Usenet gateway

THIS THREAD IS CLOSED!
Posts in here will NOT be answered

This hack has undergone many major changes since this thread was started. Consequently, most of the posts have become dated and of little use. To coincide with the latest major release (20010712), a new one has been started.

See this thread for the latest version and discussion

[Gilby]

Originally posted by fastforward
That is how it's supposed to work. Otherwise, they won't be threaded correctly when local posts are in the same thread as usenet posts.

I like the old way better, where the date of the post is the same as the date in the message on the newsgroup. Maybe some date checking would be appropriate such as making sure the date isn't in the future and that it's not older than a few hours or since the last time newnews was run, whichever is older.

Let's say that either the news server or your own server was down for a while. You don't want to have the messages that were not loaded earlier being the same date as all the others. Sometimes it takes a while for messages to make it to the a particular news server and they might come out of order too.

[fastforward]

With this method, posts will appear just as they do using a newsclient against a newserver. The news server simply displays them as it receives them.

If the date of the news post is used and placed into the dateline field, that is how vB orders the posts. This means they will NOT be shown in the correct order due to the time taken for news to propogate across usenet. You will get usenet posts coming in that are placed in the middle of threads. Also, they may not show up as new posts as they may be dated before your last visit. It becomes impossible to keep track of long threads.

The other problem is when a local reply is posted in a usenet thread. You will also get a whole bunch of usenet posts placed above it when the next run occurs. The local poster gets an email telling them someone has replied and can't see any posts after their one. Very confusing and frustrating.

These example aren't isolated occurances. It happens all the time. In fact, the very first version of this hack did exactly what you are asking for. It was changed for the reasons above.

The way it was handled in the more recent versions was by using the 'seq' (sequence) field. The thread was orderd using this column which meant everything was shown in the right sequence (although the message dates were not necessarily in order). This was achieved by editing the showthread, newreply, newthread and posting.php.

As far as checking goes, this was also done in the previous version to minimize the message dates appearing strange and out of sequence, and also to make sure posts were shown as new in a timely fashion. But, it's only of use when combined with the vB code changes.

Basically, you have a 3 choices.

• Use the news post date with no vB code changes and have posts that you may never see as they will be inserted in the middle of threads and not be marked as new.
• Use the method of setting the date to the date they are inserted into the forums. (Just as a real posts do). The posts are in the correct order, but have a 'wrong' date.
• Use the newspost date along with all the code changes that are necessary to support it and the inability to upgrade to newer vB versions without breaking the hack, vB, or both.

[chrispadfield]

trust me, you want to stick with this way! getting posts going above native VB posts is incredibly confusing and as fastfoward says it happens all the time. Newsgroups themselves don't sort by date/time, VB shouldn't do either for newsgroup posts and threads.

[Mark Hewitt]

Use the news post date with no vB code changes and have posts that you may never see as they will be inserted in the middle of threads and not be marked as new.

That is actually how I would like it to work, would it be possible to set this as an option in the usenet.php control panel as I really don't like the way it is done now.


OK, that "bug" now found to be a "feature" . I have another one for you !

The names don't appear in the individual posts. Even though they do appear in the thread starter and last poster columns on forumdisplay.

Also I don't know if this is to do with your code but threading on outgoing posts doesn't seem to be working correctly. There was a long thread with 5 replies and I clicked reply and replied to the message. I expected the post to be in reply to post number 5 instead it appeared in reply to the first post.

[fastforward]

Originally posted by Mark Hewitt
Also I don't know if this is to do with your code but threading on outgoing posts doesn't seem to be working correctly. There was a long thread with 5 replies and I clicked reply and replied to the message. I expected the post to be in reply to post number 5 instead it appeared in reply to the first post.

This isn't possible without some major code changes. vB is not a threaded bulletin board. If vB doesn't know or care which post is being replied to, it's impossible for an external script to figure it out.

It would be possible to figure out if an individual post was being replied to by using the quote feature, but that would mean more vB code changes and it would only work if the quote was used.

This hack has always only 'threaded' incoming messages by placing them in the correct sequence and a logical order. Outgoing messages have always been in reply to the first post.

As for the name not appearing, I'll have to look into that some more. They seem to be showing up on mine.

[Mark Hewitt]

This isn't possible without some major code changes. vB is not a threaded bulletin board. If vB doesn't know or care which post is being replied to, it's impossible for an external script to figure it out.

Ah right, that's a pity because it will look quite strange on usenet. (There quite a fickle lot over on the newsgroups). Can't newreply.php be modified to include a "in reply to" tag which would handle this. (code changes aren't that bad really!).

As for the name not appearing, I'll have to look into that some more. They seem to be showing up on mine.

Thanks, see example here -
http://www.motorsportforum.com/vb22/...=&threadid=235

[fastforward]

Originally posted by Mark Hewitt
Can't newreply.php be modified to include a "in reply to" tag which would handle this. (code changes aren't that bad really!).

It could. But the whole point of this 'new' usenet hack is to eliminate all code changes to ease support issues for everyone and allow timely upgrades to new vB versions. It also means I don't have to stay up until 4am the day Jelsoft releases a new version

Remember this new version is still in it's infancy after stripping out all the code changes. A lot of the missing features will be readded... and still with no code changes. I just need time to figure out how.

By the way, I can add an option for the usenet post date issue. But remember; new posts may be placed before recent posts. The dates will obviously be in sequence, but you may receive the newer post first. The real problem is when local posts are entered into a thread along with usenet posts. You will nearly always get usenet posts placed before it. I'll add the option with a disclaimer.

[tamarian]

Fastforward,

Here's a suggestion. No vb code changes, and minimal usenet customization can be the basic usenet hack. A list of mods to the hack can be updated, by you and other experienced users of the hack. Like a text in the hack zip with a format like:

1. Search: To exclude usenet posts from being displayed in view new, find this in search.php, replace with, etc.

2. Stats to eclude from stats, do this...

bla bla. Each needed enhancement can be hacked by itself, while the simplest usenet hack won't need any code changes.

I can see this hack taking a lide of it's own!

[Mark Hewitt]

I would be in favour of that but I doubt fastforward would since he is doing this for free after all!

However another thing I found was that wereas previously the usenet posts didn't appear in my overall post total they do now, this is bad.

[tamarian]

Originally posted by Mark Hewitt
I would be in favour of that but I doubt fastforward would since he is doing this for free after all!

We probably won't go through another repetitive upgrade cycle like vb1.6-vb2.0 for a while. Some mods to the Usenet hack are quite simple, especially if you hard code them instead of using the CP. Like adding "AND forumid <>" in search to control search.

I actually use the 2.8.2 of the hack on top of RC2, so it still behaves like it used to, and will install 2.9 when vb2 is released, with mods for stats msg count and seach behaviour on the usenet messages.