Spike: Lots of fuss over one girl. Other things to do around here--important things. Angel: You know that whoosh thing you do when you're suddenly not there anymore? I love that.

'Unleashed'


Buffistas Building a Better Board  

Do you have problems, concerns or recommendations about the technical side of the Phoenix? Air them here. Compliments also welcome.

To-do list


Topic!Cindy - Feb 12, 2005 11:43:53 am PST #9510 of 10000
What is even happening?

ita's nesting.


§ ita § - Feb 12, 2005 12:30:49 pm PST #9511 of 10000
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

Okay! Done!

DX, as a prelim to an implementation of search, I'd like the posts table to be as lean as possible. The site's going to be mostly inaccessible while the full text index is building, and that's going to be a while anyway. I'd like to shorten it as much as possible. So anything that you think is ready for archiving, I'll wait until that's done before indexing.


DXMachina - Feb 12, 2005 12:56:36 pm PST #9512 of 10000
You always do this. We get tipsy, and you take advantage of my love of the scientific method.

Okey doke. I'll let you know.


Jessica - Feb 12, 2005 5:46:35 pm PST #9513 of 10000
If I want to become a cloud of bats, does each bat need a separate vaccination?

Stompies, I'm trying to edit the Buffista Swag link (to add the What's Not To Love store), and it's not taking. I've edited several times now, but the link hasn't changed.


P.M. Marc - Feb 12, 2005 7:15:43 pm PST #9514 of 10000
So come, my friends, be not afraid/We are so lightly here/It is in love that we are made; In love we disappear

Jess, check it now.

I *think* it took when I edited it.


§ ita § - Feb 12, 2005 8:07:58 pm PST #9515 of 10000
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

I think that link owners are having edit difficulties in general. I need to look at that. Admins should be golden, or at least I've never had any trouble.


Jessica - Feb 13, 2005 5:06:03 am PST #9516 of 10000
If I want to become a cloud of bats, does each bat need a separate vaccination?

Thanks Plei! It looks like a few letters of the last store got cut off, though (should be "xanderstw" where it currently just says "xand").

Is that a length issue? If so, I can break it into two links.


DXMachina - Feb 13, 2005 6:26:25 am PST #9517 of 10000
You always do this. We get tipsy, and you take advantage of my love of the scientific method.

If it can be done ASAP, that'd be best -- I want to keep the momentum going.

I thought I had responded to this, but I guess I never hit [Post]. Anyway, I took a pass at the How To's for the new features.

How to Use the Jump Feature:

Say you've just come back from being planewrecked on a tropical island where there was no way to get on the internet, not even a dial-up connection made from coconuts. It's been months since you were last on the board, and you're keen to catch up on Natter, but where to begin? You could just pick up from where you left off, but that might mean wading through thousands and thousands of posts. You could hit "Recent", but that may only give you a handful of posts. What if you wanted to go back a day, or week, or even a month?

Just click on the Jump/Search link in the header, and you'll be whisked down to the Buffista time machine control panel near the bottom of the page. Just set the specific date coordinates you'd like to return to using the handy drop down lists, and hit [OK]. You'll be instantly taken to the first post in the thread on the date you entered. If there weren't any posts that day, fear not. You won't be deposited into nothingness, but rather you'll be dropped off at the first post following the date set. It's all very simple, really.

How to Use the Search Feature:

Remember that recipe for pumpkin-avocado muffins that someone posted last week in Bitches? The one you forgot to bookmark. There's a way to search a thread for stuff like that. Just click on the Jump/Search link in the header, and you'll be taken to the search box near the bottom of the page. Type in a word or two that you can recall from the post, "pumpkin" and "avocado" for example, and hit [OK]. You'll be presented with a list of posts in the thread that have those keywords in them.

Posts are retrieved in order of "relevance" to the keywords. There are some restrictions on keywords. Keywords of three or fewer letters, such as "ita," can't be searched, nor can very common words, such as "some" or "there." If an uncommon word appears in more than half the posts of the thread, it'll be invisible, too. User names can be used as keywords, unless they're too short, but the only results that will be returned are those where the user name appears in the body of the post. Thus, searching on "Minear" will not return posts written by Tim Minear, only those that make reference to him.

How to Label Bookmarks:

Can't remember what all those posts you bookmarked were about? You can label your bookmarks. Just go to the "View bookmarks" page. Under each bookmark there appears a box. You may type any description you like in the box, up to 100 characters for each bookmark. Hit [Enter] or click on [OK] to save the label. You must do this for each label added or edited, or your changes will not be saved. If you type in descriptions for five bookmarks, and then hit [Enter] or [OK], only the last description entered will be saved.


Jon B. - Feb 13, 2005 6:35:00 am PST #9518 of 10000
A turkey in every toilet -- only in America!

Great descriptions, DX. Just one comment:

Now there's a way to search a thread for stuff like that.

Now you can label your bookmarks. Just go to the "View bookmarks" page. Under each bookmark there now appears a box.

I would get rid of the "now"ses, since they won't be new features six months out.


DXMachina - Feb 13, 2005 6:37:55 am PST #9519 of 10000
You always do this. We get tipsy, and you take advantage of my love of the scientific method.

Yeah, I was thinking that. Good suggestion.