Why not a flex-width forum?

Report · Mar 18, 2009

I see it is easily possible--just look at Jive's forum!

Some major issue I see with the 700px or so size you're currently using.
* Code blocks are practically useless for indented code.
* Put it into threaded mode and have a good laugh at the 250px wide stuff columns by the time you get down to a 4th reply.
* You're already losing 240px to the annoying "Actions" right-hand column. People with theater-proportion screens could at least ameliorate this issue slightly.
* I believe you're using a large font than they are the Jive site, so your content already flows longer.
* It's frustrating to see 300-400px of dead space that I could really be using just sitting to the right of the forum.

Report · Mar 21, 2009

Adobe obviously failed to employ the right people on the back-end!

8/

Report · Mar 21, 2009

I am getting a "service unavailable" when I try to get the code. Does anyone have it?

Report · Mar 21, 2009

First, you need the Stylish 0.5.9 FF plug-in which you can get from:
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/2108

Then Eric and Mark Boyd's Scripts

There are two parts:
Eric's "Force Full Browser Width":

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);

@-moz-document domain("adobeforums.adobe.com") {

#jive-wrapper {
width:100% !important;
background-color: #ffffff !important;
background-image: none !important;
}

}

--------------
And Mark's (which I have named "Death to Avatars" in my installation!

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);
@-moz-document domain("adobeforums.adobe.com") {
#jive-wrapper {
width:100% !important;
background-color: #ccc !important;
background-image: none !important;
}
#jive-body-main {
background-color: #ccc;
}
.jive-thread-reply .jive-thread-reply-body-container {
background-color: #ddd !important;
}
.jive-author-avatar-container {
display: none !important;
}
}

--------

I loaded both of them although Mark has now posted a combined Script:

@namespace url(http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml);
@-moz-document domain("adobeforums.adobe.com") {
#jive-wrapper {
width:100% !important;
background-color: #ccc !important;
background-image: none !important;
}
#jive-body-main {
background-color: #ccc;
}
.jive-thread-reply .jive-thread-reply-body-container {
background-color: #ddd !important;
}
.jive-author-avatar-container {
display: none !important;
}
}

Report · Mar 21, 2009

Wow! Thanks Ann. And things load faster without all the garbage too!

Report · Mar 21, 2009

I'm not kidding. I got a major speed boost! This should be installed by everyone having a problem.

Report · Mar 21, 2009

Here the figures are as follows in a series of automatic tests -

Results using the "Stylish" script that provides full width and no avatars:-

http://adobeforums.adobe.com/thread/235978?tstart=0 displayed five times with empty cache and five times with primed cache:-

Empty cache
Median 35894ms Average 36262ms
Primed cache
Median 8363 Average 8424

Results without the script:-

Empty cache
Median 33783 Average 34016
Primed cache
Median 7594 Average 8003

So here at least in this test, the script slows things up a little - or maybe in the ten minutes that passed between the running of the "with" test and the "without" test, speeds here improved for other reasons. So - your mileage may vary with this.

Whether you'd expect the script to make things slower or faster depends on how it works. If it's stripping stuff out before the browser processes it, perhaps it could make things faster, if it was stripping out so much stuff that the operation of stripping was making a significant saving on what the browser processes. If it's stripping things out after the browser has processed it and before the result is passed to the display, you'd expect it to run slower due to the double processing. I suspect someone would know the answer to that.

Report · Mar 21, 2009

> I'm not kidding. I got a major speed boost! This should be installed by everyone having a problem.

Thats a major clue where the performance problem is.

Report · Mar 21, 2009

Regardless of performance, the scripts are a HUGE relief.

Report · Mar 22, 2009

Its funny but my script got rid of the avatars inside the threads themselves but not on the home page. I must have a variant. <a href="http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1abexBxB8k655QOVcQDux55elUvyA1" /></a> <img alt="Picture hosted by Pixentral" src="http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1abexBxB8k655QOVcQDux55elUvyA1_thumb.png" border="0" />

Report · Mar 22, 2009

> but not on the home page. That's not the "Home" page. It's the main thread index page for that particular subforum. I got rid of the avatars there through Adblock. c <a href="http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1kh7PYdJTceOSrCTQRbaifku3nd7ke1" /></a> <img alt="Picture hosted by Pixentral" src="http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1kh7PYdJTceOSrCTQRbaifku3nd7ke1_thumb.jpg" border="0" />

Report · Mar 22, 2009

Ramon,

I got Adblock but I don't seem to be able to make it work. In Adblock Plus Prefs do you simply ad the page as a filter that you want blocked?

UPDATE: Sorry, I finally found the help file that talks about subscriptions. Is there a best one?

Report · Mar 22, 2009

Adblock is great!! I don't know how I ever lived without it! And Firefox...wow. Ramon, you have been saying forever how configurable it is and I just never tried things. Why would anyone use Safari?

Report · Mar 22, 2009

I use both - Safari more often because I find it quicker and I prefer the look, but Firefox is immensely useful with all the add-ons you can get. If you're doing any web work, I highly recommend the web developer extension, a great tool for analysing a page.

