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[/indent]
--Percy
Author Topic:   Feature Requests and Suggestions Thread
Nighttrain
Member (Idle past 3993 days)
Posts: 1512
From: brisbane,australia
Joined: 06-08-2004


Message 16 of 236 (167484)
12-12-2004 7:00 PM


I`d like a spell/grammar checker to drop over Brad`s messages so I can correct them before reading. But, then again, some of the words are so original, the spell check might have a breakdown trying to decipher.

Replies to this message:
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 17 of 236 (167492)
12-12-2004 7:12 PM
Reply to: Message 8 by Phat
12-09-2004 4:24 AM


EvC Forum Appearance
I do like the way that the messages look on this board better than Internet Infidels or Theology Web. The black background is easier on my eyes. Will the appearence change when you upgrade, Percy?
The color scheme will remain unchanged. The most noticeable changes are the heading layout and the buttons. For the most part things remain the same, the biggest changes are in the underlying software.
One improvement I'll mention now is that the "Show last n topics" dropdown menu goes away. Through your user preferences you will select how many topics or messages you want to list per page (if you don't set them in your preferences you'll pick up the board defaults, which I think are 40 topics and 15 messages). At the top and bottom of each page are links to all the other pages. The page links are already present on the message pages, but now they'll be present on all pages.
Another enhancement I'll mention is that you'll be able to choose, again through your preferences, your own timezone, date format and time format. Those outside the Eastern US and Canada will no longer be a slave to US Eastern Time. Europeans and others who don't adhere to the US format will be able to have dates displayed with the days and months in the correct order, or can choose one of the unambiguous formats (e.g., December 12, 2004). I'm curious to see if this feature will cause any confusion, e.g., "I posted the message at 11:15 PM on 8-12-2004", which may be correct for the eastern US, but to someone in Germany who has set their preferences to the European style the message would display as 5:15 AM on 12-9-2004. Board administrators have have control over whether users can set these preferences.
One of the enhancements on my list is to allow members to choose their own appearance, including colors, fonts, font sizes, etc.
--Percy

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 Message 8 by Phat, posted 12-09-2004 4:24 AM Phat has not replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 18 of 236 (167495)
12-12-2004 7:15 PM
Reply to: Message 9 by Ben!
12-12-2004 9:52 AM


Re: Adding profile or 'recent posts' links to the 'who's online' area
bencip19 writes:
The 'who's online' area at the bottom of the page is interesting. I think it would be really useful, and easy, to add links to those names in the box to either their profiles, or hte list of their most recent posts.
Yes, it's very easy and will be done. All names currently link to their message list.
--Percy

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 19 of 236 (167497)
12-12-2004 7:17 PM
Reply to: Message 10 by RAZD
12-12-2004 11:15 AM


Re: Adding profile or 'recent posts' links to the 'who's online' area
would it be possible to change e-mail notification to IM notification for responses to posts while you are still on-line? this could ensure a continuing dialog and help those who don't use the [message list] feature on themselves.
Add IM is a priority, but the complexity of the task is unknown at this time, so it has no schedule.
--Percy

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 20 of 236 (167499)
12-12-2004 7:21 PM
Reply to: Message 11 by RAZD
12-12-2004 11:24 AM


Re: Multi-post reply capability
RAZD writes:
how about an automatic quote facility, where you highlight text you want to reply to and right click to add to reply window.
I feel this is an important and desirable feature, and it's been on my list for quite some time. I spent some time researching implementation in Javascript earlier this year. The only difficult issue is figuring out where the cursor was in the message box after you've gone off and selected text in the box for the message you're replying to. I didn't figure out the answer to this one, but I came away feeling a solution must exist. In fact, maybe I'll get lucky and someone reading this has already solved this problem!
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 11 by RAZD, posted 12-12-2004 11:24 AM RAZD has replied

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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 21 of 236 (167501)
12-12-2004 7:25 PM
Reply to: Message 16 by Nighttrain
12-12-2004 7:00 PM


