Forum Platform Changes - PLEASE READ

MichaelG.

Assuming I am not misconstruing your question.....

Within the HTML for the page the post number is the <name > of the <table cell> containing the time stamp for a particular post (in the green banner next to the poster name).

As you point out, taken together the thread no. + page no. + post no. jump to the correct post but (it appears to me) one can only get the post number by looking at the page source.

It is possible to make it visible in the rendered page but someone would have to do a bit of editing.

Apologies 'if I got the wrong end of the stick'

Regards

Frank C.

edit: beaten to it -- and a more concise answer

Edited By Chuck Taper on 23/03/2023 22:16:48

Edited By Chuck Taper on 23/03/2023 22:17:34

Edited By Chuck Taper on 23/03/2023 22:19:11

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Sorry, Frank … I actually pointed out no such thing

What I pointed out was that Neil’s longer version of the link gets me no not much further than my short version

… which leaves me with two questions:

1. Why do we receive different links ?
2. Why, despite that, does my link take me to the top of the thread, and Neil’s takes me to page 3 [but neither seems to identify the post that was referenced].

MichaelG.

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Neil received: https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=186161&p=3#2836728

I received: http://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=186161

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 23/03/2023 22:46:15

Filetypes - might be an idea to remember that most spreadsheet programs offer macro functionality, to allow one to program operations on the spreadsheet data. This, potentially, allows calls to the operating system, which has proved useful to virus writers.

.

Good morning, Frank

Just a little update : Your logic seems entirely reasonable, but the HTML for these pages looks [to me at least] hideously complicated. I have a App on the iPad [Snippet Editor] which allows one to select part of a page and display the code] … Here, you will see that I swiped the Green bar in your post and it displayed the HTML

.

MichaelG.

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Edit: __ Within all that highlighted code, I think the specific reference to your post is this:

<a name="2836799">23/03/2023 22:14:47</a>

Edited By Michael Gilligan on 24/03/2023 07:03:32

Try this Michael, should take you to my post yesterday

Though with the time limited with this software probably not worth worrying about now.

Edited By JasonB on 24/03/2023 07:56:41

… it did, Jason

The difficulty only comes with finding that URL in the first place

https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/forums/postings.asp?th=186161&p=3#2836735

MichaelG.

Look what I just did, with a simple edit of the HTML for the page.

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It now reads: <tr class="RowStyleHeading"><td width="100"><a href="/members/public_profile.asp?c=44290">JasonB</a></td><td><a>Post 2836735 : 23/03/2023 15:55:24</a></td>

I think that’s pretty-much what ‘Chuck Taper’ was hoping to see.

MichaelG.

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Edited By Michael Gilligan on 24/03/2023 08:58:27

Still a right faff to get the post number and make up the URL

Hopefully if we get what I have seen then it is just a right click and copy(windows) of a #....... on the post heading then you can paste the link into a thread. The other forum with the same software that I saw did not have that so it looks to be an option that can be set by Admin and there may also be the option for each post in a thread to be #1, #2, etc which is easier to type than a six digit number for those that have problems with links

We may be going round in circles trying to solve a problem whose solution is likely to be irrelevant in a month or so!

Neil

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When did that ever stop us ?

… this forum is about the eternal quest for knowledge

MichaelG.

Indeed!!

These thing do tend to spiral - whether inwards or outwards I'm not sure.

A question - the current forum software, what is it? Is it some product customised for this particular use or was it custom built? I ask only because, let's say, I am curious.

Are we moving to new software because of administrative burden or will the new software bring new features and functions that the current software cannot deliver?

I have no axe to grind one way or another I'm just interested.

Perhaps this is an unsuitable line of questioning but I assure you my motivations are honourable.

In any case I can only find Website Questions, Comments, and Suggestions and I don't want to start another thread.

Regards.

Frank C.

It's bespoke, has become unstable and could become unsecure hence the need to change. We should get new features that many have asked for.

So true! 🤣

Carry on, Mr G.

Neil

How is the new software coming along. Do you need any more Guinea Pigs? I mostly use an iPad Mini for viewing this forum.

WE have several beta-test volunteers (nothing happening yet though).

I'm sure a few more would be useful, but I don't know if everyone offering will be asked to take part.

Thanks

Neil

Those photos that I saved from the forum album were totally unusable. They were put in as the lowest resolution that the camera, a Pentax K5D would manage, equivalent to full HD and when I had got them back on the hard disc they were just pixelated rubbish, only 5Kb each, just thumbnails. I don't know how that happened, they look ok in the album.

Edited By old mart on 04/04/2023 19:57:57

Edited By old mart on 04/04/2023 19:58:48

If you just selected the small thumbnail from the album then that is all you will get, the small 5KB thumb. If you want a larger image then you need to go to view album, click on an image and then click view full size and then save that image, still won't be massive as the forum software resizes as a file is uploaded, probably about 150Kb

Edited By JasonB on 04/04/2023 20:21:25

Thanks, Jason, I was beginning beginning to suspect something like that had happened.

If anyone wants to download their photos semi-automatically (you only have to input a link to the album front page and a local location where to save them), this Python should do the trick. It is likely you will need to install the requests and BeautifulSoup modules.

import shutil # module to save images locally
import requests # module to allow http requests
from bs4 import BeautifulSoup # webscraping module

url = input("Enter album URL: " # paste in your album URL
folder = input("Enter a folder path for photos: " # enter photo archive path

# Note that a typical Windows path must be written thus:
# C:/Users/laptop/Documents/ME_pics/

# The album page contains a 'magic number', referred to below as member_number.
# We have to extract that to construct the full URL to the photo

# Set up base URL for photo locations
base_url = 'https://www.model-engineer.co.uk/sites/7/images/member_albums/'

reqs = requests.get(url) # make http request to album page
soup = BeautifulSoup(reqs.text, 'html.parser' # drop result into soup tureen

urllist = [] # construct empty list
for link in soup.find_all('a': # find all links from album page
urllist.append(link.get('href') # add links to list
member_number = (urllist[1]) # magic number is within second item in list
mn = member_number[-6:] # extract number from that item
mn += '/' # add forward slash for housekeeping
base_url += mn # add member_number to base_url
photo_list = [] # construct empty list
for u in urllist: # look at each item in list
if u[0:6] == 'member': # find out if the url is a photo
photo_id = u[-6:] # last six charcters is its ID
photo_list.append(base_url + photo_id + ".jpg" # construct URL of photo
for p in photo_list: # now go through list and save pictures
file_name = folder + p[-10:] # full path to saved file
res = requests.get(p, stream = True) # get the image from the interweb
if res.status_code == 200: # check if successful
with open(file_name,'wb' as f: # open file for writing as binary
shutil.copyfileobj(res.raw, f) # weld it to the hard disk
print('Image sucessfully Downloaded: ',file_name)
else:
print('Image Couldn\'t be retrieved'

Edit: if the forum wants to put smiley faces in perfectly good Python code, that is its problem, not mine.

Edited By DC31k on 05/04/2023 10:39:13

I think that nicely justifies the change in itself!

Neil