Get Notified when quoted - on forum feature

[Pmalek]

I signed up for it yesterday to see how it works. I am just glad I don't have to mess with Telegram just to get notified when someone quotes or mentions me on the forum.

I'm satisfied, because it also show notification when my username is mentioned. However, it doesn't work if the poster intentionally remove xxx from the quote.

You mean a manual quote like the one above without pressing the quote button? I removed your name from the quoted text to not trigger the scrapper. I assume a quote like that wont be picked up. Very few people quote posts like that, so I don't consider it an issue. 

[hilariousandco]

Yeah, it would be helpful, though I believe it was one of the features being worked on for the new forum software.

Any idea when the new software will be implemented? I don't go almost for that section but I see that the threads there started 7 years ago.

It's not that I'm too expectant about the new software either as some things could be improved, like what is talked about in this thread, but I've seen software changes in other forums that I didn't like.

Nope. I have no idea what stage it's at but I'm sure theymos is busy working on it. I guess it's been a bit of a running joke that it's 'coming soon' though haha. Probably not a good idea releasing it until it's watertight though. To be honest, I kinda like this board as dated as it is. Change is always jarring when you've been used to something for so long.

[LoyceV]

I kinda like this board as dated as it is. Change is always jarring when you've been used to something for so long.

Me too, I'd hate to see all user-scripts (my own and from other users) broken because of a forum upgrade. If would probably take me months to update everything, and I'd probably abandon several of my old projects.

[Quickseller]

I kinda like this board as dated as it is. Change is always jarring when you've been used to something for so long.

Me too, I'd hate to see all user-scripts (my own and from other users) broken because of a forum upgrade. If would probably take me months to update everything, and I'd probably abandon several of my old projects.

If all the IDs in the HTML remain constant, moving to the new forum software shouldn’t break most scrapers.

If your code is structured in a way such that each function does a single task, it shouldn’t be terribly difficult to update scripts based on the new forum software.

[NotATether]

I kinda like this board as dated as it is. Change is always jarring when you've been used to something for so long.

Me too, I'd hate to see all user-scripts (my own and from other users) broken because of a forum upgrade. If would probably take me months to update everything, and I'd probably abandon several of my old projects.

If all the IDs in the HTML remain constant, moving to the new forum software shouldn’t break most scrapers.

If your code is structured in a way such that each function does a single task, it shouldn’t be terribly difficult to update scripts based on the new forum software.

Except new forum software rarely keeps IDs constant because each forum engine has a completely different way of rendering things.

Imagine if this forum moves to some JavaScript based framework like Invision, where the pages and content is loaded dynamically. Then we (yes we, I also have scripts) have to somehow patch our scripts to call the JS functions that return the items we want to scrape and it's too much legwork when all you had to do before was search for HTML tags.

[DdmrDdmr]

<...>

I don’t know if these things still stand, as last time I took a quick-peak into it was a couple of years ago, but at the time, at least on Cryptos-Currencies test site, I seemed to encounter the following:

<…> In addition, without it being bug related:

-    Since profiles are not by ID but by username, a priori, you cannot create a process to download say all forum profiles, amongst other things. It could also bring on some difficulties related to mapped character tables on those names with “weird” characters in them.

-    To gain access to the content of all posts from his history, you need to click each thread header from the list. Scraper can do that conceptually, but it may deem a complication.

-    PostId is a weird looking string, but the current one was not much use either if you wanted to retrieve all posts from a thread for example. You still need to scrape the hard way instead of through a correlative set of IDs.

I know there are a set of intended APIs for those that want to retrieve information from the site. Wondering if that will be the mandatory path, as opposed to scraping, due to things as the above.

[Quickseller]

I kinda like this board as dated as it is. Change is always jarring when you've been used to something for so long.

Me too, I'd hate to see all user-scripts (my own and from other users) broken because of a forum upgrade. If would probably take me months to update everything, and I'd probably abandon several of my old projects.

If all the IDs in the HTML remain constant, moving to the new forum software shouldn’t break most scrapers.

If your code is structured in a way such that each function does a single task, it shouldn’t be terribly difficult to update scripts based on the new forum software.

Except new forum software rarely keeps IDs constant because each forum engine has a completely different way of rendering things.

Imagine if this forum moves to some JavaScript based framework like Invision, where the pages and content is loaded dynamically. Then we (yes we, I also have scripts) have to somehow patch our scripts to call the JS functions that return the items we want to scrape and it's too much legwork when all you had to do before was search for HTML tags.

I haven't looked at the new forum software in depth, but I can assure you that it does not use JS based frameworks on the front end. The new forum software ultimately will have a div that displays the post content, just as the current SMF forum software does.

I know there are a set of intended APIs for those that want to retrieve information from the site. Wondering if that will be the mandatory path, as opposed to scraping, due to things as the above.

The API allows someone to query posts by user and by thread. The API documentation is somewhat confusing, but it appears both the username and thread are strings, as opposed to both being ints currently. I haven't looked deeply at the code to see how a thread ID is created.

[suchmoon]

I haven't looked at the new forum software in depth, but I can assure you that it does not use JS based frameworks on the front end. The new forum software ultimately will have a div that displays the post content, just as the current SMF forum software does.

False. It does not render shit without client-side JS.

[Quickseller]

I haven't looked at the new forum software in depth, but I can assure you that it does not use JS based frameworks on the front end. The new forum software ultimately will have a div that displays the post content, just as the current SMF forum software does.

False. It does not render shit without client-side JS.

That is surprising. I guess that means those who want to avoid using JS will have to use the API, or a framework that leverages the API.

[ChuckBuck]

Me too, I'd hate to see all user-scripts (my own and from other users) broken because of a forum upgrade. If would probably take me months to update everything, and I'd probably abandon several of my old projects.

All of your scripts are useful, it may take a long time for you, but I'm sure you will get a lot of help if you speak up on this forum. Your idea is there and updating will be easier, right?

That is surprising. I guess that means those who want to avoid using JS will have to use the API, or a framework that leverages the API.

I am quite surprised that most of you have knowledge of this field.

I just have a dumb question, will all the data on this forum be stored and used on the new forum? And more importantly, the current domain?

[DdmrDdmr]

<…> will all the data on this forum be stored and used on the new forum? And more importantly, the current domain?

When you migrate a DB from one environment to another, the objective is normally to preserve all the historical data. There may be issues with some of the datatypes stored, or the actual exploitation of that data through the new interface, but generally, especially of the software is custom tailored software, one will be aiming at keeping it all. The domain should remain in place, unless someone decides to simply use it to redirect to a new branding domain.

<…>

I hadn’t bothered to look for the API before, and It should probably be accompanied with an explanation on how identifiers are created/interpreted to get a clearer picture. The API’s documentation is from 2016 (last update), so I wonder just how up-to-date it is with all the evolutionary changed made since then.

[LoyceV]

If your code is structured in a way such that each function does a single task

That's a very big if It's not
I usually copy/paste/edit something into something else. A modular approach (with a database!) from the start would have been much better, but it's slightly late for that now.

The API allows someone to query posts by user and by thread.

An API instead of "manually" checking HTML would make my life easier again