BestBBS suggestion...

URL Wrapping to avoid right left scrolling

[Dante_Maure]

Any chance of a display adjustment when dealing with very long URLs?

[As_it_is,_when_there's_an_unusually_long_one,_reading_requires_righ_left_scrolling_for_the_entire_page....] :(

<thud> Ow!

(the sound of Dante hitting the floor after falling out of his chair from scrolling too far to the right)

[korkus2000]

Like the [url] command?

[creative craig]

You should get a chair with arm rests :)

Craig

[Dante_Maure]

Like the [url] command?

I always use the url command. The annoying problem is when my browser gets hijacked by the Ever Expanding Page Squad because another contributor doesn't do the same. :)

[korkus2000]

Ya the moderators have to go around and tidy it up.

[Marcia]

It's that way because of code that's sometimes posted, if I remember correctly.

[sun818]

Heh, you used to be able to get higher CTR on Google AdWords that way. As long as the poster can put their long URL inside a shorter link name, it shouldn't be a problem.

[Brett_Tabke]

I completely agree with the need for auto shorter urls. I'm up against some programmer resistance to deploy a solution to it though (my own resistance).

Everything I've done on the site here has been for speed purposes. This is going to sound like a boast (it probably is) but, it's the most efficient perl based forum software on the net - bar none. It got that way, because every routine, every file structure, and every line of code has addressed one core premise - display speed is everything.

For example, one day last week (froogle day), we did nearly a quarter million page views. We did that, not on a dedicated server, but in a heavy shared hosting environment. Compare that with another leading forum system run by uber lunix geeks where they are using 6 dedicated servers to do less traffic. (everyone, please say *whoa*).

The core software has to take the post text and transform it into html. Those routines that do the formatting and output are the most heavily used of all the software. They are called on every message to convert the [codes] into pure html.

On to the point of this post: to shorten a url requires a code heavy exception in the middle of the [url] exchange code. Even if it is just one extra if/then, that is an if/then that will run on each and every message, whether it is used or not. This is just one example of how (umm) 'retentive' I am about speed and resistant to putting the code online.

[Dante_Maure]

(everyone, please say *whoa*)

*Whoa* ;)

I can completely understand the concern when weighed against such issues.

Now I am a complete layman when it comes to PERL coding, but would it be possible to implement something at the post submission stage rather than the page rendering stage?

Perhaps something that identified URLs over a certain number of characters upon submission and then prompted the members to use the [url] titling command themselves?