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Mrs. Chip
Posts: 268
Joined: Mon Oct 02, 2017 6:48 pm
Location: Pennsylvania

Sat Oct 05, 2019 10:01 am

Thanks pedant for these improvements!
t-curious
Posts: 67
Joined: Mon Dec 11, 2017 7:22 pm
Location: Omaha, Nebraska

Sat Oct 05, 2019 12:15 pm

Yes, thank you and to all those who keep this forum moving forward. I’m grateful for this resource.
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pedant
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Location: Chicago
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Sat Oct 05, 2019 2:22 pm

the horizontal rule / horizontal line / section line bbcode, [hr], can be a dashed line now.

solid line:

Code: Select all

[hr]

dashed line:

Code: Select all

[hr=dashed]

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debunix
Posts: 1812
Joined: Sat Oct 21, 2017 1:27 am
Location: Los Angeles, CA

Sat Oct 05, 2019 10:45 pm

pedant wrote:
Sat Oct 05, 2019 2:20 am
more improvements!

previously, when quoting a post with images, the images therein would be reproduced (as thumbnails) only if they were in an [img] tag.
unfortunately, images uploaded directly to teaforum as attachments were not reproduced when quoted.
now they are! but only for new quotes going forward.
Especially pleased to see this improvement, yay!
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debunix
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Location: Los Angeles, CA

Mon Oct 28, 2019 9:17 am

Now that we're running pretty smoothly, I'll put in a request for another feature that I LOVE from the WELL, a 30+ year old internet community, which helps keep my list (sort of like a feed?) manageable: the ability to 'forget' certain discussions, or even whole sections of the forum. This doesn't keep me from seeing them if I want to, but it would be like being able to see an 'unread posts' view without particular topics that may be very active, but not of interest to me at the time (e.g. if I didn't want to read about a particular tea vendor, or for sale items, or a type of tea that always gave me stomach trouble).

I thought about this a lot while traveling recently, and being irritated by how much scrolling I had to do on my phone screen to get to the topics that I want to keep up with even when on the road with limited screen time & screen size.
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pedant
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Tue Oct 29, 2019 11:55 pm

debunix wrote:
Mon Oct 28, 2019 9:17 am
'forget' certain discussions, or even whole sections of the forum.
i don't have time to write a phpBB extension for this (i.e. do it the 'right way') since i'm working on other features.
eventually, someone who is not me may write one. it's been requested by several people, so hopefully someone makes one. i just bumped the request.
but in the meantime, i can offer you kind of a hack.

if you install the adblocking extension called uBlock Origin (BEWARE! uBlock Origin is (and has always been) COMPLETELY UNRELATED to the web site ublock.org, so install ublock origin, not ublock), then you can add custom filters to do this. on desktop, ublock origin is available for all 'real' browsers like chrome and firefox. on mobile, YMMV. for example, it's available in android for firefox but not for chrome since chrome's mobile app doesn't support extensions/plugins.

with ublock origin installed, open up its dashboard (circled in green):

Image

next, head over to the My filters tab, and you can manually add entries for topics to ignore based on either their topic title or their forum title:

Image

here's the examples in the screenshot above so you can copy/paste:

Code: Select all

! by the way, lines beginning with '!' are ignored
! they're just used to add comments

! -- block specific topics --
! note that this is case-sensitive, and it will match on an incomplete topic title.
! for example, this will block 'What Oolong Are You Drinking' but not 'What OOLONG Are You Drinking'
teaforum.org##ul.topics > li.row:has(a.topictitle:has-text(What Oolong Are))
! if you want to make the matching case-insensitive, you can format it with `//i` with the title in between the slashes like this:
teaforum.org##ul.topics > li.row:has(a.topictitle:has-text(/what oolong are/i))
! (the 'i' at the end stands for case-insensitive)

! -- block all topics from a forum --
teaforum.org##ul.topics > li.row:has(a.topicforum:has-text(Fermented Tea))
3 examples there. first is ignoring a topic title (case sensitive). next is case-insensitive. and then 3rd example is ignoring topics from a forum.
to be clear, there's no need to reproduce any of those lines starting with !. they do nothing.

you can copy/paste those examples to block more topics.
for example, to block this topic, you only need to add this line to your filters:

Code: Select all

teaforum.org##ul.topics > li.row:has(a.topictitle:has-text(Site Feedback & Discussion))
to toggle blocking, you can just disable/enable ublock by clicking its large 'power button' in the first screen shot. it will change from blue to gray.
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debunix
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Location: Los Angeles, CA

Wed Oct 30, 2019 8:35 pm

Interesting option. I'll check it out.
thommes
Posts: 170
Joined: Wed Nov 20, 2019 12:11 pm
Location: Central Ohio

Sat Dec 21, 2019 8:07 am

Do you have a post pinned somewhere with oh wait. lets start over.

