New Forum - Quick n Dirty Tips
By
Aggelakis,
Posted on: 2009-08-03 20:32 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Yeah, because these boards don't retain threads like the old boards, you'd probably want to quote it anyway so that there aren't any misunderstandings as to who you're responding to. Threads are going the way of the dodo bird...|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
Technically, yes, but if I'm responding to a post that's anything older than the latest, it's buried WAY down in there, and switching to it and back to typing is a hugely lengthy and cumbersome process. I don't suppose there's any way to retain the old usability of seeing exactly the post you're responding to conveniently? I suppose quoting it could work, but still...
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Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I tried that, but it gave me a search field. I don't know what to search for. It's like trying to find somebody in a crowd if you don't even know what he looks like. An index or table of context would be nice, but I wasn't able to find such.
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As all your other questions were answered, I'll just answer this one. It's VERY simple and something that I've been doing ever since the old boards. After I'm done typing out my response, I ALWAYS always always right click the field, choose Select All from the menu, then right click again and choose Copy.| *Is there any way to prevent our posts from being discarded mid-typing if we back out of the posting page? |
That way if the forum "eats" my post because of a timeout, all I have to do is open the reply box again, right click, hit Paste and BAM! Instant repost! I've done this for YEARS on these forums, and I recommend that everyone else does the same, as it only take a few seconds and a couple mouse clicks. Never lose a post again!
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Simply put, since these new forums allow us to show images, I figure I'd be nice to those on slower connections and save all of my images as low-res GIF files. That way they can see the point of what I'm trying to say without having to wait forever to see it. Might want to think about doing that yourself. |
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
*edit*
Why do all of the pics you're linking to look like they're 256 or 16 colours or some such?  |
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No, that's server side, and it's REALLY starting to tick me off, seriously. | Also, PK, any tips on making the forums faster? They're currently the display/posting version of the Positron TF. |
So, part of yoru guide is to ignore ultimus?? 
Great guide PK. vBulletin can be a bit overwhelming if you never used it.
On the forum speed that is very much a server side issue. There are some compression and caching techniques they can try if it gets too bad. Honestly I have not seen much slowness yet on my end.
The Archive Link at the very bottom of the page, is a lo-fi version of the forum. You can view threads without all the fancy forum skins
Archive
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It comes and goes for some reason. Sometimes it refreshed instantly when I hit the refresh a page. Sometimes doing the same thing minutes later actually TIMES OUT and I have to try again. It's really irritating.
| Honestly I have not seen much slowness yet on my end. |
As a side note...you don't have to sacrifice that much image quality to make a small size gif file.
10KB
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Hey Sam, this is what the other poster was talking about, look below that search field and you'll see three FAQ links that should contain a TON of info about how these forums work:|
Originally Posted by Samuel_Tow
I tried that, but it gave me a search field. I don't know what to search for. It's like trying to find somebody in a crowd if you don't even know what he looks like. An index or table of context would be nice, but I wasn't able to find such.
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I do in Microsoft Paint, which is all I have access to on my business computer on a work trip. I miss my home PC. | As a side note...you don't have to sacrifice that much image quality to make a small size gif file. |
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That only works if the post goes after I'm done posting it, though. And believe me, I do that. But I already lost a few posts by accidentally squeezing the Back button on my mouse (accursed extra mouse buttons!) and I've lost more than a few posts by opening a new tab to, say, look at a dictionary, and then opening the dictionary in the same tab as I'm posting anyway, because I forgot to switch to the new tab. In those cases, I'm not anticipating I might lose my post, so I don't think to save it.|
Originally Posted by PhiloticKnight
As all your other questions were answered, I'll just answer this one. It's VERY simple and something that I've been doing ever since the old boards. After I'm done typing out my response, I ALWAYS always always right click the field, choose Select All from the menu, then right click again and choose Copy.
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| Simply put, since these new forums allow us to show images, I figure I'd be nice to those on slower connections and save all of my images as low-res GIF files. That way they can see the point of what I'm trying to say without having to wait forever to see it. Might want to think about doing that yourself. |
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| do in Microsoft Paint, which is all I have access to on my business computer on a work trip. I miss my home PC. |
If you want a better programme to save pics in, I'd suggest using IrfanView. It's cheap, light and unobtrusive, and it gives you great tools for both viewing pictures and doing some slight editing on them. Specifically, you can save things to different qualities of jpg, and I've found that you can get very decent quality for very low memory usage.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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D'oh!
Maybe people
want these?
