Revamping the forum?

General discussion for topics related to the FreeBASIC project or its community.
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Munair
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by Munair »

operator+ wrote: Feb 19, 2022 6:50 What about switching from phpBB to myBB?
phpBB is just fine. But the search results depend on the search engine used. By default, phpBB uses its native search engine, which by default indexes words with a minimum of three characters. This can be changed to e.g. two. However, if phpBB is set to use another search backend, the settings are different and possibly more limited. For instance, if the MySQL search engine is set as backend, words with less than four characters are ignored and this cannot be changed.

On the SharpBASIC forum I tested the phpBB native search engine with minimum characters set to two:
Search found 11 matches: va_first
Searched query: va first
10 of the 11 search results are still irrelevant because results with va and first are also shown (underscore interpreted as space). But the most relevant result va_first is shown at the top.
Last edited by Munair on Feb 19, 2022 11:21, edited 1 time in total.
coderJeff
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by coderJeff »

BasicCoder2 wrote: Feb 18, 2022 21:29 https://docu mentat ion.help/FreeBASIC/KeyPgVaFirst.html
Be sure to tell all your friends that site is old and based on our wiki from 6 years ago. I've written to the site's contact many times. No response and no updates.
coderJeff
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by coderJeff »

Munair wrote: Feb 19, 2022 8:33 phpBB is just fine. But the search results depend on the search engine used.
True. I think also by default phpBB doesn't index inside code blocks. Some tweaking is needed to satisfy all the wishes.
Munair
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by Munair »

coderJeff wrote: Feb 19, 2022 10:32 I think also by default phpBB doesn't index inside code blocks.
I think it does. But perhaps that also depends on the search engine. I don't recall having tweaked phpBB to allow searching inside code blocks.
coderJeff
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by coderJeff »

Munair wrote: Feb 19, 2022 10:39
coderJeff wrote: Feb 19, 2022 10:32 I think also by default phpBB doesn't index inside code blocks.
I think it does. But perhaps that also depends on the search engine. I don't recall having tweaked phpBB to allow searching inside code blocks.
OK. Let's see what happens. Rebuilding the phpBB index, now. In theory, should be done in 2 hours.

MySQL FullText index takes a couple of minutes to rebuild, so the the other way to go would be to rework code for this index matching 3 letter words and respect underscores.
Munair
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by Munair »

coderJeff wrote: Feb 19, 2022 11:15 OK. Let's see what happens. Rebuilding the phpBB index, now.
Thanks for the effort.
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by coderJeff »

Index is now complete, but inside code blocks didn't get picked up. Looks like only one line to modify in phpBB source to allow indexing in code blocks.
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by coderJeff »

Just a heads up. One more round of search indexing sometime in next few hours. So searching will be flaky for a couple hours while it rebuilds.

UPDATE:
Index is finished building

Should now have:
- minimum 3 letter searches
- underscores allowed in search terms
- searchable code blocks
Last edited by coderJeff on Feb 20, 2022 20:17, edited 1 time in total.
Reason: update
Munair
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by Munair »

Thanks a lot! It works.
deltarho[1859]
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by deltarho[1859] »

I thought that searchable code blocks would slow things down a bit, but it is still blindingly fast.

Is there no end to coderJeff's talents?
St_W
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by St_W »

Great to see that the forum is modernized - Thanks a lot!

I'd like to propose two new features:
  • display the user status (active, temporarily banned till xyz, permanently banned) near the user details on the left side of a post or make it somehow otherwise visible, that a certain user is banned; that info maybe should only be shown when logged in (not when viewing the forum as anonymous user), but not sure about that
  • some quick button to say thanks / like / vote up a post or similar. I'm not sure about dislike / vote down, probably wouldn't suggest that.
//edit:
for the ban status there doesn't seem to be a solution ready, see: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtopic.php?t=2591276, just a old unmaintained extension: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... &t=2280496
for the like buttons maybe something like this: https://www.phpbb.com/community/viewtop ... &t=2423931
Last edited by St_W on Feb 21, 2022 22:25, edited 1 time in total.
deltarho[1859]
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by deltarho[1859] »

Point 1:

How do we define active? PowerBASIC displays the number of active members on its forum home page, but I do not know how it is defined. I don't find it useful, and it can be a depressing statistic – we don't need that.

I cannot see any purpose in mentioning whether a user is temporarily banned or permanently banned. If a user is either, we will not see any further posts from them; or until a suspension has been lifted.

Point 2:

A 'Like' button was introduced at PowerBASIC. The novelty soon wore off, and I think it was disabled by the new management. I'm in favour. At PowerBASIC I got very little response to my crypto' work. That was demotivating. As time went on I leant that many members were using my code and many of them are commercial programmers. The same thing is true with my PRNG implementations on this forum. Some find it difficult to say thank you or feel not up to contributing anything useful and may use a 'Like' button if available.
coderJeff
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by coderJeff »

Going through the database, looks like the "thanks for posts" extension (or maybe it's predecessor) was enabled on this forum from start of 2016 though to end of 2018. There are some posts that have 'thanks' added which I think could also be interpreted as 'likes'.

I tried it it out locally. It installed and no errors appeared, but is also not working out of the box so some work needed. Yeah, maybe can be added later and can weigh the merits then. There's a list of other items I think we'd like to get through first.
Munair
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by Munair »

deltarho[1859] wrote: Feb 21, 2022 21:51 As time went on I leant that many members were using my code and many of them are commercial programmers.
It might be worth adding a license to your code if you post it. Or just share some snippets as example for others to pick up.
grindstone
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Re: Revamping the forum?

Post by grindstone »

St_W wrote: Feb 21, 2022 21:18some quick button to say thanks / like / vote up a post or similar.
I'd endorse that.
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