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Tom,

Can you get us somehow a (Real-Variety) of the Smillies. Some of the Forums I am on have some really neat Smillies that do all kinds of things.

I really don't know if there called Smillies though. :confused:

They are all kinds of very Animated figures.

Terry

Tom,

Next can you also add (Spell-Check) to our Threads/Post?

That would be very nice if it is not a Big/Major Project. :)

Terry

Hi Terry:

___I think Tom added the spell check link in the editor a few days ago. You do have to download and install a small Spell checker for IE but afterwards, you have spell chick within CleanMPG’s - VBulletin based - add reply.

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Hi Terry:

___I think Tom added the spell check link in the editor a few days ago. You do have to download and install a small Spell checker for IE but afterwards, you have spell chick within CleanMPG’s - VBulletin based - add reply.

___Good Luck

___Wayne
Wayne,

Help me out on this? I'm really Lost on this. What are you saying I need to do to get to the spell-check or the use of it? Cathy and I are both confused as to what to do?

Help-Help !!!!!

Terry

Hi Terry:

___Let us do a Chat and get it worked out ...

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Can you get the site to load faster without bogging down users computers?

InsightCentral loads really fast and does not bugger my system.

GreenHybrid loads slower but also does not bugger my system.

CleanMPG loads slowest and completely takes over my system rendering it useless until it is done loading. Anybody got an idea why this happens?

Hi Lakedude:

___How are you entering CleanMPG? Home Page, Forums, or /Recent Posts? If it’s the home page, the pics I place have to load whenever the page is not cached. Not that they are large but an extra 150K of overhead may slow a load on dial up? Shouldn’t touch a broadband connection though? If you are entering CleanMPG from Today’s or Recent posts, it should display relatively quickly?

___Good Luck

___Wayne

Since I can't start a new thread here, I'm gonna mildly hijack
this one to point out that I don't think the mileage log thing,
which I just tried to start, is going to work for me. After
creating "car 156", the text saying "add tanks" and "edit vehicle"
are NOT showing up as clickable links. Wading through the source
of that page [and wow, is it a mess] shows what the link is
supposed to be, but manually trying to go to "index.php?
page=garagenew&car=156&action=editvehicle" just brings me back
to the display of everyone else's cars with no opportunity to
do anything.
.
Note that I'm coming at this with "lynx", a text-based browser
on a unix box that works fine for every other forum I hang out
on and is fully standards-based. If CMPG is relying on some bell
or whistle only present in certain browsers, then the problem
is completely NOT on my side.
.
I'd like to participate, but if the mechanism doesn't use
straightforward HTML and forms entry, I can't.
.
_H*

Since there's no place to ask questions about how the site works,
I'm going to *continue* hijacking this thread in an attempt to
get this and my previous ones answered, which nobody has actually
gone back and dealt with either. Someone *is* actively maintaining
this system, right?
.
How do I set things up so the "new posts" mechanism doesn't age
out stuff I *haven't* read yet in just a couple of days? There
were a bunch of threads that had new stuff this morning that I
figured to catch up on later today, and by the time I got back
in they were, well, "gone". They aren't gone, but they're not
coming up in *my* new posts list.
.
I've already tried fiddling with the user control-panel, that
seems to have no effect.
.
There really oughta be a section where stuff like this *can* be
asked. Some forums even allow not-logged-in users to post in such
sandboxed areas, in case they're having trouble with their
logins or whatever.
.
_H*

hobbit, check out your User CP (http://www.cleanmpg.com/forums/usercp.php)

If you can't find, it later on when I'm back, I might be able to pinpoint the settings....

Two things,

1) I fixed it so people can now post in this forum. Originaly this forum was to keep users abrest of changes to the site, now it is a free for all for anyone with comments about the website.

2) Are you saying new posts doesn't show you all new posts since the last time you were on?

I think hobbit would like to click and see post in the last 2-3 days.


If you right-click "new posts" - you get the URL with the parm "getnew"
right-clicking "Today's Posts" - you get the URL with the parm "getdaily"
Might want to check www.vbulletin.com (http://www.vbulletin.com) or www.vbulletin.org (http://www.vbulletin.org) if there is something like "get2days", then make a favorites link, modified with that parmJust a wild guess....

Also, some features require javascript and/or cookies, make sure those are enabled.