Nighttrain writes:
I`d like a spell/grammar checker to drop over Brad`s messages so I can correct them before reading. But, then again, some of the words are so original, the spell check might have a breakdown trying to decipher.
Grammar checking, probably not. Spell checking, definitely, but I'm not sure when. The board used to have a spell checker, but then the company providing the service decided to start charging for it. When I reimplement spell checking it will be as an inherent feature of the board and not a service from another site.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
 Message 30 by coffee_addict, posted 12-13-2004 3:33 PM Percy has not replied

  
Ben!
Member (Idle past 1398 days)
Posts: 1161
From: Hayward, CA
Joined: 10-14-2004


Message 22 of 236 (167522)
12-12-2004 8:19 PM
Reply to: Message 15 by Percy
12-12-2004 6:53 PM


Re: Multi-post reply capability
Sure.
Thanks for being so responsive in even responding to suggestions. I appreciate that.
Ben

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Ben!
Member (Idle past 1398 days)
Posts: 1161
From: Hayward, CA
Joined: 10-14-2004


Message 23 of 236 (167527)
12-12-2004 8:41 PM
Reply to: Message 3 by Admin
12-07-2004 7:56 AM


Maintaining avatar
This is a ... weird one.
I changed my avatar the other day. Now, in all of my old posts, my avatar appears to be my new one. That's weird.
Instead of keeping a single (calculated?) link per member on their avatar picture, could you do something like this?
On update of an avatatar,
- increase the count of 'avatar changes'
- upload the new photo to [username]-[avatar-changes].[extension]
- use THIS URL for generating the avatar for each new post.
So that assumes a lot about your system (especially the HTML generation part), but .. that way the avatar wouldn't change for all posts. It's not usually important, but I think it's cooler when reading old posts and learning about the people on the board.
And it especially sucks for the threads EXPLICTLY about avatars, when pretty much all of them have changed since then!!
Ben

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Replies to this message:
 Message 25 by Minnemooseus, posted 12-12-2004 10:26 PM Ben! has replied

  
RAZD
Member (Idle past 1404 days)
Posts: 20714
From: the other end of the sidewalk
Joined: 03-14-2004


Message 24 of 236 (167531)
12-12-2004 8:44 PM
Reply to: Message 20 by Percy
12-12-2004 7:21 PM


Re: Multi-post reply capability
so
what do you do in your spare time?
you are going to be one busy dude.
thanks also for the feedback.

we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand
RebelAAmerican.Zen[Deist
{{{Buddha walks off laughing with joy}}}

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Minnemooseus
Member
Posts: 3941
From: Duluth, Minnesota, U.S. (West end of Lake Superior)
Joined: 11-11-2001
Member Rating: 10.0


Message 25 of 236 (167558)
12-12-2004 10:26 PM
Reply to: Message 23 by Ben!
12-12-2004 8:41 PM


Re: Maintaining avatar
I think you are looking for the preservation of old avatars. This would require using server storage space to store the old avatars. I don't see that it's worth it.
On a vaguely related note: Signatures.
Currently the old signatures persist - They are part of the page HTML files. I like the preservation of the old signatures.
I also like the current system, where one has to specifically turn on your signature. I prefer not to have it show automaticly. And I find those members who have long signatures to be annoying when they always post the signature.
I only post my admin mode signature when I think the info (links) are relivent to my message. I only post my non-admin mode signature occassionally, as it is rather lengthy.
Cheers,
Moose

Professor, geology, Whatsamatta U
Evolution - Changes in the environment, caused by the interactions of the components of the environment.
"Do not meddle in the affairs of cats, for they are subtle and will piss on your computer." - Bruce Graham

This message is a reply to:
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Replies to this message:
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Ben!
Member (Idle past 1398 days)
Posts: 1161
From: Hayward, CA
Joined: 10-14-2004


Message 26 of 236 (167721)
12-13-2004 1:34 PM
Reply to: Message 25 by Minnemooseus
12-12-2004 10:26 PM


