BE Blog: the inside story!

A Few Usability Enhancements

2007-05-13T04:41:48Z

We have made a few usability enhancements to the forum over the last few days.

My Profile Pages

The navigation panel on the left of your control panel is now laid out in a more logical fashion. All your PM folders and subscribed thread folders are displayed hierarchically providing one-click access to any one of them. Additionally, the number of latest Karma messages has been increased to 20.

Notification of another post while you are replying

If you are in the middle of a thread and someone replies to that thread before you have hit the submit button, you often need to edit your post to take that reply into account. This new feature will notify you of the other post before your post is added. You can then review the new reply right there on the same page before you hit submit.

If you prefer not to have the feature enabled, you can turn it off by visiting your options page. under 'Messaging & Notification' => 'Reply Check While Composing Message'.

PM Reply To All

You will notice a new 'Reply All' button when composing PM replies. This acts just like the reply to all feature in most email clients and will address the PM to all recipients included in the original.

BE on the Go!

2007-05-06T04:20:38Z

BE on the Go! is a WAP 1.1 and WAP 2.0 (XHTML-MP) interface to the forums. Members can read and reply to posts, respond to PMs, and other usual forum tasks. There's even a Chat Room! To access the WAP site, just point your handheld browser to http://wap.britishexpats.com/ and log in using your current forum credentials.

Read on for full details!

]]> When you visit the site, you will be prompted with the login form. Only members can use the WAP interface. Once logged in, you will be presented with the following menu options.

Latest Headlines - Latest BE site blog entries or other important site announcements

Browse The Forum - As it says

Latest Forum Topics - Same as 'Get Todays Posts'

My Forums - Your subscribed forums

My Threads - Your subscribed threads

My WiContacts - Last eight people from whom you have recieved wireless PMs

WiChatRoom - Wireless chatroom (not linked to main site chat)

My Prefs - Wireless preferences

The default settings are conservative and chosen to ensure those with standard GSM/GPRS data connections see good performance. If you have an EDGE or 3G device such as UMTS, you can increase many of them by clicking the 'My Prefs' link. The following options are available:

My Menu Options - Add shortcuts to the bottom menu
WAP Options - Your device capabilities XHTML-MP (WAP 2.0) or WML (WAP 1.1)
WiStyles - Should be default unless you are using a Nokia Series 60 device or an Ericsson non-Pxxx series device. (See this page for device compatibility)
Wireless Device - Optionally enter the device you are using
Image Options - Whether to show images or not. If you have an EDGE or 3G device, it's better with images ON.
Truncation options - Prevent huge posts showing
Thread Options - Number of threads to display per page (default is 10)
Post Options - Number posts to display per page (default is 1).
Search Options - Number of search results to show per page
SMS Address - Optional SMS address for people to contact you

Note:
If you are using an old Windows Mobile 2003 (Non SE) browser, you may need to download the compatibility fix. You can read more here.

OpenSearch Support Added to the Forum

2007-04-16T01:51:38Z

We've added OpeSearch compatibility to the forums. If you're using Firefox or Internet Explorer 7, you can use the BE search engine directly from your browser search box.

To add the search in Firefox:

Browse to the forum home page.
Click the little arrow in the browser search box to reveal the search engines.
Select "Add BritishExpats" from the menu.
Add your search term in the box and go!

PDA Support for Forum

2007-03-30T00:19:04Z

We have a couple of new site features currently installed on the beta site and in the final testing stages. The first to roll out is a PDA friendly style.

This is a light-weight style designed and optimized for the small screens of cellphones and PDAs. There are no graphics, no fancy features, just the basic functionality needed to read and post. There will be no need for you to do anything to make use of this feature. Just connect to the forum as usual and the server will detect that you are using a mobile device and the style will be automatically assigned. Continue reading to see some screenshots.

]]> The Forum Home Page

Show Thread

New Post

Create Private Message

The BE Wiki

2007-02-13T00:45:31Z

The long awaited Wiki is up and running.

For those that have never heard of a wiki, wikipedia defines a wiki as: a website that allows the visitors themselves to easily add, remove, and otherwise edit and change available content. This ease of interaction and operation makes a wiki an effective tool for mass collaborative authoring. The term wiki also can refer to the collaborative software itself (wiki engine) that facilitates the operation of such a Web site. A full history of the wiki can be read here.

The software we chose to use is Mediawiki, the same software that powers wikipedia.org and is probably the most powerful wiki software available. (with the exception of maybe confluence).

Any forum member has the ability to create and edit pages and we encourage everyone to contribute. Just follow the short tutorial on the Wiki. There's no need to worry about breaking anything as all edits can be reverted to previous revisions.

