Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

The place to be when you have TEA. Discuss all kinds of test equipment.

Important: Use tags for the type of equipment your topic is about.
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Use tags for the type of equipment your topic is about. Include the "repairs" tag, too, when appropriate. If a new tag is needed, request one in the TEAdministration forum.
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Cerebus
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by Cerebus »

bitseeker wrote: Tue Oct 25, 2022 8:42 pm
Specmaster wrote: Tue Oct 25, 2022 11:21 am Not sure if this is going to be our new home or not, so I'll duplicate my latest post on io.groups here in case.
What do folks think thus far? Some comments seemed to indicate that this is working. Is there more you all would like to test out? I'm not in a rush to make a decision. I'd rather that everyone be able to test out everything that is important to them.
We need to thoroughly kick the crap out of it. Try all the expected things, then try all the unexpected things. We won't even be close to the beginning of a conclusion until we've done that.

I, for one, am already unimpressed that it isn't handling completely standard BBCode for setting the height and width of images, several people use that a lot to tame things for other people's comfort and we know from experience that expecting people to be disciplined enough to manually resize images before posting isn't going to work.

It's obvious that one thing that needs a proper going over is all the various BBCode tags to see if anything else is broken/missing. Like what happens if I use a code tag?

Code: Select all

void GenerateDFA (state *start_state)
{
    SetOfStates * startSuperState = e_closureOfState (start_state);
    
    SuperstateAddSetOfStates (&DState, startSuperState);
    DState->isStart = 1;
    
    Superstate *currentUnmarked = NextUnmarkedState (&DState);
    while (currentUnmarked != NULL)
    {
        currentUnmarked->marked = 1;

        // For each possible character 'A'
        for (char tgt = ' '; tgt <= '~'; tgt++)
        {
            SetOfStates *transitionStates = Move (currentUnmarked->superset, tgt);
            if (transitionStates != NULL)
            {
                SetOfStates *U = e_closureOfSetOfStates(transitionStates);
                SetOfStates *V = SuperstateContainsSetOfStates(&DState, U);
                if  (V == NULL)
                {
                    SuperstateAddSetOfStates (&DState, U);
                    V = U;
                }
                assert (V->superstate_number != 0);
                AddTransitionToSuperstateOnCharacter (currentUnmarked, V->superstate_number, tgt);
            }
        } // end for each character
        
        currentUnmarked = NextUnmarkedState (&DState);
    }
    
    DrawDFAUsingDot (DState);
}
OK, at least that works.

Tables?

[table]
[th][td]Character[/td][td]Hex[/td][/th]
[tr][td]<newline>[/td][td]0x0A[/td][/tr]
[/table]

Oh dear, that doesn't look good. That's a bit basic to be missing.

[center]How about centered text?[/center]

Whoops, more borkage.

Surely it'll at least manage preformatted text?

[pre]
{
{'\a', "\\a"},
{'\b', "\\b"},
{'\e', "\\e"},
{'\f', "\\f"},
{'\n', "\\n"},
{'\r', "\\r"},
{'\t', "\\t"},
{'\v', "\\v"},
{' ', "<space>"},
{'\'', "\\'"},
{'\"', "\\\""},
{'\?', "\\\?"},
{'[', "\\["},
{']', "\\]"},
{'\\', "\\\\"},
};
[/pre]

Lordy, is that really broken too? That's all a bit sad...

One other thing that strikes me, no super or subscripts. It's bad enough watching people confuse hfe and hFE, it's doubly sad when they are not subscripted properly. On that front alone I'd say we'd be better off with SMF. Add all the missing/broken basic BBCode tags that we know work in SMF but not here and I'm beginning to think that phpBB is not for us.

I wonder if it can get Måns' name right? Oh, at least it doesn't bugger that...
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bitseeker
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by bitseeker »

I wouldn't be at all surprised to find some stuff working in one system but not the other, and vice versa.

BBCodes can be added without much fuss. Here's pre that I just added:

myfunc()
{
    show("pre-formatted text");
    return();
}

And some centered text:
Squeezed in the middle. Smack dab in the middle.

