OFFICIAL "SERVER PROBLEMS" THREAD

[LaurV]

Originally Posted by kladner

Upgrading resolved that issue. It also reminded me WHY I was still at 28.0. Higher version include "helpful" and totally unwanted layout changes. This sort of gratuitous change with an update, unannounced and unchangeable, is one of my biggest complaints about Firefox.

EDIT: Rolled back to 28.0. Still working to restore my desired layout.

[offtopic]
Take the new one back, and look for an add-on called "classic theme restorer", it is currently version 1.1.18 or newer (that is what I have). It worth the effort! The new firefox has many fixes (inclusive security) and is much faster, assuming you can restore the old "reasonable" theme and not use the idiotic new themes. In the new firefox, click tools, addons, and browse for the theme restorer.
[/offtopic]

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by retina

FF 3.6.28

And, no, I don't want to upgrade just to view mersenne,org without the grey box. Every other website I regularly visit doesn't have this trouble. Maybe don't try to make it all such a tight fit, allow some gaps here and there to accommodate things more loosely? Why fixed at 1000px width? Not everyone has their window set that wide. Allow the width of the right side box to be variable and fill out the rest of browser window.

Okay... so you have a browser from 2010, refuse to update, and expect all progress on new features to halt to accommodate you?

I'm kind of, sort of, (but not really?) kidding... but when you're doing web design work, at some point you do have to ask yourself if you should still support old browsers.

There was a day of celebration the day our web devs were told they no longer needed to support IE6. That came after China, once the bastion of IE6 stalwarts, finally had their IE6 share drop below 2%. Up to that point, we had to do some pretty extreme things for our Chinese website so that all of the new features being added and design changes over the years would still work on IE6. It was a nightmare, to put it bluntly.

Anyway, that said, this page indicates FF 3.6x should support it with the -moz- prefix, which is added now.
http://caniuse.com/#feat=css3-boxsizing

It is odd though that when I just did a broad cross-browser check, sure enough, there's FF 3.6x showing a malformed page.

You'll have to show all versions because, let's face it, yours is REALLY old. :)

Setting a 1000px width is for readability. Sure, if you're like me maybe you've got your browser full screen at 1920px minus whatever. But there's a large amount of design research out there that shows users don't like having to read text across a really wide format.

Now, I could give you all kinds of boring stats about the % of hits to the website from different browsers. Let's just say that in the top 50 browsers stat I can see from some internal reporting, #50 on that list is Chrome 22.x with a share of 0.08% of all hits over the past 33 days, with just 145 visits (probably the same couple people) :)

In that top 50, the oldest Firefox I see is FF 16 at spot #33 with 0.19% of visits. It's even ahead of newer versions like 22, 27, etc. but only because those are the kind of people who upgrade to the latest... someone rocking v16 isn't going anywhere I guess.

Nowhere on that list of the top 50 browser types do I see anything older than that FF v16... I can only surmise that people rocking it 2010 style are you and, well, maybe just you. LOL

The perfectionist in me wants to help you out and make sure it works, but it'll come down to how much effort is involved I'm afraid. If it's an easy fix, sure, no problem.

FYI, I found this cool site that'll test a BUNCH of browsers with a screenshot of the result:
http://browsershots.org/http://www.m...fault.mock.php

This is their 3.6.27 specific screenshot:
http://browsershots.org/screenshots/...a9a8755dc7f766

For what it's worth, it's showing all FF pre-V29 failing to render correctly, which makes me think there's either a problem with how I added the FF specific syntax, or there's something funky going on anyway.

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by Mark Rose

Well, it's a matter of which things you want to adjust: the things inside the box or outside the box!

When you think about a bunch of dynamic width content, yes, having the box stay the same size makes sense at first glance. But then consider a picture or other item with a natural fixed width: should the picture shrink or overflow when a border or margin is added? Also, margin on two elements can overlap, and that could get really confusing when elements become narrower when they have overlapping margin. The way they've done it makes the most sense, as much as it's not obvious at first. It took me a bit to wrap my head around it, too.

As I understand it, the "border-box" option makes padding and border widths "inner", but margins are still "outer".

For general page layout I like the idea of saying "I want my div this wide, and I mean it! Even if I change the border or padding later on".

For inner divs, I see what you mean about images and what not... essentially shrinking the space available inside the box. But you could set it to the default content-box and carry on without worrying about throwing off the general layout? I don't know. It feels like one of those horrible things where holy wars have started over less important things. :)

[LaurV]

Hey Madpoo, don't get upset by retina, he is just trying to be evilish...

Be sure we are totally appreciating the work and effort you do here!
Me for sure, I do!

I have a small "list" of primenet bookmarks which I rightclick and "open all in tabs" at least once per day. With the old server it took about 40 seconds to open all. With the new server is under 5 seconds to open all.

So, for sure, I do appreciate what you (and the others) are doing here.

