[chris (OP)]

Hello everyone - here are the latest updates / upgrades to the forum for you to be aware of:

1) "POSTS" from the top menu has been modified; it now has a drop-down which offers two options. "Unread Posts" will create a list of all of the new posts that you have not read since your last visit / login. This is a nod to @David Cooper who specifically requested having this function. Hope you like it David! The "My posts" option in the drop down returns a list from your profile of threads you have created or threads you have posted in. You choose by clicking the tab on the left in your profile.

2) PROFILE WALL - every user now has a personal "Wall" onto which other users may post or leave messages. Please note that newbies and very junior members cannot post on other people's walls until they reach a certain post threshold; this is to stop spam.

3) LaTeX and GREEK SYMBOLS - I have restored the extra character set and symbols (in green above the posting box) and also reactivated the LaTeX system so that you can post maths symbols / equations. The figures in black above the posting box insert the relevant LaTeX into your post, but you need not be confined by these options, they are merely there as a guide. You'll see how the LaTeX is constructed and can then alter it to suit your purposes.

That's it for this week.

Please do let me know of any requests or changes that you would like to see and I'll do my best to implement them.

Chris

[David Cooper]

Hi Chris,

I think you'll have to give up on it - that's still not the kind of list that I was looking for, and I don't think you're ever going to be able to find a way to make the new software provide it either. It's just giving me a list of all threads with posts on them that I haven't read regardless of whether I've ever posted in them or not, so instead of reducing the time it takes to hunt down unread posts in threads I've posted to, it's multiplying the scale of the task by magnitudes. The old software could provide a list of threads that I had posted in which had subsequently had other people post to them and which I had yet to view - that made it easy to catch up on all the missed action that might be important for someone returning to the forum after a long absence, and what made it so useful was that you could take your time looking them up over many days with each one that you read being eliminated from the list the next time you open it so that you don't keep looking up the same ones over and over again when you can't remember which ones you've read and which ones you haven't looked at yet. But the odds are that I've caught up with all the ones that matter anyway, so it isn't worth putting any more effort into trying to create this functionality in the new forum software - the "My Posts" does the job well enough for most purposes, the only faults with it being that I occasionally open threads from it and find that I've already read the latest posts to them, and that it links to the first page of a thread instead of the last one (or the page with the first unread post in it), but these are minor issues and it isn't worth putting time into trying to change them - that is a job for the designers of forum software, and you should not be landed with it.

[chris (OP)]

There's no pleasing some folks. 

Okay, thanks for the feedback. I'll see what I can do to implement this. It's largely a MYSQL call. Let me work on it some more...

[jeffreyH]

Can we have a 'next weeks winning lottery numbers' button? I know it's a big ask. If you feel it is too difficult I think everyone will understand.

[David Cooper]

There's no pleasing some folks. 

Okay, thanks for the feedback. I'll see what I can do to implement this. It's largely a MYSQL call. Let me work on it some more...

Chris - I've pleaded with you several times in PMs to give up on it as it simply isn't worth the effort and time that you're putting into it. It all started from one little comment in a reply after you asked me what I thought of the new forum software, and I only mentioned it to indicate the scale of my lack of complaint as it was the only thing I could think of that was in any way a backward step. I can manage without it, and so can everyone else. It now takes more effort to get into "My Posts" than it did before and that's going to annoy everyone, so the thing that most needs doing now is to remove the new "Unread Posts" option.

[chris (OP)]

UPDATE 29/5/2017 This week's updates / fixes:

1) Quote (selected)

Formerly, when quoting from previous posts it was possible only to pull in the entire post; of course you could edit or tweak this, but it was time consuming.

I have implemented a selection option so that you can highlight a portion of text and then choose "quote selected" from the drop-down "Action" menu, or from the choice of quotes printed below the reply box when REPLY is clicked.

quote_selected_1.PNG (19.71 kB . 962x336 - viewed 25094 times)

quote_selected_2.PNG (25.66 kB . 920x427 - viewed 25019 times)

This inserts JUST the selected text within the quotation scripts, which is much easier to use and saves time on further manipulations or editing. Clicked without selecting any text will import the entire post within quotation marks.

I know that it is all working properly in Chrome. I would appreciate reports from users of other browsers to ensure compatibility and that there is no unforeseen impacts on the posting function.

2) BUDDY PAGE

Accessible via the "MEMBERS" heading in the top bar menu, the BUDDY PAGE provides a quick way to locate the users that you have nominated as "Buddies". You can add someone to your buddy page by clicking on the buddy option in their profile.

