Forum Suggestions and Issues

[Lolo De Puzlo]

also related involving images, unsure if i just missed how to but image resizing would be amazing,, i keep wanting to add images and force them to be small (like 200px by 300px) so no one is getting flashbanged w/ like a paragraph and then a huge image lol

Also in this thread to suggest bumping the posts per page? 10 feels like I'm constantly needing to click to see the rest of the new posts in a thread when it's not actually a super busy thread on a forum of this size.

So we've upped the count to 25 per page. We wanted to add an extension to give the user choice, but something with it was acting funky so we just hard increased the count.

[Lolo De Puzlo]

I don't wanna be the fun police all the time but I would be a little worried about adding too many things to the sidebar and have it be longer than the posts themselves

Maybe regdate could be cut? or the format changed so it only takes up one line instead of two? idk

Also I had no idea that "Contact: [@]" didn't just start a PM to the user, haha

While I'm complaining, this blue is really garish on the dark theme

This also has been updated. Will need to Ctrl+F5

[XerShadowTail]

I suppose an option to disable animations or only show the first frame of a GIF would be good, the animations are very distracting.

Also, perhaps the Readable theme could be the default? It was very eye straining to sign up and to find the option to switch themes as Fixedsys is not really a well designed font for readability, would recommend instead Chicago or Terminus if a retro feeling is still desired. Chicago at least is of the same era.

[Flann]

Noticed a couple small issues in the Manage Notifications panel:

Screenshot_2025-07-15_12-26-09.png (6.51 KiB) Viewed 296 times

* The notification type (Reply) is near unreadable
* There are no spaces surrounding the username

This is with the 1982 - Dark Readable theme but I suspect the missing spaces is independent from the used theme.

[Lolo De Puzlo]

Noticed a couple small issues in the Manage Notifications panel:
Screenshot_2025-07-15_12-26-09.png
* The notification type (Reply) is near unreadable
* There are no spaces surrounding the username

This is with the 1982 - Dark Readable theme but I suspect the missing spaces is independent from the used theme.

So, I've fixed the colors, but I can't for the life of me figure out why there's no spacing there as I can't find where this behavior is being set.

[Rua Whitepaw]

Suggestions:
- A dedicated "issues, suggestions and feedback" forum, so that things don't get piled up and lost in a single thread.
- Telegram profile field.

[Cania]

A possibly small thing:

Would it be possible to default links to open in a new tab? This is my preferred behavior but I'm not sure if the forum writ large agrees with that, or how easy that would even be to do.

A possibly large thing:

I'm having a lot of trouble seeing when one post ends and another begins. I would love if every other post was a slightly different background color. This is one of the few features of Discourse that I miss, but I suspect it's not as easy as that sentence makes it sound.

EDIT: Nevermind I switched to the 1996 theme and this solved the "cant tell posts apart" problem lmao. i love this theme other than the giant looping GIFs at the top lmao

[Lolo De Puzlo]

A possibly small thing:

Would it be possible to default links to open in a new tab? This is my preferred behavior but I'm not sure if the forum writ large agrees with that, or how easy that would even be to do.

A possibly large thing:

I'm having a lot of trouble seeing when one post ends and another begins. I would love if every other post was a slightly different background color. This is one of the few features of Discourse that I miss, but I suspect it's not as easy as that sentence makes it sound.

EDIT: Nevermind I switched to the 1996 theme and this solved the "cant tell posts apart" problem lmao. i love this theme other than the giant looping GIFs at the top lmao

For the large thing: So the 1982 theme actually does this, but the background colors are probably a bit too dark to see the color difference. I could possibly change them to be more pronounced and actually probably should.

For the small thing: AFAIK, this isn't possible in phpBB. and, for the record, not my ideal way of opening pages. I just rely on middle mouse clicking links.

[Cania]

For the large thing: So the 1982 theme actually does this, but the background colors are probably a bit too dark to see the color difference. I could possibly change them to be more pronounced and actually probably should.

For the small thing: AFAIK, this isn't possible in phpBB. and, for the record, not my ideal way of opening pages. I just rely on middle mouse clicking links.

all good! i was using the 1982 dark theme so that's probably what was going on. the 1996 theme whips and i just made a tampermonkey script to get rid of the dancing gifs, i love everything else about it.

thanks for the quick response on both

[Mandrake]

Something which I find a bit weird is how the "unread posts" icon is an open envelope with a letter inside, while the "no unread posts" icon is a sealed envelope. Surely these should be the other way round? You have to open an envelope to read what's inside...

critterTimeUnreadAndReadIcons.png (10.62 KiB) Viewed 251 times

[Lolo De Puzlo]

Something which I find a bit weird is how the "unread posts" icon is an open envelope with a letter inside, while the "no unread posts" icon is a sealed envelope. Surely these should be the other way round? You have to open an envelope to read what's inside...

critterTimeUnreadAndReadIcons.png

Our thought process on it was basically "Letter in the envelope indicates that there is something to read inside and the closed envelope is something you are done with in that you've read what was inside." Maybe not exactly how one would keep mail, but the letter in the envelope is more eye-catching as something new that you should look at versus the closed envelope.

