Glitches I'm encountering in DU4.

[ShazzieB]

Last edited Thu Dec 7, 2023, 05:29 PM - Edit history (1)

I am seeing several recurring glitches when posting (either ops or replies). I didn't post about these right away, because I wanted to give myself a chance to get used to DU4 first and be sure of what was going on.

Some of these are a bigger problem for me than they would be for some people, because I am so long-winded and often preview several times before posting, but these are things that didn't happen to me with DU3.

First of all, I do most of my DU posting on a Samsung Galaxy Android tablet, in landscape view. I greatly prefer landscape for 2 reasons: because my tablet is easier for me to hold that way, and also because it's easier to enlarge the text to a size that is comfortable for my aging eyes in landscape.

When I enlarge text on my tablet, the text box gets bigger, too, and it quickly gets too wide for the screen in portrait view. In landscape view, I can make the text twice as big as I can in portrait without cutting off the sides of the text box. As a result, I greatly prefer to read AND type posts in landscape view and I never had a problem doing that in In DU3.

With DU4, typing posts with the text at a comfortable size for me is difficult, because after the first few lines, or a paragraph or so, the text I'm typing no longer shows in the text box. I have to keep scrolling down to see the line I'm currently typing, and often as soon as I start typing again, the line I'm typing disappears from view again. I think text size is a big factor in causing this, but as I said, being able to enlarge the text to a certain size is important to me.

In DU3, I could enlarge the text in landscape view until the text box filled up the whole screen and type away, and the line I was typing always stayed where I could see it, no matter how long the post got. In Du4, I can't enlarge the text the way I used to without this problem happening. I REALLY miss being able to enlarge the text on my screen the way I used to, because it's so much easier on my eyes.

Sorry that was so long and complicated. I hope I explained clearly enough, if not, I'm happy to clarify.

There are a couple of other MUCH less complicated glitches I've encountered, but I'm going to put those in a reply to this.

[dchill]

1. My Android tablet (an old Amazon...

Fire HD8 Plus) is choking badly on the code (JAVA?). It didn't do so badly on DU2.
Edit to add: "I have to keep scrolling down to see the line I'm currently typing, and often as soon as I start typing again, the line I'm typing disappears from view again."
YES!

[tblue37]

4. Kindle Fire 8 here, too.

[ShazzieB]

7. I forget to mention what kind of a tablet I have.

Samsung Galaxy, to be exact. (I just added that to the op.)

[tblue37]

2. I also use landscape, for similar reasons. DU4 causes me a lot of problems.

Last edited Mon Nov 6, 2023, 11:12 AM - Edit history (1)

I can't edit my original posts in DU4. There is no edit button on my OPs. I also cannot see the line I am typing as I type.

I no longer get predictive text at all, which used to save me a lot of time, and previously used phrasing no longer shows up as predictive text, so frequently used comments (like "K&R & thanks" ) have to be typed out. Since I can't touch type, that is awkward.

DU used to automatically capitalize "I" when it was meant as a pronoun, and used to add the apostrophe in contractions. Those conveniences are gone now.

Now I have to use extra clicks to find what used to be readily visible on DU3.

I have other issues with DU4 as well, but not being able to see the line I am typing makes typing difficult for me, so I don't want to expand this post.

I don't like DU4. I mostly use Skinner mode now, but the problems I have mentioned are still there in Skinner mode.

[tblue37]

3. I am using a Kindle Fire 8.

[ShazzieB]

5. In addition to the problem described above, there are 2 other things I keep running into.

1. Sometimes the text I've typed in the "Title" box disappears before I finish the body of the post,. I know I'm not imagining this, because it's my habit to always fill in the title first.

Sometimes I notice this when I try to preview a post and the system gives me a stern message saying the title has to be filled in. I often write rather long posts, and I tend to preview repeatedly to cut down on having to edit after I've posted. I have had the title of a post disappear multiple times when repeatedly previewing, and I have to keep retyping it.

2. Sometimes, while typing a post, the cursor will *poof* disappear from the text box. This is also more apt to happen with long posts. If I need to go back to insert a word or a character in a previous line, I have to try and tap the screen in the right place, but I can't tell for sure intil I type a character. (This is a lot harder on a touch screen than it would be with a mouse.)

These last 2 glitches don't affect me nearly as much as the one I described in the op, but they are annoying. I am a big fan of DU4 overall, and I really hope these things can be fixed so that I can post the way I used to in DU3, with fewer missteps. Thanks for DU4 and thanks for looking into these glitches!

[Aussie105]

6. Jury Duty problem.

It's a great feature and I always participate when asked.

Unfortunately, the offending text is supposed to be highlighted in RED, and I'm not seeing any red text.

So I had to back out of giving a response - so sorry.

[tblue37]

8. I also wonder why they got rid of the "excerpt" button. Now the only

way I can indicate that I am quoting at length from another text is with highlighting, and that looks awful.

[emulatorloo]

9. Use the button that looks like a quotation mark, that does the trick.

Example:

I also wonder why they got rid of the "excerpt" button. Now the only
way I can indicate that I am quoting at length from another text is with highlighting, and that looks awful.

[tblue37]

13. Thanks!

[ShazzieB]

10. The " button does what the excerpt button used to do!

Last edited Mon Nov 6, 2023, 12:28 PM - Edit history (1)

Like this:

Here is some text I am quoting.

[tblue37]

12. Thanks!

[EarlG]

11. I'll look into this but I'm pretty confident that it is fixable

Someone had this same problem with the keyboard covering up the input box during the beta test -- I was able to fix it at the time, although I seem to recall that they were using a phone instead of a tablet. The good news is that since I already fixed this on phones, I should also be able to fix it for tablet (I just need to go find what it was that I did to fix it the first time around).

And by the way, this was a really excellent bug report -- lots of detail, thanks!