site update

Dwayne Partonwrote:

Is this in the app? or on the website? Will look into this as quickly as I can.

App, sorry for not clarifying.

Also an aside, my usage of the site has gone down significantly since I get logged out so frequently. Something for OnX to consider, perhaps.

Salamanizer Skiwrote:

It is volunteer work, as it should be, even though we are already adequately compensated for our work. 

My coffee may be slow to kick in this morning, but I'm not understanding what you mean by this.

Hooooooman this is a doozy

on the app, being in the app makes my phone think that it is oriented horizontal instead of vertical, but the app screen is still vertical.

So I’m holding the phone vertical and the app looks normal, but notifications display as if the phone is horizontal and so does the keyboard. So I’m typing this and can’t see what I’m typing because it’s sideways and hidden behind the keyboard. Lol

Doctor Drake, that's crazy, lol!

Okay, so one of the earliest complaints is the font change, and how the leading works with it. Or doesn't work, to be specific. 

If you miss what you wish to hit on a touchscreen (like going back to All Forums), you end up highlighting the ultra bold text and it's huge space. A minor thing, but that line spacing is not great. Occupying part of the line above is just asking for trouble. The ultra bold bold is worse for readability, maybe including for ADA purposes. Dunno on that part, I haven't dealt with it for years, but it does matter. 

Thanks! Helen

Doctor Drakewrote:

Hooooooman this is a doozy

on the app, being in the app makes my phone think that it is oriented horizontal instead of vertical, but the app screen is still vertical.

So I’m holding the phone vertical and the app looks normal, but notifications display as if the phone is horizontal and so does the keyboard. So I’m typing this and can’t see what I’m typing because it’s sideways and hidden behind the keyboard. Lol

That was happening to me a few weeks ago. Completely closing the app and restarting did the trick. 

expensive chalk dealer wrote:

Onx is a start up after all. Need to save that precious VC seed money for C-Suit payroll instead of spending it on engineering, quality assurance, and other site improvements?

I'm fixing three years of contractor produced technical debt right now at my day job, it's no fun.  Twenty years in the business of software development, good QA is something I have rarely seen done well in private industry.  The above issue and many others, is something that seems to be more common now that Front End developers and UI/UX are two entirely separate positions. Can't teach a programmer how to design, and designer how to program anymore I suppose?

So, then someone like me who worked with fonts, graphic design, and ADA compliant signs can simply mention these small things. Crowd source our collected experience, and share. That happened back when the new logo came in. MP had a lot of fun with that, but, also Nick got good feedback, including little things to fix like logos not lining up.

Speaking of...

Has MP always been crammed together in some places, Mountain Project, as above, and with the space in between, Mountain Project, as in the list on the front page? Those discrepancies weaken branding. Decide what you're doing, then do it consistently. My favorite example is my former employer, Boise Public Library! which has that exclamation point as part of the trademark. It's an official part of the name.

Best, Helen

EDIT to add, and, even if people are okay at designing, or think they are, they still may not consider how that design works across mediums. Why is it that businesses with the most difficult to comprehend names seem to also pick the most incomprehensible fonts, for something as publicly visible as your company truck????

expensive chalk dealer wrote:

...now that Front End developers and UI/UX are two entirely separate positions. Can't teach a programmer how to design, and designer how to program anymore I suppose?

There's a reason why they're now two separate positions - they require vastly different skill sets and focus. Not saying a designer can't produce production ready code nor can a developer not create a usable design that satisfies user goals and tasks. But in either case, the design will often (even usually) will be sub-optimal since someone doing both will always design something that they can implement. This also ignores user research and design validation with usability research.

There are no unicorns.

expensive chalk dealer wrote:

I've only run into good UI/UX in the wild if a large advertising agency is involved in planning and the client has cash to burn. 

I should have mentioned that domain matters. A designer who can design a great brand-awareness / ecommerce site with conversion as a prime metric isn't necessarily a great designer for an enterprise level mission critical SaaS application, where time on task, error prevention/ elimination, and 8-hr/day satisfaction are far more important. In my 30+ year HCI career I never once did agency work.

I've worked on projects larger than MP with smaller teams. Our QA person usually caught those types of errors if or when we made them, which was not often. Never shipped a site or an iOS app in the state this one was in a few weeks ago.  The new rollout seemed like an accident or hasty at best.

