Some Feedback from the Sprouts

Steve,
I'm sorry to hear it's gotten ugly; you're right, that's to no one's benefit. I am sorry to hear that "no" might be a response, though I understand it. I hope you understand that "no" is going to affect us to an extent, and I was hoping we would all be back eventually. There are still so many aspects of this page that are "greek" to me, and I have to assume to others as well, because there are nowhere near as many non-regulars visiting as before the transition.
I asked Karen a few questions, which have not as yet all been answered. And I have a few more comments today.
What on earth does "Filtered words will be replaced with the filtered version of the word" mean?
I don't have a clue how to translate the HTML stuff into anything meaningful; is it possible to get back the old "I", "U", and "B" buttons? They're a no-brainer for most of us. Having to scroll through a whole thread to find all the new stuff is a pain. On the plus side, I too much prefer that pictures now appear as thumbnails in the text of the message. I note the "Notify me..." box at the bottom; will checking that result in an e-mail at home, a posting in my forum inbox, and will that be for every new post on that thread or just replies to me?
Again, this isn't all, but enough for one day, and as I said before, I appreciate that you are all trying.

Just a couple of comments that will make the discussion site easier to use - first, float the discussion side bar that is on the left so that as you go down the page the side bar stays in view, second - highlight 'new posts' in some way on the sidebar.

Thank you for your work so far... With that html, I don't mean to sound inflexible, but with all the advances in technology you'd think we wouldn't have to do that! Why doesn't your key board work for that?? I don't "get" that at all. I guess I will just write plain posts, as there is no where else I have to do that on the web. And I use the forums fairly quickly, as I don't spend huge dedicated amounts of time on line. I hop off and on and won't use that system.
but I do think that figuring out how to make the posts, replies and new messages easier to navigate will be most important.

Kate,

I noticed something that you have done here, that makes navigating a thread, a lot easier.

You put the avatar at the top of each post.

One of the biggest complaints from the posters at Breaktime, is that it is difficult to tell where one post leaves off, and another begins.

I'm going to ask at Breaktime, whether there is any way we could get the avatars with the posts, at Breaktime, too.

~~~

In addition... I posted a tutorial here:, based on work that PatchogPhil did... Explaining an easy way to put borders around each post.

Do it and forget it. You don't have to keep fiddling with it.

This also makes it a lot easier to navigate.

I uploaded the needed css, (style), to the styles site, mentioned in the tutorial thread.

If you add stylish to your firefox, or other mozilla bvrowser, you can use it's menu to look for styles for this site. It'll take you right to the correct one.

The entire process is just a few clicks, and a couple of minutes. Nothing complicated. It's more complicated explaining it, than it is doing it.

~~~

Of course... The css could simply be written right into this site, by an admin. Then no one would have to do anything else.

The needed css is:

@-moz-document domain(forums.finegardening.com){

/* Makes message borders visible */

#comments .comment-published {

border-color: blue ! important;

border-style: groove ! important;

border-width: 2px 2px 2px 2px !important;

margin:5px !important;

}

/* Makes new message borders red */

#comments .comment-new {

border-color: red ! important;

}

}