Thank you for providing this site! Only been around for a couple months but I'm getting a lot of info and contacts on tea.

Do you have a post pinned somewhere that lists the features that have been suggested, being implemented, won't be implemented? I have several ideas but I don't want to waste anyone's time and effort if the ideas have already been hashed out.

I'm in the IT industry and would be willing to help out. I'm more of an automated tester than a dev, but I could do manual testing, moding where tea expertise is not needed, or wouldn't mind helping with development depending on what the tech stack is.
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Victoria
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Sat Dec 21, 2019 6:14 pm

@thommes now that’s a nice offer, thank you. We are currently using open source phpBB software. @pedant is in charge of and coordinating teck side of site. So far we have been using this thread for site feedback and new ideas. I’ve been wanting a stronger image based aspect to the forum, including a searchable image gallery. Pedant has been working on this lately. Would be interested to have your input and hear your thoughts.
thommes
Posts: 170
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Sun Dec 22, 2019 4:16 am

Victoria wrote:
Sat Dec 21, 2019 6:14 pm
thommes now that’s a nice offer, thank you. We are currently using open source phpBB software. pedant is in charge of and coordinating teck side of site. So far we have been using this thread for site feedback and new ideas. I’ve been wanting a stronger image based aspect to the forum, including a searchable image gallery. Pedant has been working on this lately. Would be interested to have your input and hear your thoughts.
So before making any comments I actually explored the software. I was here selfishly wanting to know everything about puer and didn't take the time to really dive into the software. I spent a little time going "oh yes I could have done that" or "why didn't I realize this?" because as stated I just wanted info on puer. I never thought the software was bad. :) Just didn't spend the time to learn how to make things easy on myself. I hang out in a lot of forum and some use off the shelf packages and others customize things or build their own UI. I have no preference for either as long as it functions. :) With that being said, one thing that I can't figure out how to do and I'm hoping it's already here and I'm just missing it, is how to thank, like, disagree with a post? I personally don't care so much about disagreeing, but all the other forums I use have a way to thank a person for their response. Just a quick little click and you've acknowledged that someone took the time to read your post and respond to it. Sure you could post something saying Thanks @Victoria but that sort of clutters up the thread/topic/forum. A non intrusive click and that person knows you've read their response/thanked them when an actual response isn't really necessary.
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pedant
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Tue Dec 24, 2019 12:23 pm

thommes wrote:
Sat Dec 21, 2019 8:07 am
Thank you for providing this site! Only been around for a couple months but I'm getting a lot of info and contacts on tea.
:mrgreen:
thanks, thommes
thommes wrote:
Sat Dec 21, 2019 8:07 am
Do you have a post pinned somewhere that lists the features that have been suggested, being implemented, won't be implemented? I have several ideas but I don't want to waste anyone's time and effort if the ideas have already been hashed out.
this is a good idea, but no, it doesn't exist. this thread (and more broadly, this section of the forum) serves that purpose. maybe some day i'll take the time to condense it, but for now, the thread isn't that long.
thommes wrote:
Sat Dec 21, 2019 8:07 am
I'm in the IT industry and would be willing to help out. I'm more of an automated tester than a dev, but I could do manual testing, moding where tea expertise is not needed, or wouldn't mind helping with development depending on what the tech stack is.
thanks for the offer. we'll pm you!
thommes wrote:
Sun Dec 22, 2019 4:16 am
With that being said, one thing that I can't figure out how to do and I'm hoping it's already here and I'm just missing it, is how to thank, like, disagree with a post?
i'm personally neutral on this feature (post reactions aka likes), but i wouldn't mind having it.
there are at least a couple (i believe there's several, actually) phpBB extensions written that implement what you ask.

