Thread Indexes

In another effort to scare the bejezus out of Arcana :) and in an effort to try to index the burgeoning number of places in the CWBP - esp after the June challenge - I have been working on some indexes.

So to start with, here is the CWBP place Index.

And here is a list of members introductory posts indexed by member.

If you can think of more then I am sure I can whoop up some more scripts now that I have the framework in place. These links could be posted and sticky'ed to the relevant sections.

As usual they are not automatically run so it requires a button push and upload for me to refresh them - i.e. very new threads wont appear for a while.

This one is good too... Need help with Gimp ? Want hex stuff ? Well, you need...

Index of Threads by keyword.

Post / PM me with any more useful keywords to add.

Redrobes this is fantastic! I really like the Thread Index. FAQ work team take note! This maybe exactly what you are looking for!

I disavow any knowledge of this activity whatsoever...

Just kidding...This is pretty cool redrobes...how much bandwidth do you think it uses tho?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Arcana

...how much bandwidth do you think it uses tho?

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Not a lot at all. I'm not grabbing every post just the thread listings for each forum in blocks of 200 so its about 20 or so pages in total and then I munge on them spitting out fixed html pages reffing them. Don't worry, its not grabbing whole loads of threads or posts on the fly ! And theres no images to DL just the thread list text so a lot less than one large map I would think.

If you look in the web log it will say something like 'Redrobes Index Scraper V1.0' or something like that under the user agent. A bit like the thumbnail scraper. Theres probably a few test runs before the final one tho ;)

So I cant, (or rather wont) do any processing on any data in any post as that would be too silly as there are two and a half thousand now - its just threads. So just the thread title and 'opening post' member name. I.e. If you mention about Dungeon Forge in a thread (titled) about CC3 then it wont pick up on DF.

What I was after was a way of quoting refs to pages when people ask for info on certain subjects. Also to try and get a feel for who is into what. Some people make it really clear and fly the flag - like I do with ViewingDale, naturally - being the author, but theres loads of people who use certain apps a lot and have loads of knowledge so I was trying to tease that out. I think that has come through from the members next to the threads.

So now I can just keep reffing the big keyword index and say look up about X in that list. Its much easier.

I also realized last night that I could use this same system on the thumbnails to sort out people who have made an entry. But ill keep to the current system for now and add people to the list as I see them start a new WIP thread.

Is the tag cloud supposed to do something like this too ? I never really got the idea of this tag cloud thing. Is it just showing the most popular tags or can you use them as an index ?

Cloud Tags show the more common/popular tags (by size of font) and clicking on a work will return all items with that tag (like an index).

It just requires people to populate the tag field when they post to do a lot of consistent good.

-Rob A>

Oh yes I see now. You can click on the tag to get posts with that tag in it. So thats similar to the keyword index then. So I think we could post helpful links to tag lists for topics that people want too. Thats useful to know.

Interesting that my ViewingDale is not in the smallest font category. There cant be many people adding tags to posts if that is considered less than trivial as I sure doubt anyone else is adding that one to theirs.

It seems like apart from the CWBP index that we can get a similar kind of thing out of vbulletin in other ways if your prepared to fiddle about with a few settings and push a few discreet widgets.

Want help with indexes ? Try...
http://www.cartographersguild.com/tags/index.html
hee hee...

Great work Redrobes! And thanks for your tireless effort on the CWBP.

Torq

Just to say I have updated these indexes since the move to the new forum software and new servers. So up to date as from today I think. The links are in the top and second post but are also always on my sig.

That index is great!!!! We should have it in a subforum of it's own....at the top of the board.