Another new feature / description of a current feature: Relative / Absolute Timestamps.
You may have noticed in each thread's list of replies that there is a value at the end, something to the tune of "+1H" or "+2W" or "+1M". These represent things like "+1 hour", "+2 weeks", or "+1 Month" respectively. Their intent is to show you, approximately, how old a post is, or, how old it is in relation to what it is in reply to.
Let me explain. Humans, when it comes down to it, aren't good at measuring time. We have things like years, months, weeks, days, hours, seconds, and other fun arbitrary allotments of time to represent an otherwise single-dimension value. Computers measure the passing of time as a number of seconds, which is easier, but hard to qualify for humans.
Every other forum I've seen displays dates like "2010-09-27 20:55:04 -0900" that tells you everything you have to know about the date. However, most people when they're considering a post, only care about how recent it is, and have to spend extra time remembering if that date is now, then, in the past, in the future, last week, etc. This is why I decided to only display the full date on the post you're interested in, and display a short "relative time" that's of the most immediate interest.
Unfortunately, I got all programmer on you. I figured out that there are two types of "relative time" I can show you. I can calculate the amount of time that has passed since a post occurred and the current time (what I'll call "absolute time"). What I can also calculate is the time between when the parent of a post was posted, and when its reply was posted (what I'll call "relative time"). I chose the latter as the default, and failed to explain what I was doing.
Absolute time is the most interesting when you're trying to get a general idea of a timeline. Relative time is useful when you're trying to figure out the timeline of a particular thread. Absolute time is simpler to calculate (I only need the creation timestamp of the post and the current timestamp). In calculating absolute time, all posts are dislaying their approximate age.
Relative time is a little more complicated: the first post in the thread (the "root") is calculated using absolute time, and all subsequent posts are calculated relative to that of its parent. That means if the root is "+3W", the initial post is three weeks old. If a following reply to the root is "+1H", that means someone replied to the root within one hour, but three weeks ago.
I can see people preferring either. I've now put up another user preference that lets you choose how you want to view your time differences. You can choose between absolute time and relative time.
So, is there a way to edit posts? I would like to be able to edit asinine grammatical/spelling errors, if possible.
New feature: alternate Item / Thread sorting.
When perusing items, you now have two methods with which to view threads within items (in addition to the "Thread Forwards / Thread Backwards" user setting.
The first is "Latest Thread." This is the classic sorting of idkfa threads when perusing an item. It is sorted by the order in which a thread was created, in respect to the other threads in the item. New threads? They go to the top, the rest follow.
The new one is "Latest Post in Thread," which is a slight derivation. Threads in an item are instead sorted by the latest post within the thread. That means that if somebody posts to an item in "Latest Post in Thread" sorting, that thread will go to the top, followed the the second latest post's thread, the third, and so on.
The idea behind "Latest Post in Thread" sorting is so people can tell which threads have the most recent activity, not necessarily the threads that were posted last. This is ideal in a situation where an older thread has activity, as it puts it at the top for all to see.
This is reminiscent of the type of sorting that goes on in flat forums (phpBB, SMF).
So, here's some fun stuff. Those key combinations I mentioned earlier in the week. I've been messing around with them a lot, trying to figure out nice/fun/easy ways to make idkfa less of a chore to use. Granted, memorizing key commands isn't exactly at the top of the list of effective human-computer interface methods, but it's quick, it's easy, and it's unobtrusive to the current baseline interface that everyone has come to know and love.
The new key combination is: Control, Backtick, u. That is, control, let off, backtick, let off, and the letter "u."
What this does is enable the "auto-update" functions on a given page. These functions will take a specific element of the idkfa interface (say, the "Latest Posts" element), and will load that element by itself without refreshing the page. It will continue to do this until you tell it to stop by repeating the key sequence above.
Auto-updaters exist currently for the "N online" bit in the navigation bar, the "Users Online" box on the users online page, and the entire thread when you're viewing a thread.
The intended use for this function is if somebody wants to be on idkfa, but not have to repeatedly refresh the page to see if there's updated content. The user only has to navigation to the page they want, set the auto-updaters going, and come back later.
There are browser plugins that attempt to address this by forcing the browser to refresh the entire page at a certain interval. These work in some cases, but if you're typing a lengthy post and suddenly the plugin refreshes the page, you've lost everything you typed.
This brings idkfa's technology one step closer to "Web 2.0," which leaves me with a bittersweet taste in my mouth. The functionality it provides lets me do neat things like automatically update things people want automatically updated. However, it makes things a lot more complicated. Almost every site these days has functionality that operates asynchronously or completely out of the control of each user's mouse click. I dislike that lack of control, and is the reason why I'm letting users choose whether to enable / disable this type of functionality at will.
Let me know what you guys think. Future plans are to automagicalize the search function, and maybe make the page title change to reflect an update (similar to how Gmail indicates the number of unread messages in its page title).
More new features. Posting earlier today, got to thinking about key commands. So... I implemented a few, for the laziest of the lazy (namely, myself).
Here's how it works:
- Press control once (don't hold it). A message should appear at the top of idkfa saying "One..."
- Press tilde (~) once (don't hold it). A message should appear at the top of idkfa saying "Two..."
Now press once one of the following to execute the following command:
- R: Go to a random post.
- N: Go to the next unread post.
- O: Go to the users online page.
- M: Go to the "More" listing for the last week of posts.
- S: Highlight the search box so you can start typing.
