I was fooled too, by the extraordinary time it was taking to open threads with lots of images - I assumed it was the server doing it all and didn't look at the page source.

Well I have now, and it certainly looks to me as if Darkmunk is right.

For those that don't read HTML, the way they've done it is to take the actual link to our images in Flickr, or PhotoBox, or wherever, and just make these into a link, which opens the same image in a separate browser (or browser tab, if you use a tabbed browser).

Except that additional code is added that tells the browser how to resize the image - to a max length or height of 550px.

So our original image host is what serves the image, and the forum code tells the browser how to resize it.

However, this doesn't explain why it's taking such an inordinate amount of time to open them. Browsers take no time at all to resize images.

Looking closely at the resizing, it seems to me that the widths and heights are specified inline with the links to the images, and have been calculated to retain the aspect ratio of the original.

So one of mine, for example, which is 850px wide and 498px high, gets resized with HTML properties that say:

width="550" height="322.23529411765"

Note all the decimal places in the calculated height.

Now something has had to write those height and width values into the HTML - so the forum server must have read the images from the host to check their actual size, then recalculated the width and height, and then generated HTML links with the image URL as the original, but width and height as calculated.

If I'm right, then this gives us the worst of all worlds - a delay while the forum server reads the images in order to recalculate the dimensions, and then another delay while our browser downloads them again and resizes them. And browser-resizing is well known to produce very poor results.

This would also have the effect of doubling the traffic-per-image from image hosting web sites - and for users with bandwidth limitations, this could affect their costs.

I'm sure they are. Indeed I notice that previewing PMs is now possible, where it was not yesterday.

So clearly there's lots of work going on behind the scenes, and I'm delighted to give credit where it's due.

It's the defensiveness and the "blame it all on the users" attitude that I find particularly irksome.

I've just been through the whole thread.

There is criticism, some quite emphatic. There is increasing frustration with what I think people see as your lack of understanding, dare I even say, arrogance. And also traces of sarcasm, to which I've contributed.

But 'incredibly rude'?

I don't think so.

I can't find any rudeness at all, in fact, other than what is easily understandable as expressions of frustration at your apparent lack of understanding of why people here are not reacting positively to the changes.

Right. Bug time.

Twice now, I've clicked the "Add comment" button.

Instead of it posting and redisplaying the thread, as usual, it presents me with just a blank 'Add a comment' box with the editing controls.

However, if I come out and re-enter the thread, the post has been saved correctly.

I suspect this is an intermittent one, but it's happened twice now.

Edit: three times.

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cc bug reports

But sadly, getting more credible by the moment.

If I may coin George's phrase, this says it all.

This is a web site, not a paper magazine.

Yes, a piece of paper is easier to read in columns. This is not a piece of paper.

It is a resizable web browser, competing currently for space on my desktop (that's a computer desktop, by the way) with seven other applications.

The great thing about windows (computer ones, that is) is that they're resizable. This gives users a thing we call, 'choice'.

So with a web browser, and a web site, we get to resize the window, and with many good sites, this allows us to get the text to the shape on the screen we want.


The new format has a lot of potential. I quite like some of it. But the current "we know best, you lot are just ignorant users" attitude just sucks.

Here's another one.

We used to be able to preview PMs before sending. This feature seems to be lost.

We also used to be able to retrieve and edit PMs after sending, but before they'd been read. This also seems to have been lost.

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cc the bug-reporting machine

You guys just don't get it, do you?

Lots of experienced, computer-literate, intelligent people are screaming at you about the picture size issue, and all you say is that you can't see why we'd need more than 550 pixels.

To see details!!!!!! Duh... And without waiting all month for the page to appear.

How hard is that to understand?

And this "we know best" attitude is further exemplified by blaming us for the poor take up of the beta test idea.

Didn't getting only four people signing up even give you pause for thought?

Apart from the one or two really major issues, I agree with this.

This is why I'm not talking about the minor things.

Make the content wider, and stop resizing the pics, and I'll probably shut up.

Exactly. So the slow loading issue is still an issue for any thread with more than a few images.

And if I upload, I'm still left with the dilemma of resizing for 550px (yet more bloody effort), or not resizing, and relying on people looking at them full size.

The solution to this is simple: a content column wide enough for the 800px images that we are now (mostly) used to posting, and no resizing.

It may even be that the forum software is clever enough to only resize images bigger than some specified dimensions.

If that limit were 800px, and it only went through the resizing if it had to, maybe there would be no issue, and we'd get the best of both worlds.