A Bunch of Things

Creative title, isn’t it?

Going through e-mail today, there are several fixes/changes as a result:

There was a problem with Chapters if you had added nine and then deleted some. The count was incorrect, and some diarists were getting an error saying they couldn’t add more than nine chapters – when in fact they had less than nine. This has been fixed.
Editing entries that weren’t assigned to a chapter was a problem, if you had chapters on. The Save button wasn’t showing up. Remedied.
The Search routines on the site were sometimes missing Favorites Only diaries. This has been changed so that the diaries show up (but of course, if you aren’t on the Favorites list you can’t get to the diary).
There was another chapter problem relating to the display of chapters if the first chapter had been deleted (for whatever reason). After that, the chapter list would not display. Fixed also.
I was informed by an observant diarist that if you fed OD a page address that didn’t exist, it seemed to churn and churn before jumping back to the home page. In fact, when this happens, the home page should come up immediately, and now it does. There was some dodgy stuff going on behind the scenes that has been removed, so our server doesn’t have to work so hard when somebody makes a mistake.
It has often been reported that it was impossible to block a person who had already blocked you from their diary. I looked further into this, and there was an internal problem with the “block by name search” that was keeping some diarists from being displayed – not because they blocked the person searching, but for other reasons. This has been fixed up, and you should be able to find and block anybody from this screen now – unless they have a Private diary. If that is the case, you have to talk to me about it.
The “block by name search” can be found in the left-side menu of the Blocked Users screen, if you’ve never seen it (and judging from my e-mail, there are plenty of people who’ve never made it to that dusty corner of the site).
When submitting an entry to a Diary Circle, the links for “back 30 entries” and “next 30 entries” at the bottom of the entry list didn’t work. If you wanted to submit something older than thirty entries ago, you were out of luck. This has been resolved.
On the Diarist Profile page, the “Last Update” was sometimes showing a negative number. Cool, in a “Captain, we’ve fractured the space-time continuum!” sort of way, but wrong nonetheless. This has been set right.
While working on the Search routines (see above) I saw that there was another problem with how the Search was finding (or not finding, to be precise) OD members if your diary was set to members only and the person you were searching for was a regular (not Plus) OD member. If that made any sense, I am surprised. Anyways, that’s been straightened out too.

One other important thing – some people are still reporting trouble with losing paragraph breaks in their entries when they edit and save them. This is being caused by the WYSIWYG editor when it is turned on in a browser it is not compatible with.

At this time, the editor only works on PCs (not Macs) running Internet Explorer (not another browser). PCs with IE represent 90% of our audience, so for those people there is no problem. However, if you are using something other than a PC, or you are running a browser other than Internet Explorer, you should go to the Editor Settings screen and turn the WYSIWYG editor off. The default is for it to be on, so I’m sure there are people who have it turned on and are having this problem as a result. It will not turn off by itself – you must go to the Diary Maintenance screen and the Editor Settings, and uncheck the box for the WYSIWYG editor – if you are running non-PC or non-IE.

I’m hoping to implement a new version of the editor soon, which will be compatible with Macs and with more browsers. Until then, please follow the directions above.

Sorry about the long-windedness of that, but it was sort of a busy morning.

The DiaryMaster

wow. I’m impressed with all you do. do you amaze yourSelf?

RYN: Thank you. You’re awesome, (but then, you knew that). Okay… enough schmoooze, gotta go back to work. Aloha

way to go dm! i applaud ur excellence! *applauds* continue the good work. btw, i love ur entries. theyre so informative and yet funny. very human of u. toodles, isabel

I still don’t think you’re the original DM…..hmmmm…..wonder if I’ll ever figure it out.

Errr, why won’t the WSYSWYG editor turn itself off for non-compatible browsers? That should be simple UserAgent detection on the server side. That would keep it from breaking and not annoy the other 10% of the people (like me). I noticed that when I start a new entry, it picks up P tags that aren’t in my template.

ok, now i know HOW to block another user, but i can’t FIND the “blocked-user screen” am i just blind?

Diarymaster, I am having trouble posting to my diary, if I boot up in Internet Explorer. If I boot up netscape, however, I am able to post. I’ve had to make my last 2 entries in Netscape, then boot up Explorer to do any editing. What do you think could be the problem?

i was wondering how to block people. if you could please explain it that would be wonderfu. i can’t find the block users screen either. is it a plus option or what?

