On Thursday, 8 December 2011 at 12:16:21 UTC, SomeDude wrote:
> BTW, on Firefox 3.6.24, it says that pushState is not supported, nevertheless the horizontal-split works fine and I like it very much.

While basic functionality might work, it will still generate and send the entire threaded view for every click. That's a lot of wasted resources. I was going to remove the link entirely for unsupported browsers, but now I'm not sure what to do about it.

> I would like to be able to resize the left window, though, as with deeply nested dicussions, I'm affraid we might run out of space (although I haven't seen it in the last 40 pages or so of discussions).

That's because the indentation is automatically adjusted based on the deepest reply level. At the worst, you could see line breaks in long names.

On Thu, 08 Dec 2011 14:57:40 +0200, Vladimir Panteleev <vladimir@thecybershadow.net> wrote:

> On Thursday, 8 December 2011 at 12:12:15 UTC, so wrote:
>> Is it possible to add refresh
>
> How would a refresh feature work, and be better than just hitting F5?

Oh you are right, i forgot it was a "web" newsreader. Sorry :)

On Thursday, 8 December 2011 at 12:27:44 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> you receive an A+ from me!
>
> BTW, is there any way to sort the threaded view so that the newest messages appear on top?  Simply because, in a web page, the top is what shows up first.

Thanks :) The reason why I chose to sort by older posts first is a bit convoluted:

Generally, in a threaded discussion, replies always have to appear below their parents. Even though it's possible to sort siblings in the reverse order, it would be rather inconsistent. The same goes with entire threads - the last post in a group will appear as the *bottom-most* child of its parent, inside the *topmost* thread.

This was not a problem for the split-view mode, because JavaScript scrolls down the message list when the page is loaded. I've finished the threaded view after the split-view, which inherited its order. I decided to leave it as it is for consistency with what the view was modelled after - mailing list archives.

I'm thinking that we could eventually have a "Preferences" page, where we could go nuts with options and customization.

On Thursday, 8 December 2011 at 11:43:25 UTC, Dmitry wrote:
> It would be great to have a button "View New Posts". It could be very useful and I think it is only what we need actually. :)

What would such a button do?

On Thu, 08 Dec 2011 08:13:36 -0500, Vladimir Panteleev <vladimir@thecybershadow.net> wrote:

> On Thursday, 8 December 2011 at 12:27:44 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
>> you receive an A+ from me!
>>
>> BTW, is there any way to sort the threaded view so that the newest messages appear on top?  Simply because, in a web page, the top is what shows up first.
>
> Thanks :) The reason why I chose to sort by older posts first is a bit convoluted:
>
> Generally, in a threaded discussion, replies always have to appear below their parents. Even though it's possible to sort siblings in the reverse order, it would be rather inconsistent. The same goes with entire threads - the last post in a group will appear as the *bottom-most* child of its parent, inside the *topmost* thread.

Having the newest post at the bottom of the top-most group is acceptable for a threaded view, simply because in a threaded view, that is the natural order.

But having the newest item near the bottom of the page makes it slightly annoying, since it isn't the focus when the page loads.

Would a simple "scroll to bottom on page load" in javascript be possible?  I know there are some nicks on this newsgroup who don't like JS, but their browser simply won't scroll.  So what.

> This was not a problem for the split-view mode, because JavaScript scrolls down the message list when the page is loaded. I've finished the threaded view after the split-view, which inherited its order. I decided to leave it as it is for consistency with what the view was modelled after - mailing list archives.

I understand.  I'm just used to webnews which put the threads with the newest posts on top.  But I think a simliar javascript solution would be acceptable.

> I'm thinking that we could eventually have a "Preferences" page, where we could go nuts with options and customization.

Probably, this is a cool project.  If I ever come across having to use forum software, I'm going to use it.

Now, you just need the management pages to administer a real forum :)

-Steve

On Thursday, 8 December 2011 at 13:23:53 UTC, Steven Schveighoffer wrote:
> Would a simple "scroll to bottom on page load" in javascript be possible?  I know there are some nicks on this newsgroup who don't like JS, but their browser simply won't scroll.  So what.

JavaScript which alters page content on load is bad, because by the time it executes you might have already started reading the page. I think it's best to avoid such nuisances.

> I understand.  I'm just used to webnews which put the threads with the newest posts on top.

I think I'll just reverse the sorting of threads in the threaded view. Threads are already sorted differently than posts anyway (they're sorted by the time of the last reply, not by the original post's time).

> Probably, this is a cool project.  If I ever come across having to use forum software, I'm going to use it.

The code would need a good refactoring to get the D hacks out. It's a bit of a mess in that regard.

> Now, you just need the management pages to administer a real forum :)

Who says there isn't one?

https://github.com/CyberShadow/ae/blob/master/demo/sqlite/exec.d

;)

On 08/12/2011 10:55, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
> As mentioned previously, I've been working on a web frontend for the
> DigitalMars NNTP server. I collected ideas and inspiration from the
> several threads on this topic in the last few weeks, and now I think
> that the result is ready for beta testing and general use.
>
> The current (temporary) URL is:
>
>
>
> Here are the highlights:
>
> * Written in D, pull requests are welcome.
> https://github.com/CyberShadow/DFeed
>
> * It remembers which posts you've seen on an individual post basis.
> By default, read post history is stored in a compressed cookie.
>
> * Optionally, you can register an account, which will store your
> preferences and read post history in the server database. There is no
> e-mail confirmation etc.