Re: Maintaining avatar
I do agree that it's pretty unnecessary, just a suggestion. I would suggest that, if you're worried about space, you can reduce the allowed avatar size by a lot. 167K or whatever for like a 150X150 picture is pretty unnecessary, unless lots of people like the ability to 'blow up' the avatar picture. I personally would rather have an avatar history.
And I agree with the comments on signatures. I did make a signature when I came, but I've never used it--until now. I've been waiting for just the right moment

keep the change

This message is a reply to:
 Message 25 by Minnemooseus, posted 12-12-2004 10:26 PM Minnemooseus has not replied

Replies to this message:
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Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2


Message 27 of 236 (167745)
12-13-2004 2:34 PM


Coming soon: tables!
Creating tables of information in messages has always been difficult. You can use HTML, but you had better not include any line breaks or your table's appearance will be very strange. But without linebreaks it's easy to become lost while composing your table. So many just give up and present their table like this:
Sample Size Color Weight
Bogwan Dam 24 Red 126
York 13 Orange 132
South Orange Center 21 159
This Christmas holiday I will be releasing the world's first (as far as I know) [table] code for bulletin boards!
You'll use the new [table] code as shown in this example. It's freeform, so formatting is unimportant, the result will be the same. The "table=80%" portion means the table is 80% the width of the message itself:
[table=80%]
[r]
[h]Sample [h]Size [h]Color [h]Weight
[r]
[f]Bogwan Dam [f]24 [f]Red [f]126
[r]
[f]York [f]13 [f]Orange [f]132
[r]
[f]South Orange Center [f]21 [f]Raw Umber [f]159
[/table]
This will be rendered in your message like this:
[indent]
[b]Sample[b]Size[b]Color[b]Weight
Bogwan Dam24Red126
York13Orange132
South Orange Center21Raw Umber159
Replies to this message:
 Message 28 by jar, posted 12-13-2004 3:05 PM Percy has replied
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jar
Member (Idle past 393 days)
Posts: 34026
From: Texas!!
Joined: 04-20-2004

jar Posts Only

Message 28 of 236 (167749)
12-13-2004 3:05 PM
Reply to: Message 27 by Percy
12-13-2004 2:34 PM


Re: Coming soon: tables!
Percy
Test that for numeric justification. I wrote one once but could never get it to accurately right justify numbers, handle justification around decimals or center justify alpha entries in a numeric column for entries such as N/A or M/D (missing data).

Aslan is not a Tame Lion

This message is a reply to:
 Message 27 by Percy, posted 12-13-2004 2:34 PM Percy has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 29 by Percy, posted 12-13-2004 3:32 PM jar has replied

  
Percy
Member
Posts: 22388
From: New Hampshire
Joined: 12-23-2000
Member Rating: 5.2

Percy Posts Only

Message 29 of 236 (167756)
12-13-2004 3:32 PM
Reply to: Message 28 by jar
12-13-2004 3:05 PM


Re: Coming soon: tables!
The [table] code will translate into HTML. I can only do what HTML can do. If the features you mention can be done in HTML, then just tell me how to do it and it will be done.
--Percy

This message is a reply to:
 Message 28 by jar, posted 12-13-2004 3:05 PM jar has replied

Replies to this message:
 Message 31 by jar, posted 12-13-2004 3:51 PM Percy has replied

  
coffee_addict
Member (Idle past 476 days)
Posts: 3645
From: Indianapolis, IN
Joined: 03-29-2004

coffee_addict Posts Only

Message 30 of 236 (167757)
12-13-2004 3:33 PM
Reply to: Message 21 by Percy
12-12-2004 7:25 PM


Percy writes:
Spell checking, definitely, but I'm not sure when.
Just a thought. This board is for intellectual discussion and development. There are some people who just don't care to go back and fix obvious mistakes, and that, I believe, reflects greatly on their attitude toward the discussion. It is like going to a wedding in shorts and t-shirt.
I say we leave the spell checking to the author of the post. This way, at least some of us can tell ahead of time if we are wasting our time or not.

This message is a reply to:
 Message 21 by Percy, posted 12-12-2004 7:25 PM Percy has not replied

  
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