I've got options / default thread cutoff age set to two
months, but it's certainly refusing to show them to me much
sooner than that. I suspect that's not what the setting means,
since I'm more talking about *posts* instead.
.
_H*

Maybe I'm confused. Are you saying that a) if you haven't logged in in a few days some of the new posts don't show up, or b) you have logged in but havent read the posts then the next time you log in those new posts don't show up as new any more?


Also, I notice when you log out any unread messages get marked as read. Maybe you should just exit with out loging out if are currently logging out. I think logging out clears cookies that might be needed in determining that unread messages.

option (b). That's what's happening. However, I never log in
or out, I just keep the userid/password cookies permanent.
Maybe a new session ID causes the effect of a new login
regardless, blowing all the new messages into the "seen"
category. Which, I'll point out, is still really incorrect
behavior...
.
_H*

Hi Hobbit:

___Are you using a Linux browser and OS?

___Wayne

option (b). That's what's happening. However, I never log in
or out, I just keep the userid/password cookies permanent.
Maybe a new session ID causes the effect of a new login
regardless, blowing all the new messages into the "seen"
category. Which, I'll point out, is still really incorrect
behavior...
.
_H*


I agree that the proper thing would be that unread would stay unread. However, There could be a reason why when you leave and come back all messages are marked read. I don't know what that reason is, but having not read through all the code I won't make a judgement.

I know this also happens on greenhybrid. If I go to read a private message and then leave the site and come back, only messages that have occurred since I read the private message show up as unread.

I don't see any options to change this behavor.

I looked to see if there are any plugins or whatever that would keep unread through multiple sessions but I couldn't find it. The only thing I can think that you could do is to go to each forum and look at the dates of the last posts to find out if there is anything new in that thread.

It's not about plugins, and it's not about which browser I use.
I'm generally reading with "lynx" on a BSD system. But really,
it's up to the bboard's *backend database* to keep track of
this stuff -- a browser is just an interface into the PHP
frontend, all of which should be relatively stateless.
.
I brought up some other issues related to browser bells-n-whistles
earlier in this thread [notably, inability to enter tanks].
It would not surprise me that the vBulletin people have made a
bunch of invalid assumptions about standards, and some of this
possibly should land on *their* desks to fix rather than site
maintainers. But often there are some admin-configurable switches
to deal with some of this stuff before going back to the source,
and if any scripts are being written locally to handle special
functions, then it may be up to someone here.
.
On the bright side, most of these PHP based bboard systems *are*
navigable with text browsers, which is a lot more than I can say
for numerous other sadly misguided websites out there today.
.
_H*

I don't know how I missed your prevous threads about inputing data into the database. I hope you don't feel like you were ignored, I honestly never saw the message.

I did look in the settings and I couldn't find any thing to configure to fix the new threads problem.

I'm going back through this tread and look for your original message about entering data for tanks.

Okay, I fixed those two links. The database was whipped out in about a month, As you said, the design is anything but elegant.

Does lynx do tables well? My version doesn't seem to do anything with tables. It is realy difficult to make nice tables without actualy using tables. There are no tabs available as well. If you have suggestions on how to make it more lynx friendly I'm all ears. I realy do try to make it as universal as possible. Let me know what to fix and how to fix it for lynx and I'll do my best to impliment it.

wow, tbaleno, you do a lot of hard work for us, thank you :)

as someone else has mentioned on this thread, I have a delay and sometimes a lock-up when going to the main page (I do not ever log off) . I do have broadband 4+ MB/s (I just tested mine and rated at 3.9 MB/s)

There will either be a delay with just the top for several seconds, or sometimes it just will not load. If I do get the top and it is lagging I will try to click on a link (community) and sometimes that helps, sometimes no response. I will then just close the browser and try again. I just assume either a) my end - browser/plug-in problem, memory hang-up (restart browser or computer OR b) problem with server - maintainence being performed, server is bogged down/slow at the moment, etc.

Just wanted to let them know it is not only them, and it happens on a broadband connection as well.

I also have noticed that it doesn't keep new posts new all the time.

I installed a yahoo toolbar and it has given me some problems with explorer freezing up with various sites/pages. I like having tabs, but I also used aol explorer (but it automatically loads the aol suite, so I don't use it much anymore), and I have firefox. If I have enough complications with one, I switch over to another and usually problem solved.