3) FOR FUN: SPOILER ALERT and DICE ROLL

dice-roll-spoiler.PNG (9.76 kB . 524x89 - viewed 25011 times)

Two new BB codes in the reply box, a spoiler alert button, so you can hide content until a reader wants to reveal it. Also, a dice roll function, which might be useful for generating random numbers for some discussions.

Guidance for using the dice function:

1d6 - rolls 1 6-sided dice.
2d12+5 - roll 2 12-sided dice and add 5 to the result
2d20^10 - roll 2 20-sided dice, re-rolling any result necessary so that the dice rolls are greater than 10.
2d20v10 - roll 2 20-sided dice, re-rolling any result necessary so that the dice rolls are less than 10.
2d20<10 - roll 2 20-sided dice, discarding any result where the roll was not less than 10.
2d20>10 - roll 2 20-sided dice, discarding any result where the roll was not greater than 10.

Normally it will add the word 'Rolled' in front - you can customise this. For example, a spell that does some serious damage in a game: {Freezing} 1d10 {Fire} 1d20

You can also nest the requirements, with the proviso of stating the things as they are in order here.
{Uberdamage} 15d100+10^10v90<80>20 - 15 100-sided dice, adding 10 to the result, rerolling anything 10 or less, rerolling anything 90 or higher, and if after that, you have values 20 or less, or 80 or higher, they get dropped.
 
Lastly you can also have an iterator at the end:
2d6x3 - roll 2d6 3 times and display the results overall

Note - you need to enclose these roll instructions within roll /roll tags (generated by highlighting the text and clicking the dice icon) and then posting to create the dice throw. And please note - if anyone tries to load the dice aka cheat or edit a post, it will know!

[chris (OP)]

SPECIAL EXTRA UPDATE 29/5/17

This is a special update for @David Cooper :

The old software could provide a list of threads that I had posted in which had subsequently had other people post to them and which I had yet to view

I believe that I have now got this working, David. You can access "Unread replies" under "POSTS" at the screen top:

Unread-replies.PNG (21.38 kB . 530x253 - viewed 27597 times)

This will provide a list of the posts in which you have previously been active and to which others have since added further posts.

[And David, for a valued member of our community, a bit of time spent sorting this out is a worthwhile investment as far as I am concerned. It's likely that other people would like this function too.]

[David Cooper]

I believe that I have now got this working, David.

Thanks Chris - it works this time, and unlike the "my posts" option, it also provides direct access to the last post instead of only linking to the first page of posts in a thread, so it'll be my first port of call on every visit from now on. It's going to be really useful.

[chris (OP)]

Hurrah, I made @David Cooper happy! And I've been using the "Unread Replies" function myself all day, so thanks for throwing down the gauntlet!

[chris (OP)]

UPDATE 30/5/17

Just a minor change to highlight; I've implemented a system to flag up the original poster "OP" in a thread. The person who begins the thread now has (OP) after their name wherever they crop up in said thread. This is so that, in long threads, you can keep track of who said and asked what a bit more easily.

[chris (OP)]

UPDATE 31/5/17

I have made a few changes today;

To summarise:

1) Top-bar menu alterations:

A number of options have been moved about to streamline the menu.
"Buddies" now sits beneath "MEMBERS"

"Lonely Topics" which is the list of posts without answers, is found under POSTS

2) BOOKMARKS

I have implemented a function to allow users to bookmark their favourite threads; you click "Bookmark" from the green toolbar that runs across the top / bottom of each thread; this generates a list of bookmarked threads which you find by clicking "My bookmarks" under POSTS.

To "unbookmark" something you use the same button (which becomes "unbookmark" OR, you can kill the bookmark from your "My Bookmark" list.

That's all for today folks!

[chris (OP)]

UPDATE 8-6-17

Just a minor upgrade this week; placeholders have been added to the "Subject" and "Tags" text boxes in the posts / replies area.

This is to help members to remember to phrase their thread titles as questions to save the Mods having to change them ( ) and also to encourage forum members to add "tags" to your threads.

Tags are useful: I am adding them to the "keywords" section in the page code, which helps our search to locate relevant pages, and they form part of the tags cloud available from the top menu. This helps other users to track down posts they want to read more easily.

Thanks everyone

Chris

[chris (OP)]

UPDATE 9/6/17

"My profile" returns 

One more minor update for you this week. I have added direct access to your forum profile via the top menu. Clicking on "MEMBERS" at the top reveals a drop down with access to the profile categories.

This enables you to edit your biography, change passwords and also access other information and statistics. I quite like this function:

https://www.thenakedscientists.com/forum/index.php?action=profile;area=statistics;

You can see where you tend to post most, and when.

