January 15, 2004

Previous: Some Day I’m Going to Write An Entry…

Age and Name Index and Q&A

Happy Friday everybody,

I’m trying hard not to use an ordered list tag in this entry, so bear with me.

One of our members reported a bug to me in the name and age indexes that would show a blank screen if you got past about the 2,000th diarist in any particular category. I’ve fixed this up, so everybody shows up in the lists now (no matter how far down the list they may be).

I’ve also been going through the mail in the new Information/Suggestions box, and I’m going to answer some of the more popular questions here. There have been several hundred emails to that address in the last couple days, so if you don’t get an individual reply this is a blanket apology. On to the questions:

How do I delete my diary? – Let’s hope this one doesn’t become overly popular, but if you haven’t found the option yet go to the Diary Maintenance menu (by clicking My Diary on the menu bar when you are logged in). The Diary Maintenance menu contains many helpful links, including Delete Diary. Click this and follow the instructions to remove your diary from our system. Please note that this is permanent, and your diary can not be restored.

What happened to Free Open Diary? – This one comes in various levels of franticness (I made up a word). In the fall of last year, I merged the (free) Free Open Diary site and the (paid) Open Diary site into the new Open Diary. Open Diary now contains both free and paid subscription diaries. You are welcome to keep a free diary here, just as you could at FOD. The bonus is that if you choose to upgrade to a paid subscription diary, your diary stays here and you don’t have to move to another site. This was the main reason that I combined the two sites – I didn’t like having our community divided into two parts. Now, free and paid diaries exist in the same place. Oh – and no, our free diary service is not going away any time in the future.

How do I post pictures on my diary? – I’m not going to go into the long description here, but I am working on a new Help facility that will contain this and other helpful information. It should be arriving soon.

Can we have a character counter on the entry writing screen? – I’ve explained this one elsewhere – the character counter is incompatible with the WYSIWYG editor we’re using now. If you turn the editor off, the counter returns – but you can’t have both (at the moment). However, I’m working on an upgraded version of the WYSIWYG editor that will include a character counter. Which leads to another popular question…

Can we have a WYSIWYG editor for the diary front page screen? – Yes, I’ve been waiting for the above-mentioned version of the editor to implement on this screen. Knowing that character-counting is important there, I chose not to use the current version there. When the new version is up, it will be added to the front page editor.

How do I block another member from my diary? – This is something that is only available to Plus users. If you have an OD Plus subscription, then it is as easy as going to the diary of the person you want to block and clicking the “block this user” link on the left-side menu. If the user has a private diary this is a problem – but I’m working on a solution to that.

Is there a way to search notes or entries for a certain word? – Again, this is a Plus feature. If you have an OD Plus subscription, you will see a link on the diary screen and on the notes screen that says “diary search”. Clicking this will give you a search screen where you can search entries or notes in that diary.

What happened to the recent entries/reader’s choice screens by age group and geographic location? – I’m actually working on a new version of those now, they should be up in the next couple of days.

I’ve also received a lot of great suggestions for site improvements. The ones that have floated to the top of the list at the moment are: adding a timestamp to entries in addition to the date, ability to mark individual entries as Favorites-only, a “remember me” for the login to remember your name and password, being able to mark notes left in your diary as private, and adding an (optional) visitor log to your diary.

These and others are being considered, and some (if not most) will be implemented in the future.

The DiaryMaster

I’ve always wondered about the usage of that word – if I smack something with a shovel, does that mean it’s been “implemented”?

What about favorites not bolding?

HOW ABOUT A SIMPLE “BLOCK ALL PRIVATE DIARIES” FEATURE. THAT’S THE PRIVATE DIARY FEATURE I WANT. Have a good day.

two words… YOU ROCK!

implemented: To put into practical effect, forced or compelled or put in force so i guess your defination works

i wish you would write an entry. i’d like to hear why your location says usa and elsewhere. :o)

Do you ever get sick of repeating yourself over and over again? *wink* <3

have a great weekend mr dm! isabel

This might sound stupid but I think there should be a “fitness and weightloss” circle on TOD. A lot of “younger” people need the support and info to lose weight that is a little more intelligent than found on the “eating disorder” circle. Just a suggestion and thank you 🙂

What about the Logo? Do we need to start a new competition?

Is OD actually anything to do with TOD?i am intensely irritated that TOD is not as easy to useas OD is…

I am not able to edit entries. When I click on the link in the left margin, a blank page shows up and there’s nothing written there. There is also a problem with spacing in new entries written. This problem arose around January 17 or 18 and makes it impossible to leave blank lines (or doule space) within an entry.

Hi…I’m also on TOD and it wont let me log in..(same name as this one)is it down at the moment or is there something wrong with my account?? Love Martha xXx

I have a pop-up blocker firewall thingy. I’ve never had any problems before, but now i have to shut off my firewall thinger to log in…its rather annoying…is there anything new that makes it do that? thanks… shell

i am new here and i have know idea what to do!!!! u r the master of this so what do i do!!! well i g2g ~carolyn~

What is the WYSIWYG editor??

