Free Republic Software Update for November 25th, 2003 (Update #4)

[John Robinson]

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. ;-)

[Admin Moderator]

This is the fun part of programming! Maybe to be consistant black for all borders. You're doing fine and all the minor details will work out. I like swatch 7. But, have some fun, make everything white. hehehe.

[LikeLight]

Okay - it's fixed! Thank you JR!

On the width of the side bar, it's a toss up. Wider gets you more vision of the thread titles, but, of course, you give up some width on the threads on the left side, so you lose some vision there. A toss up really.

[Dog Gone]

So far, blue, gray, camouflage, and swatch 7 are keepers. And the experiment in underlining has thankfully failed.

But I can't find another color scheme, even the San Francisco Magenta, that works for my other sidebar.

[Salvation]

**I added color to the sidebar, tell me (politely!) what you think.**

Not bad -- actually OK with me.

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

John, I just LOVE the new Browse All! It's my new home!

I should say, the old Browse All, since that's how FR used to be. Way back in the olden days. :)

[John Robinson]

I made it a little fatter because on my screen General Interest (Chat) took two lines. Yech! YMMV.

[bjcintennessee]

I haven't read all the comments here, but I absolutely love it that "New posts to you" no longer reflects my own comment.

May I suggest one other shortcut? If you were to add the users homepage option at the bottom of the comment pages where "browse", etc. are, it would save having to go back to "Activism" or wherever before being able to sign off.

[2nd amendment mama]

Love the new look. Especially love the new search (by date)...THAT ROCKS!!!! Spell check is very appreciated!

Thank you John for all your hard work.

[smith288]

I think you need a relative check

This makes heads and eyes hurt

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

And the experiment in underlining has thankfully failed.

Yes, it does looks better without underlining. But what's going to happen when I click a thread? Am I going to have multi-colored threads again? I'm afraid to click anything.

[Carolinamom]

Bump for later.

[John Robinson]

That would make a pretty good background image for some topic.

[glock rocks]

That would make a pretty good background image for some topic.

sometimes, you scare me.

[Dog Gone]

I made it a little fatter because on my screen General Interest (Chat) took two lines. Yech! YMMV.

Are you on a very small monitor or resolution? It's not even close to rolling over on mine.

For some strange reason, when I'm trying to assign a color to my Texas sidebar, most of the choices turn out to be white. No difference at all in most of them, and yes, I'm refreshing to make sure.

[Semper911]

And the experiment in underlining has thankfully failed.

Yes, yes, yes, hallelujah.

And I can only say that because we have spell check! Hallelujah!

Very nice pull downs on the spell check.
And the search is better,
and it only says New Posts to You when there are really new posts to me,
and my page tells me how many posts and replies I have posted,
and there are options for background colors in the side bars,
and I can browse all the topics,
and the black underlined links went away,
and..., and... what have I missed?

Very nice day's work, Mr. Robinson. Thanks very much.

[Admin Moderator]

Gray?

#D3D3D3
#BEBEBE

[Semper911]

before being able to sign off.

You sign off???

Who signs off of FR?

[my_pointy_head_is_sharp]

Do you have your computer settings set to "Ignore Colors Specified on Web Pages"?

[John Robinson]

1280x1024 at 22". Hardly squint mode, I used to run at 1600x1200 on a 21". Of course my eyes are nearly ruined now. 8-)

[smith288]

Question...maybe you could answer it...or someone...

The EMBED sound shows when I have new msgs but I dont hear anything. *yes, sound is up, file exists*

http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/notify?detach=1;bell=http://www.ejsmithweb.com/fr/wahoo3.wav

is my pager url