New MSFN site appears broken on Win 9x

[Wunderbar98]

As per title. Used various browsers last few days on various OS'. Currently logged in via DOS using Links, effectively no style so the site is still useable. The presentation on more feature rich browsers here is not good, including poor layout, poor use of whitespace, poor readability, etc.
Just providing feedback. Maybe admins can test with various browsers and tweak the design further. Forum members here obviously use a wide range of browsers. This topic has been mentioned in other non-Win9x threads, just notifying it's a big issue in Windows 9x land too.
Thanks in advance for any possible tweaks.

Edited January 11, 2021 by Tripredacus
title clarification since topic was moved

[schwups]

I'm on Opera 12 to test. I've JS disabled to get an editor field. There is no control panel and even no possibility to add an attachment. It's the same on K-Meleon74 Goanna with the help of KernelEx. I have to run at least FF31esr.
I just see the three dots with the edit control/button and it even works. And via edit I have the possibility to add an attachment.
I changed the browser and now I'm on Retrozilla. I also have to disable JS. There is no control panel, but I have a Browse... button to add an attachment. My conclusion JS disabled is more of a makeshift.
"Sign out" isn't possible on RZ.

Edited January 11, 2021 by schwups

[siria]

test with RT-Firefox2....

Sigh, there may be a filepicker for attaching (after editing), but uploading still doesn't work. No chance :(
Had struggled yesterday with older KM1.6 (FF3.5) already, no luck either with uploading. But haven't tried with KMG74 yet...
And strongly suspect that UPLOADING may need javascript, BUT the filepicker only shows up inside a noscript-tag... Can unhide that by css, editor and filepicker, despite JS allowed, but just being visible doesn't necessarily mean it starts working. Still potential for more tests...

Edit: back on K-Meleon now...
But am relieved that Firefox2 (engine = Retrozilla) at least still allows to READ the forum, and login, post, logout etc.!
Although looking awful of course, everything is stapled vertically, e.g. just the 3 (huge) Like/Upvote buttons below every posting take up more than a whole screen height! But for frequent visitors this can be fixed later with some custom css, the only prob is for clueless users to find it... But as long as they can read, they have a chance to find
And in Firefox2 often the usual brute-force workaround is required, toggle all Page Styles OFF, to get access to the menus, incl. the logout-link.

Am still busy fiddling with my css tweaks, will post more in awhile.
A few I have already posted here:
https://msfn.org/board/forum/23-site-amp-forum-issues/

But don't hold your breath for devs to fix such ancient browsers. Even medium-age browsers are out of luck long since:
https://msfn.org/board/topic/182248-what-i-think-about-the-new-forum-software-and-revamped-ui/
There have been heavy complaints even for popular NewMoon27 (KM76) on XP, and guess younger versions too.

And am afraid, the control bar (button row in Editor area) is killed completely by semi-modern javascript, requiring Firefox31? Have seen JS attaches a file named "promise.js" to the editor, and inside it mentions something about ES6Promise - and it loads messageChannel?! IIRC that feature started working in KM76 (FF38), but why such an intrusive function just for adding a few text snippets around selected text? Grmpf...

Regarding Layout / CSS-styles:
The whole forum now seems to depend heavily on over 100 CSS-Variables! Very handy feature I admit, have missed it dearly since forever, but sadly the browsers added it far too late to engines. No wonder KM1.6 has lost just about ALL styling after this ips-update Still busy researching this feature... KM74(FF24) can't handle it either yet, only starts in FF31 (KM75) acc web. Yet anyway, in KM74 the page looks a whole lot better, this version definitely gets somehow almost normal styling - except by default it shows black text on darkgray background! The curse of having brandnew functions, but only in most basic version yet. And a few other minor glitches I can fix myself.
Note KM74/FF24: howto get rid of dark background:
set in user css body{background-image: none !important}
https://msfn.org/board/topic/182251-old-browsers-ips-forum-layout-bugs-self-help-tweaks-css/

Oh well, CSS can all be worked-around, but the real KILLER prob is javascript.
Especially the editor buttons, sigh, that's the worst bug, and afraid unfixable in older browsers . The editor now wants lot of too modern javascript, IMO completely unnecessary, but that stuff is decided by the invision devs. In KM I can happily use a macro that creates a context menu, to set selected to bold or underlined etc., but in FF no clue. Other people can surely find their own workarounds, using external tools with macros, or perhaps addons, whatever.
.

Edited January 11, 2021 by siria
test attaching...

