I've given RCU a while with the new format. I didn't want to make any judgements until I settled into the new format and was over the learning curve. While I love RCU and am grateful it exists, the new format is a large step backward from the "old" RCU when it comes to thread user functionality.

I have many minor complaints, but I'll just narrow it to three major issue.

1. What's up with the spell checker?

2. Why do I get Fourm not found, unauthorized access, ect about 33% of the time I try to switch forums directly from a posting page? This is a major pain.

3. Why can't I see the entire thread when posting a reply?

Ok..if these are the only 3 major items that constitue RCU making a "large step backward" then it won't be hard for us to even things up.

1) spell checker won't allow us to insert text into the form field because spell checker is served off our old site and javascript security doesn't allow you to insert text across 2 sites. I have to fix this. In the meantime the simple workaround is to cut/paste the corrected text and paste into the form field manually.

2) I have never heard of this bug from anybody else since the change. Can anybody else here confirm this behaviour so I know if this is only user specific?

3) You cannot see the entire thread because we have to limit how many replies can be seen. Why you ask? Well take threads that have 100 replies or even 1000's. Do you know how long a page like that would take to load with all the pictures? It isn't practical.

Hi Marc,

Your new format has my vote!

One thing is still causing me problems though.

The unread flag still updates too quickly. If I go into the site and read, say 10 messages and have to come back after only a few minutes, I lose the rest of the unreads and can't get them back without doing a 'new posts today' search which does not filter out my non-subscribed forums, so I have to plough through the ones I'm not interested in. I don't have time to do this, so I have to give up and miss the new posts.

The old system gave me about 30 minutes before it dropped the unreads from my list.
The same thing happens if I get an email saying one of my subscribed threads has got a new message, and if I go into the site using that link, I lose all the rest of the unreads if I don't spend a long time going through them immediately.

-David C.

David,

the timeout is set to 30 minutes. However if you open a new browser window I have seen it where it won't preserve the new posts from within that 30 minutes. If you get an email and click the link it pops a new window. that new window likely won't show the new posts. Only the original window you checked for new posts since the last session will preserve that or so I've seen on my system.

The browser seems to see its own session as the current one and judges everything by that rather than the server session. this is a code issue by design. I don't know if I agree with it because of the behaviour you describe but it may be something we address this year in coming versions.

Thanks Marc,

I'll also make sure any cookies the system sends me are deleted and try again.

-David C.

1. I have been doing the cut and paste dance, but thanks for the tip anyway. It works most of the time, but I have found that if I close the spelling check popup before I paste, I sometimes loose the entire reply as I paste in a null over my existing pre-checked text. I've just learned to keep the popup open until I'm done pasting.

2. The Forum not found seems to happen when I'm in a thread and click on the !QUOT!forum home>>!QUOT! at the upper left of the screen. I can't seem to nail it down exactly, but it seems more prone to happen if I am in the plane forum and have not yet viewed anything in the general forum. It typically happens to me once per RCU session. I've had this problem on three separate computers so I'm pretty sure it is not at my end. Anymore I avoid the problem by working my way back out to the form home one level at a time. This works, but takes longer.

3. On the longer threads, it would still be nice if there was some way to view the entire thread while composing a reply. What I do now is spawn another browser to view the thread. The old system showed the entire thread. I'd even settle for pictures stripped, or the reply form spawned to a popup or another browser... that would be fine too.

I really hate to even mention these things as I'm sure a large portion of your job is thankless, and I do appreciate all the work you put into the site, but these issues make my RCU time less enjoyable so I'm just suggesting you look closer at these issues. Cheers.

Edit: Doh.... You can forget #2, I figured out what was happening. My bad. I apologize.

Mark, if the old spell checker is on a server with a static IP, can you not open a port to that IP for the new system to access the old checker?