I felt overwhelmed looking at the entry for the mileage database. SOOO many options :D

"lynx" tends to have trouble with tables, but "links" seems to
deal with them better. That's an alternate text-mode browser.
The annoying downside is having to *scroll around* so much on
a wide page just to read it.
.
I do see a lot of table-heavy pages around the net that could
easily be redesigned in more generic markup and look fine, though...
a lot of the webpage composition packages squirt some amazingly
bad stuff out the backend, but the people building these sites
have no idea what's going on under the covers or how to do
things leaner and meaner.
.
_H*

1) The slowness of the front page loading could have a few causes, a) there is a java script that connects to another server for the stock prices, b) all the content on the front page is provided by modules that need to access a database, c) lots of images. We have reduced the size of the images to a generaly uniform size, I don't realy have control over the java script connection so I can't do much about that, and I am looking in to ways to speed up the database access for the modules. Hopefully soon people will get faster load times on the front page.

As far as the new posts go, others have complained about this as well. What happens is when you view the new posts then go away from the site (I think closing the window or navigating to another page counts) it marks all the new posts as old.

I am going to eventualy limit the options to only those that matter for a particular vehicle. Obviously only plug in hybrids need the Electricity stuff. I may even eventualy make a simplified page where all you have to do is time in miles driven and fuel used. The reason it isn't on my short list is because I'm affraid if I do people will only use that and then we won't get be able to get useful information to compare tanks with. Part of the reason for the database its to analize patters to try to find out how people are doing what they do and see if it can be applied elswhere, as well as find out if someone is doing particulary poorly for their situation to try to help them do better.

Keep the suggestions coming in. The more I hear a particular complaint or feature request the higher up it goes on my to-do list.

"lynx" tends to have trouble with tables, but "links" seems to
deal with them better. That's an alternate text-mode browser.
The annoying downside is having to *scroll around* so much on
a wide page just to read it.
.
I do see a lot of table-heavy pages around the net that could
easily be redesigned in more generic markup and look fine, though...
a lot of the webpage composition packages squirt some amazingly
bad stuff out the backend, but the people building these sites
have no idea what's going on under the covers or how to do
things leaner and meaner.
.
_H*

Guilty as charged :(

I know the pages are wide with all those tables. It's just so much data to show. I do have ideas on how to make it better but it is going to take time.

And please continue to hound me to make it better. I tend to get lazy after the initial work is done. People telling me that something needs work helps me get motivated to fix it.

You may not realize how much I realy appreciate criticisim but I do.

I wasn't trying to complain :)

I did say you were doing an excellent job.

I do think all of the options are great, but like you said, having only options pertaining to the particular vehicle that is being edited is a bonus. I would hate to have to be the one to make it happen, since any type of vehicle can be entered in this database. (electric, hybrid electric, unleaded piston, unleaded rotary, flex fuel, E85, E10, hydrogen piston, hydrogen rotary, diesel, etc. etc. etc. etc. oh what fun!!!)

I wasn't trying to complain :)
I would hate to have to be the one to make it happen, since any type of vehicle can be entered in this database. (electric, hybrid electric, unleaded piston, unleaded rotary, flex fuel, E85, E10, hydrogen piston, hydrogen rotary, diesel, etc. etc. etc. etc. oh what fun!!!)

Oh NO. I forgot hydrogen rotary!

Last night on my home computer when I clicked on "new posts/today's posts" I saw a new button (looked like teeny arrows) that takes you to the "first unread post" in that thread. It was on the left, next to the thread title. But I don't see it today at work? THAT one is really needed. The other button on the right just takes you to the "last post" --it's not quite as useful but helps on long threads.

What happens is when you view the new posts then go away from the site (I think closing the window or navigating to another page counts) it marks all the new posts as old. That happens to me on other forums as well so I thought that was normal. That's why it's nice to have the "go to first unread post" button -- if possible ;)

I've also noticed trouble loading the main page, once or twice a week. I thought it was maybe server maintenance issues.

Also in vBGarage, it looks like there's a page 2 but when I click on it I just get a blank page.

Thanks for puzzling all this out Tom.

The arrows only show up if there is an unread post in that thread. I know it is confusing and I don't even know for sure the logic in it, but some posts show up new even if you read all the messages and some that you haven't read don't show up new.

There is some scheme with cookies and stuff involved I'm sure.

The arrows only show up if there is an unread post in that thread.
Well they did show up today after all. Whatever you did, I love them.

Hi Tom:

___I’ve got arrows! Very cool!

___Good Luck

___Wayne

How about the ability to preview the full post title at the main screen, and preview the message at the topic list screen (as you can do on GH). I really like that feature and use it.

It is doing the same on my computer here and on greenhbrid. Maybe its a user setting. check your usercp