TexasCHLforum.com

In most of the forums that use phpBB, there is an option to adjust the viewable posts per page on a user preference level. It appears that this feature is not enabled on this forum, and causes me no end of irritation when trying to find something in a specific topic, especially the longer ones such as the "Introduce Yourself" thread. Because the site is set to 15 posts per page, it makes that specific thread 77 pages long at current count. The search function, such as it is, leaves much to be desired. I have found Google to be a much more effective search tool when trying to find specific posts on this forum.

Would it be possible to enable these preferences so that users can define the displayable posts per thread on a single page? For reference, thehighroad.org has these enabled, and can be found under the User Control Panel (the "User CP" link) then "Edit Options". The max there is currently 150 posts per page (what I have it set at there for me), which would reduce a 77-page thread of 15 posts per page to 8 pages - much more usable for me. I love and appreciate this site. Making this change would enable me (and probably many others) to spend significantly less time searching for relevant posts, and more time actually contributing content and discussion.

NcongruNt wrote:In most of the forums that use phpBB, there is an option to adjust the viewable posts per page on a user preference level.

I happen to own a forum running phpBB; that was one of the worst mistakes I made in setting it up. I really wish I'd gone with SMF instead.

That said, what you're looking for is not an "option"; it's a "mod". Options are standards; mods are "aftermarket", so to speak. Modifications are a pain. I know Charles has applied some mods to this forum, dealing with new sign-ups, so he knows what a hassle they are.

Here's the process: download the mod, and open it. Open an FTP connection to the forum. Follow the rather cryptic instructions, which means opening the DB in a text editor, and using a lot of "find & replace". But carefully, because you don't want to replace the wrong text and totally destroy the forum.

I have found Google to be a much more effective search tool when trying to find specific posts on this forum.

That's often the case. If you have a Google search bar in your browser, or you go directly to google.com, it's easy to search a specific site. Just type "site:texasshooting.com (search term)".

Kevin

KBCraig wrote:

NcongruNt wrote:In most of the forums that use phpBB, there is an option to adjust the viewable posts per page on a user preference level.

I happen to own a forum running phpBB; that was one of the worst mistakes I made in setting it up. I really wish I'd gone with SMF instead.

That said, what you're looking for is not an "option"; it's a "mod". Options are standards; mods are "aftermarket", so to speak. Modifications are a pain. I know Charles has applied some mods to this forum, dealing with new sign-ups, so he knows what a hassle they are.

Here's the process: download the mod, and open it. Open an FTP connection to the forum. Follow the rather cryptic instructions, which means opening the DB in a text editor, and using a lot of "find & replace". But carefully, because you don't want to replace the wrong text and totally destroy the forum.

I have found Google to be a much more effective search tool when trying to find specific posts on this forum.

That's often the case. If you have a Google search bar in your browser, or you go directly to google.com, it's easy to search a specific site. Just type "site:texasshooting.com (search term)".

Kevin

Ah, I wasn't aware that it wasn't built-in. It seems like a very common feature.

Yup, I'm aware of what it takes to mess with phpBB. I'm a UNIX/Linux sysadmin myself, so I know the drill.

Also am aware of the site-specific googling - that's what I have been doing. I still get very incomplete results, though... I wonder if they have something in the works to improve searching in the feature requests in the phpBB project yet. The ability to perform a search of a specific user's posts would do wonders for me. It only takes a simple mySQL query to make that happen. Perhaps I'll head over to the project site and see what's been discussed.

NcongruNt wrote:The ability to perform a search of a specific user's posts would do wonders for me.

That is a built-in. You're still stuck with the very basic phpBB search, but you can enter an author's handle (or use a wildcard for a partial) and still use the other search entry fields to narrow the results.