[Mark Rose]

Originally Posted by Madpoo

It feels like one of those horrible things where holy wars have started over less important things. :)

vi > emacs
tabs > spaces
pirates > ninjas

;)


At work, where we currently do 1.5 billion page views a month (and growing), our support policy is IE8+ and the latest versions of Chrome and Firefox. The recent older versions of browsers usually work but we don't test them as they're only a tiny fraction of our traffic, and those users are rarely out of date for long (except the IE7- users).

[Mark Rose]

Originally Posted by LaurV

So, for sure, I do appreciate what you (and the others) are doing here.

Amen!

[retina]

Originally Posted by Madpoo

Okay... so you have a browser from 2010, refuse to update, and expect all progress on new features to halt to accommodate you?

Yep, I refuse to update. But I don't expect you to accommodate me. I give feedback and you are free to ignore it if you wish. No big deal, I'll just ask for my money back .

I deal with broken pages quite a lot (not surprising with my browser). Usually the pages are still readable or semi-usable even if rendered poorly. But standard HTML can support boxes and whatnot without needing the newfangled box* wahtsits. Sometimes I feel websites upgrade pages purely for the point of using all the new features rather then proper reasons like actually fixing something or making it more compatible. I'm not saying you are doing this, just making a general statement. I do think the new side menus are a fix to the old JS controlled ones. But I don't know what is wrong with the current layout that is in need of being fixed?

As for my agent string, it doesn't say FF 3.6.28 so you won't see it in your list unless I switch it back to default.

As for the fixed width. I think you misunderstand me. Not everyone sets their window to 1000px wide, some have it smaller. And horizontal scrolling is really really awful. Horiz scrolling for pages is usually a deal breaker for me and I move along. So perhaps you want to rethink using a fixed width that is so wide and allow for smaller widths also.

[kladner]

Originally Posted by LaurV

[offtopic]
Take the new one back, and look for an add-on called "classic theme restorer", it is currently version 1.1.18 or newer (that is what I have). It worth the effort! The new firefox has many fixes (inclusive security) and is much faster, assuming you can restore the old "reasonable" theme and not use the idiotic new themes. In the new firefox, click tools, addons, and browse for the theme restorer.
[/offtopic]

Thanks! I'll have a look at it.

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by Mark Rose

vi > emacs
tabs > spaces
pirates > ninjas

;)


At work, where we currently do 1.5 billion page views a month (and growing), our support policy is IE8+ and the latest versions of Chrome and Firefox. The recent older versions of browsers usually work but we don't test them as they're only a tiny fraction of our traffic, and those users are rarely out of date for long (except the IE7- users).

I won't ask where you work, but where I work it's a pretty similar story as far as traffic volumes (well, half a billion+ in a month) and the types of browsers we support.

What's fun is that feature phones are a majority of the visits, so it's not just the desktop browsers to worry about.

The QA folks I work with have a cube set aside just for the variety of mobile devices they use to test layout and functionality. Emulators only go so far... you need the device in your hand to see if doing this action or another feels clunky or smooth, how's the performance on an iPhone 5 versus Samsung Galaxy Swhatever, etc. It's kind of funny seeing the lineup of phones and tablets when they're all in there being charged.

All I know is, if they had to focus on making the site look okay on *everything*, it'd be a never ending task. We're like you... focus on the top browsers and versions, but increasingly it's more about phone/tablet. More "mobile IOS" traffic by % than Windows 7 visits.

[Madpoo]

Originally Posted by retina

Yep, I refuse to update. But I don't expect you to accommodate me. I give feedback and you are free to ignore it if you wish. No big deal, I'll just ask for my money back .

Sigh... It was bugging me that it even looked bad on FF <= v28, suggesting that the -moz prefix workaround wasn't doing the trick either. Annoying.

So I wound up just switching the div widths to %ages of the total 1000px width (I like the math there) and taking borders and padding into account. It was a little bothersome that it didn't "just work" like me, a novice, would expect it to. They probably make it cumbersome just to make sure not just any spaz like me can do it.

Anyway, I think I got it looking just the same as before on *real* browsers, as well as fixing it up for the backwards hillbilly folks like you. :) Give it a shot now.

EDIT: Crud, I just re-checked in IE and it looks all mangled. That's what I was afraid of because I see our own devs do it all the time. They go back to try and fix something for some browser and it breaks it for another one. It looks okay in IE's compatibility mode, so I'll probably just add the meta header that turns that on for IE users. Kind of a hacky workaround, but it is what it is.

Originally Posted by retina

I deal with broken pages quite a lot (not surprising with my browser). Usually the pages are still readable or semi-usable even if rendered poorly. But standard HTML can support boxes and whatnot without needing the newfangled box* wahtsits. Sometimes I feel websites upgrade pages purely for the point of using all the new features rather then proper reasons like actually fixing something or making it more compatible. I'm not saying you are doing this, just making a general statement.

