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Free Republic Software Update for November 25th, 2003 (Update #4)
Posted on 11/25/2003 5:17:51 AM PST by John Robinson
Edited on 11/25/2003 7:59:47 PM PST by John Robinson.
[history]
Terse report for now:
- NEW By popular demand Browse All Forums (Search is on the todo list.)
- FIXED The pager now alerts on new comments to you in any forum (it used to only alert for the News/Activism forum.)
- CHANGED General Interest now General Interest (Chat).
- I added color to the sidebar, tell me (politely!) what you think.
- Lots of misc. things under the hood.
There are a bunch of add'l changes/additions I'd like to make, and this is probably not the last update today. I'll update this thread if so.
Update #1
- You can choose your own color for each topic subscribed in your sidebar. See the subscriptions gadget (All but blue is probably dog ugly. Feel free to suggest new color schemes in standard web hexadecimal (one color for the background of the title the other for the background of the links)
Update #2
- A few trivial changes, mostly cosmetic.
- You can now search by time or relevance from the latest posts. And it remembers what your last search was and defaults to that. So NOW order by time can be your default search setting.
- Oh yeah, almost forgot, SPELL CHECK! (replies for now, articles will come later.)
Update #3
- New Posts to You from You has been vanquished. New posts will only alert when other people ping you.
- Playing with the position of the Spell check button. Sorry.
- Your personal menu has a new small treat inside.
- Fixed a couple bugs dealing with the spell check code.
- I'm not done yet.
Update #4:
- Okay, I have stopped dorking with the link colors. Back to the defaults they go. Thanks for baring my experiment, I figure it's the least you owe for All Forum posts. ;-)
TOPICS: Free Republic; Front Page News
KEYWORDS: adminlectureseries
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To: general_re; John Robinson
What if you were to automatically generate keywords? You could take the article text, run it through an automatic summary generator, filter out really common words from the resulting summary (I, you, he, him, they, your, we, a, an, the, and, or, that, his, my, her, et cetera, et cetera), and then index whatever's left as a set of keywords for the article.I don't know that much about database programs in general, and less about Perl in particular, but I wouldn't be surprised if that capability was built in (or readily available in library functions or add ons). I don't see any reason to make such an index visible, however, even if it still produced matches in association with keyword searches. I like the idea of keeping keywords that users consciously select separate.
How about a "add more keywords" button on the article post page? The user could supply his own keywords (or not) and then click the button. The function would then create a page listing suggested keywords that could be added with a check box (like with the topics list). Or maybe this "add more keywords" page should come up after the user clicks the post button, in which case it might be called "add/review keywords".
The suggested keywords could be generated from a combination of the following:
- Highly unique words in the article
- Fuzzy or soundalike matching with user supplied keywords (which would help to catch misspellings and/or provide for variant spellings of words like "al Qaeda")
- keywords commonly associated elsewhere in the database with user supplied keywords and unique words from the article
101
posted on
11/25/2003 8:10:03 AM PST
by
Stultis
To: John Robinson
Thanks for the good work.
102
posted on
11/25/2003 8:15:37 AM PST
by
ex-snook
(Americans need Balanced Trade - we buy from you, you buy from us. No free rides.)
To: sweetliberty
What does this mean???
Windows
Most browsers are capable of creating new browser windows. You may elect to allow the forum to create new browser windows when clicking marked links. Links which are programmed to open in another browser window will be marked with a ^.
Self Links will not be opened in new browser windows.
Blank Marked links will be opened in a new browser window.
Slave Marked links will be opened in a single "slave" browser window. This allows one to leave open a list of articles in the master window, while reading the articles in a slave window.
103
posted on
11/25/2003 8:26:41 AM PST
by
Mo1
To: Stultis
My initial take is that it's better to have automatic keyword-generation and user-defined keyword creation be complementary and additive, rather than relying on the user to vet the system's list, or vice-versa. That way, you can get the best of both worlds - the system can go through and hit the obvious keywords without omission, and the user can hopefully spot higher-order concepts that the machine can't.
Plus, you can make the automatic generation totally invisible to the user in that case - it would look exactly the same as it does now, where you post the article, add your keywords, and then hit "submit". Then, after that, the system generates its own keywords, and simply adds them to the user's list, sans duplicates. Index all the keywords, user-defined and automatically generated, create a Boolean search facility for the index, and you'll have a fairly powerful way of finding and retrieving old articles. Add wildcard searches of the index, and you'll be an unstoppable searching force ;)
104
posted on
11/25/2003 8:29:22 AM PST
by
general_re
(Take away the elements in order of apparent non-importance.)
To: John Robinson
Hey John .. I have a question
I use to be able to put a color in the background of my profile page
now it's just White
How can I fix that??
