The "Forum ideas / Bugs / Request" thread

Yes, enabling HTML would be nice, (its enabled on my forum, and I've never had any problems) also could you recode the MBBS Code link on the 'Post a message' into a popup?

Nick

HTML isn't going to happen. No way.

If you know what you're doing you can write things into the forum that will track other users and even initialise malware. Plain No.
I've written a new front end for the default MBBS templates on the beta and submitted it to the CVS system. Irrispective of whether it goes into the final release I will install it onto Factor.
That will provide a degree of 'ease of use' for those who don't know the bbs code... but my feeling on it is that it's a forum, not a word processor.

The BBS Code I will have written as a popup in my 2.2 beta impliementation, the 2.1 code is final here and I'm not touching it now.

People have no need to be posting php code onto the forum, I will probably add a code tag in the 2.2 bbs code list.

Why write [img]http://www...[/img] when you can just write [ img=http://www...] it's just extra work.
List elements are [ *=####]

There is a bug in the BBS code list and how it displays the markup.. for some reason it adds / \'s into it.

Ok, no HTML, no problem.

Oh good, a Pop-up version, yay! and a Code bit, even better.

Nick

Does email notification work for anyone? I can't get it to work...

Hacking isn't in the realm of the general user, it's in the realm of those who wish nothing more than to inflict pain and damage onto other people.
First rule of security, don't open a hole, don't invite a problem.

Secondy there's the issue of people not closing tags off properly and it upsetting the site (too many or too few /tables> commands and bam.

Edit:
Email notification only works if you have a @hpcfactor.com mail address. It's a known problem, with more detailed comments already in this thread if you want to swot up.
This wont be fixed in 2.2, it'll need a hand rewrite of the email system.

Thats my suggestion right out the window straight away!



Thanks for clearing up the List situation. I followed your online help guide (did you write it?) and the lists just wasn't clear to me. I followed the right tag as appeared, but no go!
So, my suggestion is to write a tutorial, as shown before. That should make newbies easier to understand the code. As for the tags, I was thinking of those that are migrating from vBulletin system which uses different tags, hence the confusion I once had. Adding tags that do the same job (You never know! ), then you can have that compatiblity with other users.

Anyway, who has used a different set of tags on forums than this one? I know I have!

BTW, I do home I am being constructive here, rather than destructive!

Edit: I think you worked out a solution around my idea. Tags are easy to remember, its just when you get the OOBE (I.e. Signing up and using the forums for the first time). Without turning the forums into a word processor, then maybe there should be a window that newbies have to refer to, or the words [color=green]TAGS HELP[/color] somewhere on the posting page? The Trainz forum also has tag buttons, which help quite well, you press the button, a popup box appears and you type in your informaiton.

The problem is that Auran have more resources, so I don't know if my suggestions are going to be viable, but I defiently think an easier tutorial is needed. Perhaps one that is "idiot proof"?

Edited by Wessex_nut 2005-08-13 6:25 PM

Hey,

Yes of course I see your comments as being constructive. I always love to hear feedback and opinions from the people that visit the site. It is after all, your site - it's just a load of programming without the people who use it (a rather important load of programming to me anyway).

If you mean this as the guide:
http://www.hpcfactor.com/forums/help-mbbscode.asp

Then no I didn't write it, it's generated ad-hoc from the database based on the bbs mark-up that I've programmed into the site, and the hard coded base defaults. It has problems though, hence the /'s.
You are right, that needs to be cleared up - My first want there though is to see it fixed as an API bug so that all PD9 users have the fix, not just Factor. At this moment in time I can tell you that this is still broken in the current beta release.

I can appreciate why you want to see vBul mark-up, as you're obviously more experienced with it. I use a whole host of BBS's (PD9MBBS, Ikon, Invision, phpBB, Snitz, vBul, smaller less well known ones, and even some custom writes), and mark-up varies.
Including BBS code that covers all bases sounds like a great idea on paper. However the reality is that every character which goes through the post or edit system has to be vetted by the server, the more BBS mark-up, the more loops it has to perform, the more server time is taken up with posting.
A universal BBS code standard would be something W3C should look into under SGML - one that advocates using the least amount of characters as possible to initiate post processes.

Ok then, how about a POP account that anyone can view, but not send from?

Nick

And subscribe it to every thread and every PM... you're talking 1,250 mails a week times 775 users

I'm positive Insurgent would love me if I did that

Users please be aware that we have wiped out the PM Sent Items for the users who made the top 10 for the most messages stored in their PM account. This is just Sent Items, Inbox content has not been touched.

To other users I would like to ask that they spend a few moments once they've read this to go into their PM area, and clear out any unneeded messages from Inbox and Sent Items.
Please by all means hold onto anything that you need.

The object of the excercise is simply that we have an astronomical number of PM's sitting in the system at the moment, which is slowing down processing times.

Many thanks,

Regarding the email thingie, I would be happy to chip in with the coding part. As far as technical issues, it should be absolutely doable ... just need some time.

As for load constraints, it should be manageable with some policies, like ...

* Maximum number of threads subscribed
* Delayed / daily digest email instead of individual emails

Note that emails should not be such a big issue as emails will be sent out only for active threads that are subscribed to.

What do ya all say?

no problem for me sorry not to have checked it for a while now.

Snappy!,

The forum kernel will need to be able to communicate with the SMTP server before anything can be considered in that regard. I haven't even looked at integrating it into the kernel.

It's certainly doable as there are other services on the site which have been hand written from scratch to interoperate with the SMTP.

cmonex,

Yours was one of the accounts that my process earlier scrubbed

Some of you will have noticed that the forum was down tonight.

I had to take it down because the index manager seems to have given up maintaining the thread ordering of the forum database. Which is going to be problem for us.
The site's too big, the forum's too big, the server's too creaky.

Apologies to anyone inconvenienced, hopefully all 'missing' posts have surfaced now.

CELEBRATE

Ladies and Gentlemen, I have FIXED the e-mail system

w00t!!!!!!

Oh yea, oh yea, oh yea, oh yea!

You should bea ble to recieve SMTP notifications on subscribed threads and received PM's