the Forums Are Dead, Long Live the Forums

on February 9th (after one weeks notice) forums.secondlife.com went offline, and after a short while, were reborn in a drastically reduced form on blogs.secondlife.com/community/forums.... I'm not exactly happy with this fact, especially since vBulletin was replaced with (such an apt company name) Jive Software's "Clearspace".... meh... lots of missing and broken features, but at least they're still alive.

Now one weeks notice kinda hurt, and I spent most of that week ignoring phonecalls, archiving most of the scripting library, and starting a group to collect the people that frequented Scripting Tips, plus all the Content Creation stickies, and several posts and items of personal value. then it was off to Jira to file over two dozen bug reports and feature requests for the new forums, so that they could be as feature rich as the old ones... I was in the middle of doing that during the changeover.

The Old forums are set to be archived, and should be searchable sometime in mid March.

So what have I been doing the last few days since it died? Well I cleaned my house (since I hadn't touched it since this mess started) took a moment to congratulate myself for doing what I did, caught up with some friends, and did something that YOU dear reader, will appreciate... I wrote a Greasemonkey script for FireFox, that allows you to IGNORE those pesky people that just really seem to add nothing to your forum reading....

// ==UserScript== // @name SL Forum Ignore // @namespace Private // @description +Ignore Links on User Posts on SL Forum Discussions/Questions, +Make Linden Names RED, +OP Edit fix // @include https://blogs.secondlife.com/thread/* // @include https://blogs.secondlife.com/message/* // @match https://blogs.secondlife.com/thread/* // @match https://blogs.secondlife.com/message/* // @version 1.3 // @copyright Void Singer 2009 [ https://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/User:Void_Singer ] & BlindWanderer [ http://userscripts.org/users/4223 ] // @license CC-BY [ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0 ] // @licesne.ext Free to copy, use, modify, distribute, or sell, with attribution. // ==/UserScript== /*//-- added match statements for compatibility with chromium 'content scripts' --//*/ /*//-- IE7pro unsupported: lacks CSS inheritance & getElementsByClassName --//*/ //-- compatibility replacements for Chrome4+, Opera10.5+, Safari4+, I hope if (typeof GM_addStyle == 'undefined'){ function GM_addStyle( vCss ){ var vStyle = document.createElement( 'style' ); vStyle.textContent = vCss; document.getElementsByTagName( 'head' )[0].appendChild( vStyle ); } } //-- "it's possible that *this* GM_ function is supported in chromium, but the others are not. can't find docs" //-- compatibility replacements for Chrome4+, Opera10.5+, Safari4+, I hope if (typeof GM_setValue == 'undefined'){ //-- native JSON and localStorage for GM_*Value replacement GM_getValue = function( vKey, vDefault ){ var vReturn = JSON.parse( window.localStorage.getItem( vKey ) ); return ((vReturn == null)? vDefault: vReturn); } GM_setValue = function( vKey, vValue ){ window.localStorage.setItem( vKey, JSON.stringify( vValue ) ); } GM_deleteValue = function( vKey ){ window.localStorage.removeItem( vKey ); } } //-- function contributed by BlindWanderer function uHide( vPostNode ){ vPostNode.className += ' ignored-user'; } //-- function contributed by BlindWanderer function uShow( vPostNode ){ vPostNode.className = vPostNode.className.split( ' ' ).filter( function( v ){ return v != 'ignored-user';} ).join( ' ' ); } //-- function contributed by BlindWanderer, modifed by Void Singer function uToggleIgnore(){ //-- no ancestor support outside of xpath? var vName = this.getAttribute( 'username' ); //-- ?is there really any savings to caching instead of a direct call to GM_getValue? var vAction = (vIgnoreCache[vName] = !vIgnoreCache[vName])? uHide : uShow; if (vIgnoreCache[vName]){ GM_setValue( vName, true ); } else{ GM_deleteValue( vName ); } var vSwaps = document.getElementsByClassName( vName ); var vCount = 0; for (vCount; vCount < vSwaps.length; ++vCount){ vAction.apply( vAction, [vSwaps.item( vCount )] ); } } //-- adds styles, ignore toggles, and marks post containers function uTweakPage(){ //-- use style to reduce load, contributed by BlindWanderer, modifed by Void Singer GM_addStyle( [ '.GM-Fix-Thread-Edit {', ' background: url( "../images/jive-icon-edit-16x16.gif" ) no-repeat scroll left center transparent;', ' font-weight: bold;', ' padding-left: 17px;', ' margin-right: 0.5em;', ' float: right;}', '', '.GM-ignore-link-wrapper { cursor:pointer; }', '', '.GM-ignore-link-wrapper .ignore { display:block;}', '.GM-ignore-link-wrapper .unignore { display:none;}', '.ignored-user .GM-ignore-link-wrapper .ignore {display:none;}', '.ignored-user .GM-ignore-link-wrapper .unignore {display:block;}', '', '.ignored-user .jive-author { padding-top:0; padding-bottom:0; }', '.ignored-user .jive-author-avatar-container { display:none!important; }', '.ignored-user .jive-author-avatar-container { background-image: none !important; }', '.ignored-user .jive-author > em { display:none; }', '', '.ignored-user .jive-thread-post-body-container { min-height:0; background-image: none !important; padding-bottom:8px; }', '.ignored-user .jive-thread-post-subject { float: left; width:auto; }', '.ignored-user .jive-thread-post-subject h2 { display:none; }', '.ignored-user .jive-thread-post-message { display:none; }', '.ignored-user .jive-thread-post-details { background-image: none !important; padding-top:0; margin-top:0; width:auto;}', '.ignored-user .jive-thread-post-subject-content { background-image: none !important; padding-bottom:0; margin-bottom:0; }', '.ignored-user .jive-thread-post-subject-content .jive-thread-post-reply { display:none; }', '', '.ignored-user .jive-thread-reply-body-container { min-height:0; padding-bottom:6px; }', '.ignored-user .jive-thread-reply-subject { float: left; width:auto; padding-bottom:0!important;}', '.ignored-user .jive-thread-reply-subject strong { display:none!important; }', '.ignored-user .jive-thread-reply-message { display:none; }', '.ignored-user .jive-content-controls { text-align:right; width:auto; padding-top:0; padding-bottom:0;}', '', 'div[class$=".Linden"] div.jive-author div.jive-username-link-wrapper > a { color:#BB0000; }', ].join( '\n' ) ); //-- clone edit thread link to OP var vGetOP = document.getElementsByClassName( 'jive-thread-post-details' ).item( 0 ); var vGetEdit = document.getElementsByClassName( 'jive-link-edit' ).item( 0 ); if ((null != vGetEdit) && (null != vGetOP)){ //-- need to text both for flat paged views (edit still shows on follow-up pages) var vCloneEdit = vGetEdit.cloneNode( true ); vGetOP.appendChild( vCloneEdit ); vCloneEdit.className = 'GM-Fix-Thread-Edit'; } //-- create generic toggle for ignore buttons, contributed by BlindWanderer var vToggleBox = document.createElement( 'div' ); vToggleBox.className = 'GM-ignore-link-wrapper'; { var span = document.createElement( 'span' ); span.appendChild( document.createTextNode( 'Ignore' ) ); span.className = 'ignore'; vToggleBox.appendChild(span); } { var span = document.createElement( 'span' ); span.appendChild( document.createTextNode( 'Unignore' ) ); span.className = 'unignore'; vToggleBox.appendChild(span); } function uInsertToggles( vPostNodes ){ //-- contributed by BlindWanderer, modifed by Void Singer var vCount = 0; //-- loop through posts for (vCount; vCount < vPostNodes.length; ++vCount){ //-- get user profile link for position, and grab their system name var vUserLink = vPostNodes.item( vCount ).getElementsByClassName( 'jive-username-link' ).item( 0 ); var vName = vUserLink.href.substring( vUserLink.href.lastIndexOf( '/' ) + 1 ); //-- tag post for ignore handling vPostNodes.item( vCount ).parentNode.className += ' ' + vName; //-- changed to class vs custom attribute if (vName.split( '.' ).slice( -1 )[0] != 'Linden'){ //-- check and ignore post if user already on ignore //-- ?is there really any savings to caching instead of a direct call to GM_getValue? var vIsIgnored = vIgnoreCache[vName] = GM_getValue( vName, false ); if (vIsIgnored){ uHide( vPostNodes.item( vCount ).parentNode ); } //-- clone ignore toggle into user info box, and tie it the switch function var vIgnoreToggle = vToggleBox.cloneNode( true ); //-- ?no ancestor support outside of xpath? vIgnoreToggle.setAttribute( 'username', vName ); vUserLink.parentNode.insertBefore( vIgnoreToggle, vUserLink.nextSibling ); //--contributed by Blind Wanderer vIgnoreToggle.addEventListener( 'click', uToggleIgnore, false ); } } } //-- insert Toggle in OP uInsertToggles( document.getElementsByClassName( 'jive-thread-post-body' ) ); //-- insert Toggle in replies uInsertToggles( document.getElementsByClassName( 'jive-thread-reply-body' ) ); //-- not happy with the separate inserts for OP and reply, but it wasn't worth a custom function to grab both } //-- ?is there really any savings to caching instead of a direct call to GM_getValue? var vIgnoreCache = {}; //-- contributed by BlindWanderer //-- jive version checking if (document.getElementsByClassName( 'jiveVersion' ).item( 0 ).textContent.indexOf( '80211' ) != -1){ uTweakPage(); }

Ah... ignorance IS bliss =)