OpenBSD Journal

Beta Update - Request for (more) Testing

Contributed by rueda on from the rinse-and-repeat dept.

https://beta.undeadly.org/ has received an update. The most significant changes include:

  • The site has been given a less antiquated "look". (As the topic icons have been eliminated, we are no longer seeking help with those graphics.)
  • The site now uses a moderate amount of semantic HTML5.
  • Several bugs in the HTML fragment validator (used for submissions and comments) have been fixed.
  • To avoid generating invalid HTML, submission content which fails validation is no longer displayed in submission/comment previews.
  • Plain text submissions are converted to HTML in a more useful fashion. (Instead of just converting each EOL to <br>, the converter now generates proper paragraphs and interprets two or more consecutive EOLs as indicating a paragraph break.)

The redevelopment remains a work-in-progress. Many thanks to those who have contributed!

As before, constructive feedback would be appreciated. Of particular interest are reports of bugs in behaviour (for example, in the HTML validator or in authentication) that would preclude the adoption of the current code for the main site.

(Comments are closed)

Comments

  1. By Anonymous Coward (sthen) on

    There's not much visual separation between articles on the front page, which makes it a little hard to see where one article summary finishes and the next begins, especially when the summary includes a section with grey background or an <hr>.

    I miss the voting options a bit, they weren't perfect but did give a way to show agreement without making a mostly-useless post. I see why you might want to get rid of downvoting, changing it to only allow +1 or removing your earlier +1 might do the trick.

    Is the comment editor doing anything odd? Mobile Firefox has hanged 3 times while I've been editing this and it's normally rock-solid. (Related to this: it would be nice if the "need more privileges" page allowed you to login and continue with your action :)

    Comments

    1. By Anonymous Coward (72.95.154.94) on 

      > I miss the voting options a bit, they weren't perfect but did give a
> way to show agreement without making a mostly-useless post.

      The "voting options" are supposed to be used for moderation, not "to show agreement". They aren't Facebook-style "likes". The moderation votes are intended to penalize off-topic discussion, and to reward comments that make especially useful contributions to the discussion.

    2. By rueda (rueda) on http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html

      • The "need more privileges" was supposed to have a login link. All the bits were there, they just weren't hooked up quite correctly. That's now fixed (although there's no automatic continuing with the action). Thanks for spotting the bug.
      • The comment editor shouldn't be doing anything odd. Can you indicate exactly how to reproduce the problem, or try in a different browser and check the HTML involved?
      • Some sort of voting isn't entirely ruled out for a future comeback, but is of low priority (compared with things like moving away from last-century crypto!). The legacy system was abused and flawed - for example, it allowed one vote per username or IP address; I've only got a /56, so I think you could beat me ;-)
      • HTML/CSS remain very much a WIP

    3. By Anonymous Coward (24.113.18.65) on

      > There's not much visual separation between articles on the front page, which makes it a little hard to see where one article summary finishes and the next begins, especially when the summary includes a section with grey background or an <hr>.
      > I miss the voting options a bit, they weren't perfect but did give a way to show agreement without making a mostly-useless post. I see why you might want to get rid of downvoting, changing it to only allow +1 or removing your earlier +1 might do the trick.
      > Is the comment editor doing anything odd? Mobile Firefox has hanged 3 times while I've been editing this and it's normally rock-solid. (Related to this: it would be nice if the "need more privileges" page allowed you to login and continue with your action :)
      >

      Not allowing anonymous comments would have gotten rid of this thread so everyone can agree with the change, so just ignore everything here.

    4. By Anonymous Coward (207.200.145.225) on

      > There's not much visual separation between articles on the front page, which makes it a little hard to see where one article summary finishes and the next begins, especially when the summary includes a section with grey background or an <hr>.

      Doesn't happen for me with Android/chrome. The titles are clearly distinguishable as are the other items mentioned.

      I like the sanserif font; all comments clearly visible; the up-to-date design.

      Renaming "votes" to something like "thoughtbug" or "spambaittopicfault" might be clearer and be uniquely unambiguous.

  2. By brynet (Brynet) on https://brynet.biz.tm/

    Link to previous article on the beta site, summarizing changes: https://beta.undeadly.org/cgi?action=article;sid=20170704122507

    Comments
    1. Comments

  3. By Tom Van Looy (tvlooy) tom@ctors.net on http://twitter.com/tvlooy

    I'm missing mobile usability. Is this still on the todo list?

