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The new forum software is now running. If you like, you can keep using it more or less as you always have, but there are some new features like, formatting buttons, several different thread display formats and optional user accounts. (Notice the "Login / Accounts ]" at the top right.
Account User's Guide
By request, I've kept most of the accounts from the Betas. (All the ones that looked like serious/non-test accounts.) If you created an account for fun, and it's still there and you don't want to use it, please let me know.
Please let me know about bugs.
Coming next: account-holders can ask for guest directories which they can manage themselves. Until then, you can keep sending things to me and I'll put them in your guest directories.
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Looking good so far ;-)
Bob
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I like the new features - particularly the ability to display/scroll through an entire message thread, saves a lot of clicking...
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Very nice look, Dave!
The sequence of posts is much more readable!
Very comprehensive input form
Dave, do you intend to implement a dynamic filter (as in the archives) ?
For example: Display all messages except those containing "C......n"
Have a nice day!
Etienne
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Quote:
Dave, do you intend to implement a dynamic filter (as in the archives) ?
For example: Display all messages except those containing "C......n"
It took me a while to figure out what "C......n" meant :-)
That wasn't on my list because this is the first time anyone has asked. I'm not 100% sure you're serious, but if you are, I'll add it to the list of things to think about for the next version.
I've been hoping that the whole "C......n" thing will taper off on it's own.
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Very nice, Dave! I like the very clean design - it's a huge contrast to other forums and exceptionally easy to read.
Best,
--- Les
[http://www.lesbell.com.au]
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Thanks for your efforts in providing a nicer and safer place for us all. I've just created my account!
Best Regards,
Gerson W. Barbosa (formerly GWB)
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Hi, Dave;
congratulations may sound a bit small close to what you`ve done. In fact, to what you`ve actually been doing.
Again, you are doing what you can to offer us all a better place to discuss some of the subjects we like most. I confess that for me, the existence of the forum itself is already a gift, so rearranging the space and giving it a new 'furniture' is somehow beyond the best. Thanks!
I feel sorry not visiting the Beta Forum as much as I`d like to.
Best regards from Brazil.
Luiz
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I like it that the entire thread is shown. I never thought about that. I do miss the old red and purple "(new)" highlights. Can that be re-written in the next version?
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You should see (new)s when you come back. A cookie needs to be set which indicates which messages existed the last time you visited. If you don't, please let me know.
There are only red ones now. Let me know if that's not OK. I'm not sure how I would do purple ones in the new system, but I can look at that if it's a problem.
The old (news) were generic to everyone and just indicated the most recent messages posted. The new (news) tell you which ones have been posted since your last "visit" began. (A "visit" is considered over if you haven't browsed in over 30 minutes.)
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Everything functions great. That'a some tight work man.
RE: the purple ones. Any (new) in a storm i say.
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Dave, this new forum software looks excellent -- I particularly like the "private e-mail" feature and the use of cookies to keep track of what's been read.
However, I also second GE's comment about it now being much harder to know exactly which articles have been read within a thread. I hate myself for asking more when so much is already given for free, but still, I think it would be a nice option to be able to view threads one article at a time, so that the browser's visited-link highlighting will show you exactly which articles in a thread have been read (in the index/daily view).
Meanwhile I can probably cope by simply reading everything new whenever I log in. :-)
BTW, how have you implemented the forum? Just curious (I've done web applications using JSP in the past but I'm always interested in other ways of getting the job done).
- Thomas
P.S. I love the formatting buttons on the Edit Message page!
Edited: 4 July 2005, 11:35 a.m.
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Quote:
I hate myself for asking more when so much is already given for free, but still, I think it would be a nice option to be able to view threads one article at a time, so that the browser's visited-link highlighting will show you exactly which articles in a thread have been read (in the index/daily view).
This is possible: search/personalize: Display Messages = Individually.
Quote:
BTW, how have you implemented the forum? Just curious (I've done web applications using JSP in the past but I'm always interested in other ways of getting the job done).
It's Perl and CGI. That's the only system I've used for web apps so I can't really compare it to anything else. Perl is not the most visually appealing language but it gets a lot of jobs done quite easily. If I were ever going start over, I would spend some time looking at other choices including PHP which seems quite popular now for this sort of thing.
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Dave, I did not expect to get the new "Forum dress" so quickly.....
Congratulations: everything seems to work fine - the new look is clear, functional and effctive.
Please, let me take the opportunity to say that this forum is the best I've ever read or participated on the Web. All the people here share the same interests with unique professionality and fellowship - to me, even being substantially a newcomer into HP world, it never ever seemed to be considered less than any other contributor, either senior or junior.
Thank you all and a special mention for Dave Hicks!
Cheers.
Giancarlo (Italy)
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Hi Giancarlo,
I don't know what you are excactly doing, but to me all your posts appear as a single (sometimes extremely long) line per paragraph in a non proportional font. This makes reading extremly difficult. Are you using the [pre]-Tag for your posts?
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Hi Marcus.
You're right: looking at my previous message, it was not formatted as I expected to be.
I think I was wrong about the following:
when I write some longer sentences in the posting window, I see
that there is a sort of "automatic" newline when I reach the
border of the window, so I thought it would turn into real
newlines in the final message too.
