| Smarter message length cutting (Vote!) [message #19923] |
Thu, 16 September 2004 22:19  |
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Wild_Cat
Messages: 144
Registered: November 2002
Location: Odessa, Ukraine
Karma: 0
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Senior Member |
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| Do you need a smarter message length cutting mechanism?[ 5 votes ] |
| 1. |
Yes, that would be useful for me! |
 3 / 60% |
| 2. |
I'm not sure, but in case I ever need it, it would be nice. |
2 / 40% |
| 3. |
I won't use length limit, so I don't care |
0 / 0% |
| 4. |
It's fine with me the way it is, no need to complicate |
0 / 0% |
In certain forums there is a specific of long messages (like RPG topics or some other kinds), which are mostly read only once, but loaded every time - and that could increase the time of page loading considerably. For such cases in FUDforum it is very convenient to use the great "lenght limit" feature in forum individual settings. Then only indicated number of chararcters is loaded and shown and if the message exceeds them, it is cut off having a link "read more", upon clicking on which the one who needs to read it, loads the entire message. However, it becomes quite disapppointing if one have to click on the link and wait for the new page to load (and there is still the world of dial-up and slow servers!) only to discover that 2-3 words were cut off.
So I thought, it can be enhanced quite easily: say, the script determining the length to show could have one more "move around" to see whether there is much of a message left and in case there is little of the message left - to show it completely instead of cutting off a couple of words. This could be a fixed number (e.g. compare full length against the limit number plus 100 or 150 characters) but probably even more flexible it could be if it comapred full message length against a determined portion of the limit number of characters (because maximum lenghts may vary a lot from admin to admin judgement):
Example: delimiter 3500 characters, the script comapres message full length against 3546 + rounded (3546/10) (one tenth or limit length) and if full message length is smaller than limit number and a tenth part - then it doesn't put "read more" but publishes the message entirely.
I don't know how hard it would affect the quiery time and server load, but implementing it seems simple enough, so that I might even consider a hack, but perhaps this would be found as useful for the entire distribution?...
Also, I often thought it might be quite useful for disiplined users who wish to cut down their messages themselves (very long messages perhaps) to have this limit of chars # or even simpler - a "read more" tag just for this concrete message, so that only those who need it would click and load the rest! But I understand that this is more difficult (the point over the spoiler tag even if it becomes collapsible - to not have to load the rest when reading the topic!). Any chances for this one?
Lady of Avalon
[Updated on: Fri, 01 October 2004 01:19] Report message to a moderator |
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| Re: Smarter "read more" [message #19941 is a reply to message #19923] |
Fri, 17 September 2004 02:04  |
Ilia
Messages: 13241
Registered: January 2002
Karma: 0
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Senior Member
Administrator
Core Developer |
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The best (and fastest) way of doing something akin to what you want would be to add a "fudge" parameter to the forum settings.
It would allow the admin to specify X characters that a message can over the limit, but still remain in once piece.
What do you think?
FUDforum Core Developer
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| Re: Smarter "read more" [message #19951 is a reply to message #19949] |
Sat, 18 September 2004 20:19 |
Ilia
Messages: 13241
Registered: January 2002
Karma: 0
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Senior Member
Administrator
Core Developer |
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Yes, this option would require an additional field inside the database, there is no way to avoid that.
Let's see if more people see a use in this functionality and if there are, I'll add it.
FUDforum Core Developer
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