Is it just me or has there been another change to the way the BBS works ?

It seems that it is not longer always showing orange icons to indicate threads that have new stuff in that I haven't seen yet. Has anyone else noticed this over the last couple of days ?

__
Unit serial number 47 (was 330 in the queue)...

I just noticed this too...
Haven't been on the BBS for a couple of days. For the
first round everything looked OK, but after reading the
then new posts I reloaded the main index and had a couple
of new posts - these (single new posts in different areas)
didn't show up in orange but had the 'new' note...

/Michael


/Michael

these (single new posts in different areas) didn't show up in orange but had the 'new' note...

I think this is how it has always worked.

One thing to be cautious of, though, is this: if you open a forum, and you have a whole bunch of orange icons indicating unread threads, then exit the forum, and then exit the bbs, when you re-enter the bbs all of those orange icons from that forum will be "un-oranged" as though you had read them when in fact you have not.

tanstaafl.



"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

One thing to be cautious of, though, is this: if you open a forum, and you have a whole bunch of orange icons indicating unread threads, then exit the forum, and then exit the bbs, when you re-enter the bbs all of those orange icons from that forum will be "un-oranged" as though you had read them when in fact you have not.

Yeah, that gets me sometimes when my netscape crashes...

Is there a way to "catch up" on a per forum basis? I.e. mark all posts in a particular forum as read, but only in that forum?

Borislav (no longer a newbie)

Is there a way to "catch up" on a per forum basis? I.e. mark all posts in a particular forum as read, but only in that forum?

If I understand correctly what you mean, yes.

The "un-oranging" occurs only in forums that you have actually opened before you exit the bbs. So if you didn't want to read the messages in a given forum (sometimes I'm tempted to skip over the ones in "Programming" because I don't really understand many of them) just open that forum, then exit the bbs and re-enter it and all of the threads in that forum will be marked as having been read, but all threads in un-opened forums will still be marked orange.

When this happens inadvertantly (i.e., Netscape crash) then you have to go back into the forum, and just read every message with a date later than the last time you were there. :-(

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

The "un-oranging" occurs only in forums that you have actually opened before you exit the bbs.

Sometimes I see an interesting but long thread that I don't have time to finish right now, doing the above won't allow me to save it for later. Besides, logging out and back in is a pain...

Yeah, so I'm whining. I can whine a lot more (web-based interfaces to mail/news are to a proper mail/news reader what a car radio from 10 years ago is to the empeg) but I won't. This BBS is such a wonderful place that I'm willing to put up with a lot of crap to read it.

Borislav

I agree, that is how it has always worked. But that is not what I am talking about.

Sometime over the last week the behaviour changed. Now when I open my browser up, go to the BBS and look in a forum most of the threads that have completely new messages that I haven't looked at do not have orange icons. These new messages are not ones that I have seen before at all (i.e. I have not gone into these threads and then moved out of them).

Further to this, if new messages are posted in a thread while I am reading the forum that the thread is in and then I go back to the forum's front page I still do not get orange icons for these threads. This did not happen before.

I have made some changes to my Internet connection recently, I am now using an ADSL line rather than a modem, but I can't conceive of a way that this would cause this change in behaviour.

Is no one else seeing this ?

__
Unit serial number 47 (was 330 in the queue)...

I think I might have worked out what is going on.

Now that I have an ADSL line I'm tending to leave IE running all the time (in the past I would have closed IE when I had disconnected). I think that the WWWThreads software, that the board uses, stores info on how recently you read each thread in temporary cookies. This would explain why I might have seen a change in the way things are working.

It doesn't explain why WWWThreads is getting confused, but at least it gives me a work-around (closing and re-opening my browser before starting a BBS session).

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Unit serial number 47 (was 330 in the queue)...

Well, there's no change for me. It must be on your end because the board is working the same way it always has, which I think it what the other guy was trying to tell you.

DiGNAN

Sometimes I see an interesting but long thread that I don't have time to finish right now, doing the above won't allow me to save it for later.

I haven't verified this, but I think that the BBS will leave the unread messages within a thread still marked as unread. It might tag the parent message as read, but if you go back into that thread later, the individual unread messages will still be orange.

At least I think that's the way it behaves when viewed in threaded mode. If you're in flat mode, all bets are off, I think.

Can anyone confirm this?