[David Cooper]

I have implemented a function to allow users to bookmark their favourite threads; you click "Bookmark" from the green toolbar that runs across the top / bottom of each thread; this generates a list of bookmarked threads which you find by clicking "My bookmarks" under POSTS.

I looked for this when you first announced it, but still can't find any bookmark option on the green toolbar, so I thought you might want to know - all I see is Reply, Unnotify, Mark unread, Send this topic, and Print. Perhaps it's a browser issue of some kind - I currently use Chrome, but it's an old version that doesn't update any more as I'm still using Windows XP.

[chris (OP)]

I looked for this when you first announced it, but still can't find any bookmark option on the green toolbar, so I thought you might want to know - all I see is Reply, Unnotify, Mark unread, Send this topic, and Print. Perhaps it's a browser issue of some kind - I currently use Chrome, but it's an old version that doesn't update any more as I'm still using Windows XP.

Thank you, David. I have investigated and discovered that this was caused by a permissions problem. Not all users were granted default access to the bookmarks function. This has now been fixed.

You should now see at the top (and bottom) of a thread:

bookmark_pic.PNG (19.16 kB . 667x249 - viewed 27481 times)

[David Cooper]

Thanks Chris - it's there now (as is the "My bookmarks" option under "Posts" which had also been missing until today). I will try them out.

[chris (OP)]

10/6/16 - UPDATES & FIXES

A minor fix to report today.

A report was made a few weeks ago of a potential problem with the "registered links" system, which requires visitors to login to see link texts in posts. The intended function is to remove external links within posts and mask them with a "...sorry, you cannot view external links. To see them, please REGISTER or LOGIN". It turned out that in situations where users had inserted multiple sequential links into a post, the code was truncating the text between the first and last link.

E.g.
"Some text - <link was here> Some more text - <another link was here> Last bit of text" was ending up as "Some text - Last bit of text".

This has been fixed. Posts should render in full save for the obfuscated links. (thanks @timey who reported the issue)

[chris (OP)]

UPDATE 18.06.17

No major structural or functional changes this week, but I have taken care of a few minor formatting niggles:

1) Unsightly abutment of advertising banners against the bottom borders of controls or text-entry boxes in several places has been fixed through inserting of some margin pixels.

2) Near-invisible text colour on the TITLE of any POLLS was making the actual poll question unreadable. Fixed and changed to black text.

3) Name of the user in MY PROFILE was near-invisible owing to near-white font on a white background! Font colour converted to black; now you can see the user's name!

4) Minor tweak to the template for the homepage fixed the fact that the default metatags "description" was a bit sad and lacked any useful information; this has been fixed with a nicer description summary of what we are all about here on the forum.

That's all for the forum at the moment, although elsewhere on the site at large I have put in quite a bit of time sorting out the taxonomies that link the various parts of the Naked Scientists site and the site tree together. These were a bit of a mess so the breadcrumbs for some categories / site sections were not always displaying properly. This is now largely all fixed (just a few final ones to finish).

That's the lot for this week; do please report here any issues or problems you spot around the site and I'll endeavour to fix them.

[chris (OP)]

UPDATE 25.6.17

Hi folks! This week's updates and fixes are relatively trivial.

1) Minor changes were made to the display of the tagging system; below each thread you will have seen a list of tags:

TAGS-UPGRADE-pic.PNG (12.71 kB . 517x279 - viewed 24569 times)

The formatting has been altered to make the layout less cramped and also text colour has been changed to blue for the tags themselves to improve readability.

I would encourage everyone to tag their posts, please. This helps because I am inserting these tags into the "keywords" metatags of the pages, which helps the search function to find relevant content, and you can use the tag cloud via the "TAGS" button at the screen top to find relevant active content tagged with items that interest you.

Having this kind of taxonomic logging of the forum content helps enormously when things grow to the size of this website.

2) Other minor changes to format and ad layout, details of which I won't bore you with, have been made as part of my efforts to continue to improve your user experience.

That's it for this week; thanks for your continued support.

Chris

[chris (OP)]

25/6/17 - ADDENDUM UPDATE

Additional update for this week (I got this completed sooner than I anticipated, so I am announcing it here now).

Users can now send attachments with their personal messages. This works in a way analogous to sending an email attachment.

Look below the text box in the send PM section and you'll now see an option to attach a file:

Attachments-to-PMs.JPG (68.11 kB . 1173x717 - viewed 24456 times)

The messages are encrypted, but they are stored on our server, so I cannot take responsibility for the security of the data that you transmit this way.

I hope that you find this function helpful.

Chris