105
posted on
11/25/2003 8:30:11 AM PST
by
Mo1
To: Mo1; John Robinson
Hey John .. I have a question I use to be able to put a color in the background of my profile page
now it's just White
How can I fix that??
That was experimental; I guess John abandoned that when he did the latest update.
106
posted on
11/25/2003 8:35:43 AM PST
by
steveegg
(Voter ID? Since Craps Doyle vetoed, RECALL - countdown is now 36 days)
To: steveegg
Bummer .. I like the background color
107
posted on
11/25/2003 8:39:26 AM PST
by
Mo1
To: steveegg
I have another stupid question
that pager pinger thingy .. do have to load it up every time I sign in .. or will it automatically boot up?
108
posted on
11/25/2003 8:41:16 AM PST
by
Mo1
To: Mo1
He will add it back when he can filter out a MS only attribute that allows for the possibility of malicious code.
109
posted on
11/25/2003 8:41:41 AM PST
by
smith288
(Did you even look at yourself in the mirror when you left the house??? Ugh)
To: Mo1
Try
this link. If that doesn't work, click on your name in the corner of the latest posts page and get the menu page. Select "preferences" from your menu page. Scroll down to where it says "windows" and that gives you the option of opening pages in a new window. I have mine set that way, but I usually just right-click on the title and select "open in new window." That way, I have a bunch ot windows open I don't have to worry about the link opening in one I already have open. I do the same thing to post a reply, then I don't lose my place on the thread.
110
posted on
11/25/2003 8:42:47 AM PST
by
sweetliberty
("Better to keep silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.")
To: Tijeras_Slim; HairOfTheDog; ecurbh; Wneighbor; John Robinson
You mean it's not General Interest (Hobbits 24/7)? :)BWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!
One by one it will destroy them all...
111
posted on
11/25/2003 8:46:43 AM PST
by
Corin Stormhands
(All we got left in the Hobbit Hole is spam, pride and arrogance. / www.wardsmythe.com)
To: John Robinson
"I'll see about fixing that soon. It annoys me to no end."
THANK YOU! And the fact that it annoys YOU too...helps. I like those kind of 'motivators'...!
112
posted on
11/25/2003 8:48:58 AM PST
by
justshe
(Do you trust a Democrat to protect America?)
To: John Robinson
Nice job.
(Search is on the todo list.)
I STILL say the default search option should be 'by post time' rather than 'by relevance'... For one thing, I have *never* wanted to do a search by anything other than reverse chronological order; and secondly, computers are a lot better at understanding 'order' than 'relevance.'
113
posted on
11/25/2003 8:54:19 AM PST
by
Sloth
("I feel like I'm taking crazy pills!" -- Jacobim Mugatu, 'Zoolander')
To: John Robinson
Thanks!
114
posted on
11/25/2003 8:56:29 AM PST
by
P.O.E.
(To Be or Not To Be. What the heck kind of question is that?)
To: John Robinson
whatever happened to "beta" FR where we could use style sheets to control colors and layout? I really liked tinkering with it ...
115
posted on
11/25/2003 8:57:58 AM PST
by
fnord
(Never ascribe to malice that which can adequately be explained by incompetence)
To: John Robinson
user-defined colors assignable from the subscriptions page. I might hack that in right nowExcellent!
(I was about to say the 'blue' looked too much like another site, almost thought I hit the wrong link ;-)
116
posted on
11/25/2003 9:00:19 AM PST
by
StriperSniper
(The "mainstream" media is a left bank oxbow lake.)
To: Mo1
Seeing I don't use the pager, I think you have to load it up every time you log on.
117
posted on
11/25/2003 9:01:11 AM PST
by
steveegg
(Voter ID? Since Craps Doyle vetoed, RECALL - countdown is now 36 days)
To: John Robinson
No search capabilities on "browse all forums"....or am I asking for the moon?
Neglected to say.....I like the colors of the sidebar menus....like the changes you have made....THANK YOU!!!!!
118
posted on
11/25/2003 9:12:24 AM PST
by
justshe
(Do you trust a Democrat to protect America?)
To: John Robinson
Another little GUI fix
The border around the search form looks kinda goofy with all that white space on the right...perhaps you should put it in a table and then border the table (and not make it 100%).
I also dont think its wise practice to utilize the FORM for styles unless referring to it through classes.
119
posted on
11/25/2003 9:12:52 AM PST
by
smith288
(Did you even look at yourself in the mirror when you left the house??? Ugh)
To: John Robinson
I like the color! But can we soon edit this area:
Forums (Browse All)
------------------------------
Campaign Central
General Interest (Chat)
News/Activism
Religion
RLC Liberty Caucus
The Smokey Backroom
VetsCoR
and eliminate the ones we don't want, etc., or put it all at the bottom...problem being it pushes the headlines down a bit too far. (since I have this chance to speak to the wizard!) Sorry if I'm just Mac-challenged over here.
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