What do you think about the New Message Board System ?

[Ramsburg]

Thanks for voting

[Terliso]

I like it a lot Ramsburg... thanks

[Terliso]

Ramsburg, the search button does not work well..

Let's say I'm in XNN thread at page 4 reading the recent post there & decided to go to GOAM thread right away, I just scroll up my scroll bar & typed in GOAM in the search area while I'm in page 4 in XNN thread but the thread I'm looking for would not show up. why is that, I can't go short cut?

Thanks!

[Ramsburg]

Thanks for reporting this Terliso !

I've been messing around the search code, and I will fix it asap

thanks !

[Ramsburg]

Ok Terliso, I found the issue:

This new version of SMF uses a method called «simple search», that means that:
- Searches performed inside a specific topic would just search inside that topic.
- Searches performed inside a specific board would just search inside that board
- In order to get full results, users would have to click on the «Search Tab» and use the advanced Search, or make their queries from the board homepage.

I don't enjoy this (and I think most people don't), so I've just changed the code, and wherever you are, you can search from that search box at the top of the page, and you'll find results from all the message board

regards,

[setravis]

Rams, excelentes.....
It's Outstanding ! 
3SOF just gets more awesome by the day !!

Cumprimentos

[Ramsburg]

Thanks Setravis

I'm really enjoying the potential of this new version of SMF Message Boards, off course that first we have to change all these little tweaks

The only thing I wasn't able to restore yet was that lovely «member map» feature...  But I just found a new one, that will use the Google Earth map database and will integrate it with the message board system (I will work on that during the weekend)

A few things that I'm enjoying on this new version:

- The «Private Messages» System was upgraded, a few bugs were solved, and now we can also organize our msgs with labels like we do on the Gmail system.

- For people (like me) that are accessing 3SOF from the cell phone, using the http://wap2.3stocksonfire.org link, now we can also access our Pvt Msg on the Cell Phone.

- Search engine is much more powerful (now that is finally tunned up).

- The little [] button on the bottom right of our posts, that allow us to quick edit any post on the same page

- The Who's Online Feature, now includes a special tracking for «spiders»... now we can actually see when Google or Yahoo Bots are crawling our website, and what are they gathering (this is almost like the All seeing Eye)

- The simplicity of the design (its also much more light to load)

- and a few more things

regards,

[Quasi]

I agree the new system is great and has many improvements over the old system.  And it also seems like you have a little more control over the programming and settings.

On that point I would like to bring up the search function again, I know this has also been brought up in the past, but wondering with the new software if you have any additional control settings on the output.

In my opinion I would like to see on the search output be the latest post and post date.  Currently it seems to show the start date of the Topic  and the originator.  Under the message section it seems inconsistent, could be the original message in the topic, or could be some other post, however you actually have to call it up to find out the date and what position it has in the topic chronologically.  This could be due to how SMF handles the search order request "most relevant results first", not sure what the criteria is for "relevant". An option of "most recent messages" might be nice, if possible.

The problem is when I pull up something like the following, everything seems to be old and stale on the surface.  This could also lead to the problem of why people keep starting new threads / Topics.

Example for BFLY advanced search is as follows;

- slide 1, search criteria
- slide 2, 1st match, shows topic originator and topic start date (Dec14, 2006),
message area shows the original post in the topic (Dec 14, 2006), although latest post is (Dec 19, 2006)
- slide 3, 2nd match, shows topic originator and topic start date (Oct 06, 2006),
message area shows post from (June 06, 2006), in the middle IE; many posts before and after,  latest post is (Dec 19, 2006)

- Then the "BFLY hits within messages continue in various other Topics.

Don't know if this is of interest or concern to others, I can work with it, but just thought I would ask, maybe there's something I'm missing.

thanks in advance for all the great work you guys / gals are doing here.

happy trading / investing
Quasi

[Quasi]

Hi again Frederick

Message board and / or screen width, can it be increased ??

Not sure if this should go here or not, but I can't seem to find another thread where it has been discussed.  Maybe there is just a setting somewhere I'm missing.

I normally run a screen resolution of 1024 X 768 or 1280 X 768, now with these settings the 3SOF web page only fills the middle 2/3's of the screen,  (seems like about 800 pixels).  Now I could run 800 X 600 resolution and fill the screen but I'm not that blind yet and like to scan a larger area at a time.

This is also more of a problem when viewing messages that contain charts, often much wider than the message screen and although there is a scroll bar, it  is often way down below, ie scroll down to move the bar then back up to see if I moved it far enough or too far.  (a little like my last post but didn't have time to go back and resize the images and reload, sorry).

I'm thinking this may not be an option in the message SMF system, but may be more in the design formatting of the 3SOF website in general.  IE pages and frames are set to a fixed width of 800 pixels rather than a percent width of the viewing browser.

Any help in this direction would be much appreciated.
Everything else is still great as usual.

happy trading / investing
Quasi

[Quasi]

Hi again Frederick

I'm starting to feel guilty because I'm being a pest.  But I just noticed something different at the bottom of the home page.  Under "users online" or "users logged in today", the list used to be in alpha order, which was handy.  But now it seems to be in chronological order, makes it a little harder if you're trying to check if someone is online, or if they checked in today.

Or maybe there is just another reason.??

thanks
Quasi

[Ramsburg]

Hi Quasi,

Sorry for the late reply.

No worries all feedbacks and suggestions are always welcome

Just a quick reply on your subjects:

- Search Feature: I didn't investigate yet all the options available, but I think I can setup the order by different criteria of relevance (I will take a look to this).

- The site width... hum... I have a little thing against wider websites... But you have a point here, I will think about it on the next design upgrade

- "Users logged in today", this feature is not a default feature of the SMF message board, it's a Mod that I had to install. The problem, is that the old Mod was not yet available to this new version, so I'm using a new one that doesn't have the same listing style. I'm sure this is something easy to modify directly on the php code, and I agree with you (i like the alphabetical listing).

regards