When I first read this thread a while ago I thought that some of these ideas is not quite impossible to achieve. I found the notification system of the new replies in particular a catchy one (not the easiest one though), it was mentioned first by @blackpuma and seconded later on by other members (@vj288 and @bsebring), so I decided to give it a shot. I wrote a script that should do the job and have tested it on two versions of Firefox besides IE6.
At first the plan was to rely on the 'subscribed threads' page to get a list of the threads that have been responded to recently. What I disliked about this implementation plan is that this list is only valid per login, that is, if you logged out, or you were idle for 15 minutes, whichever is sooner, the list is no more useful. It is better to let the function be more flexible and independent.
I was thinking then in making it run through
Bookmarklets so that whenever any forum page is open the user can trigger the required code to run by a bookmarklet link/button.
This choice is one of the available choices but it has a major drawback: it will need the code file to be uploaded to the server so it can work without any special tweaks. I don't know if this is possible and whether the mods can upload files to the SPW server or not, however a client side solution was still inevitable.
(1) via Greasemonkey add-on
First I would like to to recommend another more robust way that doesn't need any modifications in the browser settings:
Greasemonkey is a Firefox add-on that executes user scripts on the fly for any specified web page. All you need to do is that you need to install the
Greasemonkey add-on, then just save the file attached with this post to somewhere on your drive and drag and drop it into the browser. This is intended to work on Firefox, although never tried the other browsers (namely Chrome, Safari, IE) I read that they either have the ability to run Greasemonkey user scripts or have some sort of equivalent kits.
(2) via a bookmarklet
For now users of other browser than Firefox can run the script manually by the Bookmarklet links way with some setting modification.
In IE (I tested with IE6 on an old XP system) you have to add the SPW site (add this: *.socialphobiaworld.com) to the trusted sites zone: Internet Options -> security tab -> select "Trusted sites" and click the "sites" button.
Don't forget to hit the (Custom Level) button to make sure that the item (access data source across domain) is enabled.
In Firefox I recommend using Greasemonkey, but you are still able of running it under Bookmarklet if you prefer that for any reason. In this case though it will only work in an older than Firefox 5 version (only from 1 to 4) this is because of more strict security implementations made by Mozilla in its newest versions.
Here is a few portable choices to test with that doesn't need to install on the system
Firefox Protable go to the bottom of the page and choose one of the old versions available (I tested it on FF 8.0.1 and FF 3.6.24).
Now with Firefox you also have to add a three lines of code to the file (prefs.js) found on this path: <yourdrive>:\<path>\FirefoxPortable\Data\profile
just make sure the browser is not running because it will overwrite your modifications if you didn't close it before adding these lines to the end of the file:
user_pref("capability.policy.localfilelinks.checkloaduri.enabled", "allAccess");
user_pref("capability.policy.localfilelinks.sites", "http://www.socialphobiaworld.com");
user_pref("capability.policy.policynames", "localfilelinks");
Now close the file and open your browser and you will be able to use the bookmaklet to run the functionality.
* install the bookmarklet (works with solution 2- via a bookmarklet)
Here is the bookmarklet code:
Code:
javascript:(function(){var%20e=document.getElementById("__id");if(e)e.parentNode.removeChild(e);e=document.createElement("script");e.setAttribute("id","__id");e.setAttribute("type","text/javascript");e.setAttribute("src","file:///C:/rn.user.js");document.getElementsByTagName("head")[0].appendChild(e)})()
Make a new bookmark in your browser and put the previous string in the "Location/URL" box.
Whenever you visit a forum page on SPW you can click the bookmark entry and the code will run to check the currently listed threads in that page. (don't forget to change the path in the link if you put the file "rn.user.js" (the attached file) somewhere other than drive ( C: ).
If the attached code file could be uploaded to the server that would be great and everyone would be able to run the function without any tampering with the settings.
For Greasemonkey no need for uploading the file, it is already attached in the client's browser, which has some advantages actually: users can set their own preferences, for example the code is set now to wait for 20 seconds trying to connect to the server before terminating the process, also it only scans the last 5 pages in threads that have reached 1000 posts! this situation was made manageable by limiting the scan to a max number of pages that can be altered by the user (default is 5 now).
I changed the extension of the script/code file to .txt so I can attach it, but don't forget to turn it back into (rn.user.js) where .js is the extension (for Windows users make sure the "Hide extension for known file types" is unchecked from the explorer window: tools -> folder options -> view ->...)
It worked for me. Hope it works fine and that it is of any use to you. If there is any errors just drop a post here and I will try to fix it quick.
I have been around for a long time but haven't made this account until recently, I obviously wasn't active at all. Not quite a newbie.. have SAD, I wish not! shortest intro!
SPW forum and its members are beautiful.
EDIT: - I didn't notice that the bookmarklet link went wrong because of the forum editor.. I modified the text (added the code part with a new instruction line).
- I also corrected the Greasemonkey add-on broken link.
- You should now ignore the attached file in this post and go download the latest copy from my latest posts in this thread.