In the present message, I pressed the "Return" key just before
reaching the window borders, so I expect everything should look
better (I'm gonna check).
Thanks for your point.
Cheers.
Giancarlo (Italy)
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Giancarlo's posts have [pre] codes around them, as if he pressed the Preformatted button. Giancarlo, if you didn't put that in yourself, please let me know. Preformatted is meant for code listings rather than normal text and (example)
exactly
shows the text
as you typed it in. (This block was surrounded by a [pre] and I intentionally typed it all
over
the place
with spaces and returns in strange places to demonstrate.)
On other hand, if you use preformatted for a listing, then it looks nice like:
label code
code
code
code
Edited: 5 July 2005, 11:29 a.m.
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Here's Giancarlo's original post with the original [pre] ... [/pre] blocks removed and couple of double returns entered for paragraph breaks. (I could have done single line breaks by pressing Newline or entering [nl] too.) To do this, I just clicked Edit on the original post and then cut and pasted into this post. (Anyone can click Edit to see anyone else's codes. You just can't save it unless you're the original poster.)
Dave, I did not expect to get the new "Forum dress" so quickly.....
Congratulations: everything seems to work fine - the new look is clear, functional and effctive.
Please, let me take the opportunity to say that this forum is the best I've ever read or participated on the Web. All the people here share the same interests with unique professionality and fellowship - to me, even being substantially a newcomer into HP world, it never ever seemed to be considered less than any other contributor, either senior or junior.
Thank you all and a special mention for Dave Hicks!
Cheers.
Giancarlo (Italy)
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Hello Dave.
I used the preformatting tags indeed (as I do in the
present message), but I did not insert any
line break before the border of the message posting window.
A couple of questions:
1) I tried to edit my "one-long-line" message in the thread
about the 15C new bezel, but I did not succeed in saving
the edited message - seems due to a password problem.
I'm not sure I understood what the real reason was....
2) is it there a way to use/show a font different from the one
my browser let me use when writing a message?
Thanks.
Cheers.
Giancarlo (Italy)
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Quote:
Hello Dave.
I used the preformatting tags indeed (as I do in the
present message), but I did not insert any
line break before the border of the message posting window.
That explains why it was so wide then. On the other hand, this message appears too narrow because it has so many line breaks and is also inside a preformatted block. Preformatted is meant for code listings where line breaks and white space must be exactly preserved. It's not meant for paragraphs of text.
Quote:
A couple of questions:
1) I tried to edit my "one-long-line" message in the thread
about the 15C new bezel, but I did not succeed in saving
the edited message - seems due to a password problem.
I'm not sure I understood what the real reason was....
I'm not either. When did you do this? Where you logged in or did you type your name and password?
Quote:
2) is it there a way to use/show a font different from the one
my browser let me use when writing a message?
Depending on your browser, you may or may not have a choice. You probably have at least some control. However, if you are trying to use this to make line breaks in preformatted messages appear in the "right place" then it's hopeless. Other people may have much wider or narrower browser windows and totally different font sizes so if you use preformatted, some people will find your text too narrow and some will find it too wide no matter where you put your line breaks. Without a preformatted block, your text will flow to whatever size the browser allows until you press Enter twice to start a new paragraph or [nl] to enter a line break. Try changing the width of your browser window, and notice how the other messages in this thread reformat themselves to fit different window sizes.
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Quote:
I'm not either. When did you do this? Where you logged in or did you type your name and password?
Oh, now I understand. I thought you were referring to the message above in this thread and you should have no trouble editing that one. However, you meant an earlier post that was:
- posted without a an account... and...
- posted without a password
These messages are still un-editable in the new software because there's no way to verify whether you are the person who created them.
Edited: 6 July 2005, 12:39 p.m.
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Dave, it would seem that although individual messages in a thread do have different message numbers (the read=XXXXX at the end of the URL) it is not now possible to actually get individual messages without getting the whole thread. This is not a problem when reading via browser but it confuses my automated download. Cheers, Tony
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It would probably be better to select the individual display of messages or the compressed listing of threads (Both under Search / Personalize) Either of those should make the number of main page links = to the number of message pages.
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Yup it does but an anonymous "get" of a message url now gives the thread. Before it used to give the message only.
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I guess that's due to the new defaults. In the old software, the single message per get was the (only available) standard; now it is an option that has to be selected with a cookie.
If Dave were to change the defaults to the old behaviour, you'd need no changes on your side. Otherwise, your "get" software needs to provide the cookie in the HTTP header. Dave just needs to tell you what his software expects.
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That's true. Please let me know if it works any better for you now.
If not, I will need to know more about your software to make further attempts.
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Dave,
I just noticed that the new software isn't too well suited to my own usage pattern:
I have more than one machine but the forum software stores my reading history and preferences in cookies on every machine, not in my profile (I have an account).
For me it would be nicer if my setup were stored in a central place, not separatly on every computer I use to browse the net.
Marcus
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I'll put that idea on the wish list. I think it's possible but non-trivial. Hopefully the new software is no worse than the old in this regard. The old software didn't store anything personal so the (news) were pretty "generic".
I've also added "Mark All Read" at the top which wasn't meant for exactly this but might be somewhat useful anyway.
Edited: 6 July 2005, 2:47 p.m.
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