Re: TBBS
  By: Eric Oulashin to Andrew Haworth on Thu May 12 2016 03:33 pm

 >  AH> I feel like one of the main purposes of a BBS is the exchange of
 >  AH> messages, and I've always felt like so many packages just get that
 >  AH> fundamental aspect wrong, mainly with a poorly designed
 >  AH> browsing/reading/writing interface.
 >
 > When I got back into BBSing in 2007, I decided on running Synchronet for my
 > BBS software.  When I started reading messages with it, I was surprised at
 > Synchronet's message reader interface - Namely, that it seemed to want you
 > to read through every single message in a message area.  When you start
 > reading messages, it drops you right into your first unread message, and
 > then you can go
 > "next" through each message.  I used BBSes quite a bit in the 90s, though I
 > don't
 > remember if most BBS packages worked like that; however, Synchronet's reader
 > interface seemed odd to me.  I tend to like to see a list of messages and
 > choose
 > which ones I want to read based on the subject (although I do know that
 > message threads tend to drift off the subject after a while).  I ended up
 > making my own message lister/reader mod for Synchronet where I could bring
 > up a list of messages and choose the ones I want to read, rather than being
 > (pretty much) forced to read through every single one.

Synchronet's built-in message reading interface was heavily influenced by WWIV.
So if you're used to WWIV or one of its spin-offs (RG, Tag), it would seem
familiar to you (e.g. use 'T' to list the next 10 messages, 'L' to list them
all).

Of course, I've seen and used other BBS software which always wanted the user
to "pick" a message to begin reading and I never liked that design, probably
just because it's just not what I was used to.

So it's great that you were able to design something more to your liking and
integrate that with Synchronet for your users and other sysops who prefer a
different take on traditional BBS message reading. The fact that you were able
to do that (and of course, I had to make enable some external "hooks" and
probably fix some bugs along the way to make it more "seemless" is a testiment
both to your programming abilities and the extensiblity of Synchronet.

One of these days, I plan to replace the "built-in" message reading interface
with one written in JS (though it will likely function much the same, since
that's what I'm used to) and that should facilitate simpler replacement of that
functionality with 3rd party modules, like yours.

                                            digital man

Synchronet "Real Fact" #52:
Synchronet Blackjack was the first multi-node/multi-user game for Synchronet.
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