I think I said much the same thing at the time.

Another day, another log out

Can the login screen at least be cleaned up so I don't have to scroll down to enter my information??

Dwayne is wonderful, but I wish he would at least give us an update about the sign in nonsense, positive or negative, I just want to know what's going on.

Doctor Drakewrote:

Another day, another log out

Can the login screen at least be cleaned up so I don't have to scroll down to enter my information??

Dwayne is wonderful, but I wish he would at least give us an update about the sign in nonsense, positive or negative, I just want to know what's going on.

We are working on improving this, but I'll try to give some more details. Why it changed: We updated how MP and AP manage sessions because there were some security holes with how the previous sessions were implemented. The previous implementation resulted in arguably a better user experience(you didn't have to login), but from a security stand point there was concern.

It's not quite as simple as just raising a cookies lifespan, there are other parameters we are trying to balance as well. The good news is, as of today, we have raised the active session expiration(cookie) and hopefully that will alleviate some of the log out frustrations. I can also say, we will continue to work to improve this until we have found a good and happy balance.

How it works: Sessions are destroyed when they become inactive for too long. If you don't visit the site within the lifespan of an active session you will be logged out. However, if you visit the site within that lifespan, your active session will start over. The active session lifespan is one of the parameters we are balancing.

I'm also currently working on a bug with the mobile app, which is related to sessions as well. This results in intermittently not seeing new notifications when using the forums in the app. This happens after a session has expired on web, but not in the app. Hoping to get that fixed soon.

Thanks for all the comments and feedback, I'm reading them as they come in.

I tried to set up a thread recently titled Frank Minunni. In the first attempt, I simply was looking to copy/paste what I had posted in the Over 50s thread. Okay, it didn't bring the pictures over. So, edit in the picture id numbers, using typed double brackets. Then it messed up what I had. Try again, post the op, use a second post for the pics. More mess. Gave up, deleted all the content I had posted, tried to delete that thread. It wouldn't let me, so I changed the title and first post. 

I then made a whole new thread with what I was trying to do. Yay.

Now?

That first thread was restored by someone to the original title and first op. Wtf??? I've deleted it as far as it will let me and locked it.

I assume i couldn't delete that first one entirely, first try, because technically it had a reply in it. From me. Which I deleted. Seems like i should've been able to delete my thread at that point???

And who is in charge of necromancing intentionally deleted text??!?

Best, Helen

And this!

A minus one reply?

I'm assuming that was the post from a new account, something about safety of the belayer. 4 or 5 posts, mostly razzing. Im alao assuming it was decided the new account wasn't legit, or was someone on your undesirables list and the whole thing got axed.

If it's an account you definitely don't want, okay, but if it was a mere troll ish sorta thing, MP usually does fine with that. Even throws in legit replies, cuz hey, why not? We're all just throwing words around here, after all.

But how do you get a -1 reply?

H.

Old lady Hwrote:

A minus one reply?

That is very curious. Looking into it, thanks for the report.

Thanks for the communication, Dwayne!

For what it’s worth, I’ve seen the -1 reply thing for years. Always happened when an OP deleted their thread immediately after creating it. 

Doctor Drakewrote:

Thanks for the communication, Dwayne!

For what it’s worth, I’ve seen the -1 reply thing for years. Always happened when an OP deleted their thread immediately after creating it. 

I’ve also seen it when a spam thread has been deleted. 

Bug:  I don't believe that I'm getting notifications for my photos being rated. 

I think there is a bug with updating gps coordinates for an area. I did it for this page and the updates seems to say it took but the listed coords on the page and map location didn't get fixed.

How come any photos I try to post go only to the top? It makes any trip report hard to follow. 

Guy Keeseewrote:

How come any photos I try to post go only to the top? It makes any trip report hard to follow. 

Do you have a link I can reference?

A few updates for today

• We fixed a bug where comments and likes on Photos weren't notifying users
• Fixed a bug with email verification. This could happen to existing members when an authentication method(Apple, FB) was removed but the user had an unverified email they logged in with.
• Fixed a a moderation bug that affected AP and MP
• We working on a fix for route stat pages with a large number of ticks, ratings, a queries. Hoping to have this live tomorrow.

Has the logout issue improved for you all?