One positive comment: I do find that the 'green-on-dark-grey' does make links embedded in message board answers stand out much more clearly - like my Beta message 60165 - than the light-blue-on-white used here. I sometimes wonder whether people notice my smaller links at all.

SETI Beta does have a particular problem with green-on-blue for user names because, by definition, everybody who posts there is a 'special person' - we're all volunteer testers.

But there should be consistency whether links are underlined or not, and that sort order dropdown list is gross.

I noticed that every location where there is a dropdown list box the box goes to the full right of the screen with the exception of "Font color" and "Font size".
There are dropdwon list boxes all over the site as well.

Bernie thanks for the tip about "Highlight special users". That is one of those setting I've always just never noticed. Looks like SETI Main uses a white box for everyone with the blue behind that. If Beta was previously like that I imagine that is why I never noticed it.

Anybody else notice that some lines in certain posts do not wrap properly and one has to scroll right to see all of them?

Meow?

Everything seems to be wrapping correctly for me. Currently I'm at 1920x1080.

I'm at 1280 x 720.......

Anybody else notice that some lines in certain posts do not wrap properly and one has to scroll right to see all of them?

Meow?

Everything seems to be wrapping correctly for me. Currently I'm at 1920x1080.

I'm at 1280 x 720.......

Has it been fix for you? I don't see any text wrapping issues on my notebook at 1366x768. Unless my extra 86 pixels are the difference?
EDIT: Well since I remembered I could just change my resolution... at 1280x720 I'm not seeing any wrapping issues with Firefox or Chrome.

Looks like work is continuing on the SETI Beta website makeover, with mixed results. Since I can't post there for reasons which will become apparent, I thought I'd record the error message here:

Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ';' in /disks/carolyn/b/home/boincadm/projects/beta/html/project/project.inc on line 105

Edit - panic over, it's back.

Drop down boxes are now a uniform size.
The author column changing size (like on the Seti Beta forums) is due to the amount of text in the Post column. Much text means author column is small. Little text means author column is wide. I'm asking if that's wanted behaviour though.

Blue text on blue special users highlight isn't a good idea, though. ;-)

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Blue text on blue special users highlight isn't a good idea, though. ;-)

Would vomit green be better choice? Like on Beta?! <fingers down throat and wiggle>

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I like the colour scheme at Seti Beta. It's way better than here, with all this white background rudely waking me up all the time.
If you don't like green, make sure you stay away from the new BOINC FAQs wiki. :P

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Drop down boxes are now a uniform size.
The author column changing size (like on the Seti Beta forums) is due to the amount of text in the Post column. Much text means author column is small. Little text means author column is wide. I'm asking if that's wanted behaviour though.

Blue text on blue special users highlight isn't a good idea, though. ;-)

It looks like the only the dropdown list boxes that are common between the BOINC and Beta site were updated. A few areas like Computing preferences, Project preferences (when editing a venue), and when setting a host venue still have the full width boxes at Beta.

...AND, the changes to Beta JUST HIT MAIN!!!!! 🙀

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Have TARDIS, will travel...
Come along K-9!
Join Calm Chaos
Pluto is still a planet

...AND, the changes to Beta JUST HIT MAIN!!!!! 🙀

It is contagious.

Hoping to make this as a serious point...

The idea behind BOINC was to encourage people to become involved in multiple branches of science - to attach to multiple projects, so that work would continue to flow if one project or other didn't have anything that needed doing from time to time. And many of the people who have the time to be involved in multiple project seem to be at or approaching retirement age.

Being (actively) involved in multiple projects means visiting multiple websites. I find that my 64-year old eyes can read this bright white site quite comfortably, and they can read SETI's dark slate site quite comfortably. But they don't like switching between the two.

Any optometrists amongst us care to comment whether that counts as exercise for the eyes (good), or strain (bad)?

Further to the eye-strain discussion: HAL9000 has pointed out that SETI task information pages switch contrast from white-on-black to black-on-white half way down - at the start of stderr_txt.

