SaranacLake Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 It's a real pain in the ass trying to refer to posts in threads because they do NOT have a unique identifier (e.g. Timestamp, ID). Please add a "Post #" to the forums to help us all to have better conversations and eliminate confusion!! (e.g. "As you can see, @requinix, in Post #27, I did in fact respond to your concern about...) Thanks! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
requinix Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 (edited) That would be nice. If it were possible to do easily I'd do it right now, but it's likely yet another nice feature they decided (in their infinite wisdom) to remove, forcing anybody who wants it to have to buy some paid plugin. I suggest quoting yourself. edit: I'm editing a question into my post. Can you see it? Edited February 18, 2020 by requinix Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barand Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 @requinix when I hover the cursor over the posted time of your latest post^ I see "02/18/2020 07:28 AM". Am I seeing that because all times are Zulu time or because it is my local time (GMT)? Do you see "02/17/2020 11:28 PM"? In other words, is the visible timestamp useless for referencing if the participants are in different timezones? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
requinix Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 They're local times. Somehow. Not sure, but I can't find anywhere to set a timezone for myself so I assume the tooltip is set by Javascript. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barand Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 Relative time reference would work. EG See my earlier post X hrs Y mins ago Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyberRobot Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 Also note that there is a link behind the timestamps. You could potentially use that to link to the indicated post. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
requinix Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 (edited) You can also select specific text in a post and a little "Quote selection" thing should pop up. Makes it easier to quote something specific in a post without having to quote the whole post and then delete what you don't want. edit: If y'all didn't notice, while I was searching for something about timezones... or maybe I was looking for the post number thing... whatever, while I was in there I turned on an option that has the default avatar be something according to the first letter of the display name. I've seen it on other sites and I like it, but if people don't and want to go back to the one where it's just blank image for everyone, that's okay. Edited February 18, 2020 by requinix Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaranacLake Posted February 18, 2020 Author Share Posted February 18, 2020 10 hours ago, requinix said: That would be nice. If it were possible to do easily I'd do it right now, but it's likely yet another nice feature they decided (in their infinite wisdom) to remove, forcing anybody who wants it to have to buy some paid plugin. I suggest quoting yourself. Quoting myself doesn't solve the issue... For example, @Barand was helping me out yesterday in the database forum, and we were posting quickly back and forth, and he missed one of my posts with questions. By the time I realized that he probably didn't see that post, it was maybe 7 posts up. And I couldn't merely say, "Could you reply to the post 7 posts up?" because maybe he or someone else was posting as I typed that, thus changing my relative reference. All that is needed is some *unique* reference to a post, be it a "POST #" or a "TIMESTAMP" - which timezone really doesn't matter @Barand. @requinix, if you meant "Quote yourself and re-post your questions", then yeah I could do that, but doing so would make threads a real mess. It sounds like you are using some COTS software solution? Either way, YOU GUYS are supposed to be PHP geniuses, so can't you just hack the code and fix things to make the forum more usable? 😉 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
requinix Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 As an example of what I mean, please answer the question I asked earlier: 11 hours ago, requinix said: edit: I'm editing a question into my post. Can you see it? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
requinix Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 Seems pretty easy to me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaranacLake Posted February 18, 2020 Author Share Posted February 18, 2020 Just now, requinix said: Seems pretty easy to me. Sounds redundant to me. Why repeat yourself when you can say, "Please see my comments in Post #27" Having an online forum with posts that have no post #'s is like having a database table with no primary key... Can this not be fixed? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyberRobot Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 16 minutes ago, SaranacLake said: Sounds redundant to me. As mentioned earlier, you could also link to your earlier post. Note the link at the beginning. 16 minutes ago, SaranacLake said: Can this not be fixed? Perhaps requinix is still looking into this. But I'm guessing it's not given the following: 11 hours ago, requinix said: That would be nice. If it were possible to do easily I'd do it right now, but it's likely yet another nice feature they decided (in their infinite wisdom) to remove, forcing anybody who wants it to have to buy some paid plugin. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaranacLake Posted February 18, 2020 Author Share Posted February 18, 2020 Just now, cyberRobot said: As mentioned earlier, you could also link to your earlier post. Note the link at the beginning. Okay, I see what you are saying now. Does that wok if you just made a post? (Seems to me that last night I was looking for a timestamp and had just made a post and it said something generic like "Posted Today" but I don't recall...) