Important New Forum Update - Feb 2025 changes

[neoselket]

Longer profile posts woooo!

 

[Benry Gaming]

There’s this issue that happens sometimes where everything is distorted and a lot of graphics don’t load
This only started to happen recently so I don’t think it’s just me
I’ve attached screenshots that show what I’m talking about

 

[Tunnel King]

There’s this issue that happens sometimes where everything is distorted and a lot of graphics don’t load
This only started to happen recently so I don’t think it’s just me
I’ve attached screenshots that show what I’m talking about

Do you have a solid data connection? You only seem to have one bar.

 

[Benry Gaming]

Do you have a solid data connection? You only seem to have one bar.

I was connected to WiFi, not using cell service

This happens sometimes no matter many bars I have and only started recently and my internet hasn’t changed or anything and I’ve always had poor service in my area
It could be still something on my end but if it’s not connection I’m not sure what it could be

Next time it happens and I take more screenshots I’ll post them or edit them into this message

 

[Mecha_]

I was connected to WiFi, not using cell service

This happens sometimes no matter many bars I have and only started recently and my internet hasn’t changed or anything and I’ve always had poor service in my area
It could be still something on my end but if it’s not connection I’m not sure what it could be

Next time it happens and I take more screenshots I’ll post them or edit them into this message

That's just how TCF loads things. If you lose connection or stop loading a page you'll get that default image thing.

 

[Streyll]

I'm not sure it's been mentioned before yet but I've noticed that the buttons for the text editor on Underground theme seem more saturated than they used to be.

Not certain if it's simply a Xenforo thing or something else or if people have noticed that on other themes?

 

[Unit One]

I'm not sure it's been mentioned before yet but I've noticed that the buttons for the text editor on Underground theme seem more saturated than they used to be.

Not certain if it's simply a Xenforo thing or something else or if people have noticed that on other themes?

Not sure, they may be, but as they are now they look okay to me.

 

[Kelp]

I'm not sure it's been mentioned before yet but I've noticed that the buttons for the text editor on Underground theme seem more saturated than they used to be.

Not certain if it's simply a Xenforo thing or something else or if people have noticed that on other themes?

I can't say that I've noticed, even after having used Underground for the past several years. I'll check to see if I have any screenshots and compare.

 

[Streyll]

Here's an example from before the update:

And here's it now:

Difference is pretty minor and doesn't really change much, but, is something I noticed.

 

[Kelp]

Here's an example from before the update:
View attachment 491859

And here's it now:
View attachment 491860

Difference is pretty minor and doesn't really change much, but, is something I noticed.

Honestly I don't know how I missed that. Good catch.

 

[Mecha_]

Actually to add to this, the same colour stays for all themes
I'm on corruption.

 

[TWillyH]

​

View attachment 491152

I audibly laughed at this image

also I'm so glad the search system allows 3 characters now, it seemed like such a dumb limit.

 

[Mille Marteaux]

So I just ran into the 1,000 character profile post limit off of this post specifically:

After breaking the message up into two posts to debug it, the automatic conversion of thread links into a clickable link with the thread titles made it go over the limit:

i know there'd be a lot of chicanery involved with disabling the feature to convert links on profile posts, but would it be possible for it to get disabled if it would make a message go over the 1000 character limit? I know you can manually set text yourself or break the message up no problem but I can see it causing some confusion for less forum-savvy users.

 

[RainbowPotato 🌳🪓]

I have an idea… probably dumb, but I will still share.

What if there was a thingi at the bottom that would let you look up things in a thread to see if its been said already?

 

[Enniu (Real)]

️ ;; he’s real now!!!! My son!!

 

[Tunnel King]

I have an idea… probably dumb, but I will still share.

What if there was a thingi at the bottom that would let you look up things in a thread to see if its been said already?

The Search bar at the top can do that - just change the search limiter from 'Everywhere' to 'This thread'

@Mille Marteaux , we can't change that or make it an option for people. This is the way Xenforo works now. The embed thing only happens if the URL is on a line by itself, so you can just not do that - by adding a word/character to the line, by using an unordered list, or using the Insert Link (Ctrl-K) to substitute a word/phrase to display for the URL

 

[RainbowPotato 🌳🪓]

The Search bar at the top can do that - just change the search limiter from 'Everywhere' to 'This thread'
View attachment 492739

Thank you for informing me : )

 

[Mille Marteaux]

The embed thing only happens if the URL is on a line by itself, so you can just not do that - by adding a word/character to the line, by using an unordered list, or using the Insert Link (Ctrl-K) to substitute a word/phrase to display for the URL

This doesn't seem to be the case from my own testing as the auto-embed happened while they weren't on a line by themselves. The same post's raw text without word wrap enabled:

yeah, i dislike the decline of forums as a medium as well. the discord-ification of the internet has been a frustrating descent into madness and it leads to information scarcity.

discord tried doing a forums feature so servers could be front-facing and indexable but it never really went anywhere.

a quick rundown of what happened with social groups can be found with these posts: https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/what-if-there-was-%E2%80%9Cclubs%E2%80%9D-or-something-for-tcf-users-to-join.140956/#post-3246005 | https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/what-if-there-was-%E2%80%9Cclubs%E2%80%9D-or-something-for-tcf-users-to-join.140956/#post-3246295

the thread about the change to private messages/conversations can be found here as well: https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/announcement-regarding-changes-to-conversations-private-messages.133894/

The same post, embedded directly into the post:

