Post by fastwalker on Jun 25, 2005 11:42:09 GMT -5
Topics at a glance:
1) auto-banning for too many failed login attempts
2) "invisible" mode
3) The "woobug" (I couldn't make something like that up...)
4) Quick access to your most recent posts
5) Applying attrbutes to text in a post
Happy weekend, everyone. If you're in the Boston area, may you not need to step outside your air-conditioned home today, as it is slated to hit 100 (sizzle).
Now that we've had about a month to get acclimated to ProBoards v4 (we meaning both members and mods), I've accumulated a little punch list of "features" that could use some explaining before they end up causing a bunch of confusion (or more confusion than they already have, lol). Plus, a couple of useful tips.
#1) There seems to be a "security" feature now that locks out a member from logging in after 10 successive unsuccessful login attempts. The lock-out is for some number of hours, and every attempt to log in after that increases the lock out time (even if the login name/password are given correctly, it seems.)
One of our members was hit by this, and had several mods/admins scratching our heads. Best way to deal with this: If you're having trouble logging in, either contact a fellow member via email (we all end up with our personal list of friends like that, eventually, don't we?) and ask them to PM a mod or post a thread asking for help, or failing that, contact Canuck at his email addy (cmkx@canada.com) for help. Because if you trigger this auto-ban feature, we can't do diddly-squat about it until it runs its course.
#2) Several members have discovered that anyone can now browse the board in "invisible" mode. I don't want to promote this, but neither do we as a mod team have any objection to members using it. This is the kind of thing where there may be a feeling of subterfuge, as if we'd be mad you'd want to be invisible. Actually, we couldn't care less, and I think most members wouldn't either. (Well, in the interest of full disclosure, please note that you're not invisible to mods when you're in that mode... ).
Anyway, there has been some discussion of this feature over on the ProBoards support board, and the general consensus seems to be that confidentiality is okay, and if someone doesn't want to advertise to the general membership that they're here, there's no big deception going on. The member would just prefer not to be bothered (or hassled for being on the board too much, like some people we know, lol...me included, I guess! But I never go invisible, just a personal choice of mine.)
#3) This is the bad one. You know how we have to periodically "burp" the board? This happens because of a database glitch that makes the thread and post index basically disappear for most of the post history. If you search, you'll only get results in the most recent week or two. pages beyond a certain point (say, page 20 out of the 500+ we have) just don't show up.
Evidently, the ProBoards community even has a name for this: the "woobug" (don't ask me, I have NFI). And it won't be fixed in v4 (damn). v5 maybe. So we only have another year or two to wait...
Anyway, if you see the woobug manifesting, PLEASE post a new thread saying "please burp the board". A mod will see it, fix the board, and delete the post. Eventually. Hopefully.
Okay, after all that bad news, I thought I'd throw in a couple of good features:
#4) If you hit the "Profile" button up at the top of the board, it will list your last five posts. Or, for another member's profile, their last five posts. I don't know about the rest of you, but after I've been away from the board for a while, the first thing I want to do upon my return is to check if there are responses to my most recent posts. This makes it VERY easy to do that. Sure beats scanning page 1 and trying to remember where the heck I last posted...or going through the several screens it used to take to get those most recent posts listed.
#5): You can now simply select text in the composition window, and then press a "Tag" button up top...it will properly put the begin and ending tags AROUND the text you have selected. And when you press the Tag buttons with no text selected, it no longer puts the obnoxious "TEXT" text in there. Yay!
That's it for this weekend's "Tech Talk" update.
Good luck, everyone!
-BD
cmkxdiamond.proboards32.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1119707263
8-)Glad someone had the time to list the glitches...thanks BD...fw
1) auto-banning for too many failed login attempts
2) "invisible" mode
3) The "woobug" (I couldn't make something like that up...)
4) Quick access to your most recent posts
5) Applying attrbutes to text in a post
Happy weekend, everyone. If you're in the Boston area, may you not need to step outside your air-conditioned home today, as it is slated to hit 100 (sizzle).
Now that we've had about a month to get acclimated to ProBoards v4 (we meaning both members and mods), I've accumulated a little punch list of "features" that could use some explaining before they end up causing a bunch of confusion (or more confusion than they already have, lol). Plus, a couple of useful tips.
#1) There seems to be a "security" feature now that locks out a member from logging in after 10 successive unsuccessful login attempts. The lock-out is for some number of hours, and every attempt to log in after that increases the lock out time (even if the login name/password are given correctly, it seems.)
One of our members was hit by this, and had several mods/admins scratching our heads. Best way to deal with this: If you're having trouble logging in, either contact a fellow member via email (we all end up with our personal list of friends like that, eventually, don't we?) and ask them to PM a mod or post a thread asking for help, or failing that, contact Canuck at his email addy (cmkx@canada.com) for help. Because if you trigger this auto-ban feature, we can't do diddly-squat about it until it runs its course.
#2) Several members have discovered that anyone can now browse the board in "invisible" mode. I don't want to promote this, but neither do we as a mod team have any objection to members using it. This is the kind of thing where there may be a feeling of subterfuge, as if we'd be mad you'd want to be invisible. Actually, we couldn't care less, and I think most members wouldn't either. (Well, in the interest of full disclosure, please note that you're not invisible to mods when you're in that mode... ).
Anyway, there has been some discussion of this feature over on the ProBoards support board, and the general consensus seems to be that confidentiality is okay, and if someone doesn't want to advertise to the general membership that they're here, there's no big deception going on. The member would just prefer not to be bothered (or hassled for being on the board too much, like some people we know, lol...me included, I guess! But I never go invisible, just a personal choice of mine.)
#3) This is the bad one. You know how we have to periodically "burp" the board? This happens because of a database glitch that makes the thread and post index basically disappear for most of the post history. If you search, you'll only get results in the most recent week or two. pages beyond a certain point (say, page 20 out of the 500+ we have) just don't show up.
Evidently, the ProBoards community even has a name for this: the "woobug" (don't ask me, I have NFI). And it won't be fixed in v4 (damn). v5 maybe. So we only have another year or two to wait...
Anyway, if you see the woobug manifesting, PLEASE post a new thread saying "please burp the board". A mod will see it, fix the board, and delete the post. Eventually. Hopefully.
Okay, after all that bad news, I thought I'd throw in a couple of good features:
#4) If you hit the "Profile" button up at the top of the board, it will list your last five posts. Or, for another member's profile, their last five posts. I don't know about the rest of you, but after I've been away from the board for a while, the first thing I want to do upon my return is to check if there are responses to my most recent posts. This makes it VERY easy to do that. Sure beats scanning page 1 and trying to remember where the heck I last posted...or going through the several screens it used to take to get those most recent posts listed.
#5): You can now simply select text in the composition window, and then press a "Tag" button up top...it will properly put the begin and ending tags AROUND the text you have selected. And when you press the Tag buttons with no text selected, it no longer puts the obnoxious "TEXT" text in there. Yay!
That's it for this weekend's "Tech Talk" update.
Good luck, everyone!
-BD
cmkxdiamond.proboards32.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=1119707263
8-)Glad someone had the time to list the glitches...thanks BD...fw
