JMSNews 2.0 Beta site feedback

[DougO]

I'm starting this thread for feedback and problem reports with the JMSNews 2.0 Beta site at http://jmsnews.net. Please see the announcement in the "Site Announcements" forum for more information about the beta site.

Some notes:

I have tested the site with IE 6.x, Netscape 7.x, and Phoenix 0.4 (Mozilla/5.0). If you experience any problems with the HTML layout or features not working properly, please post a report here.

I've implemented a number of features to prevent people from submitted multiple entries to the monthly contest. I'd be interested to hear about any problems with the contest page.

Thanks,

-DougO

[Kevin]

Ooooh..... shiney ;)

[OmahaStar]

Doug, I notice the numbers are off from the new one to the old one ... For example, last month shows 5 posts on the old site but 7 on the new one ... And it looks like there are a lot of months that have more posts on the new one than the old one ... Why would this be happening?

[Sigma]

Originally posted by OmahaStar
Doug, I notice the numbers are off from the new one to the old one ... For example, last month shows 5 posts on the old site but 7 on the new one ... And it looks like there are a lot of months that have more posts on the new one than the old one ... Why would this be happening?
I think because old site only archives rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated and marvel newsgroups.

And as far as i can tell, even www.jmsnews.com has missed 1-2 JMS posts at rec.arts.sf.tv.babylon5.moderated here and there. :)

[DougO]

Originally posted by OmahaStar
Doug, I notice the numbers are off from the new one to the old one ... For example, last month shows 5 posts on the old site but 7 on the new one
One difference is that the new site has archived the 3 recent posts to rec.arts.sf.tv (which don't appear on the old site). It looks like the new site is missing the "quick note" message that was posted 3/19. I'll add that message to the new site.

And it looks like there are a lot of months that have more posts on the new one than the old one ... Why would this be happening?
Good catch, I just noticed that issue a few days ago. The new server is in a different timezone than the server for the current site. Although message dates are stored in UTC, they are rendered as "local time" by the server. In addition, the monthly count grid on the home page is computed based on local time rather than UTC. Due to the 3 hour time zone difference between the servers some messages that are on the boundry between months get counted differently (i.e., the extra 3 hours bumps the message into the next month). I'm going to either fix this by changing the system clock on the new server to PST or modify the code on the new server to compensate. I would simply change the time on the server, however I'm not sure how that would affect the message boards (need to check on that).

I believe fixing the timezone problem will correct most of the descrepencies. I'll go through and compare the monthly counts after that is done to make sure.

Thanks for the problem report.

-DougO

[Jan]

Doug,

I use the Search feature a lot and immediately missed the arrows to go through the found messages. Right now after reading each message, one has to go back to the list that was found. Not that it's difficult but...;-)

Thanks for everything!

Jan

[DougO]

Originally posted by Jan
I use the Search feature a lot and immediately missed the arrows to go through the found messages. Right now after reading each message, one has to go back to the list that was found. Not that it's difficult but...;-)
Jan [/B]
Thanks for letting me know. I'll look into adding next/prev links on message pages that are search results.

-DougO

[Andrew_Swallow]

jmsnew.NET has started asking for a password. I can supply the User Name and Password but what DOMAIN should I use?

(It has started working again.)

[Capt.Montoya]

Love the new design with the latest messages upfront.

It seems to work well for Apple's Safari (1.0.2, on Mac OS X 10.2.8)

The new "view thread" feature is also great (and easier to use than the previous "view related messages"). This feature however failed with some messages, specifically the two titled "re: crusade was about earth & shadow minions & technomages!" the thread view shows no messages. Also, the related message titled "re: attn jms: re: crusade was about earth & shadow minions & technomages!" is not included in the count for thread view (which I suppose may be because of program limitations which may be too hard to fix without creating new problems with unrelated messages being considered part of a thread. That's just speculation, though, I'm not a programmer).

Another little glitch in continuity: some messages loaded the message content frame with a repeat of the full JMSNews (2.0 Beta) frame. Using the newer-older navigation afterwards reloaded it OK. I couldn't duplicate this.

I'm not sure that loading the list starting from the message being viewed is the best option. To be clear: I was on message "four" (as counted for index purposes, it is message 1-17091 currently) and wanted to go back to the full list, but got it only from message four down.
I understand that it can be useful as it is, and I know that I could go to the last message (index=0) by clicking on home. Would it be possible to have both? (i.e. "list view" and "beginning of list")

I found a problem with thread view for the following:
http://jmsnews.net/msg.aspx?id=1-3887&query=ivanova%20marcus
The glitch also shows if the message is accessed directly. The glitch also shows for messages with titles between < >

Messages without a title can't be accessed directly from the list... most of those messages have titles enclosed between < >

No need to thank me if you find any of this useful, because giving you feedback is my way of thanking you for this site.

[DougO]

Originally posted by Andrew_Swallow
jmsnew.NET has started asking for a password. I can supply the User Name and Password but what DOMAIN should I use?


That shouldn't happen and I'm looking into the cause. The problem appears to be intermittent...

Sorry for the inconvenience and thank for reporting the issue.

-DougO

[samuelk]

Hi, Doug,

The new site design looks great! I love the new features. I quoted your post from the announcement forum in a news item at FirstOnes.com (http://www.firstones.com). Keep up the great work!

Sam Kimpton
FirstOnes.com