however, every addition to TF requires careful consideration because of the strong potential to increase site maintenance burden over time.
unfortunately, i don't believe any of them are official extensions (supported by core phpBB team), and so their long term support is unknown.
this is further complicated by the fact that such an extension generates data (unlike something simple like an accessibility extension to increase font size), and there's not exactly a standard for storing likes/reactions. if one guy stops maintaining his reactions extension, i'll either have to abandon our history of reactions or waste time trying to migrate the data to work with another extension providing similar features.

with that said, i'm happy to use one, but i don't know which to use. if you'd like to help evaluate the options, that'd be awesome!
how to evaluate? i'd consider things like this:
  • probability of longterm support (reduced risk of increasing teaforum's upgrade maintenance burden)
    • the more popular the extension, the less risky. maybe someone will pick up the slack if needed.
    • is the extension officially 'approved', or is it only dev/release candidate?
    • multi-person dev team?
    • are the authors longtime phpBB community members?
  • functionality
    • must actually test the top picks in a dev environment (e.g. a phpBB installation in a VM or possibly in docker)
    • which one looks the nicest and appears to work the best?
    • have a quick look at the code -- does it appear to be well written and maintainable?
that is the basic process i have to go through. if you feel like tackling it for a reactions extension, we'd all be grateful :mrgreen: :ugeek:
you don't actually have to spend time getting a phpBB dev environment going. i'm happy to play with the top picks, but perhaps just research and propose the most promising extensions?
Tyler
Posts: 32
Joined: Fri Mar 16, 2018 9:18 pm

Tue Dec 24, 2019 10:34 pm

I don’t really want reactions...
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aet
Vendor
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Location: Kunming ( China )

Thu Dec 26, 2019 7:53 am

sorry if this has been sad here already, I'm just lazy to read trough the all thread to find that out. Just sometimes is difficult to read when somebody respond to someones reaction and it's quoting the more than one quote. Like the quote within the quote within another quote. I mean when more people got in commenting someones reaction and then it looks like some "unfolded css style code " or something. I don't know if there is any intelligent solution for this. When I want to react to somebody's comment like that , I use the quote button , but then manually deleting those sub-quotes. I believe some people don't have time for this , so then the "tree" is happening. This kind of issue I've noticed in many forums.
mjac
Posts: 13
Joined: Sat Feb 22, 2020 1:37 pm

Mon Feb 24, 2020 6:00 am

Being totally new to this forum I am completely unaware of how it works. On other forums I have been on you start a "Thread" on a particular topic and those that are interested in it and knowledgeable and experienced in it respond to that particular topic. I posted here a question about finding a Green Tea that would suit my tastes starting a new topic and I believe it was moved to a general topic of "What Green Tea Are You Drinking" and mixed in with 672 other posts. If your question is mixed in with 672 other posts on a general topic how are you going to get direct responses to your question or even have your question recognized? Please advise. Is it possible or within guidelines to have a new topic or thread established...Thanks,mjac
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Victoria
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Mon Feb 24, 2020 6:42 pm

mjac wrote:
Mon Feb 24, 2020 6:00 am
Being totally new to this forum I am completely unaware of how it works. On other forums I have been on you start a "Thread" on a particular topic and those that are interested in it and knowledgeable and experienced in it respond to that particular topic. I posted here a question about finding a Green Tea that would suit my tastes starting a new topic and I believe it was moved to a general topic of "What Green Tea Are You Drinking" and mixed in with 672 other posts. If your question is mixed in with 672 other posts on a general topic how are you going to get direct responses to your question or even have your question recognized? Please advise. Is it possible or within guidelines to have a new topic or thread established...Thanks,mjac
We sent you an email outlining TeaForum rules and guidelines. New members need to make introductions and familiarize themselves with TeaForum before creating new threads. Many times a new thread is not necessary, members can see active and unanswered posts in upper left Menu. TeaForum is structured around major and minor categories, making it easier to search, with the hope of it becoming an important repository of searchable tea knowledge.

Rules & Etiquette:
Search First
  • We encourage newer members to search through past posts before posting questions. Doing some research first will help you refine your questions or possibly even answer them, and we believe that you will get more out of the forum this way.
  • Before posting a new thread, consider seeing if there is an existing one to contribute to. By keeping conversation topics consolidated, it will be easier to find information and do research in the future.
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