[AndrewD]

Thanks very much, these are very helpful suggestions and I will see what I can do. I do not plan to make a new release until vb 4.x is available, because this is likely to require a lot of work. I add specific remarks below.

Originally Posted by nohuhu

a) please oh please split administration/settings page into several! it makes an impression of having been created for superhumans who can remember EVERYTHING. some settings options are related to each other and it takes so much time to find them after the page was updated...

I fully share your impression, and I have felt for some time that the settings page needs further effort. (It is a lot better than it used to be ) However, is it more difficult that the main vb admin options page? (That's a serious question.)

Originally Posted by nohuhu

b) is it possible to somehow tie file ratings with corresponding thread ratings? i thought it would be just great if someone could rate file right from thread view and vice versa, thread view would display actual file rating.

I think that I should review the entire integration of LDM with vb, and the use of Ajax code to allow this type of feature to work 'on the fly'.

Originally Posted by nohuhu

c) maybe that's too advanced for a simple feature request but it would be beneficial to have means of accepting large file uploads. by large i mean greater than post_max_filesize. i thought, is it possible to implement ftp integration? like, user uploads large file to the server via ftp - this need not involve LDM - and then adds the file in LDM using ordinary "add entry" page. after submitting uploaded file's ftp url in corresponding field, LDM sees that this url belongs to the same server and instead of storing entered url it moves the file from ftp directory to upload_dir with the same name, or alternate name if "Rename" option was used when adding the file. this way we could have both of two worlds: ftp's robustness and minimum overhead with LDM's no-hassle file additions. i hope i described all this coherently enough...

Again, this is a good idea and I will give it some thought.

Originally Posted by nohuhu

and, um... i know it may sound too bold but have you ever considered overhauling LDM's phrasing in order to make it more fit for localization in languages structurally different from Western ones? frankly i don't know how Chinese people made their translation, i don't read Chinese and can't tell if it's close to English default but trying to make Russian translation proved to be difficult. for example, many phrases have not-too-meaningful names like ll_available or ll_entry or ll_search - there's no telling where those phrases are used and what for. also, i've encountered many phrases that are used simultaneously in different places with apparently different meaning, and this does add to complexity too, 'cause in many languages there are different forms of adjectives and verbs depending on context and trying to fit one phrase everywhere results in kludgy translation... or worse, if i'd translate a phrase for one page where i've seen it first and wouldn't have noticed that it is used on other page with different phrasing it'd just look ugly. mesa donta speeka inglisha. an ideal solution, if tedious, would be to ensure EVERY phrase is unique so it can be translated any way needed. LDM is just too great piece of software to be poorly translated and i'd like to do a quality job but it's not easy...

I have tried to be consistent, but also to keep the number of phrases to a reasonable minimum to limit the memory overhead and the work needed to provide a translation. I will certainly review the separation of menu item/error message/information.