Gun Dog Forum

Question to the powers that be.

Has there been a change to how many posts in a thread constitute a page? Seems like a person has to scroll down for days now. Has it been changed to 100 posts/page....or, more likely, am I imagining things?

Dan

Dan,

You beat me to the post. I'll pm Rob also.

I think he eliminated the pages. I feel its way better this way as all the info is on one page you don't hhave to read then switch page then read and switch page.

If there's a short cut to get to the end of what used to be a 10 page thread to add a new post, I'd just like to know what it is.

There is always the "View First Unread Post" link in the top right corner of the forum border.

Just click on the topic and look to the top right of the form border. You'll see it!

yeah, i notied that too, and i think i like having the pages better. seems like it makes it easier to get to the end, or where i left off in the thread.

and while we are talking about the new board, here is a suggestion: is there a way to make the first few lines of the original post pop up when you run your cursor over the title?? i have sen other forums like that, and really like that feature. just a suggestion.

dog dr wrote:...where i left off in the thread...

button I mentioned earlier will do this for you...

I prefer the posts to appear they way they are now, I was never a fan of 10 posts per page.

You can change the way the posts come up by clicking user option then click board options then display option
try this link and see if it comes up ucp.php?i=prefs&mode=view

Expect for when a post gets way long and down loading yes one set back I kinda like it it seems to help keep stuff on topic

proudag08 wrote:

dog dr wrote:...where i left off in the thread...

button I mentioned earlier will do this for you...

I'd still like to see pages AND the "view unread post" feature. Both options would be nice depending upon whether you've been following a thread closely or you've been offline for a while. I go hunting, come back on the forum & see a topic with 7 pages of posts. All posts are unread for me. I get to start at the beginning or spend a long time scrolling to the end and then working my way back several posts to see what's going on. To skim with pages, I select the topic, read through the first page, click a page, skim a post or two & read through the last page or two of posts. By seeing the number of pages I also get a quick idea of how long a thread is. Obviously there can be a few really long posts or lots of short posts so just a heading that indicates the number of posts in a thread wouldn't give me a very good idea of how long it is. If I've been offline for a while, see a thread & know it's really long, I may chose not to even go through it. Alternately, I may think hey, that thread probably was a little controversial or full of info so I'd like to look through it. FWIW

kninebirddog wrote:You can change the way the posts come up by clicking user option then click board options then display option
try this link and see if it comes up ucp.php?i=prefs&mode=view

Expect for when a post gets way long and down loading yes one set back I kinda like it it seems to help keep stuff on topic

However, this option doesn't allow you to select a "pages" view if that's what you wanted. I see advantages to having pages with the option to select "unread posts". JMO

BigShooter wrote:Obviously there can be a few really long posts or lots of short posts so just a heading that indicates the number of posts in a thread wouldn't give me a very good idea of how long it is. If I've been offline for a while, see a thread & know it's really long, I may chose not to even go through it. Alternately, I may think hey, that thread probably was a little controversial or full of info so I'd like to look through it. FWIW

The "replies" column on the index page tells you how many posts in a topic. I'm still trying to decide which way I like better. Need to give it a few days and see.

Cheryl

Nhuskr wrote:

BigShooter wrote:Obviously there can be a few really long posts or lots of short posts so just a heading that indicates the number of posts in a thread wouldn't give me a very good idea of how long it is. If I've been offline for a while, see a thread & know it's really long, I may chose not to even go through it. Alternately, I may think hey, that thread probably was a little controversial or full of info so I'd like to look through it. FWIW

The "replies" column on the index page tells you how many posts in a topic. I'm still trying to decide which way I like better. Need to give it a few days and see.

Cheryl

Thanks, I knew that but I never bothered to notice it was ten posts per page. I was thinking the pages were based upon a line count. Personally I still like using pages for skimming and going back to re-read a post I knew was on page four for example. I can get used to almost everything. I haven't been convinced yet that both options, if available, wouldn't be a good idea.

I've noticed some topics have 2 pages.....must have about 100 replies/page. Some don't like 10 replies.....hey, what about 25 replies per page?

Maybe I could set my display options to default to my preference...that assumes I log in all the time, which I don't.

One other inprovement to the forum I think would be helpful would be to somehow identify the OP on a thread.

Many times I am reading a thread and have to continually scroll back up to remind myself who the OP is. I think its important to know who the OP is so you can see when they make additions to their post and or respond to others comments. Right now the OP gets lost amongst the other posters and I find it hard to keep up without continually scrolling up to remind myself. A possible identifier could be a different color font for the OP's username throughout the thread, similar to the GM and Admins

dog dr wrote:yeah, i notied that too, and i think i like having the pages better. seems like it makes it easier to get to the end, or where i left off in the thread.

and while we are talking about the new board, here is a suggestion: is there a way to make the first few lines of the original post pop up when you run your cursor over the title?? i have sen other forums like that, and really like that feature. just a suggestion.

FWIW, I liked the pages better too.

Charlie

When you log in the list of different forums comes up and at the top left you will see three things listed. Click the cener one that says view new posts the list of all of the topics you haven't looked at comes up. All you do is click on the little red flag that is at the start of each title and it takes you to where you left off the last time you were on line and looked at that topic. This whole procedure hasn't changed. Its always been this way if you have used it which evidently many of you haven't but it is the easiest way by far to pickup where you left off.

Personally I find all of the page numbers just extra information tht has no real use if you log on like I explained.

Ezzy

While I'd like to see both pages & the option to select "unread posts" in a thread, I like Dan's idea of making the view customizable by individual. However, that's more complexity, especially for older users. Sometimes simplicity is most elegant.

Thanks for the feedback!

PAGE LENGTH -- Posts per topic was set to 15 then 25. Then I bumped it up again to 100 after noticing that Google was not really indexing any second or third pages in any given topic.

I wanted to see what would happen, but also because of my personal experience with reading forums where short pages drive me CRAZY! I think lots of forums have a short number of posts per topic page because they want to increase pageviews to sell more ads.

PREVIEWS -- Not sure about the how to do the preview option on phpbb but I'm sure there's a way.

LONGER TOPIC TITLES -- One thing would help is if folks would write longer/more descriptive TOPIC titles.

For example, I've seen topic titles such as "e-collar" when as a READER, I would prefer something more like "E-Collars: What dog training collar do you use and why?" ... I don't want to start editing folks' titles, but what if we grabbed some text from the first post to beef up the TITLE? Or showed a SNIPPET with x number of words from a title? Again, that's a PHPBB MOD I'm not comfortable making just yet...

proudag08 wrote:One other inprovement to the forum I think would be helpful would be to somehow identify the OP on a thread. ... A possible identifier could be a different color font for the OP's username throughout the thread, similar to the GM and Admins

Good idea. I'll look into that as well... Maybe I need to make a FEATURE REQUESTS thread?

admin wrote:

proudag08 wrote:One other inprovement to the forum I think would be helpful would be to somehow identify the OP on a thread. ... A possible identifier could be a different color font for the OP's username throughout the thread, similar to the GM and Admins

Good idea. I'll look into that as well... Maybe I need to make a FEATURE REQUESTS thread?

+1 with the new ownership getting their feet wet I think that would be a good idea...