Yo Tips!

[clickclack]

Hi everyone,

I thought with the new forum look and functions I would start a tips thread (mostly cuz I need em, lol).  =S
Perhaps there will be prizes in the future for most helpful tip, most tips, etc.
With the new site changes and my limited time I have been left in a bit of a shock with the amount of changes and updates I need to make.

I might change/request a move or delete this post if it proves to be overly redundant or would be better served in another section. I will start it for now in this off topic section as a tester.

I have a bunch of questions, some easy, some probably really easy. I will try and update a following post accordingly with the relavent answers. Feel free to ask questions you might have as well, this is a closely knit community and we like to help each other out.

First up-
1) How to mark messages (PMs) as unread.
2) How to upload images without an outside host (as we did before). Mine keep showing up in odd places or become invisible/broken.

A BIG THANKS for all who help and/or try. We all appreciate it (especially me!).

p.s. No one really cares if you think a question is insignificant or stupid. You were new or unfamiliar with something at some point as well. If not, you're either are an incredible genius and a superior being (who must be immediately worshipped) or a liar. lol

Now lets tap into that knowledge base!

[clickclack]

Mr. Expander...

[mkawa]

MISTA CLACK

WE BOW TO YOUR KEY MAKING SKILLS (you have no idea how much i love the ion blue skull on my topre 10ae. NO IDEA)

1) the PM system uses a gmail-like label system. the only label you get by default is "inbox". you could then make two more labels ("read", "unread"). the a filter could be used to move messages from "inbox" to "read" automatically when you read a message. then, marking a message unread is as simple as changing the label from "read" to "unread"

also, in PM settings, set the default view to threaded view. again, it threads like gmail conversations do.

2) click the reply button or modify button on a post to get to the advanced editor. click the + next to "attachments and other options" below the text box. locate and upload your files. it's not as slick as the advanced vB4 attachment engine, but we'll try to augment it with something cooler as time and security allows

[clickclack]

Thanks mkawa.  =)

Now lets see here, lemme test this out again...






Hmmm... I must be doing something right AND something wrong. As my picture wont go into the regular body of the message and it is invisible in the body of the message when editing. For some reason it's being introduced as a second "signature"? And when I manually copy over the link after clicking the image icon and fill in the specified link the image is broken.

[reaper]

It works!  I can see the image. 

[mkawa]

the img tag part won't work quite yet. i'm not sure how to refer to attachments within a post.

[clickclack]

It works!  I can see the image. 

LoL, sort of...  =P

the img tag part won't work quite yet. i'm not sure how to refer to attachments within a post.

Ah ok,  I think I know what you mean. I mostly see this being a problem when i'm trying to give a description to something or replacing the piles of photos that I had before as they will all remain lumped at the bottom of the post now.

[fartq]

yep, it's on the list of things to fix/or just figure out how it already works and make it more user-friendly

[clickclack]

MISTA CLACK

WE BOW TO YOUR KEY MAKING SKILLS (you have no idea how much i love the ion blue skull on my topre 10ae. NO IDEA)

Hahaa, thank you, that's great to hear!  =)

1) the PM system uses a gmail-like label system. the only label you get by default is "inbox". you could then make two more labels ("read", "unread"). the a filter could be used to move messages from "inbox" to "read" automatically when you read a message. then, marking a message unread is as simple as changing the label from "read" to "unread"
also, in PM settings, set the default view to threaded view. again, it threads like gmail conversations do.

Lemme test this one out too as it has major implications regarding the ability to effectively do high volume PMs, orders, and just plain keeping track of things.

Thanks again  =)

[fartq]

also, there's an artificial limit on the number of PMs you can send per message and per day. it can be changed for users and user classes. let me know if you need it raised for special cases

[clickclack]

Thanks for all the help, but man... phew! Let me tell you, this new upload system really wears you down!

It's just insanely finicky.

Here is the order in which I can upload a photo (sometimes) -

click modify
click attachments and other options
click in the post where you want the image
click on browse find your file
click on which format you want the file uploaded as (I tend to choose "inline expandable")
click save
Viola!

However, if I do anything else, it's really up to chance and luck if it's going to keep what I just did. Lets say I edit the post, well... that's a whole world of hurt. If I select remove the image (delete) it rearranges the numbering system of the files that are uploaded. So the one you uploaded second becomes first if you deleted the first upload. As you can imagine that gets really confusing if you have 2 or more photos in a post. If you mess up the image becomes either broken or it for some reasons defaults and puts the image under the "sig" (bottom of the post). Oddly enough sometimes when the images go where they are supposed to I still randomly get duplicates at the bottom of the post. If I then try and edit that or fix it then all my images come up broken and/or end up just at the bottom of the post again. The preview button sometimes works but most times it just shows you a borked link. Other times it then messes up the post and all images end up at the bottom. Hitting "save" didn't used to work, I would have to hit "enter" while I was in the box with the attached image (browse). But now save does work. This is just really confusing and I'm actually taking notes. =S
lol

I have uploaded so many test images now I have lost count. I would say the failure rate is somewhere around 90%.
This is getting really painful.

[Djuzuh]

why not simply use imgur and put IMG tags?

[fartq]

we're using a very lightweight image attachment engine for various reasons, and yes, i don't think it's really set up to handle your use case.

here are a couple options wholly using the forum software:

make a post whose only purpose is to attach images to. attach all the images you want. select end-of-message expandable (ie, the default) for all of them.

each of these images will get a unique id once you upload it. use that unique id to construct the url you want in your other posts which will actually use those images, and use the  bbc to display the image in those posts.

let me see if i can quickly hack up an [ Attachment Invalid Or Does Not Exist ] id#[/attach] bbc to do the last part automatically today...