I haven't dug into the latest SMF. Anyone know if inserting images inline in a post has been fixed?
TEA is the way.
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by bitseeker »

And sup/sub added:

H2O

E = mc2

21024
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bitseeker
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by bitseeker »

Now, let's try this table:

Heading 1Heading 2
Value 1aValue 2a
Value 1bValue 2b

Needs some styles, but works. So, other missing codes can be added. Changing the img tag to follow bbcode.org will require more investigation since it would have to override/extend the built-in code's behavior.
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by Cubdriver »

I much prefer the forum format, mainly because I'm used to it and find it easy to navigate and jump to the current new post - while 'newest first' and scrolling works for GroupsIO, it's at best a kludge and takes more effort than just clicking the 'new post' indicator on the forum and jumping immediately to the first unread post and being able to naturally scroll down to read in chronological order rather than scroll to find the first new post, scroll down to read, scroll up to next, read down, scroll up, read down etc. etc. etc.

Adding images is more natural, too - seemed I had to figure it out each time in the Groups group (granted that's largely because I was unfamiliar with doing it and didn't do it enough to learn), but there's no learning curve to doing it here.

About the only thing that's throwing me is the poster's info being on the right rather than the left, though there may be a way to configure the preferences that I just haven't stumbled on to yet.

And many, many thanks to bitseeker for putting in all the effort to get this off the ground again - it is much appreciated! What went on in our previous home really left a bad taste in my mouth, and I haven't really purposefully visited there since.

-Pat
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bitseeker
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by bitseeker »

Cubdriver wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 4:04 am About the only thing that's throwing me is the poster's info being on the right rather than the left, though there may be a way to configure the preferences that I just haven't stumbled on to yet.
I believe that's in the template definition. So, it can be changed. It's just not user selectable without an extension (I saw one for that feature the other day).

Some light switches flip up for on...some flip down. :D
And many, many thanks to bitseeker for putting in all the effort to get this off the ground again - it is much appreciated! What went on in our previous home really left a bad taste in my mouth, and I haven't really purposefully visited there since.
You're welcome. I'm trying! I'll at least try to get things to the point where I can tell if a deficiency or oddity is easy to resolve or has a solution. Definitely kick it around some more. Several people have found things to add, tweak, etc.
TEA is the way.
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by Cubdriver »

bitseeker wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 4:21 am
Some light switches flip up for on...some flip down. :D
Yeah, I know. The Limeys drive on the wrong side of the road, too. :P :P :P

<ducks to avoid hail of teacups and Wellies flung over from Old Blighty>

-Pat
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Specmaster
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by Specmaster »

Cubdriver wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 6:08 am
Yeah, I know. The Limeys drive on the wrong side of the road, too. :P :P :P

<ducks to avoid hail of teacups and Wellies flung over from Old Blighty>

-Pat
It's no good blaming us limeys for Henry Ford's misunderstanding, we advised him to drive on the left, and he took that to mean that the driver sat on the left, so he put the steering wheel on the left. Then so many were being killed while overtaking because they couldn't see what was coming the other way until they crashed, that the decision to switch from actually driving left to the right-hand side of the road, to overcome the problem was made by the Whitehouse. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by bitseeker »

:) :D :lol:
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by Cubdriver »

Specmaster wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 7:26 am It's no good blaming us limeys for Henry Ford's misunderstanding, we advised him to drive on the left, and he took that to mean that the driver sat on the left, so he put the steering wheel on the left. Then so many were being killed while overtaking because they couldn't see what was coming the other way until they crashed, that the decision to switch from actually driving left to the right-hand side of the road, to overcome the problem was made by the Whitehouse. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Yeah, but seeing as there are only two sides to the road, and us colonists drive on the right side, then by default you guys are left to drive on the WRONG side. :P :P :lol: (and for some strange reason install your switches upside-down, too)

<bitseeker, is there any way to get a stick-pokey smiley? I'd use it a lot. :lol: >

-Pat
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by bitseeker »

Cubdriver wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 2:50 pm <bitseeker, is there any way to get a stick-pokey smiley? I'd use it a lot. :lol: >
:lol: Maybe start a thread in the TEAdministration forum for smilies. We can build up a collection of concepts for new ones to add.
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by Specmaster »

Cubdriver wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 2:50 pm
Specmaster wrote: Wed Oct 26, 2022 7:26 am It's no good blaming us limeys for Henry Ford's misunderstanding, we advised him to drive on the left, and he took that to mean that the driver sat on the left, so he put the steering wheel on the left. Then so many were being killed while overtaking because they couldn't see what was coming the other way until they crashed, that the decision to switch from actually driving left to the right-hand side of the road, to overcome the problem was made by the Whitehouse. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
Yeah, but seeing as there are only two sides to the road, and us colonists drive on the right side, then by default you guys are left to drive on the WRONG side. :P :P :lol: (and for some strange reason install your switches upside-down, too)

<bitseeker, is there any way to get a stick-pokey smiley? I'd use it a lot. :lol: >

-Pat
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by mansaxel »

I just remembered why i hate phpBB (besides it being PHP and all that).