Report · Mar 22, 2009

I wasn't aware of this thread over here until now. If you want to get rid of the avatars on the thread index page without AdBlock, you can add this little bit to your style sheet:

.jive-avatar {
display: none !important;
}

Just don't forget to turn off the user style sheets if you want to observe any changes that Adobe might be making to the look-n-feel over there.

Side note: These really are not scripts. They are style sheets or style sheet rules. They will still work if you have JavaScript turned off in your browsers.

Report · Mar 22, 2009

Hey!

This forum uses my prefered full name! Did I log in with a different Adobe ID when forced to login again?

My IDs are big web of confusion for me after merging personal and company accounts from both Adobe and MacroMedia.

Report · Mar 22, 2009

> If you're doing any web work, I highly recommend the web developer extension, a great tool for analysing a page.

Thanks Kath, I will do that.

Mark, thanks for that.

Report · Mar 22, 2009

Your Adobe.com username has absolutely nothing to do with the username used in these WebX forums. Except if the users names are not exactly the same in both none of your previous post and comments will not be brought over to the new system. Now if they use the same link when new system, then perhaps all your previous post counts and items will be moved.
So I have renamed my username for the webx forums to match exactly my adobe.com user name. So while you can before the switch over change all of your user names on all the different forums (MM/webX) to exactly match before the switch over, and if you can change your email address to exactly match before the switchover.

Report · Mar 22, 2009

>Your Adobe.com username has absolutely nothing to do with the username used in these WebX forums.

I think I knew that, but thanks.

>Except if the users names are not exactly the same in both none of your previous post and comments will not be brought over to the new system. Now if they use the same link when new system, then perhaps all your previous post counts and items will be moved.

Not a biggy. Almost all of my messages came from NNTP. That is thousands of posts via NNTP vs tens of posts via Web forums. I really don't give a hoot about such things anyway. As in many aspects of life, it is quality, not quantity that matters.

Report · Mar 22, 2009

I have a separate account from MacroMedia for DreamWeaver but haven't used in years because One I didn't like the look, and two I never could get answers to any questions. It appeared only experts that knew everything, were answering questions to experts that knew everything. The didn't seem interested in answering from people just getting started.

So if that account disappears I don't care. My email address tied both to webX and adobe are the same just user names were different. So I am hoping transition will be smooth.

Report · Mar 23, 2009

> The didn't seem interested in answering from people just getting started.

Whatever your previous experience, that's definitely not the case in the Dreamweaver forums these days. The Dreamweaver forums get about 270 posts a day, so questions do sometimes get missed. The keys to getting an answer are the same as in any forum: a meaningful subject line and a clear explanation of the problem. With web page problems, it also helps to upload the problem page to a public website, and include the URL in the post.

Report · Mar 23, 2009

My history with DreamWeaver for Mac, was as far back Version 6. I now have the Studio 8 Pack and I still have a nagging problem I posted on group several times And gave up on.

Every once in a while, I have to re-enter Serial number to Studio 8 then Version 7 before it will activate. Then It dumps me to registration Page. I fill out, and hit register. But because its already registered it won't go any further. On the registration page I quit the page and it will stay activated for about a week. Then I have go through the process again, and again , and again ; week after week, after week, after week. I' tried news group Silence, I tried MacroMedia Support silence, I tried adobe support, silence. So I've resigned myself to do this about once a week. If I choose register later about a week later I would have to go through process again.

I Started out on X.3.9 and there was a patch program specifically for the problem but only works For X.3.9 not X.4.11. So as you can see I am soured to the MacroMedia groups.

Now DreamWeaver and Fire Works great programs and better than anything Adobe has even had twinkling in their eye about. They got a real catch when the Did the Take Over of Macromedia

Report · Mar 23, 2009

> better than anything Adobe has even had twinkling in their eye about Yeah. Photoshop sucks, doesn't it. Nobody uses it. And people aren't fleeing Quark for InDesign, either, are they. <sarcasm off>

Report · Mar 23, 2009

Sorry to hear about your serial number problems, but I don't think you can blame the Dreamweaver user forum for not being able to answer that. Support for product licensing and installation are issues that can really be dealt with only by customer or technical support (and yes, I know that dealing with them can be very frustrating).

What makes your situation even more difficult is that you're using Studio 8, which was the last Macromedia version. Not only is Adobe technical support unlikely to know how to troubleshoot an installation issue with Studio 8, I believe that support is given only for the current and immediately preceding version. Studio 8 is three versions back, so it's no longer supported.

Wish I could offer more help, but I'm afraid I can't. Sorry.

Report · Mar 23, 2009

I think Adobe got some pretty good programs with its acquisition of Macromedia, but Macromedia users were also winners, getting Photoshop, InDesign, and other great programs all bundled in the same suite. There's still a long way to go in improving interoperability, but I think it was a win-win situation.

Report · Mar 23, 2009

>They got a real catch when the Did the Take Over of Macromedia