I’m extremely confused on the blocking a person. Is that a paid OD feature? If it is not, I would like this further explained. I would like to use this feature if all OD members can. Can this all be explained?! Thanks.

The menu bar at the top of the screen no longer has drop boxes. Is this a flaw in my diary, or did you get rid of them. In any case, i hope you have a great day.

Cool, in a “Captian, we’ve fractures the space time continuum” sort of way. BWAH! I nearly snarfed my chocolate when I read that, which is a crime in some counties, buster! Seriously? Thanks, DM, again, for all your hard work.

Hey, is there a way you could make an option to make chapters private? I used mine just to organize so I can find my entries on a topic easier, but if other people view my chapters, they’ll miss a lot and it won’t make any sense.

Hi, I used to have my diary on no notes. Now I’ve changed it around to All notes. But when someone tries to leave me a note there’s no ‘leave note’ button to save the notes. There’s just the Check Spelling button showing. Can you fix it for me please?

Are you going to implement the W editor on the diary description page? That would be great!!!

For someone claiming to have gone through their e-mail, I think you’re wrong. I’ve e-mailed and sent in many problem reports-I’ve even left notes here on your diary before about my problem. My subscription ran out, but I sent in my money order over a month ago. I’m not getting any response from the problem reports or via e-mail. I’d really appreciate at least a “Yeah, you exist” message.

This is a really random note, but how old are you? I’m just curious, because I think whoever invented the 2 sites is a genius.

Can I ask a question, oh mighty master of diaries? Why can I no longer use HTML in my entries? Im trying a HTML code to stick in a rather amusing picture of Ash from pokemon holding a Lament Configuration Puzzle Box, with the caption “Cenobite! I choose you!” HELP ME!

Can you please please delete the diary Bombs_Away? In the UK it is certainly illegal to incite racial hatred which this foul, prejudiced and cruel diary does. Please do not allow OD to be tainted with this foul tumour any longer

ok, can you PLEASE put the block by name search on the site map please… because i am TOTALLY lost… im a simple girl… and i easy access… if you can that would a BIG help… thanx again

hi. a lot of ppl are mean to me here. what should I do?

My friend, The Ice Queen, hasn’t been noting me. So I asked her why, and she said that everytime I update, my name doesn’t highlight. She said I’m the only one of her faves that doesn’t. Appearently I haven’t been highlighted since like 11-10-03. What’s up, DM?

Hmm, okay. I skimmed some of your latest entries and couldn’t find anything about this, so I don’t know when you changed it, but on your diary description page, at the bottom of your entry table, you changed the links to go forward and backward? I like it so much better this way. thanks!

im not on od plus yet, just od, but just a queery having read this about blocking.. may be theres a good reason why i shouldnt need to ask this, but couldnt some one you block, just start a new diary? and read your diary from that?

When will the delete your diary option be back online????

Hi ther. I work in educational technology and I can imagine all the complaints and questions you get. Sorry to add to that. I really really really really love OD. I love the community, and I love that you’re constantly updating and improving things. I have a couple questions and one concern. 1. IS it possible to have a little box saying how many characters we have left on an entry?

Like when I leave a note, it allows that, but not with an entry. I have been really disappointed and frustrated with the new entry size limit, but additionally with not knowing how much shorter to make it when it’s over the limit. I put an entry into Word and it says it’s under the character limit but OD says it’s over. Anyway, then I have to chop, resave. Chop, resave. Lots of extra effort.

2. Actually I think I covered both in #1. My one concern is with the merging of all the diaries. Suddenly the more mature environment that drew me to OD and away from FOD is gone, and I feel like I’m back on FOD again. Ok, I can imagine it’s much better for you like this. But the advertising… when we agreed to join OD, wasn’t one of the drawing cards “no advertising”?

I don’t mind the ads as they are now. But what else will we lose that we were promised? With the merging of the FOD and OD, and with all the ads… I’ve lost most of what I had hoped to gain by paying! I really appreciate all your work and don’t mean to whine… just letting you know my concerns. Thanks for your work and for this great site. 🙂

Hi, originally I had 2 diaries. One on OD Plus and the other on OD. The ODP got converted (with a number). I then kept one as Lady Rambler, and the other as **Lady Rambler**. **Lady Rambler** is no longer there. And, I know I recently updated both to ensure that neither would get deleted. Can you tell me what happened? Did I do something wrong or against the rules? Thank you for your attn.

thank you! u solved my problem!