As he says, "which does feel like someone flipping a light on in your face."

Hoping to make this as a serious point...

The idea behind BOINC was to encourage people to become involved in multiple branches of science - to attach to multiple projects, so that work would continue to flow if one project or other didn't have anything that needed doing from time to time. And many of the people who have the time to be involved in multiple project seem to be at or approaching retirement age.

Being (actively) involved in multiple projects means visiting multiple websites. I find that my 64-year old eyes can read this bright white site quite comfortably, and they can read SETI's dark slate site quite comfortably. But they don't like switching between the two.

Any optometrists amongst us care to comment whether that counts as exercise for the eyes (good), or strain (bad)?

I'd be willing to be are studies on website design that look at this kind of issue.
I just found after about an hour of going between the SETI@home site and a few other projects, with the default scheme, I do have quite a headache at the moment.
It could be unrelated to the switching of contrast between the sites, but as someone about half your age it seems odd to me. My eyes are sensitive to light. In that I have to get my eyes dilated every time I go to the optometrists so they can do their work. So it might be the sudden changes for me.

If I had one suggestion to make about boinc it is throw forum software in the bin. It has past retirement age, probably 5 years ago.

I am not saying forums are not needed - they are - at least for project support. In terms of user community it is probably less than 1% who occasionally use it.

The public facing BOINC website looks 10 years old, that is in dire need of a facelift (and discussion), but of course those who view it for the first time, are unlikely to get involved or raise their voices here.

I actually think this forum's software recent change (and associated toy throwing) takes resources away from BOINC's actual purpose (supporting research find computing resources). There are far better forum systems available. Why developers (who may not exist or may not have time) spend precious time on forum software is a mystery.

Compare any boinc forum to the interfaces provided by Facebook or Google+ BOINC. New (younger) users would contribute, invite their friends - get involved.

The web site each project runs (typically on their research institution's equipment) reflects the research institution who likely have their own style, they should decide style - not BOINC.

Onto specifics...

Richard wrote:

The idea behind BOINC was to encourage people to become involved in multiple branches of science - to attach to multiple projects, so that work would continue to flow if one project or other didn't have anything that needed doing from time to time. And many of the people who have the time to be involved in multiple project seem to be at or approaching retirement age.

Source (behind idea)?

This project POGS has always been black, (it's about the night sky so hey why not) but there has been no negativity I recall about that.

Being (actively) involved in multiple projects means visiting multiple websites. I find that my 64-year old eyes can read this bright white site quite comfortably, and they can read SETI's dark slate site quite comfortably. But they don't like switching between the two.

May i suggest

you don't switch between the two without a 5 minute resting period away from the screen
those who have site [pun intended] colour problems to try these type of addons https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/color-that-site/
tongue in cheek - rose tinted glasses might help

I was just starting to work as a freelance computer consultant for small not-for-profit organisations when Directive 90/270/EEC - display screen equipment came into force. Key features include

Annex (1)(b) Display screen

The characters on the screen shall be well-defined and clearly formed, of adequate size and with adequate spacing between the characters and lines.
The image on the screen should be stable, with no flickering or other forms of instability.
The brightness and/or the contrast between the characters and the background shall be easily adjustable by the operator, and also be easily adjustable to ambient conditions.
The screen must swivel and tilt easily and freely to suit the needs of the operator.
It shall be possible to use a separate base for the screen or an adjustable table.
The screen shall be free of reflective glare and reflections liable to cause discomfort to the user.

and

Annex (3)(e) the principles of software ergonomics must be applied, in particular to human data processing.

At the time, almost all display screens used CRT technology, and I was appreciated for curing a number of headaches by adjusting screen refresh (flicker) rates before I started work. The tools were there (or were, once Windows became commonplace), but workplace users didn't know that they were available or how to set them to best advantage - and the default values set by manufacturers were horrible. I found that 60Hz (on a CRT) was unbearable for even a few seconds, 72Hz was annoying, and I wasn't truly comfortable at anything below 85Hz.