Hey, im just here to say, you guys need to check your complaints every now and then. check my diary’s notes for the entry “u all are dumb” I sent a complaint about 2 days ago, and still haven’t gotten an update on it.

sorry, me again. I can’t use any of text functions in the editor. The bold, italic and underline all don’t work.

I think doing a favorite’s only entry option is a wonderful idea. I think sometimes even though we’re anonymous we like to keep things between ourselves and the people we communicate with on here most. Yay! 🙂 Hope it works out.

Hey, Don’t fell bad i am new heer i have no clue on what to do.

Hi I left a note with my e-mail address under Information/Suggestions and I haven’t gotten an answer. Sorry to bother you but my question was is it possible to put an add on like the front page of fod saying about pageants. I mean a link/ advertisment type thing? It would be alot easier to get people to join pageants and alot of people like to do them. It also might get people to start on fod.Thks

if i had a diary and didnt write in it for a long time, is there any way to find it again?

Just a friendly notice- OD keeps logging me out of my diary after mere minutes of being logged in. It’s frustrating, as in the past 15 minutes I’ve had to “re-log-in” 3 times.

Can you help me? I had an entry that was public and people had noted me on it…then I made the entry private, just to see if the notes would be private…and when I went and changed the entry back to being public, the notes are still private…is there a way to fix this? I’d like the notes to be public as well as the entry. Please tell me there’s some way to fix this…thank you!

*chuckles* implemented … that’s a good one!

What about the fact that the age thing seems to reset every year? Is that just something we have to go in manually and change each year? Not that I’m complaining, or lazy, just pointing it out. The Almighty

I switched the name of my diary and now it won’t save any new entry that I write. What am I doing wrong? I switched it back to the original name and it still won’t let me save.

I can’t make a payment because they want the stupid 3 digit # on the back of the card and it’s not mine…he lives like 79 miles away. The other payment option won’t work….what do I do…I only have 8 days left!! AH!!!!! -Liz

what does the [p] mean after a note?

There is a diarist named Gestalt who also has the diaries Lu and esoterica, among others. She is harrassing Bean Sidhe and esoterica authentica, and has been doing so for years now. She is savage in her treatment of them, and now is spreading evil rumors about them via private notes among all their OD friends. When are you going to do something about Lu/Gestalt? She is truly evil and this evil (c)

of hers has now caused both Bean Sidhe and esoterica authentica to either go private or quit OD. This Gestalt/Lu/esoterica/Sailing to Ganymede diarist, with all her other diary names, is one of the most insane, hurtful, damage-inflicting diarist this site has ever had, yet nothing is done. She drove me off last year, she’s now driven them off. You must get her off of here! She’s poisonous!

She took out a protection order petition against me a couple of weeks ago because I told her that if she didn’t stop spreading rumors about me, I would take her to court. I had to go to court with her and face a judge, and he threw it out. I live in the same city she does, and she says I stalk her, which I do not. She’s CRAZY!! And now she’s threatening to take out protection orders on Bean Sidhe

and esoterica authentica because she knows that if they don’t fly here from the East Coast to appear in court, a warrant will go out for their arrest. She will do ANYTHING to harrass them, and I don’t blame them for going private or leaving OD. PLEASE HELP US. SHE’S EVIL!!!

You have got to get her off this website. She causes damage here every single day with her private notes full of lies. So many people are so fed up and sick of her, there are dozens, but they’re terrified of her if they speak up. Please get her off of here! Please! Please!

Pardon me, but I’ve been searching the site, and have encountered a bit of trouble locating the open diary plus information. I’m interested in subscribing to the paid service, and would like some information; Such as beneficial features, acceptable payment methods, etc..Thanks.

ryn: thank you, i feel special that you came to see… I was just fiddling with the layout and wanted to see if i made a longer entry title if it would make the ‘date’ party on my entry table move to the right, and it did! no one was supposed to see though… but it’s alright.

Just wanted to let ya know you’re doing a good job 🙂 Best diary site around.

Hi..I keep trying to save this entry layout, but it won’t save, it keeps saying about HP 500 error or something…but if I go to the write entry thing I can paste it and it’ll work fine..so what’s wrong? NMB Please

I remember you had posted an entry about making notes private on entries you made private…however, I noticed that when you use the entry manager to do this, it doesn’t make the notes private, too.

hey… ok, so my boyfriend made a diary “because i love you” and then he forgot the password to that diary and i don’t think that he entered an email address at the time, but i want to download the diary before it gets wiped out because he hasn’t written in it…is there a way that i can do this? its really important…*please help me*

i have also been wondering how to post pictures and/or do the neat visual effects i see on other diaries, i will be waiting for your help section on how to do the graphic stuff. ~=8-D

I was wondering about the ability to add an entry in your diary that is not current but dated from an earlier time without it messing up the date sequence? In the old od days, back in 1999, we used to be able to add dates out of sequence and it would be put into the right date sequence but noticed that later this couldn’t be done when od was improved and dates would get scrambled and out of order

been away for awhile but catching up here. i know when i come across a private diary i want to block i just use the code. cant you just put in something by the block by name where you can block by authorcode. that way it just submits the authorcode into the code and you are set. many times i can find the authorcode on someone elses notes but if they dont note me i cant block it w/o the code.