Oooh, it's almost ready enough to let me replace my Thunderbird usage!

A couple of feature requests (some I've already mentioned on IRC):

 * Support syntax highlighting for blocks enclosed with --- like DDoc does, maybe other types of blocks too such as {{{}}} that trac uses, or whatever github uses.
 * Does the mailing list have the same restriction as gmane has (no posting)?
 * Thundrbird has a "mark read" function for threads/messages/newsgroups - that'd be really useful.
 * In the horizontal-split view if you scroll down too far in the thread you can't see the current thread title, it would be good to make that sticky until you reach the next thread so you can see where you're up to



-- 
Robert
http://octarineparrot.com/

On 08/12/2011 13:51, Robert Clipsham wrote:
> On 08/12/2011 10:55, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
>> As mentioned previously, I've been working on a web frontend for the
>> DigitalMars NNTP server. I collected ideas and inspiration from the
>> several threads on this topic in the last few weeks, and now I think
>> that the result is ready for beta testing and general use.
>>
>> The current (temporary) URL is:
>>
>>
>>
>> Here are the highlights:
>>
>> * Written in D, pull requests are welcome.
>> https://github.com/CyberShadow/DFeed
>>
>> * It remembers which posts you've seen on an individual post basis.
>> By default, read post history is stored in a compressed cookie.
>>
>> * Optionally, you can register an account, which will store your
>> preferences and read post history in the server database. There is no
>> e-mail confirmation etc.
>
> Oooh, it's almost ready enough to let me replace my Thunderbird usage!
>
> A couple of feature requests (some I've already mentioned on IRC):
>
> * Support syntax highlighting for blocks enclosed with --- like DDoc
> does, maybe other types of blocks too such as {{{}}} that trac uses, or
> whatever github uses.
> * Does the mailing list have the same restriction as gmane has (no
> posting)?
> * Thundrbird has a "mark read" function for threads/messages/newsgroups
> - that'd be really useful.
> * In the horizontal-split view if you scroll down too far in the thread
> you can't see the current thread title, it would be good to make that
> sticky until you reach the next thread so you can see where you're up to

Another one - log in using OpenID so I don't have to remember another username/password ;)

-- 
Robert
http://octarineparrot.com/

On Thursday, 8 December 2011 at 13:51:21 UTC, Robert Clipsham wrote:
> * Support syntax highlighting for blocks enclosed with --- like DDoc does, maybe other types of blocks too such as {{{}}} that trac uses, or whatever github uses.

I'm not very excited about the idea of introducing formatting features that only users of this web interface will see. Frequent use of such features would annoy users of other interfaces, and there's the risk of accidentally activating them.

> * Does the mailing list have the same restriction as gmane has (no posting)?

Yes. Clicking on "Create thread" or "Reply" will display a message with a link to the Mailman page. I could probably implement posting if Brad says it's OK, but focused discussion groups such as development mailing lists might actually benefit from a high barrier to entry.

> * Thundrbird has a "mark read" function for threads/messages/newsgroups - that'd be really useful.

"Mark thread as [un]read" keys should be easy to add. It would also be possible to mark all posts as read, but not on a per-group basis.

> * In the horizontal-split view if you scroll down too far in the thread you can't see the current thread title, it would be good to make that sticky until you reach the next thread so you can see where you're up to

This isn't possible with just CSS. A JavaScript implementation might be possible. I'll think about it.

Maybe we should just reverse the thread sort order, like for the "threaded" view?

> Another one - log in using OpenID so I don't have to remember another username/password ;)

I'd be happy to if you provide a D OpenID implementation :)

(Last I checked, implementing OpenID from scratch was quite hard)

On Thursday, 8 December 2011 at 13:19:39 UTC, Vladimir Panteleev wrote:
> On Thursday, 8 December 2011 at 11:43:25 UTC, Dmitry wrote:
>> It would be great to have a button "View New Posts". It could be very useful and I think it is only what we need actually. :)
>
> What would such a button do?

It would allow you to view all of the topics which have new messages (replies) in since your last visit. Each the topic would contain the new messages only and, if it makes sense, the original messages too.

For example, assume that I had already read everything and replied to your message some time ago.
A few minutes later I had pressed button/link "View New Posts" on the "Forum Index" page so that there was your reply only.
The page could look as follows.

› Forum Index
======== D Programming Language ========
Forum              Last Post
----------------------------------------
digitalmars.D      A new web newsreader
                  by Vladimir Panteleev
                          ? minutes ago

The page would be empty at all, if there was nothing new for reading. Alternatively, another approach could keep it as it is for now, but indicate somehow on unread messages (e.g. change the font style or place a count of new messages).

Then, if I had entered to "digitalmars.D" with the new message the page could look as below.

› digitalmars.D
======= A new web newsreader ========
Dmitry                    ? hours ago // original message, had been already read
 Vladimir Panteleev    ? minutes ago // unread message

Sorry for unclear explanation.

In other words, button "View New Posts" could update a page filtering out all read messages.