---

yeah, i dislike the decline of forums as a medium as well. the discord-ification of the internet has been a frustrating descent into madness and it leads to information scarcity.

discord tried doing a forums feature so servers could be front-facing and indexable but it never really went anywhere.

a quick rundown of what happened with social groups can be found with these posts: TCF Suggestion - What if there was “clubs” or something for tcf users to join? | TCF Suggestion - What if there was “clubs” or something for tcf users to join?

the thread about the change to private messages/conversations can be found here as well: Official - Announcement regarding changes to conversations (private messages)

---

And this is how the BBcode of that section looks before I edit anything:

It seems that it just auto-fills the embed now regardless? However, since it can't be changed, I suppose the best way to get around it right now would just be manually assigning text to the link via the URL BBcode.. or just not posting three links in one profile post to begin with. At least this discussion is helpful reference material.

 

[Tunnel King]

This doesn't seem to be the case from my own testing as the auto-embed happened while they weren't on a line by themselves. The same post's raw text without word wrap enabled:

View attachment 492741

yeah, i dislike the decline of forums as a medium as well. the discord-ification of the internet has been a frustrating descent into madness and it leads to information scarcity.

discord tried doing a forums feature so servers could be front-facing and indexable but it never really went anywhere.

a quick rundown of what happened with social groups can be found with these posts: https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/what-if-there-was-%E2%80%9Cclubs%E2%80%9D-or-something-for-tcf-users-to-join.140956/#post-3246005 | https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/what-if-there-was-%E2%80%9Cclubs%E2%80%9D-or-something-for-tcf-users-to-join.140956/#post-3246295

the thread about the change to private messages/conversations can be found here as well: https://forums.terraria.org/index.php?threads/announcement-regarding-changes-to-conversations-private-messages.133894/

The same post, embedded directly into the post:

---

yeah, i dislike the decline of forums as a medium as well. the discord-ification of the internet has been a frustrating descent into madness and it leads to information scarcity.

discord tried doing a forums feature so servers could be front-facing and indexable but it never really went anywhere.

a quick rundown of what happened with social groups can be found with these posts: TCF Suggestion - What if there was “clubs” or something for tcf users to join? | TCF Suggestion - What if there was “clubs” or something for tcf users to join?

the thread about the change to private messages/conversations can be found here as well: Official - Announcement regarding changes to conversations (private messages)

---

And this is how the BBcode of that section looks before I edit anything:


It seems that it just auto-fills the embed now regardless? However, since it can't be changed, I suppose the best way to get around it right now would just be manually assigning text to the link via the URL BBcode.. or just not posting three links in one profile post to begin with. At least this discussion is helpful reference material.

I think we're talking about two different things. When you said 'embed', I thought you meant like the changed feature described in the OP. That actually uses an EMBED BBcode block, I believe.

Substitution of a thread/page title for a link (if available) happened in a previous XF update, some time ago. Prior to that, a URL was just displayed as it was typed/pasted, it may not have even been highlighted way back then.

If a string of text is intended to be clickable as a link, a URL BBcode block is required. There's no way around that, and never has been, as far as I know. If you don't want a URL to be clickable, you can wrap it in a PLAIN BBcode block - everything inside that is displayed exactly as-is.

The character limits on profile posts - whether 1000 or whatever it was before (420?) - is based on the total number of characters in the BBcode version of the post, including all of the BBcode directives. That's the only reliable way to count the length of a message. The Rich Text editor - what most people use, with the menus etc. - inserts BBcode in various ways that can't always be determined. We don't have any way to intervene in how that works. This is also the reason that a character countdown display for posting (showing the number of 'characters' remaining before hitting the limit) can't be implemented in a reasonable fashion.

 

[Mille Marteaux]

I think we're talking about two different things. When you said 'embed', I thought you meant like the changed feature described in the OP. That actually uses an EMBED BBcode block, I believe.

Very plausible. I'm not exactly the best at conveying myself clearly without brute force and directly punching through a few examples in the process

Substitution of a thread/page title for a link (if available) happened in a previous XF update, some time ago. Prior to that, a URL was just displayed as it was typed/pasted, it may not have even been highlighted way back then.

If a string of text is intended to be clickable as a link, a URL BBcode block is required. There's no way around that, and never has been, as far as I know. If you don't want a URL to be clickable, you can wrap it in a PLAIN BBcode block - everything inside that is displayed exactly as-is.

Yeah, this is my first time using a forum for extended periods in years, so this makes a lot of sense.

The behavior I'm used to back when I frequented forums was if you posted a URL without any BBcode at all the forum software would, at most, wrap it with URL tags for you. The fact Xenforo not only does this but also reads the thread's title for you and embeds it as a full string definitely throws me for a loop, but understanding the "why" behind the behavior goes a very long way in being able to work around it.

The character limits on profile posts - whether 1000 or whatever it was before (420?) - is based on the total number of characters in the BBcode version of the post, including all of the BBcode directives. That's the only reliable way to count the length of a message. The Rich Text editor - what most people use, with the menus etc. - inserts BBcode in various ways that can't always be determined. We don't have any way to intervene in how that works. This is also the reason that a character countdown display for posting (showing the number of 'characters' remaining before hitting the limit) can't be implemented in a reasonable fashion.

This also makes a lot of sense. Just tells me when I'm checking something's character count in notepad I need to write my own BBcode in there as well.

Thanks for the clarifications on the whys and why nots.