Forum Software Updated

[ProxRocks]

my page loads here at prxbx are generally 0.2 to 0.5 seconds according to sidki's page-load to status bar timer... this reply page loaded in 0.109 seconds... the Google Suggest topic i have opened in another tab loaded in 0.766 seconds, refreshed in 4.125, "complete refresh" in 4.531... the Clipboard Hijack tab is showing 0.484 seconds... the Vendetta text matching tab is showing 0.25 seconds...

all of these load times seem "normal" to me, no complaints for prxbx load times...

wiki.org takes FOREVER to load *and* MORE IMPORTANTLY wreaks HAVOC on my mouse-scroll - that's with GreenBrowser, Sleipnir, Maxthon, Opera@USB 9.52, and Portable Firefox 3.0.1... wiki.org is totally UNUSEABLE on my end, with ALL of my browsers... technically, don't know on IE7, my firewall BLOCKS any and ALL access to the internet for "iexplore.exe" (no, IE7 does NOT need access to the internet to run IE SHELLS)...

[Mele20]

I wasn't meaning to sound flippant or suggest that anyone should use the browser I like just because I have no problems at Wikipedia. Believe it or not, this is the first time I have heard of folks having problems there. Of course, one should be able to use the browser that is preferred and websites should work properly with it. But evidently, from what you have said this isn't a browser problem...it's some strange something that is affecting a fair number of folks with different browsers, different OSes, etc. I can't imagine what I might be doing that gives me low page load times there. We all use Proxo and many of us use Sidki's filters and I can't think of anything else I use that might give me an "advantage" there. i can't think of anything that would be blocking something from the Wikipedia servers.

ProxRocks- I don't let IE start either. It actually started up one time, several years ago, all by itself and took itself to Windows Update and was trying to download WGA when I stopped it. I let it get that far because I wanted to see what it wanted, plus, I was stunned to see it start up on its own like that and I just stared at it not believing what I saw. I don't use WU (I get patches from MS Download Center after reading the Security Bulletin) so I was mad. I googled it and found that Microsoft programmed IE to do this occasionally if the user never visited WU. So, I decided to put it on a short leash and ProcessGuard now pops up and asks me each time if I want to let IE start when I go to start it which is very infrequently.

I have Maxthon but haven't used it in ages and I don't have any of your other browsers to try at Wikipedia except Opera. I don't recall if I have gone there on Opera.

I just went to Wikipedia on Opera 9.50 (I haven't upgraded to .52). It was fast and I opened several articles...all loaded very fast. I used auto scroll and that was fine although autoscroll on Opera is not as easy to use as on Fx. But the page moved fast or slow as I controlled it and moved smoothly...controlling it is trickier on Opera than Fx but no problems with it being jerky or not scrolling at the speed I wanted. Now I am very curious as to what the problem may be for some and why I don't have the problem.

[ProxRocks]

the scroll could be my hardware, forget about the scroll...

BUT look at these D@MN load times !!!


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_music

page load times (all with cleared caches, all in seconds):
GreenBrowser 4.7.0902 = 15.094
Opera 9.51 = 14.734
Maxthon 2.1.3 = 15.391
Sleipnir 2.8.0 = 17.328
Firefox 3.0 = i only open Firefox if i absolutely "have to"


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City

Maxthon = 28.156
GreenBrowser = 29.922
Opera = 26.625
Sleipnir = 25.235


refresh, reload, clear cache, reload, et cetera...
i get similar times over and over...
all within 1.5 seconds of each other...

and yes, you read that correctly, my SLEIPNIR is often times FASTER than OPERA...
depending on the page, but not for (spit) wiki, my GreenBrowser, Maxthon, and Sleipnir are OFTEN TIMES FASTER than Opera...
it's 50-50...

the "advantage" Opera has is that it displays WHILE rendering, so to speak, so it "appears" faster...
but if you stop the stopwatch only AFTER the last image/js/css/whatever is actually LOADED (which is how sidki's page load to status bar functions), then Opera really isn't as "fast" as it APPEARS to be...


bottom line, WIKI SUCKS!!!
i'll grant that the "jerky scroll" MIGHT be my hardware...
but the page-load times are because WIKI is CRAP !!!



edit: the posting of this reply, the page load read 6.641 seconds...
edit2: the update post to add the edit, page load 0.328 seconds... 0.203 to load this page i'm typing in...
edit3: cleared cache and refreshed, 6.626 seconds to load... 0.297 to update post...


i'm happy with times "here", wiki.org on the other hand is UNUSEABLE...

[Oddysey]

Mele;

Oh, make no mistake, your intent was quite clear, and I took it all to be very "non-offensive". I was just stating a position, one that is shared by just about everyone here...... after all, why would anyone use Proxo if they weren't going to "re-make" the web in the way they want to view it? We all have our foibles, and the choice of one's browser is only a small component of that, I think you've agreed all along with that sentiment.

