Keyboard Know-how.

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Liis
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Re: Keyboard Know-how.

Post by Liis »

Not about the Forum technicalities, but most of us use Google (if it works OK for you, congratulations, and skip this post):
Some time ago "quotation" marks round the search word, as for a phrase, got rid of Google's added variants. No more, but +, as in the old AltaVista days - remember, anyone? - works at the moment.
So if you want, say, seals but no sealed, sealing, or Tõnn but no tonnes etc, write +seal, +Tõnn.
No promises that they will let us keep the + trick.
For phrases, like "grey seal" it is still the " ".

Test: try Tõnn Spain, with & without +

And one more Google secret service: the ranking of your answers will depend on what country Google believes your computer sits in ...
Liis
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Post by Liis »

About a new topic, discussed in Pig Cam because present has grown too large, posts by Ricky, Macdoum and others
This is not really on-topic here, but I can't find anywhere to put it - which actually is part of the problem above. - Admins., please move wherever seems better.
A growing forum and topic makes two things difficult :
(1) find a post that has been there, somewhere, sometime
(2) check up all new posts since last time (or really, find all interesting new posts)
Neither will be much helped by a new heading or starting same topic part 2, as I see it.
Part of the solution for both is a good search function. It is certainly the solution to (1). What we have is moderately OK, so far.
For (2), it would be helpful to have more compact design, less empty space in each post. No particular blame on this forum program, all are similar. We are expected to prefer screenscrolling to solid reading. Checking posts from a quite short period means neverending scrolling of 30-50% empty space. Also - sorry, this is controversial - a part of the pictures we set up are maybe not absolutely necessary.
One more topic would really not solve much, unless it is a specific, needed and new area. Otherwise just one more place to check.
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NancyM
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Post by NancyM »

Liis,
Questions of a general nature can be posted here: viewtopic.php?f=3&t=26

I find the search function to work fairly well, if you choose the options carefully (as you know from using Google search!)

To check up on the latest posts, I always use "View active topics" at the top left of the screen - it will show where new posts have been made since your last visit.
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Jo UK
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Post by Jo UK »

Liis, the matter of posting pictures has occupied us recently. I know that often, there are duplicated pictures of almost the same moment and maybe the second picture is redundant. But think - if you are I each see an interesting moment and capture it, then maybe my screen capture program is a fraction of a second faster than yours, is it fair, or friendly for your pic to be forbidden or deleted because of a time factor? Both members (you and I) are of equal value, and what we find interesting is also valuable to the forum. I don't know how to dicate what should happen in such a case.
Liis
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Post by Liis »

Some facts would be good to have, as a background:
How much server space for a picture - the same as I see as picture size or does the server reduce on storing? How much for an average post? a post with maximum emoticon / quotes load? What have we used up?
Jo UK wrote: But think - if you are I each see an interesting moment and capture it, then maybe my screen capture program is a fraction of a second faster than yours, is it fair, or friendly for your pic to be forbidden or deleted because of a time factor?
The (inevitable) "time delay"-caused duplicates are probably not a large proportion, at that probably mostly interesting moments, and a seeming duplicate can show a small important difference. And as you say, it would be both very unfair and impracticable to do something about it (guess you administrators don't need more work).
But how much filling-out to ensure that all the best is caught? Can that ratio be improved without murder, mayhem and bad feelings (and to some use?)?
Bociany: yes, to the 'View active topics', only being a rather haphazard and scramble-around visitor it doesn't work so well always. But it can if I improve my ways. It doesn't take away the empty scrolling . Again, all up-to-date programs are like that (sorry, born & bred to compact, dreary print pages).
Search function - we-ell, OK, to a point. Have crashed it (too many hits for system etc.) a few times. With some care and tricks that can be managed of course. But not sure given one more year, or starting next year at present activity level.
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NancyM
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Post by NancyM »

Liis wrote:But how much filling-out to ensure that all the best is caught? Can that ratio be improved without murder, mayhem and bad feelings (and to some use?)?
Liis, this discussion forum grew out of a thread on the Black Stork cam that was hosted at a different forum last season. There, we often captured and posted pictures that in some way helped the kotkaklub members know what was happening at the nest. But we are not the formal research branch of those who started the camera projects. We are an informal discussion group, and so we will catch some but not all events and the posts will be interspersed with smilies and chat. Perhaps for some cameras we will have a "strict" summary of events thread, and that would be very compact (see the summary of the black stork 2008 season viewtopic.php?f=2&t=18 )
Again, all up-to-date programs are like that (sorry, born & bred to compact, dreary print pages).
Part of my "day job" is to edit technical reports and papers, so I understand your point of view, Liis. When I started reading/helping with forums, I wanted the same organized one-size-fits-all structure. I have had to accept the fact that discussion forums are just that - discussions, and they will reflect the schedules, moods, etc of the participants.
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ame
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Post by ame »

i found a site where one can copy not only emojis but also useful symbols like for example Greek letters (for example ο = omikron and α = alfa), mathematical symbols (≤, ≃, ∢, ⇒, ...), and all kinds of other symbols (♀, ♂, ☯, ℃, ♫, ...)
https://coolsymbol.com/
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