Suggestions for making this site work better?

[reading_on]

I don't come and post hardly anymore and one of the reasons is the incredibly slow bogged down pages I get. It is esp. hard to follow long threads because of the time it takes to load everything. So, what I am asking here, is if whoever put the site up again has some suggestions for me to have it load better?
Like is there a feature of this forum that is particularly heavy so I can turn that feature off and have it load properly. I don't really want to turn off all the graphics but if needed I suppose I can do that.

Thanks!

[voiceforthesilent]

Thank you for your post. I have the same problem. I choose carefully which threads to read.  The other problem I have is that when I go to a thread it doesn't take me where I left off the last time so I have to scroll through the slow-loading pages before I find where I left off. If there is something I can do to correct this I'd love to know.

Souza - your hard work is appreciated. Maybe the problem is with the large graphics?

Blessings.

[msgitm]

The old forum was much easier.  I find the new forum very confusing and find myself totally lost.  I miss seeing a list of subjects. It was quick and easy to find what you wanted to read and where to add new posts.  If I want to post now I look for a topic close in nature to what I want to post but it's usually off topic a tad. I appreciate the hard work in managing this site but would love to see the old forum back.  Unless.... I'm just daft?

[alfarle]

Agreed. It gets kinda annoyin when told your posts are in the "wrong section" when there are so many to choose from and or load. Other than that, it's a great site. :geek: 8-)

[~Souza~]

The forum is fast for most people. I do not know why it is slow for some, but that might have something to do with your own connection or hardware (older computers with low memory graphic cards might have trouble to load). It would be useful for me if those who say the forum is slow, could give me their computer specifications or age and internet speed. Also useful would be if you could load a few pages and write down for every page how long it took to load. Not with your own timer, but what it says at the bottom of the page. When you scroll down you will see a notification, mine now says: "Page created in 0.202 seconds with 16 queries." So if you can do that for a few pages and post that here, I can do more to help.

The categories for posting threads are still the same as on the old board, just like the new posts and new comments. For the list of categories, simply click 'Forum' next to 'Home' in the top menu and you will see all the same categories as were on the old board. For new posts/comments, click "Show unread posts since last visit." under the welcome message, in my case under "Hello, ~Souza~".

The 'Home' button in the top menu takes you to the portal, where you can view the recent topics in a different way, plus some extra features. This is not the forum index.

So, a little more information and I might be able to help out. Whining that you liked the old board better is not going to help, because the old board will not come back. It was SLOW (took 40 seconds to load at the end for me, instead of the 0.202 seconds it takes now, it was unsafe and it didn't work properly anymore after the hack. So that discussion really is closed. I am more than willing to help if you have problems, but for that I need more info.

One of the things you could try is change the forum theme. I enabled that function and I installed a light version without banner that should load faster if you have a slow connection. Go to your profile (see top menu), then 'Modify Profile' -> 'Look & Layout' and then on top you will see:

Current Theme: Forum or Board Default (change)

Click 'change' and pick 'Headline 2010 by Crip', click [Use this theme].

Note: this is a cleaned up version which means you might not be able to use certain features.

Anyway, try that or if it doesn't work: provide me with some more information.

[reading_on]

Hi Souza,

As I think you know already, I am a web developer by trade so that why I ask about the features etc. Occasionally I will have certain scripts that I have to "tweak" to make things run smooth or turn off a few things. Cache problems and runaway scripts have been an issue on my own sites. One thing I notice is something "loading" when I am typing here. (But the site is much faster today, whatever you did and I thank you)
With that said, I hope that you didn't think I was "whining" because I wanted to make the site more accessible for my myself.  I would like to think it was a professional question because I am a professional and I assumed whoever put the site up is too.
I spend a lot of time on the internet because of my work and pretty familiar with different load times. Most boards I wouldn't have bothered asking about the problem I encountered but I felt I could ask that sort of question here. I felt like it was for the betterment of the site and honestly don't know your back end (site back end).
I don't care about the old forum. Some people dislike change but in my business change is good..lol.  I think the visual layout on the front page is nice.
Anyway, it wasn't meant to be offensive but informative and inquisitive.

Thanks!

[PureLove]

Guys I think the problem is about your connection or your pc because the forum is too fast for me. If it was a problem that the forum creates then it would be slow for all of us but it is not. I can offer you all to use Google Chrome because it loads faster than Firefox or Explorer. Try it, maybe you can open the pages faster.

[~Souza~]

Hi Souza,

As I think you know already, I am a web developer by trade so that why I ask about the features etc. Occasionally I will have certain scripts that I have to "tweak" to make things run smooth or turn off a few things. Cache problems and runaway scripts have been an issue on my own sites. One thing I notice is something "loading" when I am typing here. (But the site is much faster today, whatever you did and I thank you)
With that said, I hope that you didn't think I was "whining" because I wanted to make the site more accessible for my myself.  I would like to think it was a professional question because I am a professional and I assumed whoever put the site up is too.
I spend a lot of time on the internet because of my work and pretty familiar with different load times. Most boards I wouldn't have bothered asking about the problem I encountered but I felt I could ask that sort of question here. I felt like it was for the betterment of the site and honestly don't know your back end (site back end).
I don't care about the old forum. Some people dislike change but in my business change is good..lol.  I think the visual layout on the front page is nice.
Anyway, it wasn't meant to be offensive but informative and inquisitive.

Thanks!

One of the problems was at the host, they were fixed with a larger hosting package back in September. The website is a CSS based one without CMS. No professionals on this side of the screen,  it had to be low budget so I decided to make it myself after Mo thought the old design was hers, lol. So I I am a newbie at webdesign, but I am forced to learn fast. The website itself causes no trouble, that's fast. The forum (the previous lay-out) was the first after the conversion and had some errors in it, and after the upgrade of the forum software some tools were not working at all in the admin panel. That is why i now installed a fresh one and put up a new (lighter) design. I also did some database optimalisations. So far I have heard from people who had trouble loading before, that it works fast now. Is that the same for you?

[SEHF]

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[blankie]

For me is sometimes fast and sometimes very slow   :icon_rolleyes:  :computer-losy-smiley:  ..... but that's okay  :icon_razz: ..... Long life to this wonderful site !   :bearhug:    Souza..... THANKS !!!!!    :moonwalk_: