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 Administrative / General / 370
369  |  371
Subject: 
Re: A Nit about the "next article"
Newsgroups: 
lugnet.admin.general
Date: 
Thu, 15 Oct 1998 23:09:36 GMT
Viewed: 
727 times
  
Larry Pieniazek <lpien@ctp.com> writes:
If you are at the last article, perhaps you should suppress showing a URL for
the next article. When 368 was last, pressing the 369 URL while viewing 368
gives a page that says:

"Article 369 does not exist in group lugnet.admin.general."

which is true, but not very useful. (1)

<pontificate>
When I was a wet behind the ears junior IBMer, the most senior programmer
there (later went on to be an IBM STSM, one step below IBM Fellow) told me
something that always stuck with me:

"Never let the user make a mistake. It is better to put code in to prevent
erroneous actions than to put code in to tell the user what he did wrong."

So put the code in to suppress "next" appearing, instead of the code to
report that I was dumb.
</pontificate>

I know, I know.  :)  I subscribe to the same philosophy, and the way it
is now is not the way I think it ought to work either...  (don't worry)

Haven't fixed it up nice yet because it involves reading either the
'.overview' file or the 'active' file to determine the article count.
(Both of those files grow arbitrarily large -- especially the '.overview'
file for a group.)  I've been holding off until I decide the best place to
cut in some code which splits 'active' up for efficient random-access.

Note that the progressive links on article ranges properly disappear when
you hit the end (it won't let you try to walk off the end).  Try this:

   http://www.lugnet.com/news/display.cgi?lugnet.admin.general:300-349

and then click "350-369" and notice that it correctly stops there.  Same
if you try it in reverse:

   http://www.lugnet.com/news/display.cgi?lugnet.admin.general:29-20

This display works correctly because it already has read the .overview
file.  Gimme a few more days to fix the other thingy.

--Todd (posting from the new release of trn, which supports multiple NNTP
servers and rocks most incredibly!!!)



Message has 3 Replies:
  Re: A Nit about the "next article"
 
(...) Playing around with this lead me to the following nifty discovery (which I should have known you'd do, since you understand the "principle of least surprise") I can manipulate the numbers as I wish! If I go up to the URL box and change (URL) (...) (26 years ago, 16-Oct-98, to lugnet.admin.general)
  Re: A Nit about the "next article"
 
(...) Hrmmm. I would go look for that but I've had problems compiling things for the most part. I guess I've been too spoiled by dealing with the convenient rpm's I can use with Redhat. I wonder if it has been compiled and offered up in that format? (26 years ago, 16-Oct-98, to lugnet.admin.general)
  Two NEW nits
 
(...) Nit 1: Can you give me both a forward range, and a backward range? when on 300-349, there's nothing to go backward a chunk. And make the chunk size match what chunk size you're showing, in both directions (except don't go below 1, of course, (...) (26 years ago, 16-Oct-98, to lugnet.admin.general)

Message is in Reply To:
  A Nit about the "next article"
 
If you are at the last article, perhaps you should suppress showing a URL for the next article. When 368 was last, pressing the 369 URL while viewing 368 gives a page that says: "Article 369 does not exist in group lugnet.admin.general." which is (...) (26 years ago, 15-Oct-98, to lugnet.admin.general)

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