PM multiple recipients on DW?

Is it possible to PM multiple recipients on DW?

Hellbent said:

Is it possible to PM multiple recipients on DW?

Not as far as I know. This is a quite old version of forum software and is missing tons of features I've seen on newer boards - like a useful search engine for example :P

Quasar said:

This is a quite old version of forum software...

While we're on that subject, are there any plans afoot to upgrade?

It's been the same software (IIRC) for the better part of a decade, at least. I doubt it.

This is especially fun considering the 60-second minimum waiting time between posts that awesomely applies to PM's too. Upgrade dammit! :(

The latter is mostly a matter of internal configuration and/or moderation policy. Upgrading doesn't mean it will go away (unless the default values are something else and the admins don't change them).

Upgrading would mean also updating the custom plugins, like this.

This board works beautifully for me. Don't fix what ain't broke, I say.

PRIMEVAL said:

This board works beautifully for me. Don't fix what ain't broke, I say.

It is possible, but with a maximum of only five people at a time, and they must be on your buddy list.

Gez said:

Upgrading would mean also updating the custom plugins, like this.

That page just reads the cookie that says you're logged in to the forums, and does some verifying against the forums database. It has nothing to do with the forum code.

There are other reasons not to update, such as the extensive modifications Linguica made to put thread titles in the URLs and other related things.

The 60-second interval between posts is just a setting in the software.

Besides being able to PM multiple users (something of dubious utility, I think), what other features would a person find necessary that are not present?

Other than the PM issue, the other issue I have is that the "recent posts" markers only show what's been posted in the last hour or so instead of what's new since the last visit (like most forums do these days). Still a convenience feature at best, but it frustrates me a bit since I'm prone to re-reading some threads and missing other ones entirely.

Bloodshedder said:

There are other reasons not to update, such as the extensive modifications Linguica made to put thread titles in the URLs and other related things.

Ironically, it's now apparently the default settings for the latest versions of vBulletin. Or at least, that's the impression I got from a forum that started doing that after an update.

Xaser said:

Other than the PM issue, the other issue I have is that the "recent posts" markers only show what's been posted in the last hour or so instead of what's new since the last visit (like most forums do these days). Still a convenience feature at best, but it frustrates me a bit since I'm prone to re-reading some threads and missing other ones entirely.

Combined with the fact that you cannot search for posts by the criterion of time of post (which should be utterly trivial), and the fact that this forum has a ridiculously short session timeout, you can look away for half an hour after you forgot you opened a DWF tab and suddenly be unable to EVER see what was posted.

I've been suggesting this be at least improved by lengthening the timeout period for years but AFAIK it's still 20 minutes.

I have also tried many searches on the forum that simply don't work. For example you cannot search for a three-letter word. Maybe I want to see all posts in the last 2 weeks (can't do it) with the word EDF in it (can't do that either). The results returned by searches are of dubious use as well, since you can either go to the newest post or to the first post in the thread. I'd rather see the relevant posts for my search.

Quasar said:

I've been suggesting this be at least improved by lengthening the timeout period for years but AFAIK it's still 20 minutes.

This can be easily increased. What is a good value you can suggest?

I have also tried many searches on the forum that simply don't work. For example you cannot search for a three-letter word. Maybe I want to see all posts in the last 2 weeks (can't do it) with the word EDF in it (can't do that either). The results returned by searches are of dubious use as well, since you can either go to the newest post or to the first post in the thread. I'd rather see the relevant posts for my search.

I'm not sure what search form you're looking at, but...

• Three letters is the minimum word length you can search for, so you can search for EDF.
• There is a box in the search form called "Search For Posts From..." which lets you specify time criteria; maybe not as granular as you might want, but it's still there.
• You can choose to display results "as posts", which will give you a snippet of the post that contains the word(s) you're searching for, and a link to go directly to it.
• I will concede that highlighting isn't working anymore. I'll look into adding this back in.

Bloodshedder said:

This can be easily increased. What is a good value you can suggest?

I'm not sure what search form you're looking at, but...

• Three letters is the minimum word length you can search for, so you can search for EDF.
• There is a box in the search form called "Search For Posts From..." which lets you specify time criteria; maybe not as granular as you might want, but it's still there.
• You can choose to display results "as posts", which will give you a snippet of the post that contains the word(s) you're searching for, and a link to go directly to it.
• I will concede that highlighting isn't working anymore. I'll look into adding this back in.

I'd think an hour is long enough. I wouldn't reasonably expect to still be "logged in" to anything after that amount of time.

I guess it was one/two letter words I had problems with, and I can understand why those don't get indexed, I suppose, although there are still times when it'd be nice if they were considered as part of a phrase. And yes, the date feature is very chunky. Rarely do I want to know about posts in terms of days ago, but rather hours. Not sure how I missed the option for display as posts.

Xaser said:

Other than the PM issue, the other issue I have is that the "recent posts" markers only show what's been posted in the last hour or so instead of what's new since the last visit (like most forums do these days).

Huh? Works just fine for me. Recently I logged in after 8 months break, clicked "View new posts", and there were 100 pages of unread threads. I bookmarked this search and then browsed all the stuff for a week or so.

What I miss is the ability to select text and apply forum code to it by clicking a button, like in phpBB boards.

being able to PM multiple people over the forums just sounds like a big invitation to spamming.

Danarchy said:

being able to PM multiple people over the forums just sounds like a big invitation to spamming.

Let alone that Hellbent's spam PM's would consist mostly of logical/math puzzles, existential questions, stream-of-conciousness writing and toilet fishing videos. That sort of stuff would look great on Facebook.

Danarchy said:

being able to PM multiple people over the forums just sounds like a big invitation to spamming.

Not unless it is a decent limit, like 10.

Donce said:

Huh? Works just fine for me. Recently I logged in after 8 months break, clicked "View new posts", and there were 100 pages of unread threads.

Speaking of that, when you go to view new posts, the thread display shrinks the thread tags horizontally by reducing them to 15x15 pixels, where the images actually are 60x15 pixels.

Quasar said:

like a useful search engine for example :P

While it's not great, it's certainly better than anything PhpBB ever managed to shit out. :p

Donce said:

Huh? Works just fine for me. Recently I logged in after 8 months break, clicked "View new posts", and there were 100 pages of unread threads. I bookmarked this search and then browsed all the stuff for a week or so.

It doesn't keep track of what you've viewed, though (unless you log out and log back in, presumably), so the list is never depopulated and it's all jumbled up from a bunch of different forums. Not really an ideal system.

[EDIT] And never mind on the 'log-out-log-in' comment. That would just discard the entire list and start a new one, wouldn't it?