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaranacLake Posted February 18, 2020 Author Share Posted February 18, 2020 Can I link to my last post a moment ago? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Barand Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 Right click on the " 22 minutes ago" Select "copy link" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaranacLake Posted February 18, 2020 Author Share Posted February 18, 2020 Just now, Barand said: Right click on the " 22 minutes ago" Select "copy link" It looks like my attempt right after posting worked. I still vote for Post #'s. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cyberRobot Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 (edited) Not that we're collecting votes or anything. I also think post #s would be nice. That's usually the first thing I look for when trying to find a link to a specific post. Referring to a post # could also be good for most threads as described above by SaranacLake. There are some longer multi-page threads, however, where it would be better to just link to (or quote) the post. That way people don't need to go digging to see what you are referring to. Of course that's a very minor problem. Edited February 18, 2020 by cyberRobot added clarification Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kicken Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 3 hours ago, SaranacLake said: Why repeat yourself when you can say, "Please see my comments in Post #27" Because it highlights better specifically what you feel was missed. Maybe the person thought they answered your question but you're still unsure. It's better to just quote the relevant question/comment and ask for a clear answer, maybe with additional details. Post numbers might be nice, but there's plenty of ways to deal with not having them. 4 hours ago, SaranacLake said: Either way, YOU GUYS are supposed to be PHP geniuses, so can't you just hack the code and fix things to make the forum more usable? I'm sure someone here could if motivated to, but it's not always that easy to just hack the code to some third-party application. Since a lack of post numbers is not a huge problem, there's not much motivation to spend a bunch of time fixing it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
requinix Posted February 18, 2020 Share Posted February 18, 2020 The problem is it's non-trivial: I have no problem hacking the IPB templates a bit, but the post number is not a piece of information available to use. The walled garden of the IPB modding community puts Apple to shame. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaranacLake Posted February 18, 2020 Author Share Posted February 18, 2020 (edited) I thought you guys coded this website yourself? Is this what you are using for PHPFreaks... https://invisioncommunity.com/buy Edited February 18, 2020 by SaranacLake Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
requinix Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 48 minutes ago, SaranacLake said: I thought you guys coded this website yourself? Hahahaha Quote Is this what you are using for PHPFreaks... https://invisioncommunity.com/buy Invision Power Board, aka IPB, aka this dumb piece of crap, yes. As it says in the page footer. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaranacLake Posted February 19, 2020 Author Share Posted February 19, 2020 2 minutes ago, requinix said: Hahahaha Well, I always assumed - whoever the owner is here - did code this site from scratch. It's certainly doable. 2 minutes ago, requinix said: Invision Power Board, aka IPB, aka this dumb piece of crap, yes. As it says in the page footer. I guess if it makes the owner $$$, that is all he cares about. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
requinix Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 18 hours ago, SaranacLake said: Well, I always assumed - whoever the owner is here - did code this site from scratch. It's certainly doable. With enough people, time, effort, and skill, yes. 18 hours ago, SaranacLake said: I guess if it makes the owner $$$, that is all he cares about. Our current owner is a significant improvement over our past owners. Kindly retract your implication that they are greedy, as it will have the added benefit of not making you look like an ass. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SaranacLake Posted February 19, 2020 Author Share Posted February 19, 2020 Just now, requinix said: With enough people, time, effort, and skill, yes. Our current owner is a significant improvement over our past owners. Kindly retract your implication that they are greedy, as it will have the added benefit of not making you look like an ass. I *NEVER* said anything about anyone being greedy! I was saying that if the software used on PHPFreaks helps the owner(s) to make $$$, then it is likely "good enough" from their perspective, even if it doesn't have a "Post #". Nothing wrong said or implied there... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
requinix Posted February 19, 2020 Share Posted February 19, 2020 1 hour ago, SaranacLake said: I *NEVER* said anything about anyone being greedy! I was saying that if the software used on PHPFreaks helps the owner(s) to make $$$, then it is likely "good enough" from their perspective, even if it doesn't have a "Post #". Nothing wrong said or implied there... Then I must have misread your post, because I was sure it said something like "if it makes the owner $$$, that is all he cares about". Or maybe I'm mistaken on the meaning of the word "greedy" and it does not, in fact, mean "having or showing an intense and selfish desire for something, especially wealth or power". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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