The forum is getting so HUGE these days I have had to make a few subtle changes to improve performance. Hopefully, those of you seeing 'timeouts' may not get them again!

I have no idea how often anyone used the 'next page' buttons to see older topics, but that function cannot operate with the performance changes, so has been removed - instead you can use the search box (top left) to hunt for specific keywords.

If people find this limitation is far too constraining, then please moan below, and I will devote some more time to it. For now, please enjoy a swifter forum experience!

Finally, you can now right-click and use "open in new window" - woo!

On this "dreek" day in Northern Germany much the same weather as you are getting in blighty its good to be cheered up by Mags constant persuit of excellence. Thanks Mags.

Must watch the BBC language series this week!!  The spelling this far north is dreich and coming from this part of the world where we experience more than enough of it I can guarantee the authenticity of both the damp and the spelling!

Another great improvement to an an already great site. especially the "open in new window" option.

Its wet here in the south too.

Forgot to mention that another benefit is the link colouring - assuming you have your browser set to the traditional blue (not yet read) and purple (visited before), you will notice that a previously-read topic will go back to being blue, to signify that someone else has posted since you last checked it.

This forum is excellent but you have to remember however technically splendid a forum is only as good as it�s contributors.

From a tech perspective one feature on other forums that I like is the ability to jump to where you were in a topic so you don�t have to page through the comments you�ve already read.  I believe it�s sometimes cookie based so you need to accept cookies and does not work if you change machines.  In other cases it�s managed server side and consequently requires log in.

Yeah, that can be a pain. I could write the data to a cookie, but it would get rather large! Likewise a server-side database would get big quickly.

10 more votes for that and I'll get coding...?

Mags,

You could use javascript sorting instead of server-side sorting to reduce the load on the server and speed the table sorting up.  I used this for some sales figures at work and it worked a treat.

Ah, but then I'd have to write all 6000 forum topics out to the main page, instead of just the top 60.

Wasn't thinking of using JS for the forum, just generally accross the site for sorting the tables.  Boats for sals, forum etc.

So no-one found the deliberate mistake I put in then?

What was that then Mags?

It was only minor so i didn't want to rock the boat.

One little tiny point Mags...  Before you revamped the site to its all singing all dancing technical wizardry status we've got now, I used to get a nice little Merlin Rocket triangle instead of the internet explorer 'e' in my favourites window.  I thought that was very tasteful and helped me locate these pages even more quickly...  Any chance?

Deepy, I thought I had set up FAVICON.ICO in the root folder correctly for this to happen, but it seems not. Sorry! Perhaps someone will tell me what I've done wrong?

Interesting - I've still got my nice little triangle.......  However my Solo logo has disappeared for the SoSlow website but I doubt Mags can fix that one!!

I have still got my pretty little triangle too.

Also, is there any chance that once a thread get to a certain size, it can start a new one. For those of us trying to view discreetly at work, it would be quicker rather than scrolling past the 50+ previous messages.

Ta

What we need is a 'Page down' button at the top of the page to take us straight to the last entry. That would help.

Hey Mags,

The icon should be 16x16 pixels and 16 colours for IE5, IE6 seems to allow the 32x32 pixels favicon.ico you have.

It works for my favorites (IE6 SP2) but did need refreshing.  You could create the icon to include both 16x16 and 32x32 so that older browers can still use the icon, albeit a little more grainy.

Cheers,

Stuart.

Oh for goodness sakes, asking for ie5 compat is like asking for windows to be released fro the zx81

isn't it, I had better stop bidding for that zx81 then.

You have all lost me, i have only just worked out how to switch the computer on!! No idea what all thes numbers are that you mention!!!

In most browsers you can press the END key (next PAGE UP/DN) to jump straight to the bottom of a web page. And HOME to leap back to the top.

Thanks for the info on the FAVICON - seems i didnt do my homework properly. You will find that a large percentage of the world is still on IE5.0 so it is important to consider them. Often people just have no need to upgrade, or dont know how!

I would fall into the don't know how catagory!! Also in the why would that help? catagory. I know about as much about computing as i do about rocket science!!

Everyone has their own area of expertise. Though it didnt take much of mine to download a free icon editor and convert a triangle to a 16x16 file. 

Finding your favourites should now be easier (though you might have to delete and add it again to get the icon showing up). Right, back to the day job...

I thought you sailied a merlin 'rocket' !!!!
Mind you we have a lot to learn to keep up with the top boys.

Shows my PC ignorance! I only use one every day!

Thanks for the tip.