Oh dear, looks like it's not a good time to try and update one's profile. I just lost the link to my Flickr stream when trying.

I'm sure these wrinkles will get attention and I'm looking forward to seeing what new features they've got in store for us. Thanks guys :)

*Edit* I've corrected my Flickr link now.

As Christian posted in his blog earlier today, an upgrade was performed over the weekend to address performance issues as well as to introduce some new features. Though we are back online, there are still a few areas which are not yet up and running as we iron out all the bugs.

Thanks for your patience.

I am noticing significant improvements in speed.

At the moment, attempting to upload an image triggers an error alert saying:

onHTTPError: 404

A minor bug I noticed (in case it’s not on your list):
Sub-Forums indices (like the Type ID Pop Quiz) show page numbering, even if there’s only a single index page.

Instead of the topics I've participated in, the "track list" now shows a bunch of topics, none of which I've participated in.

I like that flagged as new posts now show up beyond page one. Good work, folks!

ChrisL

My eyes ! Flaming icons, ouch, ouch !

Seriously, having two icon types doesn't add anything in terms of usability, but it does add extra visual noise that detracts from the content. I doubt many people care whether the topic is "hot" or not, especially considering that the thread message count is right there, 400px to the right.

Icons are also way too contrast. I would rather have something like this, more calm and restrained.

The replacement of "(xx new)" links with just "xx" does not seem to be a very good idea either. Even after I managed to realize that "xx" is a link (which is damn hard to do on an uncalibrated laptop monitor), I still had to overcome my arthritis, carpal syndrome and hangover shakes to aim at that ultra minuscule 1 that is now all that's left from a link.

@Bendy : It will keep getting faster as the caches fill up.

I find it mildly confusing that the button used to post messages is labeled "Save".

Tracking your own account doesn't seem to work - the threads I have posted in doesn't get updated (flagged) in the list when there are new posts.

Can the flaming icons be the same red as the typophile logo at the top?

Site search doesn't work any more, either: Page not found.

It used to be that some updates were a no-brainer. Firefox (not as true now); CCleaner; Auslogics Diskdefrag; 7Zip (even beta!).

What has always been a given is that "improvements" to Typopihle have consistently been problematical at best.

As a (non-professional) typophile and former programmer, I'm almost embarrassed. Don't get me wrong. I love Typophile. I'm grateful for all the dedicated people who volunteer their time to keep it running.

But don't you test these upgrades before implementing them? Or do you count on Typophile users to do your beta testing? Isn't anybody ever embarrassed by the bugs?

Wouldn't it be better to wait until the Typophile team has smoothed out all the glitches before suggesting things that are probably on their list? I'm sure they will ask for feedback in due course. Sometimes it's better to launch and tidy up the loose ends afterwards.

"Sometimes it's better to launch and tidy up the loose ends afterwards."

Bendy: do you work for Microsoft?

I can't turn links into words, my old ones are broken, and if they aren't they look like wiki links when they are not (and "save" instead of "post" is very confusing. The only way I figured it out was by reading this thread). Smart quotes appear to be off as well.

>Bendy: do you work for Microsoft?

:) (No but I do look after a website and sometimes find it very difficult to balance user needs with organisational needs.)

What I mean is that with a site like this, it would have been more annoying for users to have the site down for ages and ages. I'm sure they're aware of things that aren't working and hopefully they'll be resolved quickly.

I agree with Bendy. Not perfect typophile > no typophile. I was starting to go through some serious DT's over the weekend.

"What I mean is that with a site like this, it would have been more annoying for users to have the site down for ages and ages."

Thanks for proving my point. Test BEFORE you come up with an "improved" version.

The personal "tracker" isn't working right. I get "guest" place of the names of all the those who initiated the thread.

Renuisance Man, if you think about it you'll realize that for a volunteer gig the alternative to letting thousands of helpful users find & report bugs is entirely prohibitive. And that's not even considering the valuable gauging of user opinion about the upgrade.

hhp

@ William: Same here, and the tracker is showing me irrelevant posts.

@Domenico: I just checked this again also, and it seems like nothing has been updated since the shutdown.

Image uploading is fixed. The tracker is next on our list. The goal was to improve the tracker speed by at least an order of magnitude. Of course it would help if it returned the correct results ;-) It looks like we have some odd cacheing issues that popped up when we went live. If you want, we can shut the site down while we test it, though ;-) Thanks again for your patience (and the bug reports).

Reminds me of an expression one of my computer science teachers favored:
"My program could ran faster if it didn't have to give the right results."

hhp

@hhp : So true

>"The goal was to improve the tracker speed by at least an order of magnitude."

Really? "An order of magnitude difference between two values is a factor of 10." That' far exceeds Moore's Law. (According to Moore's Law, computer power doubles every 18 months.)

>"Renuisance [sic] Man, if you think about it you'll realize that for a volunteer gig the alternative to letting thousands of helpful users find & report bugs is entirely prohibitive."

