Search function

[Roderick Smith]

Responding to a query in Research, I used the search function today, in a 14 page thread.
The function found the posts, but did not display the accompanying photos.
Even after finding that a post exists, people are still left with scrolling back page by page to find the original, with the photo, as php does not allow jumping to a particular page.
Perhaps the software designers could be alerted to the two possible changes which would soften this problem (show the photos or allow jumping)?

Page by page with 14 is quite tedious; in other php forums to which I belong, threads can go to 100 or 600 pages.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Eddy Matthews]

The forum software we use (phpBB) has a number of problems Roderick, the search function is just one of many!!

I've been looking around for something better, but because of all the "extra" features I've added, Photo Gallery, Links Database, Download Manager, Books Database etc etc. It's difficult (if not impossible) to change to another system.

The two major headaches are the files which are attached to messages (images and other files), I doubt they can be moved if we changed to a new setup, and the second problem area is the ability to send and receive messages via email.

Having said that, I'm going to have a play around with a couple of other forum setups and see just what can be done, if anything? It will take a LOT of work, but the situation will only get worse the longer I leave it... Hang on in there whilst I see what can be done!

[Roderick Smith]

Thanks Eddie, but the work should fall to the php people, not to you.

All of my groups are either yahoo (increasingly known as yahell) or php.
I don't see that changing to a third type would be worth the effort.

Arrogant google runs its own groups, but nothing to which I belong uses them.  It claims to have taken over usenet, and does a truly horrible job of presenting usenet compared with using a genuine news server; I don't trust google with anything forum.

Some workarounds:
* Keep on starting new threads as a topic changes, and don't allow any thread to go beyond 6 pages.
However, this runs into a problem where a major topic (like the build your own steam engine) runs well past 6 pages.  The problem now is to know which of the many threads to which to go.
* Keep posts short, to minimise the number of new pages.  This mustn't be to the detriment of content (which is why we post and read).  The only part which could be sacrificed is repetition of an existing post.
* Go back and post-edit your own posts to remove the parts which have lapsed (eg asking a question, when the answer has now appeared, or speculation subsequently shown to be wrong).  This is tedious, and doesn't save much space.

When time allows, I intend to post an index to the two lengthy APAM threads to which I have contributed (I have posted an index to half of one thread, but it is now buried in the thread in its own right).  However, it will be of limited benefit knowing that a particular boat was on page 5 if you can't jump to page 5.

Regards,
Roderick B Smith
Rail News Victoria Editor

[Eddy Matthews]

Thanks Eddie, but the work should fall to the php people, not to you.

Probably about half the code that runs the site has been written by me Roderick, so I can't really go running to the authors of phpBB and ask them to modify things that don't work correctly....

All of my groups are either yahoo (increasingly known as yahell) or php.
I don't see that changing to a third type would be worth the effort.

Any new setup would still be php based - That's just a programming language... But a change would hopefully add a lot of new features that are lacking in phpBB, and eliminate a lot of the bugs, such as those on the search function.

Some workarounds:
* Keep on starting new threads as a topic changes, and don't allow any thread to go beyond 6 pages.
However, this runs into a problem where a major topic (like the build your own steam engine) runs well past 6 pages.  The problem now is to know which of the many threads to which to go.
* Keep posts short, to minimise the number of new pages.  This mustn't be to the detriment of content (which is why we post and read).  The only part which could be sacrificed is repetition of an existing post.
* Go back and post-edit your own posts to remove the parts which have lapsed (eg asking a question, when the answer has now appeared, or speculation subsequently shown to be wrong).  This is tedious, and doesn't save much space.

I understand that your workarounds are trying to help Roderick, but I don't really see them as a practical solution. I still feel that a change of software is the best way to go in the long term - Having said that, it would take quite a while for me to implement the change, and it may mean Paddleducks was offline for a short period.

When time allows, I intend to post an index to the two lengthy APAM threads to which I have contributed (I have posted an index to half of one thread, but it is now buried in the thread in its own right).  However, it will be of limited benefit knowing that a particular boat was on page 5 if you can't jump to page 5.

You can jump to a page, but as new posts are always added to page 1, the page number you need to jump to would change over time as more posts were added to the thread - I don't think there is an easy solution for that one whatever software we use?

I'll give it all some serious thought over the next few days, and see what options we have...