New whatsits are fun. For me, with servers or the latest OS version or whatever, it's fun and all but I'm more interested in things that help me do my job faster. In this case I thought that box-sizing thing would be an awesome shortcut to having to do actual math and figure out the proper sizes on my own. I mean... sheesh! Ain't got time for that!

Originally Posted by retina

I do think the new side menus are a fix to the old JS controlled ones. But I don't know what is wrong with the current layout that is in need of being fixed?

Whaaa? You *like* the current layout? Whaaa?

Sometimes for fun, look up your favorite website on the wayback machine over at archive.org -- see how much they've changed over the years. Now look at www.mersenne.org. It hasn't changed in years. It's like walking into some old house that hasn't seen a decorators touch since the 1960's. Shag carpet, faux wood paneling on the walls, the whole deal.

Originally Posted by retina

As for the fixed width. I think you misunderstand me. Not everyone sets their window to 1000px wide, some have it smaller. And horizontal scrolling is really really awful. Horiz scrolling for pages is usually a deal breaker for me and I move along. So perhaps you want to rethink using a fixed width that is so wide and allow for smaller widths also.

I'm hoping to get a peek at the Google Analytics data for the site to get a better handle on the types of people visiting. I won't get data from you since you're "one of those", with all javascript disabled. But for the rest of us, it provides very useful info on browser capabilities like the window resolution, OS/browser version, etc. Without that info, it's impossible to get a real idea of how to design the site so it looks best for a majority of people.

Since you have JS disabled, for the most part you benefit from what I'd call "herd immunity"... you're not being measured but everyone else is, and you benefit from it. But in your case you're using an old, unpopular browser version and since your vote isn't counting, so to speak, unless a developer happens to read a forum you post on, they're not even going to know they've got a guy out there using Firefox 3.6 with a browser width of 640. :)

For me, 1000px was just an arbitrary starting point. For one, it made my calculations easier for the aforementioned "pixel polish" and getting things lined up right.

I looked around a few places... we use 980px at my work for instance. A few major news sites I looked at were doing anywhere in the 950-1000 range, give or take.

What is your browser's width, typically, if I might ask? 1000 seemed like a safe bet because even on a 1024x768 display, it renders just fine in the browser without any side scrolling once the browsers border and any vertical scrollbars are taken into account. Like, just barely, but it fits. And who runs 1024x768 anymore?

I'm more concerned about mobile users, but I've been reading up on that and seeing how the main mobile browsers try to auto-scale if certain things are in place like whatever that viewport meta header is. Mobile users with small, narrow screens are used to flicking around to read things. I know I did it all the time on my older phones.

If it's too narrow you wind up with weird things like the side nav bar taking up a majority of your display, since it doesn't/can't scale down. It looks ridiculous. It looks REALLY funny on the current home page with the "new users" and left hand menu staying the same size, but the content (the important stuff) getting smaller and smaller. I mean, yeah, it'll do that, but it looks goofy. :)

[retina]

Originally Posted by Madpoo

Anyway, I think I got it looking just the same as before on *real* browsers, as well as fixing it up for the backwards hillbilly folks like you. :) Give it a shot now.

Yup. Renders perfectly now.

Originally Posted by Madpoo

New whatsits are fun. For me, with servers or the latest OS version or whatever, it's fun and all but I'm more interested in things that help me do my job faster. In this case I thought that box-sizing thing would be an awesome shortcut to having to do actual math and figure out the proper sizes on my own. I mean... sheesh! Ain't got time for that!

Shortcuts lead to long delays.

Originally Posted by Madpoo

Whaaa? You *like* the current layout? Whaaa?

I won't say I like it, but I don't hate it. And both the new and old are fine with me so choosing either won't be an issue.
Just don't hide content under clicks and other nastiness, like many sites are doing now, and I'll be a good boy and not complain.

Originally Posted by Madpoo

Sometimes for fun, look up your favorite website on the wayback machine over at archive.org -- see how much they've changed over the years. Now look at www.mersenne.org. It hasn't changed in years. It's like walking into some old house that hasn't seen a decorators touch since the 1960's. Shag carpet, faux wood paneling on the walls, the whole deal.

Indeed. But I don't see why it matters. Content is what matters, not how pretty it is. I don't need no flashing buttons or autoscrolling pictures to keep my interest. Content is king, and the more of it shown the better.

Originally Posted by Madpoo

What is your browser's width, typically, if I might ask? 1000 seemed like a safe bet because even on a 1024x768 display, it renders just fine in the browser without any side scrolling once the browsers border and any vertical scrollbars are taken into account. Like, just barely, but it fits. And who runs 1024x768 anymore?

Well the width changes depending upon what I am doing. My current screen width is 1366 pixels but my browser is never full screen and I have side bars open for bookmarks. Plus I occasionally run it side-by-side with another window to have both viewable at the same time. So I guess my normal website available width is between 500px to 900px. I did expand it to remove the objectionable horiz scroll for the screen shot I posted earlier but usually I won't make it so large.