[Wunderbar98]

In RetroZilla the forum is still useable as long as View -> Use Style -> None is selected, including log in, log out and post messages. The only things that never worked in RetroZilla was running the forum with JavaScript enabled and adding attachments and screenshots, which i just perform from a newer OS. This makes me sound old and grumpy but change for the sake of change i never understood. To me don't fix what isn't broken, similar to physicians 'do no harm' - rule number one.

This forum has always been the most bloated of the various forums i visit. I can live with that but the style really should be changed to something more useable for everyone, not just Windows 10 users running the latest whatever. Old Windows users are already having a hard enough time keeping their systems alive, not sure why this forum of all forums would intentionally hinder them.

Examples of forums that always work fine here regardless of browser. Maybe site administrators can choose a less problematic 'style', blessings in advance if you can.
http://coursedownloads.com/forum/index.asp
http://forums.debian.net/search.php?search_id=active_topics&sid=1708667252a61125e9db90d26115a8ea
http://dev1galaxy.org/search.php?action=show_recent
http://forum.tinycorelinux.net/

[schwups]

FF31 and 35 (KernelEx24) - JS enabled:
- MSFN looks pretty good - no DARKGRAY background, by and large, objects are where they should be, (js) partially not working now
- Functionless, long and narrow editor field

- big grey like buttons

I have installed Awesomefont 4.7 (https://github.com/FortAwesome/Font-Awesome) for the icons.

Edited January 11, 2021 by schwups

[siria]

@schwups
Can you attach screenshots of your semi-modern browsers? Just curious how it looks. Some stuff may be fixed by css too.
But surely hope the EDITOR still works in plain mode too, if javascript is OFF?
(except for the button row obviously)

FontAwesome can also simply be downloaded from here, MSFN domain. Direct URLs are linked in various flavors in a css-file (line @font-face). Have posted a few days ago a direct link to the TrueType version (for older browsers incl. FF2) in one of my Links above.

There are also a few prefs to test, for intrusive new javascript features in semi-modern browsers, which might fix the editor-buttons (perhaps? or not?). But makes no sense to post those here in 9x section where only 1-2 users will see it.

Edit:
just notice the topic was moved where it belongs, from win9x to Site+Forum issues!
@Wunderbar98, to keep this focussed on 9X, consider perhaps renaming the title?

Edited January 11, 2021 by siria

[schwups]

3 hours ago, siria said:

@schwups
Can you attach screenshots of your semi-modern browsers? Just curious how it looks. Some stuff may be fixed by css too.

Here are some screenshots of KM76.3.1, FF35.0.1 (think there is no difference to 31.8esr) and KM74Goanna (Skin dbTango).

The editor works with JS enabled from FF44 onwards.

[siria]

.
Please post this in a separate topic for ANDROID!

This one here was specifically aimed at Win9x/ME users, started in 9x section of this board, and then moved by a mod.

There are other topics here already too, for younger Windows versions and windows browsers.

Several other posts were added to all sorts of topics which are not meant specifically for MSFN-update-probs.

It's a huge mess if all systems and versions are thrown into the same pot, no one will find anything anymore

And important info:
The update isn't finished yet, things are still changing - not only by the MSFN team, but incremental update packages from the software provider are still added too (as dencorso just informed us in the Flags topic). That means, there's probably still a bit hope for theme additions / little layout fixes, until finally finished - among all the downgrades a shred of hope for improvements.
Googling for
forum invision "4.5.4.2"
actually brings up also some interesting stuff, e.g. all themes for ips 4.5 shall have Light+Dark modes by default etc.

Edited January 11, 2021 by siria

[asdf2345]

2 minutes ago, siria said:

Please post this in a separate topic for ANDROID!

No delete button, so it's gonna be staying here

[siria]

> No delete button, so it's gonna be staying here

No fantasy.... You could create a new topic, and then EDIT your post here....

[Tripredacus]

7 minutes ago, siria said:

This one here was specifically aimed at Win9x/ME users, started in 9x section of this board, and then moved by a mod.

Changed thread title. OP can still edit the first post in case what I put is not correct.

[siria]

schwups said:
> The editor works with JS enabled from FF44 onwards.

Thanks for testing, and incredible result! Boy can IPS make things complicated, to break a simple posting editor.
Sadly cannot download your screens, get only a blank page.

[schwups]

You said, "And personally can only test old Firefox-forks, era FF3.5+24, not Opera, not Chrome etc."

era FF 3.5 + 24 => Then you have KernelEx installed.??
I can download my 7z file (screenshots) e.g. with Opera 11.64 or PaleMoon 3.6.32 or FF3.6.28. And what about the browser era FF24?

Blank Page: Opera 10.63 > css problem, KM1.5.4 TLS1.2, Retrozilla TLS1.2