There is no bleeping "reply to this post" button. Threading is so completely remote to phpBB that I can't understand how people manage. SMF is in that regard much better. And I really dislike SMF, for it is about as stable as the car that Heath Robinson and Rube Goldberg built a test series of back in the 30s.

The Thread worked on SMF because of the reply to this post function (and in spite of the rest of SMF) and if we're going to have this TE stream of consciousness it will end up long-winded sooner or later, even if we have Discord to let off some steam. Not being able to reply to a specific post while catching up is going to suck big time.

At this level of suck, groups.io wins by a really large margin.

To illustrate, this is how we talk:

Code: Select all

2274     Oct 18 Specmaster      (  96) [tea] ISP's who do you use and your finding? #TEAngents   
2275     Oct 18 tggzzz          ( 134) ├─>                                                       
2276     Oct 18 Specmaster      (  54) │ ├─>                                                     
2277     Oct 18 tggzzz          (  71) │ │ ├─>                                                   
2278     Oct 18 MED6753         (  48) │ │ │ ├─>                                                 
2279     Oct 18 Specmaster      (  57) │ │ │ │ └─>                                               
2280     Oct 18 tggzzz          (  96) │ │ │ └─>                                                 
2281     Oct 18 bd139           ( 143) │ │ └─>                                                   
2282     Oct 18 bd139           (  49) │ │   └─>                                                 
2283     Oct 18 bd139           (  62) │ │     ├─>                                               
2284     Oct 18 Specmaster      (  93) │ │     │ └─>                                             
2285     Oct 18 bd139           (  54) │ │     │   ├─>                                           
2286     Oct 18 Specmaster      ( 672) │ │     │   └─>                                           
2287 r   Oct 18 Cerebus (Ian)   (  90) │ │     └─>                                               
2288  sF Oct 18 To tea@groups.i (  69) │ │       └─>                                             
2289     Oct 18 Cerebus (Ian)   (  72) │ └─>                                                     
2290 r   Oct 18 tggzzz          (  90) │   └─>                                                   
2291  sF Oct 18 To tea@groups.i (  51) │     └─>                                                 
2292 r   Oct 19 Cerebus (Ian)   ( 135) ├*>                                                       
2293     Oct 19 Specmaster      (  58) │ ├─>                                                     
2294     Oct 19 bd139           (  45) │ │ └─>                                                   
2295     Oct 19 Specmaster      (  64) │ │   └─>                                                 
2296     Oct 19 bd139           (  47) │ │     └─>                                               
2297     Oct 19 Specmaster      (  74) │ │       └─>                                             

This is a screen-dump from my email reader (mutt in a terminal), where it threads the mails it's received from groups.io for one of our popular tangents. The discussion is scattered, people reply to specific posts, and then there's reaction to that, and then another reaction. And so it goes on. This is hopeless to follow if you only can reply in a straight line.
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by bd139 »

As much as I prefer that view and email, the majority of humans are too stupid to use it. My mail client doesn’t even support it any more and organises everything into linear conversations. Same with the groups.io user interfaces.

Ergo there is little benefit either way for most.

If I’m honest if I’m using the groups.io interface I don’t always hit the right reply button so don’t trust my threading…

I would suggest that the best approach with phpBB and even SMF and email is to not reply to a specific post but reply to the thread. Even quoting is not necessarily a good idea.
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by tautech »

mansaxel wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 5:58 am Snipped......
I just remembered why i hate phpBB (besides it being PHP and all that).
There is no bleeping "reply to this post" button.
Do you mean quoting some previous post or just a general reply in the same thread ?
Both are present, " top right and Reply bottom left.
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Specmaster
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by Specmaster »

Nothing wrong in quoting a post in a reply if your post is relating to something in that post, or of course you could always start your post with the at sign and then the member's name, i.e. @bd139, @specmaster etc.
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by Zenith »

Specmaster wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 9:46 am Nothing wrong in quoting a post in a reply if your post is relating to something in that post, or of course you could always start your post with the at sign and then the member's name, i.e. @bd139, @specmaster etc.
On a lot of forums quoting is very over used and gets in the way. It may be the mindset the forum develops or the software, but there's absolutely no need for the amount of quoting done. For instance a lengthy post will be quoted in its entirety and answered in the next post with a couple of sentences, which just adds clutter.