___________
Tony Fabris

Can anyone confirm this?

I am pretty sure that if you open a forum, then leave the bbs, when you re-open the bbs, every thread in that forum, regardless of how shallowly or deeply nested, will be marked as having been read, or in technical terms, "un-oranged".

tanstaafl.

"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

when you re-open the bbs, every thread in that forum...will be marked as having been read

Just found an interesting trick... if you open the bbs in two sessions of Netscape at the same time, if one session crashes, you can go to the second session and your "oranges" from the first session will be preserved. So, if you always keep an "insurance" session open, you should be OK.

tanstaafl.



"There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free Lunch"

except form when the first netscape makes all your windows crash

Mark
wait for mk III with a USB Host/slave
(USB->GPS)(USB->Bluetooth)(USB->You name it)

It would have to be 2 seperate installs of it, as all netscape windows are driven by one process. One window causes it to die, the rest disappear. I dislike the way Netscape works, but I hate IE even more, so I use Netscape :-)

Alternatively, you could use Opera 4.0

One of the few remaining Mk1 owners... #00015

One window causes it to die, the rest disappear. I dislike the way Netscape works, but I hate IE even more, so I use Netscape :-)

Yeah, too true. To me, there's one big difference between Netscape and IE:

If Netscape crashes, all it brings down is the Netscape windows/processes. The rest of the system is fine. If IE crashes, it brings down the entire Windows Explorer, the taskbar, the desktop, the Start menu, everything. That's why I use Netscape, too. I'm always running multiple programs doing lots of things simultaneously, so it's vital for me not to have my web browser crash the whole system.

___________
Tony Fabris

Just check the box labelled "browse in separate process". On Win2k, crashing IE doesn't even bring down the other IE windows, let alone Explorer.


Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

This condition is almost always caused by IE running in the same process as Windows NT Explorer and Active Desktop is installed.
To run IE in a separate process:

Internet Explorer 4.x

1. View / Internet Options / Advanced tab.

2. Check the Browse In A New Process check box.

3. Click OK.

4. Restart Internet Explorer.

Internet Explorer 5

1. Tools / Internet Options / Advanced tab.

2. Check the Launch Browser Windows in a Separate Process.

3. Click OK.

4. Restart Internet Explorer.

NOTE: Running IE in a separate process will use more resources.

There you go.

Cheers,
Hans

Mk2 - Blue - 080000431

The option for "browse in a separate process" does not exist in the internet options/advanced box on my system. (IE5, NT4)

___________
Tony Fabris

Can't find it in IE5/2K. There is "View|Folder Options|View|Launch Folder windows in a separate process" in Windows Explorer, which I also have checked.

Works for me. Various sites occasionally crash IE, and nothing else comes down on this system. Could be a 2K-ism, though.



Roger - not necessarily speaking for empeg

no sh*t; I guess you really do learn something new everyday; I've been strugling w/ dreamweaver crashing IE and in turn crashing the whole system for an eternity now...
-mark

MK2: 36gb
Tivo: 90gb
CPU: 120gb
...I think drive manufacturers love me!

Actually it does seem to differ for some reason, what can one expect from MS ... Okay the hard way then ...

REGEDT32 TIME !!!

By default, the shell creates 1 process with the Taskbar and Desktop as one thread and each instance of explorer as an additional thread. A failure in any thread will affect the entire process.
If you have at least 24 Meg of RAM and a fast Pentium, you can create a separate process for the Desktop/Taskbar and 1 for each instance of explorer by editing the registry at:

HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Explorer

and adding value DesktopProcess (REG_DWORD). Set it to 1 and reboot.

On my dual processor, this seems to give snappier Desktop performance.

Note: You can not have Active Desktop with this hack.

Ehr, having said that, perhaps not having Active Desktop enabled per default ... whatever.

Hope this is better then, this is what I used before it became an option that could be set (in some versions).

Hans

Oh, speaking of which, if there are more MS slaves here (personally I can't escape it at work) take a look at the NT Registry Hacks section of www.jsiinc.com ... Yes two 'i'-s in the middle ... And if you can sponsor the guy by downloading his all-in-one-html-hypertext-package and registring it. The tips there have helped me out plenty in the past and the future. Well worth a few measly quid if you use it and you will.

Hans



Mk2 - Blue - 080000431