[plumpan]

Having a slightly larger file size limit to encourage people attaching images to post rather than using external linking would be nice. At least in the context of "local attachments are better than external linking because externally linked images will break at some point". Nothing lasts forever but seeing old threads with tons of broken images stinks.

There's many obvious downsides to this, primarily cost, but thought I'd throw it out there.

[Lolo De Puzlo]

Having a slightly larger file size limit to encourage people attaching images to post rather than using external linking would be nice. At least in the context of "local attachments are better than external linking because externally linked images will break at some point". Nothing lasts forever but seeing old threads with tons of broken images stinks.

There's many obvious downsides to this, primarily cost, but thought I'd throw it out there.

I believe we're currently using the default phpBB settings regarding this so I can see it's a bit low at having a maximum individual file size of 256 KB. I've gone ahead an increased that size to 2 MB so that should give you more wiggle room

[plumpan]

I believe we're currently using the default phpBB settings regarding this so I can see it's a bit low at having a maximum individual file size of 256 KB. I've gone ahead an increased that size to 2 MB so that should give you more wiggle room

Thank you!

[Galuade]

firefox_Ux5QQnTJ9r.png (1.01 KiB) Viewed 232 times

sTOP

[Lolo De Puzlo]

firefox_Ux5QQnTJ9r.png sTOP

:>

In all fairness, that's currently a placeholder until we get something more on theme.

[Weasel]

Maybe a TTRPG/TTCG type sub-forum? Consoles and Games are already separated, so maybe something for Tabletop? To include RPGs, Card Games, Wargaming, ect

As there's no way to react to a post to indicate agreement, I'll risk being a bit spammy with "seconded."

Also, I love the 1996 theme, but those superspeed looping Neman GIFs at the top are a lot. I think it's the size + speed that gets me. XD

[Enbyeon]

Maybe a TTRPG/TTCG type sub-forum? Consoles and Games are already separated, so maybe something for Tabletop? To include RPGs, Card Games, Wargaming, ect

As there's no way to react to a post to indicate agreement, I'll risk being a bit spammy with "seconded."

I've added clarification to the the Games forum description that it includes tabletop and physical games. I think we're fine without a separate forum for now.

[faoluin]

I noticed that the login page doesn't require using TLS (HTTPS), so it's actually possible to transmit your login information in plaintext by accident if you aren't careful and/or your browser isn't set up to force HTTPS.

I'm all for letting anonymous users read the forum with regular ol' HTTP, but for logging in or registering, or once you're logged in, I think requiring HTTPS would be preferable.

[Lolo De Puzlo]

I noticed that the login page doesn't require using TLS (HTTPS), so it's actually possible to transmit your login information in plaintext by accident if you aren't careful and/or your browser isn't set up to force HTTPS.

I'm all for letting anonymous users read the forum with regular ol' HTTP, but for logging in or registering, or once you're logged in, I think requiring HTTPS would be preferable.

That does sound reasonable. This might take a bit since my experience with setting things like that is limited, but I'll give it the 'ol college try.

[Zircus]

Any way to hide the "Contact" field on the sidebar from logged-out visitors? Would be nice to have those links hidden from search engines and the like. Or perhaps just giving users the option to show/hide that sidebar field to everyone while still having links on their profile would be nice too.

[Lolo De Puzlo]

Any way to hide the "Contact" field on the sidebar from logged-out visitors? Would be nice to have those links hidden from search engines and the like. Or perhaps just giving users the option to show/hide that sidebar field to everyone while still having links on their profile would be nice too.

From what we currently have as options in the Admin Panel, it doesn't seem we can set permissions regarding viewing the contact field. That said, I could look for an extension to allow for that or something similar.

[Flann]

would it somehow be possible to get a notification setting like "digest mail" that summarizes updated topics of the day instead of getting a mail for every post in a subscribed thread?

alternatively it would be nice if notification mails would only be sent when offline at the time the notification was triggered.

[EdenCoven]

When we go to attach a file we get "Sorry, the board attachment quota has been reached." now. That sounds like it can only store so many and they're filled up now

[Lolo De Puzlo]

When we go to attach a file we get "Sorry, the board attachment quota has been reached." now. That sounds like it can only store so many and they're filled up now

So I misread what one of the options meant because I thought it meant that the limit in a post was 50MB not the total amount kept at all :V

Should be fixed now!

EDIT: For realsies this time!