I don't know whether there's any US equivalent to the EC regulations (particularly the one about software ergonomics), but UC Berkeley's public status probably makes them applicable if they exist.

I agree about distraction and diversion of scarce development resources, especially at a time when the recommended client versions are dated 17 Dec 2015 (Windows and Mac OS X), 28 Feb 2014 (Linux - excluding distro-specific repo versions), and 3 Jul 2016 (Android - widely reported as broken, with the older development version suggested instead).

The big benefit of BOINC's internal forum software is that it is hooked in to the back-end user, host, and task data - showing Gollum points for those that like such things, and allowing helpdesks to function.

Onto specifics...
Richard wrote:

The idea behind BOINC was to encourage people to become involved in multiple branches of science - to attach to multiple projects, so that work would continue to flow if one project or other didn't have anything that needed doing from time to time. And many of the people who have the time to be involved in multiple project seem to be at or approaching retirement age.

Source (behind idea)?

It was a commonplace while BOINC was being developed, by the same people who had been somewhat overwhelmed by the public response to the original, stand-alone, SETI@Home Classic project. I've only been here since 2006 - I stuck with SETI Classic until closedown day, and didn't ever get involved with the forums there - but it was already taken for granted before I joined BOINC.

May i suggest

• you don't switch between the two without a 5 minute resting period away from the screen
  
• those who have site [pun intended] colour problems to try these type of addons https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/color-that-site/
  
• tongue in cheek - rose tinted glasses might help
  

You're right, I should get out more, and go and collect my black-ink-on-white-dead-trees newspaper. Wearing my prescription, varifocal, polaroid sunglasses, of course.

edit - fixed list format.

*stand against wall... and refuse hood* I actually quite like it.

I expected not to, because I quite liked it before, and the descriptions of what I needed to steel myself against before confronting it more than suggested I would quite probably quite loathe it.

I hadn't expected it at seti main so soon, which is why I joined beta (I thought I shouldn't comment if I wasn't a user) so peculiarly ... it could be said it benefitted the project a bit... unless more people leave of course :(

*smile bravely at firing squad* I'm ready... ;)

If I had one suggestion to make about boinc it is throw forum software in the bin. It has past retirement age, probably 5 years ago.

Newer isn't always better. How many times the past years haven't we been hearing about big hacks where loads and loads of user accounts have been stolen, with everything in them available under the sun, from sexual orientation, to age, to family setting, to full name and address, to all privacy induced information you didn't want to get out?

http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/visualizations/worlds-biggest-data-breaches-hacks/ has a nice visualization of that. If that doesn't scare the &*%^& out of you...
How many of those have been BOINC related? I can tell you, but that would be cheating. :)

Having it developed in-house means that any breaches elsewhere (e.g. in the external libraries) can quickly be fixed, whereas when it's developed by someone else, you'll have to wait until they fix it before updating. This waiting time can be long.
There's also not much in privacy related information that these boards need, or stream unnoticed from your PC to databases at the back.

Because really, do you feel safe and sound in Facebook, Google or Windows (10) environments? Feel you can really constrain all the information you don't want getting out? For if not, why would you want all the rest of us to go use it then?

Edit: clearing up part what I meant to say.

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By the way, those that read among the different forums, the quoted text isn't bold. It's just that it's 17.5 pixels big (it was 18.75px) that makes it bolder. However, if you add a [size /] tags to it resizing it back to e.g. 10, you'll see the text isn't bold.

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By the way, those that read among the different forums, the quoted text isn't bold. It's just that it's 17.5 pixels big (it was 18.75px) that makes it bolder. However, if you add a [size /] tags to it resizing it back to e.g. 10, you'll see the text isn't bold.

This may be so, but it is bad design. For example - I have edited your post and made one word size large one small, but the quote process hides the large one.

A quote should accurately copy, it should not adjust the size. Does the button say "Quote and make everything size 18.75" ? no.
Did it do that in the past ? no
Does it do that anywhere else ? no.

It's not difficult to fix.