Recent Changes - Problem Thread I

[John Robinson]

Many technical changes are taking place here at Free Republic. While these changes are taking place, I will run a "Recent Changes - Problem Thread". The purpose of this thread is to document problems, bugs, and general difficulty which may be related to these changes. Comments and criticism are expressly welcome.

Issues

• Author, Source, Keyword searches are currently disabled.
• Topic listings are currently disabled.
• Occassional difficulty submitting posts.

Desires

• Return of the E-mail field on replies. I am deciding if it is worth the visual clutter.
• More distinction between posting a reply and sending a private reply.
• More space between Preview and Post buttons on Reply.

[Quix]

It seems to me that it might minimize a bunch of us beginners (and 'overly proud of our anemic html knowledge') with html types making cluttery, troublesome fools of ourselves IF

You offered 3-5 basic types of style sheets; backgrounds etc. for the short-on-html-skills to choose from a menu with thumbnail samples.

Might cut down on the trouble of expreimentation/learning curves from those of us longer on courage than horse sense or skills.

[John Robinson]

Yes, I have a fix for that in the works. It won't be fixed soon, but it will be fixed.

[Quix]

WOULD GREATLY appreciate more verticle space in the posting window--wider would be nice--but more verticle is more important to me.

[John Robinson]

I will have a fix for that as well. I'm not sure how I am going to implement that just yet, whether it will be an across-the-board change, a customizable feature, or something based on the dimensions of your browser window.

The later of which would be the best solution, but I am not yet aware of how to do that.

[HalfIrish]

FWIW, I think the changes are fine. Committees rarely make great products; individuals do. Some of the suggestions I've read are nitpicky or strange. Don't forget what happened to Danny DeVito's character on The Simpsons when he let his brother Homer help design a car.

[Irma]

Mega thanks!

[steveegg]

Just adding links back to the previous Recent Changes threads:

Recent Changes @ FreeRepublic UPDATED
Recent Changes @ FreeRepublic

[spectre]

John, I'm using a WEB TV, and contrary to using a computer, there is no "spell check" available when posting a reply on FR.

Is there anyway you could incorporate a spell check system into FR?

sw

[StriperSniper]

First, Thank you for all your work to improve on an already great forum.

Second, I like the post and preview being seperated, but have you considered making the post button RED to make it even harder to make the mistake?
(I don't know how hard [or easy for you O Great Web Wizard] it would be.)

[fnord]

A partial solution:

Go to your FR homepage and scroll down to the bottom. Hover the mouse over the "Find in Forum" link and in the status bar you will see your user ID number. (yours is 6853).

If you click that link:
http://www.freerepublic.com/perl/latest?from_user=6853
you get a list of your latest posts. You can just bookmark this to your browser for quick access.

I can't find the equivalent search for posts "to" you ... maybe John knows a way. hth

[Irma]

Thanks for your suggestion and help. I do already have that bookmarked when looking only for MY posts. I just needed something easier to use when looking for my "TO" flags. I unintentionally miss replying to some flags as they sometimes get lost in the chaIRMAn's replies.

[boris]

I done tole ya...

Submitting articles (or reading them) in Netscape 4.xx, you get "?"s with distressing frequency. The "?" symbol replaces the " < " and " > " symbols in tags, and renders all tags and formatting useless.

This used to be a "once in a while" problem; something has changed and it is now a serious problem. If it isn't fixed, my access to FR from my work PC will be essentially lost; Netscape is the "standard" where I work. At home, I use IE and seem to (so far) not have any problems.

--Boris

[Willie Green]

Return of the E-mail field on replies. I am deciding if it is worth the visual clutter.

Please reinstate the email field.
It is not "visual clutter".
It is less obtrusive than having me put "Go Pat Go!!!" in the actual reply field on every post.

Go Pat Go!!!

[steveegg]

Dumb question; I can't seem to figure out how to get the HI class defined.

[Sen Jack S. Fogbound]

"Right now, the only way to change screen names is to ask Jim Robinson. In the future, changing screen names will be as easy as filling in a field.

Just to note about the future ability: all past screen names will be listed in your profile, along with the range of dates the screen name was in use. And, for X (7-30?) number of days after the name change, your "former" will be printed next to your current screen name. That will be done to discourage people from "hit and runs".

Thanks for the reply, John. I hate to ask Jim for the change as I know he is busy enough. I'll stick with the nickname until the future ability takes place.

Keep up the good work!

[steveegg]

Whoa, what happened to the thread?

Just another Nutscape 4.77 foul-up (going to have to make Nutscape 6.1 look like 4.77 if this reply doesn't fix things).

[John Robinson]

Right.

I'm not sure where this problem is, I haven't yet been able to duplicate it here. No other Netscape users have mentioned this problem, do you know if there is something special about your setup?

[xm177e2]

Sometimes you just have to know when to log off =)

[John Robinson]

Netscape (4.7) style sheets are fouled up; downright unreliable. I couldn't see past comment #55 on this thread using my style sheet, it simply would not display anything.

I HATE NETSCAPE! HATE IT, HATE IT, HATE IT!