1. Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by DanM Mar 06, 2009
- 1020 views
1. Move "Post" over to the right after "Return to Message List", so people will be less likely to hit post when they might prefer to preview their message.
2. Have four sections of the forum,
- Beginners
- Experienced
- Developers
- Forum Problems/Improvement
specifically so beginners would be less likely to be confused or turned off by arcane posts unrelated to beginners questions.
For those who don't like multiple forums, could add a button or preferences option that re-combines the four into one for their particular access.
3. Have buttons to click on to make selected text bold, etc; and some better way to break up quoted text other than manually going thru and adding/removing quote tags (which often results in "broken" posts, which I know I have accomplished on occasion, and others also); and have a selection of smileys that can be clicked on to place into text.
4. And a built-in spell checker could be...interesting.
Dan
2. Re: Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by jeremy (admin) Mar 06, 2009
- 1034 views
How timely! I am working on euForum right now. I'll incorporate as many of these changes as I can. If anyone else wishes to add in their feature requests, do so now!
btw... What I had envisoned for multiple forums is, not multiple forums, but a category. Here's what a post form would look like:
Subject: [Installing wxWidgets - Howto?___________________________]
Category: [wxWidgets________ +]
Body: [______________________________________________]
[______________________________________________]
[______________________________________________]
[Preview] [Post]
Now the Category is a combo box. It will default to "General". Further, the main message list will have the same combo box for a selection but will also include an option (which will be the default) titled "All".
The problem with Euphoria and Multiple Forums right now is that EuForum does not see enough use to warrant seperate forums and seperate forums would create a forum system that looks dead. For instance, the last post on wxWidgets would be a few days old, on database programming may be 50 days old, etc...
What do you think about this idea?
About the "Preview" and "Post"... I hit post all the time because it's quick but later realize, I should have previewed first 
... The updated forum is going to allow the original posted the ability to edit their post w/in the first 30 minutes. I was considering doing as the wiki does, force a preview before accepting the post, but I wonder with the ability to edit the post, if that will be enough?
Jeremy
3. Re: Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by Fendaril Mar 06, 2009
- 998 views
The first thing jeremy must do is add an edit button.
4. Re: Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by Fendaril Mar 06, 2009
- 993 views
Oh and a post count would be nice also. I take back my above post since I didn't read it through clearly.
5. Re: Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by jeremy (admin) Mar 06, 2009
- 990 views
Oh and a post count would be nice also. I take back my above post since I didn't read it through clearly.
What do you mean post count? There is a total number of threads, or if viewing message subjects a total number of messages. Each post has the number of replies listed as well.
Jeremy
6. Re: Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by DanM Mar 06, 2009
- 973 views
How timely! I am working on euForum right now. I'll incorporate as many of these changes as I can. If anyone else wishes to add in their feature requests, do so now!
Great! 
btw... What I had envisoned for multiple forums is, not multiple forums, but a category. Here's what a post form would look like:
Subject: [Installing wxWidgets - Howto?___________________________]
Category: [wxWidgets________ +]
Body: [______________________________________________]
[______________________________________________]
[______________________________________________]
[Preview] [Post]
Now the Category is a combo box. It will default to "General". Further, the main message list will have the same combo box for a selection but will also include an option (which will be the default) titled "All".
The problem with Euphoria and Multiple Forums right now is that EuForum does not see enough use to warrant seperate forums and seperate forums would create a forum system that looks dead. For instance, the last post on wxWidgets would be a few days old, on database programming may be 50 days old, etc...
What do you think about this idea?
Well, I see your point, I guess. I assume that the category name would appear with the subject in the list of posts?
About the "Preview" and "Post"... I hit post all the time because it's quick but later realize, I should have previewed first ... The updated forum is going to allow the original posted the ability to edit their post w/in the first 30 minutes. I was considering doing as the wiki does, force a preview before accepting the post, but I wonder with the ability to edit the post, if that will be enough? Jeremy
Yes, I like the poster edit idea, maybe allow an hour, but I also think it wouldn't hurt to separate the post and preview by putting Post over to the right side. Might also consider implementing a flag, so that if poster has NOT previewed a message, Post would go to preview, but would just post if preview the message had just been done manually. Some might hate that, though. Could even put an automatic spell checker in the Preview, too.
And someone mentioned before, "sticky posts", that's still a useful idea.
Dan
7. Re: Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by Mike777 Mar 06, 2009
- 999 views
I would vote to defer other changes to the Forum until a fully functional search/filter is implemented. IMO that is the single most important feature not yet operational. Of course, I can see the argument that other features will affect the search programming task (such as category) and therefore to the extent they do I can see an argument for developing them first. But please keep the search function high on the list of needs.
8. Re: Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by jeremy (admin) Mar 06, 2009
- 1004 views
I would vote to defer other changes to the Forum until a fully functional search/filter is implemented. IMO that is the single most important feature not yet operational. Of course, I can see the argument that other features will affect the search programming task (such as category) and therefore to the extent they do I can see an argument for developing them first. But please keep the search function high on the list of needs.
Searching is of high focus. So is many enhancements to the user create, login, forgotten password, etc...
Jeremy
9. Re: Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by DanM Mar 06, 2009
- 993 views
How about a button "View All Unanswered Posts"?
