[Lowfer] New List

[John Davis]

>I do use the LWCA web page while I am at work .....    The only
>complaint about this medium is that if I track down through a thread and
>then go back to the top page, the responses I have visited are not marked.
>I then lose track of which ones I have looked at.


The gentleman from the upside down realm speaks truly.  I used to find this
a bit awkward myself.  But there is a solution of sorts.

The phenomenon first showed up after we changed the board to open message
threads in new windows.  It's because browsers use their History files to
distinguish visited links from unvisited ones.  The new windows into which
messages open are, in fact, new instances of the browser which also write to
the history file.  But they can't force the earlier instance to go back and
look at what they've written.

How I work around this is to simply read through a few unread threads, then
when I eventually start to become a bit uncertain whether I've been to a
given location already, I use F5 or the browser's Refresh button, and in a
few seconds the main list updates itself and visited links are all
highlighted.  I set the history file to hold 30 days worth of addresses,
which is sufficient to keep all the recently visited links distinguishable
for me.

>A website for each interest would be totally unuseable for me.
>It simply would take me too long to navigate to each one just to see if
>something new has turned up.

I know what you mean.  This is why I've been thinking along lines of things
like the "rolling digests" I mentioned previously, and also why we
implemented a feature for the LW Message Board some time back, the "lobby"
page.  If one visits lwca.org/msglist1.htm (with an HTML 4 compliant
browser), the date and time of the most recently posted message is
displayed, along with the date of the latest Home Page update.  Some folks
bookmark this in lieu of either the message board or the home page, and only
go to them when there's new content.  A bit of a time saver, which I'm
working to implement in a broader form.

The improved Lobby will display when each of the main LWCA pages was last
updated-- even Les' Noise Floor pages, if he likes-- and will be largely
independent of browser versions.  Even poor Netscape users who, a mere 5
years into HTML 4, still can't use inline frames or render all the features
of tables, will be able to get full benefit of the new Lobby.  ;-)

And while we're thinking about it...do you realize there's no reason why the
LW Message Board can't also e-mail you the latest posts?

It has evolved way beyond its WWWBoard origins, and can be hybridized into a
message board/reflector combo rather easily!  Some of you know that I'd been
working on letting it accept posts by e-mail, making it a little easier for
people who have reason to post to multiple lists to simultaneously include
the Board.  I'm still not satisfied that I've resolved security concerns on
that part yet.  But OUTBOUND mail is no problem!  I can set that up easily
if there are at least 6 people who want it (but not more than 30 or 40, or
it could become as slow as reflectors).  Just let me know!

John