When you're viewing a thread, you can do the following:
- Left Arrow: Go to the root of the thread
- Up Arrow: Go to the parent of the post you're viewing
- Down Arrow: Go "down" one post, useful if you're essentially reading a thread top to bottom.
- Right Arrow: Go to the latest post in the thread.
If at any time you mess up, you can hit escape to try again, or wait five seconds for it to refresh itself.
If you have suggestions for more actions to be taken without removing your hands from the keyboard, I'm all ears.
For now, happy key combos!
Getting tired of copying and pasting links, I've tried my hand again at an auto-linking feature. Essentially, you can do things like simply type http://idkfa.com, and not have to worry too much about using the comment box features to have the URL appear as a link.
This... was really, really hard to get right. Especially considering I had to find a way to distinguish between somebody simply typing a link, or using the actual linking mechanism to include a link, or if they wanted to use the link mechanism to make the URL itself a link without depending on the auto-linking feature.
And for the prestige, being able to do it in the same post (http://idkfa.com) (idkfa.com)), on the same line, doing everything wrong (http://idkfa.com), and still have it turn out right, despite using the exact same URL in all instances.
It may be that I don't have all the kinks worked out yet. Be sure to use the preview feature to make sure your posts/links are getting mangled correctly. Please report back if you find something wrong.
I guess my web hosts are doing server maintenance this evening on their network. Don't panic if idkfa goes down.
Another new idkfa feature:
Users can now "tag" posts by clicking the "+" symbol next to the post they are viewing. What this does is mark posts they've read with a flag. This flag can then be searched for via myidkfa.
Why put this in? Well, in reading a weekend's worth of posts, I wanted to mark a post to respond to later. However, after opening up 20+ tabs, I figured if my browser closed, or I needed to do something else first, I wanted idkfa to remember what I wanted to respond to.
The new search term is "is:tagged."
The Archive page is now available to view "archived" items. These will be items that have been retired from the main list of discussion items, but are still available for discussion and viewing.
If you were trying to access idkfa this afternoon, you may have had some difficulty. I've got it fixed now. Thanks to Erik for alerting me to the issue.
A holdout from the previous version of idkfa, the "<#Recent>" counts in the list of discussion items is something I put into v2 without really much consideration, and into v3 with even less.
I never really asked anybody if they got anything out of it. At a glance, its intent is to let you know the quantity of recent posts in each of the sections to let you know what sections most likely have new content for you to read. However, with the introduction of reading histories (read/unread posts), this has been somewhat obsoleted.
I've since replaced it with the "[# Unseen]" count, where each item, while you're logged in, will indicate how many post are in each section that you haven't read. Clicking on the number will give you a search of the unread posts in the corresponding item.
The "<# Recent>" feature will still exist, but only when you're browsing without logging in.
Suggestion-complaints:
AN IPHONE APP. Or at least a mobile skin, a la tumblr. This is hard to read on phone.
I have trouble reading the italics in the recent comments box/search returns, but I'm also viewing on either a TV from far away or a phone. And I have awful eyesight. So maybe an "old person" skin with larger, less italicized fonts?
How about a feed in myidkfa like google reader where you can organize unread posts by user or topic heading? I like the "view all unread" option, but I need a better thumbnail to browse by.
More graphics, less text. How about images for root/latest/up/search/reply instead of all text?
Something I don't like about avatars, but I can't put my finger on it. Maybe an option to enlarge, a la twitter? Or a full version/thumbnail version, a la that-one-social-networking-site-that-dare-not-speak-its-name-here?
Also (I'm typing from the preview page now), it seems like when I double space after a period it sometimes line breaks between spaces, like in graph 3, line 3 above (although this could change I guess when I post). Do I have to break myself of my double space after a full stop habit, or can you clean this up?
Love you!
Josh. Why have a page telling you that you posted a post, instead of just forwarding you back to the post? I mean, it would only make sense to have that if there was an error, and not for the successes.
So in the comment box, in the bottom right corner is the window expansion thingy. For me at least, on my work computer it doesn't seem to work correctly. It expands the inner white part without expanding the outer shell. Making the text fit the inner white box and and thus hiding the rest of the text, and since the expansion bit is part of the inner white box that is out of view as well making it impossible to change back unless I go to preview at which point I get the normal comment box again.
Are people having issues uploading their avatars? Aside from the usual annoyances of size and geometry complaints. I notice that a number of people still have yet to choose one.
Two new links on my idkfa for viewing threads. Both are essentially viewing random threads upon every page view, but one of them is slightly more useful as it'll walk you through all unread messages, in order, upon every refresh.
i was searching for unread posts, and i tried out the new search function to find what I haven't read yet. I had 27 posts unread. The page pulldown menu next to the search input box didn't show that I had more than 24 posts shown, so i couldn't select the second page to see the oldest search results. is this enough of a description to try to replicate the problemo?
Following reply is the announcement for idkfa v3, for those that either didn't receive the email and came by idkfa via other means, or for those that think I'm trying to remake Facebook.
I think it would be nice that when I click on the comment box the original text goes away without me having to select it and delete it. Also, submitting a post without having to preview it would be nice.
This new preview and then post thing is definitely going to be something I have to get used to. Apparently I'm really brain dead right now because a couple hours ago I definitely wrote three different posts and then thought I was posting them, but failed to go past the preview page. Apparently I need to stay away from idkfa when I'm sick/tired. haha.
I'm sure this was all part of the purge but I do miss my old buccaneer idkfa skin. Made me feel a little more pirate like every time I logged on. No matter its good to see it all again.