Dan
10. Re: Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by Kat Mar 06, 2009
- 994 views
I would vote to defer other changes to the Forum until a fully functional search/filter is implemented. IMO that is the single most important feature not yet operational. Of course, I can see the argument that other features will affect the search programming task (such as category) and therefore to the extent they do I can see an argument for developing them first. But please keep the search function high on the list of needs.
I disagree. I wasted days of coding and computer time to make every word of every contribution in the archives wordsearchable, and my work isn't used, it's useless. I downloaded every .zip, i unpacked every one, i indexed every file, i wrote the search engine, i think 3 people have ever used it. It's ~1gigabyte, 24,233 files in 2690 folders. Search results are nearly instant.
And they are correct. Searching for "procedure kacau(" in RDS archives returns 16 results, but they are all wrong, there's no such procedure in the files listed. There's actually "procedure kacau(" in 11 files in the archives. It's the same .e file in multiple .zip files. So my search returns correct results, RDS'a archive search is 100% wrong. No one is complaining about that. Adding the forum to my search would be merely an addition. And i think it may be as useful. As in not used.
Don't bother, Jeremy.
useless
11. Re: Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by jeremy (admin) Mar 06, 2009
- 971 views
How about a button "View All Unanswered Posts"?
Dan
Excellent suggestion.
Jeremy
12. Re: Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by DanM Mar 06, 2009
- 983 views
Kat, where is your search facility?
Dan
13. Re: Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by Kat Mar 06, 2009
- 971 views
Kat, where is your search facility?
Dan
It's now only in Tiggr, my irc bot. It is still active. I just now did:
[11:38] <katsmeow-afk> !eu help
[11:38] <[TiggrBot]> I have several !eu commands for looking up things in the archives: help ; search ; searchapp ; searchapps ; show ; showline ; more
[11:38] <katsmeow-afk> !eu help showline
[11:38] <[TiggrBot]> I have several !eu commands for looking up things in the archives: help ; search ; searchapp ; searchapps ; show ; showline ; more
[11:38] <[TiggrBot]> !eu showline ~file ~startline ~howmany , shows lines read from the ~file, starting at ~startline. If ~howmany isn't specified, one line will be read.
[11:41] <katsmeow-afk> !eu searchapps kacau
[11:41] <[TiggrBot]> There's 11 applications found...
[11:41] <[TiggrBot]> Looking for applications containing kacau , I find it in these files: \shgetfileinfo\ , \qhtm\ , \operasifile\ , \kontrolaktif\ , \keyboardlock\ , \inifile\ , \hotkey\ , \fmod\ , \demotester\ , \cityscape\ , \bz2\ ,
Still works too, i'm surprised, i usually delete code that's useless. Yes, i know there might be better ways to spec the parameters of the search, or better search commands, but who is using it?
useless
14. Re: Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by DanM Mar 06, 2009
- 955 views
Kat, where is your search facility?
Dan
It's now only in Tiggr, my irc bot. It is still active.
<snip>
Yes, i know there might be better ways to spec the parameters of the search, or better search commands, but who is using it?
Kat,
Are you willing / able to make it able to work on forum posts, and submit it? If it were here where people could see it, then I'm sure people would try it and give constructive feedback. I know I would.
I've tried the existing forum search, and it is pretty much useless, as it seems only to search on the SUBJECT of posts, rather than the CONTENT.
Dan
15. Re: Forum Improvement Suggestions
- Posted by Kat Mar 06, 2009
- 1019 views
Kat, where is your search facility?
Dan
It's now only in Tiggr, my irc bot. It is still active.
<snip>
Yes, i know there might be better ways to spec the parameters of the search, or better search commands, but who is using it?
Kat,
Are you willing / able to make it able to work on forum posts, and submit it? If it were here where people could see it, then I'm sure people would try it and give constructive feedback. I know I would.
From what i am told, the servers Euforum and RDS run on will not allow the space for a pre-munged db, nor the cpu time to build an answer from scratch on demand. This forum has been down several times just today from other domains on the shared host eating all the cpu time.
If you mean a program that people can download and make a local copy of the archive and euforum, and am *really* sure the hosting companies would bankrupt RDS over the bandwidth used if everyone suddenly downloaded every file on both domains.
I've tried the existing forum search, and it is pretty much useless, as it seems only to search on the SUBJECT of posts, rather than the CONTENT.
Dan
[/quote]
Yeas, frustrating isn't it? To do it right may take more than the hosting co is willing to allow. I think the forum is a larger dataset than the archives, but i am not sure. I am sure it's more files, if each post is a separate file (may not be stored that way, maybe it's in EDS, i don't care or know). Also, the forum is rife with misspellings (even people's names are misspelled occasionally, heck i once typo'd "kat"), whereas the files in the archives must have at least the Eu language keywords spelled correctly.
There's ways around nearly all problems, but without at a bare minimum a host with spare cpu and/or abundant bandwidth, i don't think merely uploading my code and the db will help, and is likely to severely hurt the useabilty of the forum and/or archives.
Anyhow, while the db is premunged by Eu code, the irc server is in mirc because it was the fastest way to get it online, code is available at http://euphoria.pastey.net/109621 . And before you say mirc cannot be used on http for euforum and the archives, Tiggr has a threaded multitasking http server inside her, written also in mirc but that's offtopic.
useless
