We've been hard at work addressing as many of the reported bugs as we can. The site has been updated with new server- and client-code and we hope it improves the experience for most of you. Please use this thread to tell us what now works better, what still isn't working, and heaven forbid anything that was working yesterday that isn't working now!
When you make bug reports, it's important that we're able to reproduce them on our testing machines. Please include the name and version of your browser (often visible via an About menu item in the Help or Application menu..."About Firefox" etc.). Also the version and name of your operating system (Win XP SP2, Mac OS 10.4.5) which is available in the System control panel or About this Mac menu in the Apple menu. If speed is a problem, your bandwidth (dialup or DSL/Cable) and your processor speed (in Ghz) and RAM might help us too.
Bugfix list below!
You can refer back to
the original article explaining the new comments if you wish (the link won't open the comments view directly, so you're safe if you don't want to download the 500+ comments attached to it). The compatibility section is updated below.
FIXED BUGS
- The dialog on Firefox/Mozilla/Camino browsers and Konqueror that asks if you should continue running the script should be gone now for virtually all users. We have broken up the tight loop that was running on updates and given the browser some time to breathe. While updating a huge thread on an old computer is still a tough problem, this should prevent the browser from appearing "frozen" when it crunches all that data.
- Extensive performance optimizations have been made to the JavaScript code, but the problems appear to be in the browsers themselves. We will continue to look for ways of making this run faster.
- The point at which Expanding a page loaded as shrunk will trigger a full reload has been cut in half to 100 comments. This should make life easier, perhaps, for users with slower machines.
- We're going to create preferences so that people with faster machines and connections can take advantage of their investment, while those still savoring vintage hardware are treated gently. These will appear in your User Profile page with the rest of your preferences.
- When you loaded an individual comment in a large thread before, if an update was streaming in at the time, the busy ball would spin for 30 seconds and give you no joy. That should be squashed too.
- Some people are having difficulty with their posts failing, only to find that their repeated efforts have actually succeeded. We added a refresh after a failed posting, so check to see if a notifier tab comes up with your name on it and your post appears before trying again. If it does appear, cancel the comment. To be absolutely sure, you can copy your comment text (via Edit > Copy) to keep it around while you reload the page and see if you need to repost. We'll try and prevent duplicate posts on the server side too.
- Expanding entire subthreads should also work better. Remember, any modifier key will work, some browsers work with different keys.
- Problems where a thread that had become large while you were away and then you return to it without a manual reload would suddenly start a million little downloads should be fixed.
- You won't get "HTTP 502 error" dialogs any more. Sorry. I know you loved them. Just know that sometimes the server blinks and if you're trying to load something when it happens, you might get the little FAILED sign. Machines are human.
- The invisible comments and invisible editor bugs have been addressed, but since we so rarely see them in the lab, we're not sure if they have been fixed. Please let us know if you see them again (they appear as white gaps in the comments list where you expected comments or the editor you just opened to be).
- People stuck in Preview with the Post button disabled shouldn't have that problem any longer.
- There should be less jittery scrolling on updates. Some browsers do this better than others (IE is pretty rough).
- The notifier panel stays up a bit longer. We've taken just a touch of caffeine out of the Autorefresh blend as well.
- Comments loaded in dynamically were getting sawed off by the margin if they were deeply nested. No longer.
- Polls are back centered again (what, you didn't like the built-in left bias?)
- People with old preferences settings that they now can't fix but are interfering with your experience (e.g. the comments are half legacy, half modern; you don't have ratings buttons, etc.) should now be fixed up, but let us know if they aren't.
- The -strikeout- shortcut (<del>) is working, as is the Image checkbox on the link editor.
- After you rate something, pressing an arrow key won't change your rating (at least on most browsers).
- The link editor should be more robust for people...if you accidentally leave in the leading http:// you won't get it pasted in twice.
There's probably more but I'm too exhausted from writing code to remember. I did get a bath and a decent meal in something like 18 hours ago. That is progress!
We know about curly quotes coming out funny, btw. Something has to keep us busy tomorrow. Pile it on!
We hope you're having fun with the new comments. There is more to come my fellow political junkies.
-peeder
DAILY KOS AJAX COMPATIBILITY
Common Considerations:
The site will look and work much like the old site does with JavaScript disabled, or with browsers that don't support Ajax (old ones, mobile phones like the treo, etc.). This is called "legacy mode". The technology that makes that support so smooth, by the way, has the lovely name "progressive enhancement."
WINDOWS
Recommended Browser: Firefox 1.5
Firefox 1.5/1.07:
- No known issues, but staying up-to-date is recommended
- Greasemonkey extension is emphatically NOT supported: if you load that hack onto your browser, uninstall it before reporting problems.
Internet Explorer 6 (Including AOL Explorer and Netscape 8 in IE mode when IE 6 installed):
- Links created with link editor are pasted in at the end of comments. They can of course be moved from there with a cut and paste.
- Animations are disabled
- No comment scrollbars
- Find on page is broken when you Expand a page that was loaded as shrunk. The workaround is to reload in Expand Always mode, perhaps with Autorefresh off.
- Autorefresh may cause periodic "clicking" sounds as it loads (the same sounds as if you were pressing the reload button manually); these can be turned off in the Sounds tab of the Sounds Control Panel: Set the "Start Navigation" sound to "(None)".
- Renders faster than Firefox, but JavaScript is slower
- IE7 beta 2 "works" much like IE6
Internet Explorer 5.5:
* All IE6 problems. Even so, upgrading is recommended.
Internet Explorer 5.0, Netscape 4 and earlier are all stuck in legacy mode (no Ajax).
Opera 8.5:
- Autorefresh sometimes makes comments disappear, sometimes doesn't work
- Back button may sometimes require numerous presses (use rewind button)
- Parent links on comments in /story mode open an ugly page instead of scrolling up.
- These issues, true for all Opera platforms, will be fixed in Opera 9.x
MACINTOSH
Recommended Browser: Safari
Safari 2.x (on 10.4 Tiger) / 1.3x (on 10.3 Panther):
- No known issues provided Safari is updated via Software Update
Safari 0.x/1.x (Early versions on 10.2 Jaguar):
- These browsers are not supported.
- The site will render, but some links will not be clickable
Firefox 1.5.0.1/1.07/Netscape 7.2:
- Limited to displaying a system-dependent number (150-300?) of expanded comments: more will cause browser to freeze, whether JavaScript is on or not.
- No other issues with smaller threads
- Can continue to use provided you either avoid threads with many comments or use Shrink Always mode and never click Expand in a large thread.
- Not as fast as Safari, or as pretty.
Camino 1.0:
- Does not have 250 comment limitation of Firefox (even though they claim to use the same Gecko 1.8 engine)
- Scrolls large threads slowly, however. But faster than you can read!
- Will support Ajax usage on 10.2 Jaguar
Opera 8.5:
* Same problems as Windows Opera 8.5
Internet Explorer 5.2:
- Uses legacy mode...no Ajax support
- May be best browser for 10.2 Jaguar and earlier
LINUX
Recommended Browser: Firefox 1.5
Firefox 1.5:
- May occasionally display scrollbars on comments that don't need them
- The scrollbar problem occurs far more frequently in earlier Mozilla variants e.g. Firefox 1.07
Konqueror 3.4: