New site appearance

I like the slightly more spartan, cleaned up appearance of the site. Especially the font.

The new look is good. I also see where we have formatting buttons now to work with in the forum! Nice.

Normally, the corresponding "New!" text in red vanishes when the forum category has been consulted. This doesn't seem to be the case now. Was that intentional?

Hello,
Seems a new forum was released (or else I am a beta tester). In either case, I missed the communication.
Lots of problems (Feb 4, 2015). See my earlier post over in the French Forum.
http://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/forum/french-feedback-and-comments/new-forum
Today (Feb 5, 2015) it is better.Updates below. The panel for the forum is much fancier today. Many buttons have been added.
Today (Feb 13, 2015) I am updating this test to see what is fixed. I noticed a new keyboard icon that replaces the old one that disappeared for a while.
1) (OK - Fixed) Phrase Finder is Broken. Type a word, hit find. Nothing.
2) (partially corrected) Links do not always work. See my post here:
http://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/forum/french-grammar/tu-puisses

• http://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/forum
• Link: http://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/forum

3) (OK - Fixed) Every time you save a forum item (perhaps after you edit it) it will add quotes ' ' around the link. As you can see above.
4) (Feb 5th keyboard removed) If you try to use the keyboard it seems to get stuck in another language. For me, that is French. Perhaps because I have a French keyboard on my laptop but I use an external US International keyboard because it is better organized for programming and hot-keys.
5) (Feb 5th keyboard removed) The keyboard popup help shows Jsvk just before you click on the keyboard button above the edit window.
(Feb 13th keyboard added) This keyboard is fake, it just opens a link so you can configure your system. It really should be moved to another location such as My Toolbox because we do not need to see it every time we open a forum post. See what it looks like here: http://goo.gl/w8ZlOI
6) (OK- Partially Fixed - vertical only, not horizontal) The new edit window no longer is expandable. For me that means I can only type 12 lines and then I have a scroll bar.
7) A preview message might be handy before submitting...
8] (KO with workaround) Formatting removes the numbering. Below I type 8 and a parentheses and text. When I save, the 8 and parentheses is removed and only the word formatting in bold remains. Workaround is to use a square bracket, anything other than the closing parentheses.
Formatting tests seem to be okay, except that it erased the eight at the beginning of this line.
Italics
Bold
9) Test of the bullet points:

• Point 1
• Point 2
• Point 3
• http://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/forum
• Link: http://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/forum

10) Test of the numbering:

1. Number 1
2. Number 2
3. Number 3
4. http://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/forum
5. Link: http://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/forum

11) Forum Menus do not default to the position where you are located in reading. You must carefully select each time you as a question so that the post arrives in the right box. This is why I messed up the post and put it in French instead of here. French was at the top of the list instead of General. I think this may be just a problem with the French, but I only have French and German to test.
New features from Feb 5, 2014
12) KO=not working Test of strikethrough.
13) KO Subscript test: ₁₂₃₁₂₃
14) KO Test of superscript: ¹²³¹²³
15) KO Underline Test

16) KO Quote test

18] KO Note that below I type 18 and ), but the 8 and the ) disappear. Probably related to the same problem above with bold formatting. The justify alignment mode appears to work fine:
18) OK Test of the justification method to see how it works. Le Lorem Ipsum est simplement du faux texte employé dans la composition et la mise en page avant impression. Le Lorem Ipsum est le faux texte standard de l'imprimerie depuis les années 1500, quand un peintre anonyme assembla ensemble des morceaux de texte pour réaliser un livre spécimen de polices de texte. Il n'a pas fait que survivre cinq siècles, mais s'est aussi adapté à la bureautique informatique, sans que son contenu n'en soit modifié. Il a été popularisé dans les années 1960 grâce à la vente de feuilles Letraset contenant des passages du Lorem Ipsum, et, plus récemment, par son inclusion dans des applications de mise en page de texte, comme Aldus PageMaker.
19) To conduct the test above, a dialog was presented for copy/paste. This seems to work fine. I have NOT tested all three methods 24) (KO with workaround) I don't like the double spaces each time I hit enter. This can be avoided by using shift+enter.
25) KO The built-in spell checker with Chrome no longer works.
More on the keyboard.
I tried their demo keyboard here:
http://debugger.ru/demo/projects/virtualkeyboard/
This seems to work, but the keyboard is open all the time while I type. Here at Rocket Languages, the keyboard opens, I type some letters, and then I click ok. I have to click ok twice. Once I click ok the second time, I can then return to typing like normal, but the keyboard I selected does not remain. And the keyboard I started the session with no longer matches what I am typing. So, simply by opening the keyboard, it re-maps every key on my keyboard for the duration of the web page. (I can refresh the page and return to my normal keyboard).
Hope those details help sort it out.
Another problem: Although Chrome works, IE crashes, when I try to open the toolbox:
http://members.rocketlanguages.com/Toolbox
It says "Internet Explorer has stopped working. Windows can check online for a solution to the problem." That is with IE 8. Doesn't seem to work.. Do I need version 11?
 

Question: How do I disable forum notifications? I follow the link on the email that I receive when someone posts on something that I had previously responded to, but I don't see where the disable option is. So now, I'm getting spammed by forum notifications for stuff that I responded to a very long time ago.

 

Check your email and try the unsubscribe link.

It would be nice to subscribe to and unsubscribe from a forum without making a post.

I for one appreciate knowing when someone has posted something new to an old topic. Sometimes it regenerates an interesting conversation, other times I learn something I did not know before. And for me anyway, the number of emails does not come close to being spam.

Dan - I agree.

Jason - awesome beta testing. you should consider sending rs the bill...

I also like getting email response when a thread is updated.  Before, the checkbox to request email when this topic is update was checked by default.  Now it appears to be unchecked.  I suggest that it change the default to whatever the user selects.  So, if I click on the check box now, it should be turned on for me when I reply or post another message.

 

This was a big upgrade for them and I think they should just roll it back until they can test it better or they should do very small changes. Maybe just the font change perhaps?

Also this is distracting me from keeping to my lessons. I'd like them to knock it off and just let me study without the distractions.

-Jason

 

The site was down again today with broken menus, no forum access, audio clips and testing tools unavailable. I would find it very kind of Rocket Languages to at least say Hi to us each day with a friendly status to let us know they are alive and well and working on resolving these technical issues.

Is there a calendar with the planning for these outages available anywhere?

Hello, I noticed the new keyboard feature so I ran another comparison, which you can review here and see above (I have re-saved the note).

Link: http://goo.gl/4KCxdv

(Feb 13th keyboard added) This keyboard is fake, it just opens a link so you can configure your system. It really should be moved to another location such as My Toolbox because we do not need to see it every time we open a forum post. See what it looks like here: http://goo.gl/w8ZlOI

Thank you,

Jason

To help your developers work out the problems, I am attaching the text that I am using from a google document. They can just paste this into their test system until they get it right and it looks the same.

Link: http://goo.gl/ohVLlv

Hope that is useful.

Good luck,

Jason

For what it's worth, I can't say I like the new look.  The font in particular is smaller and lighter and therefore harder to read.

Don't worry Byron.  The courses are only fun when listening to the animated audio dialogs. As you know, if you try to read anything on the site you will just get stuck in the trap of trying to make corrections. 

:] hope you don't mind my humor or lack thereof. It is getting better as everybody knows but only due to everybody's hard work.  I can see why Pimsleur and Rosetta Stone do not provide written material.

Suggest a cool font that works for you, please. Maybe we can ask them to change it? Something that looks good on the site and on the PDFs. 

Hi Jason,

Maybe I'm just resistant to change.  My career (since retired) was as an IT developer so you would think I'd be open to it, but it seems most new releases, particularly Microsoft, just add more stuff you don't use anyway and make it harder to find and use the things you do like.   However, I do like the new features in Rocket if not the format.

Basically I like Rocket and feel that I've more than gotten my money's worth, but yes, the written material can be frustrating.  It was worse a few years ago.  I personally sent in over 200 corrections.  

regards

 

Posting to the forum is still giving me 100 points in both French and German.

http://members.rocketlanguages.com/Members/Rewards

12:14 am Posted a reply to Proper Article 100

German: 11 seconds to open

French: 36 seconds to open

Seems a little long for both. What would be causing it to take such a long time and to be so different between German and French?

Has anybody heard anything more about the point system? I just sent a screenshot to support because now I am listed as #1 in Chinese! (Note: I do not own the chinese program)

February 16th Top 10 Points Earners

1. JasonD1

Chinese Certified

10439  <= I've never earned this many points in a day before. Maybe 2000, tops.

sigh Goonight y'all.

 

Thank you all for your patience and your input while we update our systems. Our IT team have a list of fixes that they are checking off at the moment but any major problems were dealt with within the first few days thanks to our members' great spotting! Feel free to post any bugs here (we are keeping an eye on this thread) or email us directly: support@rocketlanguages.com

Thanks again for your patience while we iron these out!

I think my last post wasn't clear. I do not own the Chinese module. So I found it funny that I had earned 10000 points in Chinese.

Another question: Why did the date format get changed?

• External View:

jasond1 – February 16, 2015, 11:50 pm

https://www.rocketlanguages.com/your-community/feedback-and-comments/new-site-appearance

• New Internal View

jasond1 ‐ ​1 day ago

http://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/forum/feedback-and-comments/new-site-appearance

The old date format is just much, much better. Why take the time to calculate an elapsed time and decide if it should show day/week/month/year?

• jasond1 ‐ 1 week ago
• jasond1 – February 4, 2015, 5:08 pm  <= I like this better

Awesome. So have you noticed a 10000 point improvement in your ability to speak Chinese? (just kidding)

The format I would want to see dates in depends on the context. In the forum, for example, I like the relative dates (1 hour ago, 1 week ago, ...). The absolute date would not be as useful to me in that context as, more often than not, I don't remember what month we're in...

Yeah, Steven, something like that.

I guess the point is that I buy courses and a refer people to the site.

That means that each buck I spend here is worth something to me.

If they spend one of those bucks to add a feature, that's fine. But if they take something away, I'm going to yell and scream. Since I'm asking grammar questions and they are telling me they are small and have little time to support the course they sold me, I certainly feel cheated a bit that they are busy creating so much more work for themselves by breaking all kinds of old posts, messing with the badge scores, and struggling with this new forum post engine. I picked a really unfortunate time to study this course.

If they really want to add an elapsed time. They can do it like this:

• jasond1 ‐ 1 week ago on February 4, 2015, 5:08 pm

Of course, that should be after my questions are answered. I did find it funny that after 5:08 pm today, the message now says (or should say if we take my suggestion to keep the full date).

• jasond1 ‐ 2 weeks ago on February 4, 2015, 5:08 pm

I'm so happy they got the plural right, but I'm sad that it doesn't round up at 1.5. Look at a calendar and you will see what I mean. Today is Feb 18th, by the way. Since after I hit save, you will never know again because it will just say "jasond1 - 0 seconds ago".

-Jason

I do hear you, Jason. I'm not sure when you joined RS, but since I've been here they have added: "Write It!", "Play It!", badge scores, an entirely new dashboard as well as testing modules - and I haven't had to pay a penny more for any of these major additions. I've also found the Help Desk to be quite responsive to my requested changes. If you get to the Spanish Platinum level, I don't believe you will find any grammatical mistakes. So yes, there are glitches but all in all, I find Rocket Languages to be a terrific example of a company proactively improving their product.

I agree with Byron.  I also find the font too small and light.  I have been hoping I would get used to it after a while but that has yet to happen.  That said I am very pleased with RS overall even though it is more difficult to read.   I have been zooming up to improve the size but it still seems too light with poor contrast.

@Karen & Byron - I agree, the old font is best.The spacing is also better. Have a look at my link below. It takes you to the old version of the web page that they still use on the external site for marketing the course.

@Steven,

You are right. Working with the help desk is an absolute pleasure. Today they can do a lot of things more quickly than they could eight years ago.

I was having trouble with the writing exercises because they were a little slow (I prefer a very fast-paced review process and I type at a good pace) and there was not a good way for me (being red-green color blind) to see the mistakes I make (quickly) and continue. They have now added an underline indicator to the Write It exercises.

Thank you!

It was something I had asked about on the forum here last year on May 27, 2014, 7:22 pm.

Link: https://www.rocketlanguages.com/your-community/general/ios-app/

I sent the issue again with some ideas to support last month and they made a compromise and added the underline below the character and the process now does less animation and is faster. I believe that should work for anybody even if they have a complete black/white color blindness/color deficiency although I think I would like to have the system show both phrases in a fixed size font one above the other so that errors in spacing and capitalization can be identified, see a numerical score for the matches and have that information all saved in the system so that I can go back and review the phrases and determine if the typos are mine or are Rocket Languages.

The forum here can be useful, but it needs to be more discussion oriented. For example, I suggest an idea and the response can be, "What did you mean by that?" or, "Can you attach a picture of what you are seeing?", or "Great idea. What do you think if we were to do, this...?". But if you look back at that thread I linked above you see just "Hi Jason - Thanks for the feedback." Keep it coming and that's all. Sort of like, saying, thanks for nothing, we are busy. Or perhaps I am too sensitive?

Does that help make it more clear?  A subscription model works fine for me. I'm sure if I pay Netflix $7 a month to watch any movie on the planet that I can afford the same for Rocket Languages. Anybody can skip lunch one day to learn a language.

-Jason

Hello again,

I ran into another problem when making this post. Can somebody have a look at underscores and find a way to display them properly, please?

Link: http://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/forum/french-grammar/je-te-rendrai

Thank you,

Jason

Hi Jason,

Thanks for the feedback. Keep it coming. (just kidding! i couldn't resist that...)

Your comments have helped to improve the site - particularly from a technical perspective (and, yes, I also am in IT along with Byron). Your contributions are most appreciated and I'll be sure to comment on them as appropriate. Thanks.

Steven

Hey Steven,

My pain with trying format a link or post a smiley face is your gain.

How might I say, "Feel free to amuse yourself!" in Spanish?

Jason

"Amuse-toi bien! Ne te gêne surtout pas!!!"

Err, I'll need to check but that may not be in Spanish... &#9786

 

Great French!

Awesome! So many "IT's here, Byron and Steven. I will add what my work badge says. My name and work title CLS and LIS. Stands for Clinical Laboratory Scientist and Laboratory Information System. Manage and do set-ups for the Lab computer system. My husband also worked with electronics and computers, more hardware rather than software. His degree is Electrical engineering. I wonder if the background in computers prepare one for language learning.

C'est du français, ça? Mais c'est dingue! Je n'avais jamais acheté Rocket French mais j'ai reçu quand même 100 000 points dans le cours et... voilà! Et ton chinois, Jason? ☺

Thanks for your help Steven, my "Spanish Hero". Too bad the forum doesn't allow us to rate replies and thereby assign a title that is "helpful" or "harmful".

By the way, support is investigating the problems with the Chinese points and the badge system. I took screenshots of the areas on Rocket Languages that were displaying this information in my account.

Seems there are some other folks that would like to type emoticons here:

http://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/forum/spanish-feedback-and-comments/smily-face

Is anybody at Rocket Languages considering rolling back this forum platform to the old one at this point? I think it would be better to setup a separate forum as a beta test and let people opt into it or opt out of it as they wish until the bugs are worked out.

-Jason

This topic came up again and somebody created a new post.

Link: http://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/forum/feedback-and-comments/forum-single-spacing

I point it out because included in that thread are some hints for the keyboard such as shift+enter to avoid the double space but also I point out some alternatives to CKEditor plus a link to their documentation.

Hi all - Thanks for the feedback on the latest changes. Unfortunately it just takes time to collate and go through bug fixes and it can be difficult to put a timeframe to some of the trickier ones. In saying that the major ones should now be sorted.

A couple of other changes; You may have noticed the My Profile page has been updated and the Rocket Scheduler now has a show/hide toggle.

We will be beta-testing some large changes in the coming months, when the time comes I will be in touch to see if we can recruit some members to participate in that.

Regarding the comments re emoticons and line spacing; I will talk to the development guys and see where it is at on their plan!

Hello,

Not having the spell checker for the forum is starting to rattle my nerves. I tend to also use the dictionary on my Mac and all of that stuff gets disabled with this new forum leaving me with just cut/copy/paste when I click on a word in this forum.

It is a simple config change to turn on the native Chrome spell checker.
Here is the stackoverflow question, if you don't mind passing that along to the IT guys there, I'm sure they can have it working for us all quite rapidly.

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/13336998/how-to-make-spell-checker-work-for-ckeditor-wysiwyg-editor

Helpful?

Hi all - Quick update; A number of fixes and improvements have been pushed live since last week, including;

• Enabled spell checker on chrome in the wysiwyg
• Enabled emoticons (emoticon dropdown menu is coming soon)
• Fixed formatting options 
• Fixed urls not being recognised as links
• Changed Double-spacing to Single-spacing

That's a lot better.
I do see the squiggly now, but I can't right-click on it to use a dictionary or open the autocorrect.

I updated my post above and it does seem the smileys/emoticons are working again. Thank you. Are there any new ones available?

Smiles:
:+)= :)  :+D= :D  :+o= :o  8+)= 8)  ;+)= ;) 

Frowns:
:+(= :(  :+'+(= :'(  D+:= D:  ;+/= ;/ :+|= :|  

Interesting:
ಠ_ಠ

Hi Jason - Right click should work properly now. More emoticons will be coming! 

Yes!

Works for me. Lovely. Thank you.  Works with the Antidote plugin now also for correcting the French!

The quote feature seems to have a super large font when published. It's visible above in the test, but I posted a question on the French forum where you can see that it has two problems

http://members.rocketlanguages.com/members/forum/conversation-in-french/subjonctif-for-5050-situations

1) No indention like it has when writing the post.
2) A font that is much larger than the standard font and larger than it shows in edit mode.

Basically it is not WYSIWYG.