesheet loaded via the @import is classic, but the HTML source says modern: http://prntscr.com/w7v7qg

And here's page 3, same time as the last link, where it's showing the classic style and the HTML source also says classic: http://prntscr.com/w7v8gv

To fix the inconsistent theme load, I had to redo the way themes were implemented.

That probably explains the weirdness that just occurred.

I clicked on the chapter link at the bottom of the page of the story i'm reading, when it took me to a Select theme page.
I was able to select the Classic theme, and going in to my account it now shows as Classic theme (before it was showing as modern/auto dark mode although still displaying as Classic).

What we really need is a classic dark mode.

I already asked for that on a different thread.

https://storiesonline.net/d/s6/t7480/reversion-to-old-style#po134879

I already asked for that on a different thread.

I missed that post but it confirms that I'm not the only one wishing for a dark classic theme.

dark classic theme

I do not know if it is due to my overall settings but when I opened SOL in Waterfox Classic today it had the classic theme in dark mode. Private window, so there were no SOL settings to be changed. Previously it was just classic.

Yeah, I like.

are you reloading many tabs at the same time?

In normal usage, where you click a story to read it and then move to another one and so on, you should never see that message.

I guess it depends what you consider normal. My normal usage, which has worked for me for years, is to go through the daily index for new stories and [completed] updates. If I decide I want to read a story, I open it in a new tab. But I might have a few stories already "tabbed", where I am reading one and have queued the others for my next reads. I'll close that tab I'm reading when I finish, and move on to the next-oldest story. I have had up to five tabs open at once (the index and four stories).

When you made that change, I had three stories "tabbed"; I was on the last page of the oldest, and the other two were queued for later reading. When I booted my computer this morning, two of the three were "too many concurrent accesses"; only one was available. "Reload" got one of the lost stories back; could not retrieve the other. [Edit: On the third "reload" attempt, I got that one back.] I didn't even remember what the story was; I don't memorize them, because the tabs are a way of storing the links -- until today.

If there were a simple, one-click way to queue a story with persistence, I'd be glad to use it. But your changes destroyed the way I have done it for years.

If there were a simple, one-click way to queue a story with persistence, I'd be glad to use it. But your changes destroyed the way I have done it for years.

Browser Bookmarks? It will bookmark the exact page you bookmarked, not the last page read, but at least you have all your stories that are reading-in-progress saved without the need to open them all. Saves some memory too on slow machines.
I don't use it myself but I think the SOL 'My Library' has what you are looking for. That does require Premium though.

Lazeez,
Let me see how consistently "reload" works. If it's reliable, then that should solve my problem. Thanks.

Does this apply to all/most pages on the site (e.g., storylists) or just to story pages? Does it apply per-user, or is the connection count that's too large, sitewide? If it's sitewide, when are the busy times to try to avoid, and when are the quiet times? If it's per-user, the way I think it will have been implemented is as a timer, i.e. too short a delay between one access and the next; is this between different stories, or does it apply to chapters within a single story - I used to ctrl-click on many chapters to load them so I could read them offline (and still do something similar); how long would I have to wait between clicks to avoid triggering this?

How does this interact with browser accelerator prefetching - do all the prefetches finish up requiring a manual reload (so defeating the intent of the prefetch)? Will this help avoid the big download spike for the first chapter, so give better stats?

Lots of questions, they don't need answering, but any answers would be appreciated.

Basically it enforces 1 story per user for 20 seconds.

Thanks. It's that sort of precision that can help me change my habits to match the environment. If "reload" is reliable under this 20-second rule, I am guessing it will allow me to queue stories as necessary.

BTW, the 20-second rule also explains why "reload" did not work for me the first time but worked fine when I came back later.

This only affects concurrent loading of different stories too quickly by the same user.

I've only seen it once but that was when I opened the author list from the home page menu in a new tab. Not even a story there.

I did not know there was a 1 story limit. No big deal but this has not happened before. Sometimes when there are multiple stories that I am reading and they all update I open a few of the tabs at the same time. I can stop doing that, no big deal, it just was never a problem before.

This only affects concurrent loading of different stories too quickly by the same user.

This isn't the behavior I'm seeing. I read on my phone and refresh Serial Updates page to find the new updates for stories I'm following. When I see one, I long click and open in a new tab. Before the recent update I never saw this error/warning.

When I switch to the new tab I usually have to refresh multiple times, sometimes more than 5, to get the page to load. Then, to make it more annoying, when I click the new chapter link I have to do the refresh business all over again.

If this is a new feature you have turn on, it is way too sensitive. Please consider adjusting it or disabling it.

When I switch to the new tab I usually have to refresh multiple times, sometimes more than 5, to get the page to load. Then, to make it more annoying, when I click the new chapter link I have to do the refresh business all over again.

If this is a new feature you have turn on, it is way too sensitive. Please consider adjusting it or disabling it.