I was about to point out, but PR beat me to it, that page-load timers are clocking the time to receive all input from the server, not the time it takes to render and display that input. Therein lays the rub. I can open Proxo's log window and watch the delay, albeit without a timer. The last response comes in quite quickly, then the screen (really, just that window) "appears" to have frozen, including all mouse action for that window. It comes back when it feels like it, and not one moment before that. I can even open the task manager, set it to view the Processor Activity (ahead of time, in anticipation), and see that nothing is going on during this "dead time". That's what stymies me the most - where's the delay coming from? ???

And ProxRocks, I don't know about you, but after being used to the very snappy performance before the Big Upgrade, I consider 6 second page-load times to be comparable to molasses in January.........

But to be fair, I have no hardware mouse enhancers, not even a scroll wheel on my W98SE machine, and yet I see almost the exact same load times as on the big boy (XPSP2), be it either here or at any Wiki page. Just a datum for filing away, tha's all.

..........

(FLASH!) A week ago, I had to purchase a new laptop. Nevermind about the hardware, just know that it came with Sh-ista Home Edition. Instead of immediately upgrading to XP, I decided to try it on this little problem of ours....... yep, same effect - sssssssssllllllllllllooooooooowwwwwwwwwww page-load times. That's straight outta the box, no mods, no Proxo, nada but what Uncle Bill wants me to use. (Hah! Does he really believe that I've forgotten his diatribe from 22 years ago, when he touted the CD-ROM as the almighty new kid on the block? I hope he doesn't think that I just arbitrarily toss out all of my previous OS discs, that'd be rash on his part to think so.)

OK, 'nuff for now, I gotta go make the other half happy.



Oddysey

[Oddysey]

Gang;

Having stolen a bit of allegedly "free" time this morning, I've discovered what my problem was. It appears that the Forums are instituting some RSS feeds, whether a member elects to have them or not. I found this bit of code on each page:

Code:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="Latest Threads (RSS 2.0)" href="http://prxbx.com/forums/syndication.php" />
<link rel="alternate" type="application/atom+xml" title="Latest Threads (Atom 1.0)" href="http://prxbx.com/forums/syndication.php?type=atom1.0" />

Interestingly, from an HTML programmer's standpoint, the two lines above are found in both the Header and the Body sections. Reminds me of the Monty Python skit......

Writing a filter to eliminate those two lines (in both places) did the trick. Now when I load a page, particulary a Forum Index, it lets me click a link to a thread almost instantly, even before the graphic images have finished loading. When I go back to one of them via the browser's Back button, it's almost blindingly instant, as one would expect when it comes from the cache.

Looking at the source code showed me the way. Writing the filter and testing it took all of 30 seconds. After all these months...... [insert slaps-head smilie here]

Just thought you'd all like to know that The Odd One still has it, when he can get the time to exhibit it!



Oddysey

[ProxRocks]

hmmm, interesting...

now i'm off to debug wiki, maybe it's RSS feeds that are slowing wiki to a ccrraaawwwll (and not a good crawl either, one of those where the baby gets a chin full of dirt every two-and-a-half "steps")...

[Siamesecat]

I have seen no problem with feeds. I deliberately disabled them by assigning either no application (Firefox 2 branch) or the wrong application (Firefox 3 branch) to handling them. The result is that I never get any feeds.

[Oddysey]

Siamesecat;

Hell's Bells, I wasn't even aware that an application had to be assigned to RSS duty. As far as I know, I've never setup any of my machines to read RSS feeds, so I have to presume that RSS feeds from any site would have always failed, given what you just stated.

So tell me, could that have been the problem all along, my not having squat assigned for an app, and the machine was going bonkers trying to find one?


Oddysey

[ProxRocks]

i don't have anything assigned to RSS either, so i too am curious...

i use PORTABLE apps for RSS, but there is NOTHING within my operating system's registry or whatnot that says "go here for RSS"...

[Siamesecat]

With Firefox 2 versions, the Options/Preferences had a section called Feeds. I had chosen the "use this application" setting and not assigned any application. With Firefox 3, in the Applications section, is an item called "Web Feed". I assigned Notepad to that for Windows, and Hex Fiend (a hex editor) for Mac. I also thought that the Feeds button near the right end of the address bar was just cluttering up the window, so I used userChrome.css code to remove it.

[Kye-U]

Forum software updated to the latest version (1.4.6)

Quote:This release fixes over 100 reported issues with version released since 1.4.4 causing some incorrect functionality of MyBB. These bugs have been fixed to provide a more stable version of MyBB for public use.

(above description is for 1.4.5; we upgraded from 1.4.4 to 1.4.6)

[Kye-U]

Bumped up the number of allowed attachments in one post from 5 to 10. I hope this is sufficient (reply if you think you need more )

[Kye-U]

Updated to version 1.4.7. (Don't worry, our custom RSS and CODE block modifications are still intact )

[Kye-U]

Updated to 1.4.8 (custom RSS and CODE block modifications re-done).

[Kye-U]

Updated to 1.4.10 (custom RSS modifications re-done; please post here if there are any problems).