I can accept that newly added features are sometimes problematical. My point is why do you have to break so many old features to implement new buggy features?

>"Reminds me of an expression one of my computer science teachers favored:
'My program could ran faster if it didn't have to give the right results.'"

And that reminds me when, decades ago, I told a sales person, "I can get it for $XX less elsewhere." He responded, "Well, why don't you buy it elsewhere?" to which I replied, "They're out of stock." The Response? "I can sell it for half their price when I'm out of stock." Ouch!

If I've been less than kind, I apologize. It's that I expect a lot from Typophile, and I want you all to look good.

Keep on keepin' on.

If we're nitpicking:
1) Order of magnitude doesn't have to be base-10 (which is a dumb system anyway), it can be base-2 (which is the pinnacle of elegance).
2) If the most recent upgrade was more than about 4.5 years ago your decimal order of magnitude is pretty much met with respect to Moore's Law.

> why do you have to break so many old
> features to implement new buggy features?

There is no progress without risk.
If you don't fall, you're not trying hard enough.

hhp

@Renaissance Man - Old features breaking is probably due to them being implemented through manual patching of the stock website engine. They appear to have upgraded the engine, and so now they are probably porting whatever the patches that accumulated in the old version.

Another thing for your list:

Links created with the double bracket syntax look like Wiki links (green, with superscript ‘W’), even if they are referencing an external source.
Links created with HTML syntax are blue:

[ [ http://www.example.com|example ] ] → example
<a href="http://www.example.com">example</a> → example

Wow! Clicking on Track in my profile really is way-hey-hey faster. Thanks Christian and others!

at least you can rely on the typophile community to make an entertaining read out of bug reports after an upgrade :-)

Wow! Clicking on Track in my profile really is way-hey-hey faster. Thanks Christian and others!

That may be because it's no longer actually tracking your posts :-/ (at least mine's not since the maintenance).

Humans have been "beta testing" products without knowing it for years while people make a profit from it. Why not beta test something that is free and done on a volunteer basis? Keep a doin it, Christian and the others! Like Simon, I am entertained more by seeing the "bug reports" than I am by seeing the black screen with an "Down for maintenance" sign posted. ;-)

ChrisL

Thanks for your work guys!

Very minor nitpick: When previewing a post, I'd love to still be able to see if the thread has been updated in the meantime. Is this coming back?

Tracker is tracking.

Just to check:

I've had an idea of shoe lace turning into type. I do not want to turn it into illustration, but I also want it to flow naturally.

This is one days work. What do you think?

YES!!!

Very nice.
But dump the aglets and make it telephone cables instead.

hhp

Sorry, just made a new thread.

To now answer the question in the subject line:

Much smoother performance?

hhp

Ok, so if there are still bugs now, do we start reporting them? Can someone from Typophile let us know what they'd prefer?

We appreciate bug reports and other ideas. You can send them through the contact page; just select "Bug Reports" as the category. When things get crazy there are usually a few threads that start up, though, and we try to pay attention to these as well.

What’s up with those W links? Aren’t those supposed to be Wiki links?

The favicon is gone. Where to report bugs officially?

@Christopher: At the bottom of each page, there’s a feedback link

It'd be good to hear something about the new features.

Is it just me that doesn't understand the new red and white circles on the thread listings?

i think the red circles mean you have not vied that thread yet. just my observation.

Default:

I like them a lot!

I was pretty sure the bottom one was an indicator for an ongoing 'flame war' ...

Without a legend somewhere explaining what these symbols mean, they're useless. And even if there was a legend, would you rather see (via avatars) who posted or some person's or program's idea of what was "hot" as if you couldn't tell that from the number of replies.

I think they are redundant. We know if it's "hot" based upon the numbers and we know there are new comments based upon the word "new" that appears next to the thread (and for the record I thought it was a thumb's up icon).

Redundacy is not a bad thing per se. Some people prefer text information, others are more receptive to visual hints. Why not have both?
BTW, the word ‘new’ does not appear in the forum list view (where these icons are used).

>BTW, the word ‘new’ does not appear in the forum list view (where these icons are used).

FWIW That's one reason why I don't use the forum list view so much.

very nice (the little icons) but could they be the same red as the logo at the top of the page (or completely different)

… and Hmmm—What if the flame was a blinking animated GIF? :o)

… and Hmmm—What if the flame was a blinking animated GIF?

Oh, yes! and, please, give us too an animated cartoony road worker along a blinking black and yellow "Work in Progress" sign on every page, so we'll know that someone is working on the pending issues!

Can Clippy be far behind?

Any idea on when the easy way of making links will be back?

History repeats itself.

Now we once again have avatars display at the bottom of the page. Good.

The price?

I can no longer edit my posts. At least those more than an hour old. Bad.

Live dangerously--Type the first damn thing that comes into your head and push the "post" button!