Here I pointlessly quoted your post to illustrate the point. It should be clear I was replying to your point on quoting. Had your point been made 6 posts before, the quoting would have been relevant. It bears on the question of threading made earlier.
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by MED6753 »

Either I'm too stupid or it's too early in the morning but I'm not seeing a problem with "quoting" at all. Everything I see in this particular thread is easy to follow and makes sense.

Maybe I need more coffee. :P :D
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by mansaxel »

tautech wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 8:37 am Do you mean quoting some previous post or just a general reply in the same thread ?
Both are present, " top right and Reply bottom left.
Yes, found it. Still not threaded. Once, back in the Dark Ages, I contemplated building a Usenet gw to phpBB. That could work, at some hackish level. There's no "in-reply-to" header as I recall, only what is in the quote header above. Makes for fun parsing..
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by mansaxel »

Zenith wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 10:10 am
Here I pointlessly quoted your post to illustrate the point.
Now, there are two parts of quoting. One is the mindless repeating of text, especially favoured by morons who reply above in email; the other is the topical connection from statement to reply and so on. The flavour of BBCode in phpBB is slightly better than for instance SMF in that it actually preserves metadata making it possible to do an actual thread.

The repeating of text should lead to the guilty being flogged.

The linking of related texts should be mandated.

</soapbox>
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by vk6zgo »

I was recently using QRZ.com, where they have a sort of compromise, where, if you quote just part of a comment, or a relatively short one in its entirety, it all appears, but really long quotes "fade away" & you have to click on "click to expand" to see the whole thing.
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by Zenith »

MED6753 wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 11:44 am Either I'm too stupid or it's too early in the morning but I'm not seeing a problem with "quoting" at all. Everything I see in this particular thread is easy to follow and makes sense.
Not on this thread or much that I've seen on this forum, but it can definitely be a problem and was on the original TEA thread. For instance your quite long posts with pictures on the Tek 314 could reasonably be followed by posts saying it was a nice job, or a longer post talking about some technical aspect of the scope or the project. It would be a distraction to quote your whole post, including pictures, to say what needed to be said. I've seen this happen a lot on occasion and on some forums it seems routine.
MED6753 wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 11:44 am Maybe I need more coffee. :P :D
Generally a good idea.
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by Specmaster »

In the case of a particularly long quote with or without pictures, why not just delete the part of the quote that is not relevant to your post, like I used to do on the old site and indeed have on this one as well, just delete the bits of the quote that you are not responding to and insert in its place <snip> to show that the missing part is not part of your reply?
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by mnementh »

mansaxel wrote: Thu Oct 27, 2022 5:58 am I just remembered why i hate phpBB (besides it being PHP and all that).

There is no bleeping "reply to this post" button. Threading is so completely remote to phpBB that I can't understand how people manage. SMF is in that regard much better. And I really dislike SMF, for it is about as stable as the car that Heath Robinson and Rube Goldberg built a test series of back in the 30s.

The Thread worked on SMF because of the reply to this post function (and in spite of the rest of SMF) and if we're going to have this TE stream of consciousness it will end up long-winded sooner or later, even if we have Discord to let off some steam. Not being able to reply to a specific post while catching up is going to suck big time.

(SNIP for sanity's sake)

The discussion is scattered, people reply to specific posts, and then there's reaction to that, and then another reaction. And so it goes on. This is hopeless to follow if you only can reply in a straight line.
Unless "view all unread" or "since last visit" functionality is tied to it, threading can go die in a ditch. Discord annoys the everlivin' fuck outta me with constantly asking to enable threading...

As for "reply to post"... it's right here:

Image

I'm sorry mans... you're hating on the forum for not being a mailing list. ;)

The rest of us know that mailing lists suck out loud; I do hope someday you'll come back to civilization. :lol:

Cheers,

mnem
I've misplaced my pithy. :shock:
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Re: Test Equipment Anonymous (TEA) : Discussion and Group Therapy Thread

Post by Specmaster »

@mnementh Noooooooo, that is the "Quote" button that you refer to with your arrow saying "Here" :P

I think that mansaxel is thinking about when your post is not the next in line and so the linkage is broken, if you get my drift, hence why I mentioned using either the @ followed by the members name, or quoting their post with all the padding removed. :roll:
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