Two requests

As a start, let me say that Midnite and I really appreciate the fact that you've all been posting and IMing so much. Having this new forum turn out to be a success has been very rewarding. It's made all the work to get it up and running that much more worthwhile. And we couldn't have done it without you. But (you just knew one of those was coming ) sometimes there is such a thing as too much of a good thing. When I was recently making a backup of the forum's systems and files, I noticed some things that probably should be mentioned so that we can keep the forum running as smoothly as possible.

First, I can't say how glad I am that so many members have been taking advantage of the IM feature. We haven't had it on any of our other forums, and it's a great way for people who may not know each other's e-mail addresses to be able to privately communicate off forum. And mostly everyone who has been using it has been very good about clearing out their inboxes. However, I have a feeling that not many of you realize that you can also clear out your outboxes because many members' outboxes seem to be getting bigger and bigger. This really wouldn't be all that important if we were still using VantageNet or eboards4all because it would be space on their servers that was being taken up, and their worry. But now that we're hosting our own forum on our own domain, it's something that we need to be mindful of.

Clearing out your IM outboxes is just as easy as clearing out the inboxes. When you open up your IM page, you'll notice that across the top there are links for  "Empty Inbox," "Outbox," "New Message," "Receive New Messages," & "Preferences". When you get to a point that you want to clear out your outboxes, click on "Outbox". What will then come up is a listing of all the IMs you've sent to other members. Just like your inbox, you have the option to either delete all the messages you've sent (by clicking on "Empty Outbox") or only individual ones (by clicking on the word "Remove" in the last column on the same line as the message you'd like to clear out).

Now, I can certainly understand that sometimes you might want to keep a copy of some of the messages you've sent or received. And that's why I'd also like to take this opportunity to mention that there is an upgrade for the IM feature that would allow members to

• save their IMs in a compacted folder (which would take up much less space on the server)
  
• have a status display indicating whether an incoming message is new, was read or answered already
  
• have a popup window or sound notification if you have new messages (or you can turn both off)
  
• and have a Message Review which would allow you to reply to your messages

If this sounds like something you might be interested in having installed on the forum, reply here or by e-mail.


Secondly, we need to address the the topic of quoting from posts. The ability to quote was one of the features of this system that really sold it for us, but it's also a feature with a few drawbacks. The biggest among them is that it can really slow the system down, chiefly because a large amount of quoting causes topics to take much longer to download. (And it can also cause topics to take up too much space on the server.) Again, it can be a case of too much of a good thing. So let me impart a few tips:

When quoting, please try to include only those passages that you're directly responding to rather than quoting the entire post. I know some members have been having a little trouble trying to figure out how quoting works on this system. And if you're someone who has never worked with HTML, that's completely understandable because YaBBC is based in part on HTML. So, by way of showing an example of how I responded to a few different points that Vlad had brought up in a post on the Testing, 1, 2, 3... board, I'm going to try to show how easy the quoting feature really is once you get the hang of it.

Here's a portion of my reponse to Vlad as it appears on Testing. 1, 2, 3...

============================

- Is there a way to search for previous posts by a given poster.

Yes - but you have to be a little clever.

To search for all of Ben's posts, type a period in the "Search for:" field, type "Ben" in the "By User" field, and then choose "search for topics posted in by somone" from the drop-down menu.

- Any chance that Robservations could be posted on this board?

That's entirely up to Robin. But If she'd like to post them here, I'm sure that could be arranged.

- Just out of curiosity, does the "number of views" shown for each thread indicate the number of views that thread has had on THIS board, or does it include the number of views the thread also received on the former board?

Only this board. We had no way of knowing how many times a thread was viewed on eboards.

============================

And here's how it was actually done:

Code: [Select]

[quote]- Is there a way to search for previous posts by a given poster.[/quote]
Yes - but you have to be a little clever. ;)

To search for all of Ben's posts, type a period in the "Search for:" field, type "Ben" in the "By User" field, and then choose "search for topics posted in by somone" from the drop-down menu.

[quote]- Any chance that Robservations could be posted on this board?[/quote]
That's entirely up to Robin. But If she'd like to post them here, I'm sure that could be arranged. [winkg]

[quote]- Just out of curiosity, does the "number of views" shown for each thread indicate the number of views that thread has had on THIS board, or does it include the number of views the thread also received on the former board?[/quote]
Only this board. We had no way of knowing how many times a thread was viewed on eboards.