It's an inconvenience but I suspect with a very good reason behind it: prevent full site scraping. It's just a matter of adjusting your reading habits.

When I switch to the new tab I usually have to refresh multiple times, sometimes more than 5, to get the page to load.

This shows you're hammering the reload far too quickly - more often than four seconds per. When you see this message, chill, count to twenty, then refresh. If you're not prepared to wait the full twenty, less will probably do (as the page load time is included in the twenty), but if you see it twice in succession, you're getting too impatient again. Also, you can't do an end-around by having multiple tabs loading at once; each new story you access (even by just hitting reload on a tab showing this message) restarts the twenty second lockout, so it's sequential, moderately-paced access. If you're using automated downloading, then you'll have to work out how and where to put a suitable delay, and I'd suggest not making the delay the minimum it can be, either. Using FlashGot as an example (a download manager for MSWin I was using about 20 years ago), besides all the normal be-nice stuff like single file, single thread, throttled downloading, I'd try to enforce an inter-story delay by explicitly queueing (between stories) a non-existent file from somewhere (or nowhere) and letting the timeout do the delay (since I don't remember the ability to have a programmed pause in the downloads).

Hi Lazeez, when I see "To many concurrent access", which is often as I check a page to see if I have already read it, the first thing that goes through my mind is, who would put in a "To" when they really meant to have a "Too"?
Or is this some obscure American Grammar standard that is likely to catch unaware Aussies?

Cheers, Ian

LOL

Or is this some obscure American Grammar standard that is likely to catch unaware Aussies?

Um...Lazeez and SOL are Canadian. Maybe it's a Fringlish thing.

@burka_oz

Or is this some obscure American Grammar standard that is likely to catch unaware Aussies?

Um...Lazeez and SOL are Canadian. Maybe it's a Fringlish thing.

Canadian is American, even North American - it's just not United States American.

Canadian is American, even North American - it's just not United States American.

Yes, but they tend to follow more towards UK English than US English (Except where they speak French).

Yes, but they tend to follow more towards UK English than US English

Canadians use a mix, US cars (hood and trunk), UK banking (cheque) and so on, but they do add U to many words.

Hmm, I have heard - and laughed - at Jinglish and especially Chinglish but is Fringlish a thing? I don't recall seeing any examples of that. ;)

but is Fringlish a thing?

Canada has two official languages, English and French. They might not call it that but I would expect Fringlish to happen in Canada.

Et al is Latin, n'est-ce pas?

Non.

Not exactly, et al is an English abbreviation, it's source is from the Latin 'et alii'.

Not exactly, et al is an English abbreviation, it's source is from the Latin 'et alii'.

Not exactly :D

'et al' is the root for et alii (masculine), et aliea (feminine), or et alia (neuter), meaning 'and others'.

Any chance we can have an option to change it back?

I changed the link color as a test. It's now light purple and darker purple for visited.

I didn't like or hate the green but I do like the purple. The letters seem a little sharper too with the new color.

And my eyes prefer more contrast between link colors.

And my eyes prefer more contrast between link colors.

My sight isn't the best either, getting old, but that is why I like the purple better, it's easier to read, especially with the smaller letters. That you like the green better could be our difference in color perception. I use the dark theme and tried a light theme to see how it displays there. From what I could see the light themes still have the green.

... and the light theme just hurts my cave-troll eyes; no worries, I just whipped together a CSS override to make it look the way I want.

and the light theme just hurts my cave-troll eyes; no worries

I like the dark theme color scheme, but I prefer the classic layout.

Haven't been able to convince Lazeez to do a dark classic.

I like the dark theme color scheme, but I prefer the classic layout.

Haven't been able to convince Lazeez to do a dark classic.

This is pretty much what I've done with my CSS overrides, but with a color scheme that strains my eyes less.

I like the dark theme color scheme, but I prefer the classic layout.

Haven't been able to convince Lazeez to do a dark classic.

Yup here too. A classic dark theme would be perfect.
I might look into the css overrides but if I can find the time I'm leaning more to using greasemonkey/tampermonkey and a universal dark theme script.

I use light classic, I see purple for links I've visited previously (whether the thread has updates or not) and green for links I haven't visited.

Neat idea!

Can you add a Classic Dark Theme

You aren't the first person to request Classic Dark Theme (or should it be Dark Classic Theme) I requested that when he first introduced the Dark Theme.

I like the color scheme, but I hate the "modern" layout.

I lightened the green a little. So it should have different contrast level too.

Let me know.

It's a little better now but that's probably also because now I know what to look for. Tomorrow I'll look at it again with daylight because I suspect it's more difficult with daylight. I'll let you know.

It's a little better now but that's probably also because now I know what to look for. Tomorrow I'll look at it again with daylight because I suspect it's more difficult with daylight. I'll let you know.

I looked at it again in daylight and it is as I suspected. If you know what to look for it's obvious but the difference is really subtle. Personally I would prefer a bigger difference, both on the forum and the home page for viewed/read vs new/unread.