Beta Release - Thu Apr 4, 2002

[John Robinson]

ARGGH! Such a lengthy post... completely lost. (I lost my post! Grrrr Microsoft!) Let's try this again. Excuse the brevity, I'm tired of typing this message.

Installed a new beta.

Today's installment of Freeping Creaturism:

• MANAGE SUBSCRIPTIONS (Topics, your sidebar) -- order them any way you please. You must be logged in, find the "My Subscriptions" link in your nearest Personal menu (click on your name in the upper right corner.)

• REVIEW SUBSCRIPTIONS -- View all your subscribed topics in a multi-column page. Great for catching up with the day.

• STYLE SHEETS -- Now using style sheets. Those in the know can define their own style sheet to use with Free Republic. Later there will be predefined (and perhaps customizable.) See "My Preferences / Layout"

• Cut out a lot of fat. Pages are 50% lighter!

• DEFAULT BROWSER FONT / DEFAULT BROWSER COLORS. Just the default style sheet not getting in the way.

• Stylish UNDER CONSTRUCTION banner (just 6k!) and friendly message for those who wander by mistake.

• Added more links in more menus.

• Etc

BUGS and KNOWN ISSUES

• I destroyed most of the Window Target code. If you're using blank windows or a slave window, it may no longer work in the beta. THIS IS TEMPORARY and will be fixed.

• NAVIGATION is just terrible. I'm kinda lost on what to do right now. I'll hear suggestions. (I had big plans for that extra sidebar y'hear!)

• There are probably a lot more that I simply failed to list. I have a list somewhere!

COMING ATTRACTIONS

• More searching! Search by To, Source, Author, etc. Maybe even article searches. (Comment searches are a long way off... too much data!)

• Real time chat room... of some sort.

• Spell Checker... I have leads! It just may be possible. But I want a raise! LOL!

• NAVIGATION -- it's both a bug and an upcoming attraction. It really does suck, and we'll figure something out.

• Subscribe to the world. Will have the ability to subscribe to topics, keywords, forums, etc. ALSO, I have plans to implement portal boxes. Ie, have content from your favorite website delivered to your sidebar.

• ENHANCED MAIL including multiple recipients, folders, mass delete and move operations, attachments, HTML, preview, you got it. (And spell checking.)

• PHOTO ALBUM / Image Hosting -- posting program will automatically recognize when you're posting an image and allow you to upload it to FR.

• Freeper address book / contact list.

• etc... (THIS list is ENDLESS.)

[Tami]

These style sheets are fun! FreeRepublic is very purple at the moment and I have my flag border back! :)

[Dales]

Never mind, cool, I figured it out. If you use that upload program, then the URL to use is just /perl/css (I found it because apparently the reply page uses that stylesheet regardless of what you set in your preferences. Since my stylesheet changed the background color, I noticed that after I uploaded my css using that link you gave, the background on my reply page was different.

[MotleyGirl70]

I can't wait. Thanks! Your hard work always pays off.

Do you bake cookies in your ((spare time)) too?

[John Robinson]

Oops. /perl/css

[John Robinson]

I wonder how you got that flag border back? :-)

[Tami]

Hum..... I wonder!! :)

[smith288]

i liked the blue

[lds23]

Pantas Re ;)

It took a little fumblin' and a-bumblin' on my part to get used to the new format, but I'm likin' it. Thanks for all your hard work.

[RikaStrom]

John,

Do you actually sleep sometime? Or have you managed to clone yourself?

Keep up the good work, it's appreciated!

[John Robinson]

Eh, I get about as much sleep as the next machine.

[John Robinson]

I highly recommend TopStyle Pro 2.5 to edit style sheets. Wow! I never imagined any GUI tool could replace vi. Is there something like this for HTML? Perl?

[Neets]

I KNEW IT, KNEW it KNEW IT!!!!!!!! If I hung around you long enough I'd find SOME IDIOSYNCRACY !!!!!!!!!! You furniture mover, YOU!!!!!!!!!!! EWWWWWWWWWWW

[PatrickHenry]

Suggestion for the MAIL feature. The "by sender" option is excellent. Could you also add a "by recipient" button so we could examine our archived "sent" mail according to whom it went to? (This is just in case you don't have enough to do already.)

[Ms. AntiFeminazi]

Thanks for the ping!

I liked it before, then I liked the new stuff, now I'm learning that even though you made it look like it did before, the new stuff is still here...sorta, now we have another beta!

Change is good and you have created another masterpiece, imo. The possibilities are endless. THANK YOU JOHN.

I've been out all day, but will load this beta ASAP!

[xm177e2]

STYLE SHEETS -- Now using style sheets. Those in the know can define their own style sheet to use with Free Republic. Later there will be predefined (and perhaps customizable.) See "My Preferences / Layout"

I'll get my CSSes back up and working for the new Beta format, everyone will be able to FReep in whatever color they like...

[nopardons]

Thanks, John; though lowly " webbies " can't use most of this stuff.

The fixes, are greatly appreciated ! There are still a few problems for " webbies " ... such as the top of the screen is still sliced off, and there is no way to unsubscribe to forums. H-E-L-P ; please . I, for one, was " given " a subscription to a forum, which I do NOT want. I sunscribed to a forum, which I now see I do NOT want . I am unable to get rid of either. I think that the halved top of the screen is the problem. Any suggestions ? I'm just ignoring and making lemonade out of this problem ; as are other " webbies ". Loading is still kinda slooooooooooooow, but at least the WebTV units aren't shutting off any more. : - )

Again, many thanks for the quick fixes to the most egregious problems.

[Rightly Biased]

I like,
this is neat. Way to go John!
Does your family ever miss you?

[Dales]

LOL!

If you had any idea. The people who know me "in real life" consider me borderline nuts because of all my quirks :-D

[John Robinson]

Loading should be considerably faster on the beta. I literally reduced the size in half compared to the current software.

If that's not doing it, you can turn off the sidebar (My Preferences) or tweak the number of posts downloaded (My Preferences.) You can also change the number of articles displayed in each topic of the sidebar, that option is in My Subscriptions. Both My Pref and Subs are located in your Personal Menu--accessed by clicking your name in the upper right corner. OR by clicking here.

What do you mean "the top of the screen is still sliced off"? Can you give me a better picture of what is going on? On which page? It looks fine on my WebTV emulator.

And nobody can unsubscribe from forums just yet. That is a later option.

[John Robinson]

Very cool. Careful, the underlying structure is still changing.. Please, feel free to make suggestions for carving that structure to whatever is needed to make these things rock.