Now, you don't actually have to worry about this part here:

Code: [Select]

[quote]

because the system automatically does all that for you after you click on the word "quote" in the post you want to respond to. (All that part in the middle: "link=board=test;num=1015031019;start=0#0" is only something that the system uses internally, and as you can see in my example, only the author's name and the time/date he/she posted is displayed in your reply.) In fact, the feature will quote everything that the poster you're responding to included in his/her post. Highlighting individual passages of the post and clicking on "quote" will not quote just that passage. It's up to you to remove the passages that you're not actually replying to. If you want to respond to more than one passage in a post, then you have to do it the way I did:

Code: [Select]

[quote]- Just out of curiosity, does the "number of views" shown for each thread indicate the number of views that thread has had on THIS board, or does it include the number of views the thread also received on the former board?[/quote]
Surround the other passage(s) with the quote opening and closing YaBBC tags.

YaBB is set by default to delete topics after they've been on the forum for only 28 days. I've disabled this because Midnite and I want topics to stay on the forum for as long as possible so people can search them if they're looking for particular info or just want to check out what we've all been saying. So, by quoting only what you need to in order to get your own points across, you'll not only be taking up less space on the server, but you might also be helping someone else enjoy your response a lot longer.

Thanks for reading all of this. I know I seemed to go on and on. But the issues are important ones. And trying to follow these requests as often as possible should make reading the forum a more pleasant experience.

The (long-winded, but only trying to be helpful) MB

Thanks MB sounds good have to go over to testing can't seem to get that quote thing to work!

jennifer

Thanks a lot for the information, MB.     Since I am still a "Newbie" here, I appreciate the info so I know what to do here.

By the way, is it just my computer, or does this topic seem to have V-E-R-Y L-O-N-G lines??

I really like the "Personal Message" feature here.  I thought I would be able to keep them ALL forever.  Can I?   If you'd rather have me delete the messages, I would be interested in....

an upgrade for the IM feature

  If you do not install the upgrade, I guess I could save them in a document file on my computer.  Please let me know.  Thanks.

----- Sally -----
    

Hi, Sally - I really appreciate you bringing this up because a few things have changed since I posted those two requests back in March 2002. For one thing that was three systems ago. Back then we were using YaBB SP, which was very different from the present system because it consumed a huge amount of bandwidth, and it was very important that people delete their personal messages. However, it's not really that big an issue anymore, so you can feel free to keep your messages here on the forum if you'd like. In fact, the system we were using just prior to this present one featured a backup folder where you could store your older personal messages. Hopefully that feature will be reintroduced in this system soon. (And as an aside, all the messages that people had stored in their backup folders are still in the database. The only reason they're not presently accessible is because they're stored with a code that indicates they're in a folder other than the inbox and outbox. Once the backup folder is reintroduced, they'll be accessible again.  )

However, one thing that definitely hasn't changed is what I'd written regarding overquoting in replys. We'd really appreciate it if everyone would please try to include only those passages that they're directly responding to rather than quoting an entire post. Limiting quoting will not only store less information in the database, it will help topics display quicker and it will consume less bandwidth. And the nice thing is that even though we're using a completely different system now, my original explanation about quoting still applies.

By the way, is it just my computer, or does this topic seem to have V-E-R-Y L-O-N-G lines??

Actually, it's the browser you're using. IE in particular doesn't display the code tags correctly. What people should be seeing in this topic is a bit of text with a horizontal scroll bar below it, similar to this:

But in IE people could be seeing anything from the scroll bar with no text above it to one or even several extremely long lines that cause their browser's display to disappear way off on the right side of their monitor's screen. 

I know I'm guilty of over-quoting sometimes...sorry about that.    Slowly but surely, I'm learning. 

Thanks for the reminders...

Bowing before your greatness,

Heather

Is it correct that Netscape 7.0 is the preferred browser in this forum?

I'm using Firefox 0.9.2.  It's been really good.  I also enjoy moving around the bar icons and getting rid of things I don't use and adding things I do.  The ad killer is excellant.   I also love tabbed browsing.  (Using one window for multiple urls.)

Is it correct that Netscape 7.0 is the preferred browser in this forum?

Almost any browser other than IE is preferable, specifically because other browsers will display the forum correctly. About the only advantage IE has is that the glow and shadow features work in it but not in any of the others.

I'm using Firefox 0.9.2.  ...  I also love tabbed browsing.  (Using one window for multiple urls.)

Netscape and Mozilla also have that feature. But then, Firefox is very closely related to both. 

What is tabbed browsing?

You can click on a link and instead of it opening in a new window a "tab" of the previous window and a "tab" of the new window appear at the top of the browser but each page shares the same window.  You can toggle between "tabs" by clicking on the one you want to see.  You can have numerous "tabs" open at the same time.

Thanks MB glad that you and Midnite are pleased with us all. We try to do
our best and make it easier on your jobs.
                   Love Anne