Entertainment For Lively Minds
Modest Enhancement?
Posted by Twangothan on 10 August 2011 - 10:24am.
I love the site and have been here for a long time. Indeed, I remember the previous grey version. But a little enhancement would make it perfect for me - there's no quick way of scanning all the site's activity on one screen. I'm just back from hols and could do with being able to see all the posts in single line format for the last three weeks, a bit like Track but showing everything. Is there any way of doing this?
- More from Twangothan.
- Login or register to post comments
-
Modest Enhancement?
I saw this heading and immediately thought it was a spam for Viagra :-)
Me too
I thought Max Gentleman had signed up.
Not in any way that's meaningful
I could provide a list of added content, but post titles very often don't give you a clue to what a post's about, as yours shows. In the long run it's probably more informative just to browse through the blog pages.
Sorry, I wrote that (below)
as you were writing...
I agree...
errr, not about the viagra bit.
Things disappear too quickly especially and if someones writes a really long post it just shunts more topics off the front page.
Unless you have contributed and can "track", or don't neccessarily want to mark every topic as a favourite then some good threads get shunted away.
Fraser, how about showing the topic only on new posts or limit the text to the first paragraph with the rest following in the comments?
Naah
Most post titles aren't precise enough to able to describe the contents that follow. It would only end up with people having to make a second click to decide whether they were interested. At the moment, they don't have to.
"...if someones writes a really long post it just shunts more topics off the front page." No it doesn't. The front page always displays the same number of posts.
As for offering the first paragraph only, it's not an option because doing so would create issues with the display of embedded videos or posted images.
How's about this then?
Set a character/line limit for OPs, as you do with Nights In/Out (25-30 lines should be enough to give people the gist of a post). Then, if we're doing an epic and run out of space, we just click on a "Continue prattling on in Comments" button, which automatically posts what's been written so far and takes us straight to the comments field so we can carry on.
Would that be technically feasible?
There's a difference
We don't allow HTML in Nights Out etc. If it's allowed, as it is with blog entries, having a character limit will truncate any HTML that occurs at the break-point, resulting in broken pages.
If anyone's doing an epic post, I'd advise doing what we suggest in the posting guidelines - write the first paragraph, then continue in the comments, letting people know that that's what you're doing.
How do you mark a topic as a favourite?
I didn't realise topics I'd contributed to show up in 'Track' that's very useful as there was something I wanted to go back and have another look at but couldn't find it again as I couldn't remember how long ago it was.
Click "add to favourites"
It's at the foot of every post.
Doh!
I knew it would be obvious. I was looking at the comments rather than the original post (that's my excuse anyway).
Could I remind you all of the facility to use RSS feeds.
RSS feeds will give you exactly what you need, no need to change anything.
I did a video a while ago which Fraser added to the FAQ. I am also happy to answer any other questions you may have about it. Give it a go and ask me questions in the comments.
http://www.wordmagazine.co.uk/faq/ look for the video about half way down.
Yes
This ^
I wondered when RSS Man would pop up.
For anyone who wants a lecture - Thames Valley Summer Mingle 19th August! :-)
RSS
That would be useful. What a crap technology. I have invested hours in trying to get Google Reader to do ANYTHING useful and failed. I am prepared to beIeve I'm the problem here but it has gone onto the Doesn't Work pile for me.
RSS
Provides a much more elegant solution for this than I could possibly come up with, especially if you're using Google Reader. What are the issues you have with it?
Well
It never seems to update. And you can't delete old items once you've looked at them. I just rewatched Vince's video and I'm going to have another go, but guess what, if you click on the RSS item on the iPad it opens some Apple reader, you don't get the link to copy. So I'm going to try setting it up on Google Reader on the PC and see if Mobile Reader can see it. But this is the thing. Should it need all this sodding about? I just want to see what I missed when I was on hols!
Sorry, not sure what to suggest
It updates, and you can delete stuff once you've read it. I monitor about 60 feeds using Reader for one simple reason: it's so much more straightforward than using the websites. But maybe it's only obvious once you've got your first feed working as you want.
This just in
Just set it up on the PC, and you're right, it is just the job. On the iPad though it still only downloads the last 10. anyone know how to get all to download?
How do you delete from Google reader then? I get feeds (say) from Jobserve and having read them, if they're not interesting I just want to delete it. But I can't see how.
Cheers
HA!
Suddenly it just did it. Maybe the subscription was catching up! Fab. now I can waste hours reading old posts.
I never got the ipad one working well
so I downloaded the Feeddler app and plugged in my google reader details - much more elegant solution for tablets and still syncs back to google for reading on other places.
You can delete them en masse
(just click the "Mark all as read" button), just not selectively, which is probably what you want. I think there might be a way of doing it with keyboard shortcuts, but I ain't sure.
in your browser
set the view to "Show unread" then as they scroll off the top of the screen, they will be marked as read and will disappear. They are still there if you click "Show All" but that's the Google way, they never delete anything really.
Just to see if Fraser is checking..
I'm going to do a Rude Words post.
BUM WEE POO WIDDLE PLOB JOBBIE FRONT BOTTOMS BACK BOTTOMS BIG HAIRY WILLIES
Bet he doesn't see it.
Bet I do
That's an automatic response.
Triggered by the use of Front Bottoms.
The rude words filter must be circumvented.
Wee wee pants knickers David Hepworth done a big guff.
See if that works.
RSS feeds...oh, sorry, can't make the 19th now...
washing my hair...just kidding Vince..
I suggest Fraser knocks up a script
that automatically prefixes every thread title with 'ATM:'.
This is a brilliant shorthand that ensures only users of the Word messageboard reply to threads and prevents irrelevant replies from members of 4chan and mumsnet.
And I'd like to see more YouTube clips with no text attached to them.
Doesn't need to be complicated
Fraser, I know the titles are a bit obscure. However, if you want to go back, say, 3 months, there's no way to do it without grinding through every page. Most dull. Obviously you could make this incredibly complicated with mouse hovers and what not, but a simple "Show all" button at the bottom of Track would be perfect.
It's not that simple
A simple "Show all" button on that particular page would be very simple to design but an enormous amount of work to implement due to the way the data is outputted onto the page. If there's evidence of an overwhelming demand for such a feature I'd look into it more fully, but for the time being it's going to remain near the bottom of the to-do list.
"ATM"
I've been puzzled about this for a while: what does it stand for? My first guess was At The Moment, but that is probably wrong.
Ask The Massive
calling on the knowledge, experience and goodwill of your fellow Word Bloggers!
ATM
If you were to write a title such as 'Advice on Headphones', half the board wouldn't understand it and most of the remainder would think you're talking about the title of an obscure Genesis LP.
Whereas 'ATM: Advice on Headphones' makes it foolproof.
In films designed for solitary gentlemanly enjoyment..
It means something very different. And rather rude.