    Comments
    1. Comments

      1. By Armin Besirovic (arbe) armin.besirovic@gmail.com on http://besirovic.com/

        > Yes, certainly. (We're prepared to accept assistance, too!)

        I would love to provide you with a mobile-ready stylesheet (basically adjust the layout via media queries). Where can I send a patch?

        Comments

      2. By Anonymous Coward (94.226.32.115) on

        > Yes, certainly. (We're prepared to accept assistance, too!)

        is it an option to put the code on github so people can open PR's?

        Comments

  4. By Aaron Bieber (qbit) aaron@bolddaemon.com on https://deftly.net

    This is looking good! Excited! What it really needs is a high res MangaRamblo!

  5. By Anonymous Coward (2601:186:4403:45dc:75f6:d573:2a05:2304) on


    Looks very good! I use a desktop browser to view the site.

    The layout, colors, fonts, etc. are great. All very clean and readable, even to these old eyes.

    imo, nothing further needs to be tweaked. :)

    Thanks!

  6. By fedey (84.47.154.6) on

    It would be great to make the site responsive, so it is more adjusted to mobile browsers. RWD has lots of advantages - there is only one code base and divs are rearranged depending on the width of your screen.

    Thanks & regards

  7. By PIL (209.147.124.187) on

    Looks good so far. The new site is much easier to read ; i agree with the other posters who mention making the site mobile friendly. Otherwise, looks great, thanks!

  8. By red_state_red (2600:8803:be00:719:fd8b:9f12:c3f1:bef2) on

    So far so good. I like it. I've seen other people comment on mobile, and on Safari on iOS it doesn't look great. But Firefox on desktop (as well as Chrome, et al) it looks quite a bit better. I eagerly look forward to the big roll out.

  9. By Anonymous Coward (79.124.59.202) on

    I kind of like the current non-beta look.

  10. By Anonymous Coward (65.19.167.131) on

    Interface is much better now. I like the simplicity.
    Some points:

    1. No clickable <h1> on articles
    2. Search feature uses duckduckgo... ehhr. Better not have search feature (nasty javascript).
    3. The "credits" section in main page seems to be outdates. The name of Ross Richardson is not cited and the kcgi is also not there.
    4. Is it being tested with Tidy? There's no indentation on HTML.
    http://www.html-tidy.org/
    5. It's listing the IP from users on comments. I find it a shame undeadly is doing this, no need for it.
    6. I'll keep my position that less contrast is better for readability, so I'd suggest #eeeeee instead of #ffffff and #333333 instead of #111111 on CSS.
    7. Is comment POST disabled on beta? I can't find it

    Also, TLS is not working for me on undeadly.org, but working good on beta.undeadly.org

    Comments

    1. By rueda (rueda) on http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html

      Selective responses:

      • (2) It's using DDG "lite" which does not require JS (that being one of the reasons it was chosen). Plus, of course, users are free to use other means of searching.
      • (5) and (7) IIRC, the decision to display IP addresses was made many years ago to discourage inappropriate anonymous comments. On beta, (new) anonymous contributions are disabled (but old ones and ones made through the legacy/production site are shown).
      • On the legacy/production site, HTTPS is available only for authentication, and that has been failing quite often lately. These are some of the main motivations for moving to the new software.

      Comments

      1. By Anonymous Coward (65.19.167.132) on

        > (2) It's using DDG "lite" which does not require JS (that being one of the reasons it was chosen). Plus, of course, users are free to use other means of searching.

        But is it really necessary? I doubt that. Why not keep htdig?

        > On beta, (new) anonymous contributions are disabled (but old ones and ones made through the legacy/production site are shown).

        Is this decision irrevocable? Many users needs Tor to post. I for myself am only posting here because I can use Tor, else I wouldn't be here. Maybe a better captcha would solve the spam better than just blocking all anonymous posting.

        Comments

        1. By rueda (rueda) on http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html

          No, the decision is not irrevocable.

          Does using tor preclude your logging in?

          A lot of decisions come down to priority and resourcing. The Editors have not been overwhelmed by offers of assistance. On the beta site, logged-in users are able to report (to the Editors) inappropriate comments. So far, the Editors have received a grand total of one such report (whilst deleting dozens of spam comments themselves).

