PSA: What you need to know about the DU4 beta test

[EarlG]

Last edited Wed Sep 6, 2023, 12:23 PM - Edit history (1)

A lot of folks have questions about DU4 and I'm happy to answer them, but there are a couple of problems: 1) I'm having to answer the same questions repeatedly, and 2) Questions are being posted all over the place making them harder to keep track of.

This short post is intended to give you some quick info and pointers so you can best help us with the test.

What you need to know right now

This is an unfinished version of the DU4 software. There will be bugs, and you will find things that don't work, or look wrong, or are missing, or are in the wrong place.

The purpose of this ongoing test is so we can learn about and then try to fix any technical or general issues DU members are having.

• The DU4 Bug Reports forum, for reporting technical issues, can be found at Navigate > Help & Search.


• The DU4 Questions & Answers forum -- for general Q&A, no bug reports please -- can be found in the same location.

If you can't find something you're looking for, there's a reason that it's moved. Feel free to ask about it. If there's something you need -- a missing feature, an improvement to something -- again, feel free to ask about it.

You should definitely read this if you haven't already. It contains a lot of useful information.

Edited to add: There is also a full feature list here!

DU4 is designed to be customizable. If you don't like the way something looks, you might find a setting to improve it by going to My Stuff > Account Settings. There are a number of visual options that you can change. If you can't find the answer there, ask about it in DU4 Questions & Answers and we might be able to come up with a solution.

Finally, my advice is just explore. All of the pages that you have on DU, like your My Posts page, your Bookmarks, Profile, Inbox, Journal, etc. etc. -- all exist on DU4, and they shouldn't be difficult to find. The Latest page, forums, threads -- the core of DU -- has not changed at all. What you will find if you explore, however, are some new pages and features we've included. Don't be afraid to just look around and kick the tires, or, you know, click the buttons.

I don't mind answering questions in this thread, but if you do have a question, you might want to check out the Questions & Answers forum first to see if it's been asked and answered already. And if you have a bug report, please use the Bug Reports forum.

Thanks!

[question everything]

1. Can this be pinned to the top?

I know I posted questions in several places and appreciate you catching one and responding.

[EarlG]

3. I may pin it a little later

For now let's see if people keep kicking it.

[2naSalit]

2. K&R

Thanks for all the work you've put into this.

[AKwannabe]

4. Kick...

TU EG

[Drum]

5. K&R

[herding cats]

6. Thanks for posting this.

I like the new format. It does have a bit of a learning curve, but once I figured out how quell the flashing "My Stuff" button I was happy as can be with it!

The hard work is very much appreciated from both you and Elad on this upgrade.

[Nittersing]

7. LOL - that annoyed me too!

I went with the option that just puts a little yellow flag... no flashing!

[herding cats]

10. My biggest issue was it was constantly going off due to my subscribed forums.

I removed them from the equation and peace was restored to my DU world again.

I'm sure I'll need to do a bit more tweaking here and there to get things perfect for me, but that's the fun of personalizing the new layout.

[yardwork]

18. That's been my only issue so far, too!

[planetc]

8. Pinning would be good.

[Maeve]

9. Thanks, Boss!

Like others, I wasn't sure how I liked the changes at first, but found it was all improvement as I got used to it. Much easier navigating on my phone, so I'm here more than ever.

[sheshe2]

11. Recommend

[orangecrush]

12. Thanks for all the hard work

From you and all the staff to keep this ship running.

[Wounded Bear]

13. K & R...for visibility...nt

[CaptainTruth]

14. Thank you for all your work on this!!!

[greatauntoftriplets]

15. K&R!

Thanks for all that you do, EarlG.

[33taw]

16. Since this is a beta site, can you make it easier to report bugs? Maybe a link on the navigation page?

[MLAA]

17. Kick!

Love DU4.

[stonecutter357]

19. K&R !

[yardwork]

20. Thanks, Earl!

[highplainsdem]

21. K&R

[PatSeg]

22. K&R

[hlthe2b]

23. Kick

[malaise]

24. Thanks EarlG

[Recycle_Guru]

25. very important to go explore and have a growth mindset

what seems unfamiliar and difficult today will be second nature after a few days of trying

[MiHale]

26. DU 4 looks amazing...thanks for all the hard work...nt

[gademocrat7]

27. K&R

Appreciate your efforts, EarlG

[ms liberty]

28. Kickety Kick. I looked at it for a few minutes yesterday. Like it so far!

Love the reccing replies feature. We've been wanting that for forever now!

[Recycle_Guru]

29. agree! people are still getting used to that, I bet

[Ohio Joe]

30. I'm not seeing anyone else with the issue I'm having...

I'm on Windows 11 and using Edge and when I go to DU4, everything is squished over to the left. Trying to read posts, they come up with at best one word per line. The entire middle and right side are just blank white space.

[LAS14]

31. I'm not sure if this is a bug, but copied link doesn't stay live.

When I copied the link in your PSA: What you need to know... labeled "DU 4 Bug Reports," and pasted it into a DU 3 post, it was no longer a live link.

[Shermann]

32. The "TOP" buttons after each and every post don't seem very useful

If you ditch those and move the "ALERT" buttons down, you can cut those footer sizes in half and fit more posts on one screen. Those footers are a bit wasteful of vertical screen real estate in my opinion (the headers are a bit oink-oinky too).

[senseandsensibility]

33. May I suggest that you pin this thread to the top of DU

I think people will need to see it for quite a while.

[gristy]

34. Too much white space

1. On the home page there is too much white space on the left and on the right. AKA really wide margins. Use the entire screen that Apple and Samsung give you!

2. There is about 2x the white space between posts on the home page.

End result is I can see fewer posts at the same time (on the home page, anyways) and I'm stuck scrolling before I should need to. Bleh.

[EarlG]

36. It would be helpful if

you could tell me what kind of device you're using, and what OS and browser. If possible, email a screenshot of the problem to [e-mail]

Thanks.

[GP6971]

39. I'm seeing the same thing.

Only seeing 5-6 threads on DU4.

Using Windows 10 and Firefox.

[dflprincess]

40. I went to "My Stuff" and selected "Account Settings"

Then I selected "Skinner Mode". That took care of a lot of the white space in both the titles of posts & in the the posts themselves.

But then I lose some of the new stuff I liked in the display (but it seems it can still be found and used)

[AlGorerhythm]

35. Am I the only one who came here to read about the latest covid varient⁉️

[lpbk2713]

37. Bookmarking

Thanks.

[bdamomma]

38. K&R

I still have to test the waters.......

[moniss]

41. Bless you EarlG for

all you do!!

[littlemissmartypants]

42. ❤️

[hibbing]

43. My first post in DU4!

I'll have to see if I can figure out what version I started on. It is taking me a bit to get the navigation down, but that will happen.
Thanks for all the hard work.

Peace

[Old Crank]

44. I get a pop up

everytime I go to a new page. It is about cookies. I click on the accept all large green button and it goes away. But every time I move to another page it shows up again.
HP laptop Win 11. I'm in Germany if that helps.