New Search Engine

2007-02-02T03:20:05Z

If anyone has performed a forum search recently, you may have noticed the lightening fast response! We have implemented a new search engine called Sphinx. It's incredible how fast this thing is! Try it out! What's even more amazing is that it now allows searching on two letter words. No more problems when searching for k1, j1, PR, etc. However, as with all good things, there's a few caveats.... There will now be a slight delay between a post being made and it showing in the index. This delay will be around 10 minutes or so. Secondly, the ordering of results may not be exactly in date order although a recent post will be given a higher weighting than older posts, it's not guaranteed that date ordering will be exact. This is exactly how most non-forum search engines work, including Google. Finally, a few of the more advanced and little used search features may not be available. But even with these limitations, the ability to carry out two letter word searches and the amazing speed is more than worth it. Another side benefit is the reduced load that will be placed on the server when multiple people are searching. This will translate into faster performance throughout the site.

Member Blogs Upgraded

2007-02-01T17:09:09Z

Member Blogs Upgraded Some bloggers may have noticed a few minor changes with the blog system over the last few days. Most of the changes are behind the scenes and relate to performance or security, but a couple of other changes are worth mentioning... Anonymous Comments Those bloggers that allow anonymous comments without monitoring those comments attracted huge amounts of spam. There were over 50,000 anonymous comments containing spam. To help address this problem, anonymous commenters will now be presented with a graphic containing letters which they must re-enter in a text box. While this will prevent the automated spam, it will not address those spammers who enter their comments manually. If you do accept anonymous comments, it's important that you moderate those comments. The best option is to configure your blog to email you whenever a comment is made. This setting is in your blog settings, titled Comment Notification. New Editor The old editor has been replaced with a more feature rich and more compatible editor. Unfortunately, it still doesn't work in Safari, but IE and all Mozilla browsers are supported including Camino and Firefox. Hopefully, Safari support will be introduced in the near future.]]>

Meet-up Event Attendance

2007-02-01T04:53:44Z

A new feature added to the Meet-up calendar allows you to keep track of who plans to attend. When creating an event the organizer can choose to accept RSVPs. Members can then RSVP 'No', 'Yes' or 'Maybe'. For recurring events, members can RSVP separately for each recurrence. For ranged events that span more than one day, members can sign up for individual days of the event.

Welcome to the BE Blog

2007-01-29T00:31:12Z

The intention of this blog is to keep everyone up to date on what's going on behind the scenes at BE including future plans for the site.

In January, we introduced a completely new version of the forum software. The existing version was almost 2 years old and we were missing out on a lot of features that take advantage of new browser technology. One of these technologies is Ajax, a combination of javascript and XML allowing asynchronous interaction with the site. This allows in-line editing of threads without a page refresh and is also used for the new Activity Ticker feature. The activity ticker shows threads posts in real-time as they are posted. More Ajax features will introduced throughout the year.

The Photo Gallery and Classifieds sections were upgraded to correct some minor bugs, improve performance and enhance the integration with the forum. You can now opt to automatically display a link to your ads or photos under your member name in each post. This option is in your profile on the 'options' page. Additionally, the classifieds listings now show the location of the item on the main page.

]]> A few of the more apparent changes to the forum are

Marking threads read Previously, threads were marked as read based purely on time. After 30 minutes, all threads were marked read regardless of whether you actually read them. The current version will keep track of read threads without you having to read them all in one visit. If you do not read a thread for more than 5 days, it will be automatically marked read for you. There is also a green bar added to the thread listings at the point where there are no updated threads since your last visit.

Quick Reply As it's name suggests, this option speeds up the process of replying to threads. Simply click on the 'quick reply' icon in a post and start typing. The click is required to register the exact post to which you are replying and support the threaded views available in your profile -> options -> Thread Display Mode, or under the 'Display Modes' drop-down at the top of each thread.

Quick Edit Editing posts is now easier and uses Ajax technology to allow in-line editing without opening a new page. Additionally, you can now edit thread titles in-line by simply double clicking on the thread title. (not on the actual text, but just after it).

Spell checker The spell check button is now located at the top right of the editor box. It now works in all browsers including Safari. (Although Safari users don't really need it as there is one built in to OS X.) Exclude Forums from the 'New Posts' & 'Today's Posts' Searches: You can now filter out selected forums from these quick search functions. This option is in your profile under your profile -> options page at the very bottom.

Arcade A bunch of new games have been added and categorized in tabs.

Instant Messaging More instant messaging support is available. These options will display your online status on the messaging host by displaying the appropriate icon under your name in posts. These can be enabled in your profile.

Multi-quotes The little icon, second from the right of each post allows you to select several posts you would like quoted in your reply. When you clicking on the icon, it will change color to indicate it is selected for quoting. Once you have selected the posts, click the New Reply button and the selected posts will be automatically quoted for you.