        2. By Paul 'WEiRD' de Weerd (weerd) weerd@weirdnet.nl on https://beta.undeadly.org

          > > (2) It's using DDG "lite" which does not require JS (that being one of the reasons it was chosen). Plus, of course, users are free to use other means of searching.
          >
          > But is it really necessary? I doubt that. Why not keep htdig?

          ht://Dig saw its last stable release in 2004, 13 years ago. It is not available in the OpenBSD ports tree (I believe it never was). The code is old and not using modern security practices (e.g. pledge(2)).

          > > On beta, (new) anonymous contributions are disabled (but old ones and ones made through the legacy/production site are shown).
          >
          > Is this decision irrevocable? Many users needs Tor to post. I for myself am only posting here because I can use Tor, else I wouldn't be here. Maybe a better captcha would solve the spam better than just blocking all anonymous posting.

          Nothing prevents you from making an account while browsing the site through Tor.

        3. By phessler (phessler) on http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/donations.html

          > But is it really necessary? I doubt that. Why not keep htdig?

          because the installed version of htdig has been broken for 5+ years, and none of the admins has been able to make it not broken.

          search that works, is better than search that doesn't work.

    2. By Anonymous Coward (2601:186:4403:45dc:6493:5171:c59a:74b4) on


      > 6. I'll keep my position that less contrast is better for readability,

      I strongly disagree.

      The one thing nowadays that makes it difficult to read web pages is low contrast text.

  11. By Renaud Allard (renaud) renaud@allard.it on

    I will be very honest. Apart from the icon on the right hand side, which adds nothing, I don't see how the old version is antiquated, design wise.
    Now, maybe it's better to have it in html5 and all modern css stuff. But the old design was really on the top already.

    Comments

    1. By Anonymous Coward (82.79.161.221) on

      > I will be very honest. Apart from the icon on the right hand side, which adds nothing, I don't see how the old version is antiquated, design wise.
      > Now, maybe it's better to have it in html5 and all modern css stuff. But the old design was really on the top already.

      The old design is much better. You should make an easy way to browse the old articles and remove the bar on the right.

    2. By Anonymous Coward (2601:186:4403:45dc:b507:fb7f:f9d7:4d7c) on

      > I will be very honest. Apart from the icon on the right hand side, which adds nothing, I don't see how the old version is antiquated, design wise.
      > Now, maybe it's better to have it in html5 and all modern css stuff. But the old design was really on the top already.

      I do not disagree.

      But then again, I only view the site via a desktop browser, I don't do mobile. :)

    3. By Anonymous Coward (94.23.239.44) on

      I don't agree with you.

      >I don't see how the old version is antiquated, design wise.

      It's not antiquated. The problem is that it has too many unnecessary information.

      >But the old design was really on the top already.

      The new design is better on text-based browsers and, for me, better on "modern" browsers. It's simple and works.

      I would make it even more simple:
      - Remove the contributor from the main page. Just put it when people click on the article
      - Remove "Read more..." on article, because there's already a clickable <h1>
      - Remove search box as I've said on the other comment. There's no need for it, people can use duckduckgo for themselves
      - Remove the "Earlier Articles" sidebar, because there's already a page on the "Archives", where people can find all the articles
      - Remove the "features" on sidebar, because there's articles requesting features when needed
      - The "credits", "RSS" and "Resources" can have it's on page on header.

      It needs to be objective, not fancy. I (personally) think it's much better than the other bloated version.
      A resource used on the other version is separation of article title through color. This is a good thing to do, design wise.
      Other thing that wasn't changed is the line break. The recommendation is the maximum of 80 characters per line.

      Besides that, I really like the new version. Good job.

    4. By Anonymous Coward (24.113.18.65) on

      > I will be very honest. Apart from the icon on the right hand side, which adds nothing, I don't see how the old version is antiquated, design wise.
      > Now, maybe it's better to have it in html5 and all modern css stuff. But the old design was really on the top already.

      Just waiting for Anonymous comments to be disabled, so I can care about OpenBSD less. No CDs, No Comments, but plenty of money... go figure

Latest Articles

Credits

Copyright © - Daniel Hartmeier. All rights reserved. Articles and comments are copyright their respective authors, submission implies license to publish on this web site. Contents of the archive prior to as well as images and HTML templates were copied from the fabulous original deadly.org with Jose's and Jim's kind permission. This journal runs as CGI with httpd(8) on OpenBSD, the source code is BSD licensed. undeadly \Un*dead"ly\, a. Not subject to death; immortal. [Obs.]