Posted by Dr. Bob on February 22, 2004, at 16:02:14
In reply to Re: possible ways to help » Dr. Bob, posted by fallsfall on February 19, 2004, at 21:00:38
> > coming up with ways to make the site easier to use.
>
> I can try to do this. Deirdrehbrt had a nice list of enhancement suggestions
>
> > Perhaps offering buttons to go to different sections of Babble.
> > Easy search mechanism to search through the different boards for topic or content or user.
> > Maybe a list of who is on-line via a Babble-login. This would facilitate chats and such.
>
> I vote for enhanced searching.Google isn't perfect, but it can do a lot. For example, you can already search for posts about parents by you in PSB with "parents poster:fallsfall inurl:social"...
And as far as buttons, there's already a list you can keep in a little window off to the side:
http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/list.html
There's already a way to log in and log off, too, but it's for cookies and doesn't keep track of who's logged in or anything. Plus people have to log themselves off, it's not automatic...
> > it was a summer project of mine last year to move from flat files to a MySQL database... There are packages out there that could be a starting point...
>
> How far did you get with this project? What do you want to accomplish? I would do better if you suggested tasks (dreaming things up is a bit beyond my brain capacity these days). Do you have a particular package in mind?Well, I thought it might speed things up and maybe save some space, but I don't know, and then there would be a database to maintain...
It would also make it easier to add features like indexes for arbitrary periods (rather than only the fixed archive intervals) or single pages with all the posts in particular threads. But I guess that could be done with the data in its current form, too...
Hmm, maybe the first step should be moving to dynamic index pages, they're actually still HTML...
But anyway, the database task would be designing the database more than doing any programming, specifying the tables, the fields, etc. If there's an existing package, for example, from:
http://directory.google.com/Top/Computers/Software/Internet/Servers/Message_Boardsthat could be adapted to be able to work like things do now, that would be great. I'm trying to avoid PHP so as to only have to deal with one new thing at a time...
> > > I have management experience. I could help by organizing discussions around particular issues - with a goal of coming to a conclusion and a plan.
> >
> > Maybe just jump in when something gets going and try to keep us moving forward?
>
> OK. Look for this on this board soon!Great!
> > it would be a bigger project, and maybe not something for one poster, but along the lines of a couple of Phil's recent posts, what about an introduction to PB from the poster perspective? Orientation, advice, etc.?
> >
> > Hey, maybe ... Falls could oversee the project?
>
> Surely.Also great, thanks for whatever you can do! :-)
Bob
poster:Dr. Bob
thread:312385
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/admin/20040112/msgs/316557.html