Free Republic Update: My Comments (Pings), System Upgrade and Spelling and Time Zone Breakage

[John Robinson]

First up, made a change to the My Comments (aka Pings aka "New Comments to You") page. You can now clear your comments page by using the new "Clear Pings" link. This is the only way to remove the "New Comments to You" indicator. (You can still view all past comments to you via "View All")

Next up on the menu: I've been upgrading the system software on all our servers. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way the spell checker broke and the new version of that software depends on software that I haven't yet been able to upgrade (because that software depends on a kernel feature that isn't available using the ancient kernel I have installed.) What this all means is that I will be taking a drive up to San Jose in the very near future (Monday night) to perform delicate surgery with a very large hammer. Once that is done, the spell checker will work.

I'm also aware that the time zone preference is not working, and I believe that problem may also be fixed by the same large hammer that will fix the spell checker (it's a very big hammer.)

So in summary, clear your pings, don't make any spelling mistakes until Tuesday and kick back and enjoy the California sun.

Update

Added "Pings Indicator" option to your preferences in case you'd prefer the old automatic clearing of the ping light.

Update #2

Was able to work around the spell checker dependency issue, you can now misspell words to your heart's content.

[twntaipan]

John,

Could you add something to the actual articles page? You have Articles Comments Search now.

Could you make it Articles Comments Search Brief ? That would give the same functionality as you have with the Tabs.

[Mama_Bear]

Yup, mine is gone and so is my locale.

Yep, I see your location flag is there, but there is nothing on your page. :-(

I just checked mine, it is still there, but when I went in to "edit", so I could save the code, there is nothing there. I went back to my profile page and clicked on "view source" and was able to save it in a .txt file. At least I can restore my page from that if mine should disappear.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

Which browser do you use?

[jdm]

Thanks!

[Salvation]

I also noticed a different look to the private messages page.

Even numbers. Hmmmm

[kingu]

Thanks for adding in the automatic clearing, but could you also put in an option to default ‘view all’ like pings used to display? Also sticking in a little help link there to explain the change and the options would be most helpful.

[day10]

My Freeper page has disappeared - is this temporary or are those pages gone?

[La Enchiladita]

[ThePythonicCow]

Your page is in the Google cache -- do you want me to freep mail the html source to you?

You can find it yourself -- just do a Google search for "Fudd Fan" .. it will be the first hit .. click on the cached link on the Google search results page. Then depending on which web browser you are using, some way or other extract the html source from that cached page.

[ThePythonicCow]

Firefox ... latest ... (What’s it, like 8.0.0.11?)

Nah -- just 2.0.0.13.

[Mama_Bear]

Thanks, DLR. I have saved the code from "view source" and if I remove John's code from the top and bottom so that only my "stuff" remains, I should be able to restore from that, if it becomes necessary. Fortunately, my profile page hasn't disappeared entirely.

I have never googled a cached version of the site. Not sure how that works, but I trust you know what you are talking about. Hopefully that will work for Fudd Fan who's page seems to have disappeared entirely. :-(

[ThePythonicCow]

clicked on "view source" and was able to save it in a .txt file.

You done good, Mama Bear.

[Mama_Bear]

;-)

[papasmurf]

S’good to see you’re feeling better. Still Praying for JimRob.

Thanks for all of your hard work.

papa

[ThePythonicCow]

I have never googled a cached version of the site

Just do a Google search for:

freerepublic.com Mama_Bear

The first hit is your FreeRepublic.com profile page. Click on the cached link for that first hit, and view a recent version of your freeper home page (nested in some Googleze.)

[Mama_Bear]

Thank you! I will try that.

[Dog Gone]

I can’t say that I’m terribly impressed with the “improvements” to the site.

The search function is different but worse. The Latest Posts page defaults to full comments, not brief, and there’s no way to change that.

Mail looks worse. The time zone is broken.

A few more improvements and the place won’t work at all.

[LucyT]

My profile page is still visible, but the code is gone.