Hi Bill!Glad to hear from you again.
>
> The first - I have, for family reasons, severely curtailed my online and
> flying time. There is nothing like a seriously ill family member to
> affect ones interests, or to alter your priorities so much that all else
> pales in comparison. I make no excuses - I just cannot throw as much
> attention at these activities at the moment.
>
Been there, done that and I completely understand. I hope all gets better soon.
> You all may recall that I have had, and hope to have in the future, many
> longish conversations with many of our colleagues on (and from) the
> 'old' FSforum on CSi. I really enjoyed my time on that forum - and I
> agree that should this site gain even some of that popularity, then
> no-one would be more pleased than me.
>
Agreed
> However, and again I stress that this is my opinion, and I do not wish
> to offend anyone, especially you, Vic - the current limitations of the
> OLR, and the (to me, anyway) 'strangeness' /discomfort /awkwardness of
> this type of forum irks me.
Bill, I take no offense at anyone's honest criticism. I'm *almost* perfect but not quite there yet <G>.
I have to agree with you about the forum but, I guess the DCBoard format has become the defacto standard for message boards. ben can shed more light on that. I also agree that the old CIS forum format was much friendlier but that was a custom program and not really intended for web based operation.
>
> I long for that relatively simple (but bloated, I agree) CSi 'front end'
> that allowed one to delete / save / threads or individual messages into
> my own folders, to peruse at leisure at some later time. I find the OLR
> to be very difficult to use, in that I find myself being returned to
> some really repetitive thread which saw light back in 2001, which I
> would dearly love to erase, but cannot.
>
Under the current format, when you scan for new messages, it will show an old thread only if a new message has been added. I'm not quite following you here. If I understand you correctly, you'd like to be able to delete a thread so that even if a new message came to that thread, you wouldn't see it. This would put the burden on you to only delete those threads that you have no further interest in following - sort of like a filter?
> I long for that relatively neat, full page 'box' that allowed me to see
> the thread title, and to be able to wipe or copy it as I wished, and to
> set the date so that nothing prior to that date appeared.
>
If I understand you correctly, the "minimum date" ability is already in the OLR. You right click on the forum in the left box, select forum properties and set the minimum download date. That should give you what you want. You have to do it for each forum. Remember, CIS FSFORUM was just one forum, this is eleven. I could probably have a check box that would auto apply the date to all forums if selected.
> Perhaps I am being a little unfair.
>
Not at all - I think we all would like to 'customize' web sites to our particular viewing preferences, if possible.
> Having some knowledge of programming, albeit limited and certainly I've
> forgotten most of it by now, I realise that it is no mean task to write
> an OLR for distribution. However I consider that since I am paying for
> the privilege, (and I have renewed my subscription willingly, because I
> wanted to, and would like to consider this as my FS 'home') I reckon
> that you won't be too upset at me providing some criticism of the
> current OLR.
>
WHO ME!!!! UPSET!!!!!!! NEVER!!!!! <BFG>
> I find very discouraging as soon as it hits the screen - that it tends
> to 'put me off' so to speak. I can't put my finger on any one reason why
> I dislike it - I just do. I suppose if pressed, I'd put the fact that I
> cannot delete any thread, is a major reason.
OK, I'll look into it.
> Another - I have to
> re-enter 'Edit' mode before I'm allowed to cut 'n paste.
I don't follow you on this Bill, what is it you would like to do. You're only allowed to edit your own messages. Please clarify
> Am I asking too much ?
>
In a word, nope.
> I don't suppose
> that a return to a 'text' based screen is just not possible, is it ? A
> great pity.
>
> Perhaps it is just me.
No, therein lies the tradeoffs between DOS and WINDOWS.
Let's see if I can explain a bit and go from there - as you may be aware, the OLR was a collaborative effort between Guido Ostkamp and myself. Guido had independently developed a DOS based program to access and read the DCBoard database format. I developed the front end to put a Windows look on it and as such was constrained to limits of the original database structure and took my input from those who wanted something similar to OZWIN. I used TAPCIS for my CIS application but I understand the OZWIN format was quite popular. I'd have to look into it further but there may be a way to incorporate some of your wishes into a new version of the OLR.
To summarize - you'd like the ability to:
Move threads ( and/or individual messages??) to a unique folder
Delete entire threads
Allow minimum date retrieval
In place edit ( not sure I understand this one ).
Have I missed any?
It may be possible to do all or part of these - I'd like to hear from others who might have additional suggestions.
Thanx for your comments, Bill - I really DO appreciate your taking the time to state them.
Take care,
Vic
-= VPC OffLine Reader 2.1 =-
Registered to: Vic Baron
-OLR.PL v1.81-
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