Hmmm. I do like to be able to research a thread from some years ago : not often, but to have the potential to do that. For example, Craven once worked out a matrix, or double axis thingy, re politics, and I'd love to see that again. No clue how to look it up, or at least I was unsuccessful in the looking at the time.
I have A2K set as my browser's default home page. Since I clear cookies, cache and history every day I need to login every day. Once done, I open two tabs, one for Your Posts and the other for New Posts.
I scan the list of Your Posts and open new tabs for the ones I'm interested in catching up on. While those are loading I start scanning the New Posts list and open new tabs for any of those topics that catch my interest.
One thing that would greatly enhance the ability to stay current with New Posts is the ability to sort and retrieve those New Posts based on specific Time criteria such as Within the Last Hour, The Last 24 Hours, The Last Week, The Last Month, etc. Having that option would make it seem a lot less urgent that I review the New Post list immediately every single time I login.
When I am short on time and not able to review the New Posts, I use the New Topics list and try to catch items of interest that way.
One more enhancement request. Having the ability to customize the categories we track in the New Posts listings would be very helpful to us and would probably lessen the load on the database. For instance, if I'm not interested in seeing New Posts in the Games, Humor and Religious categories it would save a lot of time.
Another big enhancement for navigating would be the ability to go directly to a page number within a thread instead of having to scroll through 40 pages to get to page 39 of a 80-page thread.
When I use the Search feature I am usually searching for either posts with a specific set of key words or posts by a specific author or a combination of the two.
I used to use the Portal frequently when it was available. Haven't been able to access it since the recent conversion to a2k.org.
Butrflynet wrote:
Another big enhancement for navigating would be the ability to go directly to a page number within a thread instead of having to scroll through 40 pages to get to page 39 of a 80-page thread.
You can do that by changing the number in the url manually -- for example if it is:
http://www.able2know.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=111102&start=60
(page 6)
You can change the "60" to
http://www.able2know.org/forums/viewtopic.php?t=111102&start=40
and it will take you to page 4.
Quote:- I start at
http://www.able2know.org/forums/
- I login using the header link
- I click Your posts
- I open the topics with new posts in a new browser tab and read/reply to them
- I click New Posts if I have time and open the topics that catch my eye in a new browser tab.
That's pretty much how I use a2k.
Yep, I do that now. Would be nice if it wasn't an insider's secret that no one knows until told about it.
OK. I don't disagree, was just an FYI.
At work, I use a bookmark to get to the page and log in.
At home, I have IE set to A2k as home page, anf logged in.
I check Your Posts first, and respond or whatever.
If I have time, I go to New Posts and scan through to see if there's anything I've missed or have an interest in. I regularly report spam which seems to be heaviest when the Murricans are asleep.
Occasionally, if a poster catches my eye with something, I'll click on their posts to see what else they have to say, in which I may be interested.
Once or twice a week I go the the Australia forum, to see if there's anything I've missed that I'm interesting in answering (like the apparently endless moving to Sydney and schools questions)
Occasionally, I use the search function to find a Post I've seen and lost track of.
I hardly ever provoke the bunny!
I don't understand people using Your Posts. It is a mess to me.... but I'm one of those people with a gazillion posts over a long time. That is the last place I'd look, on a desert island, with a coconut and some rum...
ossobuco wrote:I don't understand people using Your Posts. It is a mess to me.... but I'm one of those people with a gazillion posts over a long time. That is the last place I'd look, on a desert island, with a coconut and some rum...
It's the page that shows the latest posts on the threads you have already posted on. I can think of no other page that would be more germane to most posters, osso.
But that's just me....
Ticomaya wrote:ossobuco wrote:I don't understand people using Your Posts. It is a mess to me.... but I'm one of those people with a gazillion posts over a long time. That is the last place I'd look, on a desert island, with a coconut and some rum...
It's the page that shows the latest posts on the threads you have already posted on. I can think of no other page that would be more germane to most posters, osso.
But that's just me....
(and on a desert island you'd pour out the rum, and send a message in the bottle....)
Ticomaya wrote:ossobuco wrote:I don't understand people using Your Posts. It is a mess to me.... but I'm one of those people with a gazillion posts over a long time. That is the last place I'd look, on a desert island, with a coconut and some rum...
It's the page that shows the latest posts on the threads you have already posted on. I can think of no other page that would be more germane to most posters, osso.
But that's just me....
the page I've already posted on for years and years. All sorts of crappo shows up there, for me.
I lied, I haven't meant to say I've posted on Your Posts for years - beg pardon. I was just trying to express ennui.
I think you adequately expressed that, osso.
Plus, I realize this is all discursive re the point of the thread. (quiets self)
A few ideas for search -- not urgent, just kinda pie in the sky --
1) the alternative search, e. g. a meaningful use of the word "or". If you're looking for something on, I dunno, tinfoil, it might be spelled as one word or two. Hence a search under foil or tinfoil would be great.
2) search by topic starter. Right now the only such search is "your topics". What if I want to look for all of the topics started by Eva?
I realize that search is a burden to the server, just throwing these out there.
Quote:My current leanings are toward a grid that presents all topics regardless of logged in and logged out dates but that shows some kind of "newness" (like bold titles or an icon) that is based on a workaround like log in/out but that only resets the icons and not the grid content.
Yes, please. I find it really annoying, especially at work where I can't log in for very long, to lose the new posts after logging out.
Questions:
1) On the search and forum pages how many topics per page would you find ideal?
2) On the topic pages, how many posts per page would you find ideal?
Craven de Kere wrote:Questions:
1) On the search and forum pages how many topics per page would you find ideal?
2) On the topic pages, how many posts per page would you find ideal?
I would like that to be selectable, like an online catalog. 10, 20, 50, etc.
I agree with cjhsa, I liked it when we had that option here. Generally about 10 posts per page makes sense, but it's nice to have the option to change it, if you're looking for a specific word that appeared somewhere in the last several pages, for example.
I think I remember that was a big server load, though. (As in, why we don't still have that option...)