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What are you talking about? I'm talking about just saving the post in your Clipboard. If you copy it to your clipboard, it stays there until you copy something else...| That only works if the post goes after I'm done posting it, though. And believe me, I do that. But I already lost a few posts by accidentally squeezing the Back button on my mouse (accursed extra mouse buttons!) and I've lost more than a few posts by opening a new tab to, say, look at a dictionary, and then opening the dictionary in the same tab as I'm posting anyway, because I forgot to switch to the new tab. In those cases, I'm not anticipating I might lose my post, so I don't think to save it. |
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MS Paint has really crappy encoding and produces pictures of abominable quality. Trust me, I used to use it a lot If you want a better programme to save pics in, I'd suggest using IrfanView. It's cheap, light and unobtrusive, and it gives you great tools for both viewing pictures and doing some slight editing on them. Specifically, you can save things to different qualities of jpg, and I've found that you can get very decent quality for very low memory usage.
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How do you read post edit histories?
A game is not supposed to be some kind of... place where people enjoy themselves!
You can't do it on every post, but at the bottom where the "last edited" line is, the first few words are a link to the edit history. Please note it doesn't give you anything interesting if the author doesn't give an edit comment.
Paragon Wiki: http://www.paragonwiki.com
City Info Terminal: http://cit.cohtitan.com
Mids Hero Designer: http://www.cohplanner.com
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Originally Posted by Dispari
I don't know why Dink thinks she's not as sexy as Jay was. In 5 posts she's already upstaged his entire career.
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I miss FireFox not automatically saving what's in the wysiwyg editor. Nor the inability to resize the editor which some add-ons allow. Apparently, the php coding of this editor sets a high barrier for 3rd party apps to massage.|
Originally Posted by PhiloticKnight
As all your other questions were answered, I'll just answer this one. It's VERY simple and something that I've been doing ever since the old boards. After I'm done typing out my response, I ALWAYS always always right click the field, choose Select All from the menu, then right click again and choose Copy.
That way if the forum "eats" my post because of a timeout, all I have to do is open the reply box again, right click, hit Paste and BAM! Instant repost! I've done this for YEARS on these forums, and I recommend that everyone else does the same, as it only take a few seconds and a couple mouse clicks. Never lose a post again! |
However, I did find Lazarus for Firefox which keeps a history of what you type in forms. You can set it to age out what it saves. But I've used it already several times to restore a lengthy composition in the editor that was lost to a timeout in posting it.
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Hey, thanks for making this thread, cleared up a few things.
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I'm talking about the fact that I have to manually save the text to my clipboard. Easy decision when I'm done typing it, but not quite as easy when I don't expect an interruption. I can't very well highlight and save the text after every sentence I type, yet I COULD spontaneously lose my text after every sentence I type from one mis-click or one brainfart. Before, it was right there waiting for me when I got back. Now... Not so much.|
Originally Posted by PhiloticKnight
What are you talking about? I'm talking about just saving the post in your Clipboard. If you copy it to your clipboard, it stays there until you copy something else...
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Posts don't just get lose after you're done typing them and are ready to post them. Posts can get lose mid-sentence from a variety of causes. A means of automatically retaining what I wrote without me having to manually save is one thing I miss from the old boards very, very much.
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| Oh, I know ALL about Irfanview, I use it at home. But on my work computer, I am not authorized to install ANY programs, period. |
I cannot guarantee that that is legal on your job, however
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
Samuel_Tow is the only poster that makes me want to punch him in the head more often when I'm agreeing with him than when I'm disagreeing with him.
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I think the image quality you use is fine for forum guide, but if you did want to better edit them at work, try http://www.picnik.com, completely online browser based photo editing for free. Really easy to use etc.
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Originally Posted by PhiloticKnight
What are you talking about? I'm talking about just saving the post in your Clipboard. If you copy it to your clipboard, it stays there until you copy something else...
Oh, I know ALL about Irfanview, I use it at home. But on my work computer, I am not authorized to install ANY programs, period. |
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
I'm going to go ahead and request a sticky for this, as I do believe that forumites would find this very useful to ease the transition to the new boards. And then maybe after it being sticky here for like a month once its served its purpose, it can be moved over to the normal guides section.
Okay, I've screwed up somewhere, because apparently, I don't have an avatar or pic in my sig like I set up. I think the new forums hate me. Or I screwed up. Either way, it sucks.
Oh, well, looks like my avatar finally showed up.
Really quick question before I go back to lurking. Right now, the forums require me to use my game account password to log in. Is there any way to set up a forum password separate from the game account one?
Thanks.
Nope.
Great post PK
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