What Is This Site?

What is this site (herein referred to as the ccefeed)? Well, it's a way to read the citycyclingedinburgh.info forum (herein referred to as the cceforum), with a difference. What is that difference, I hear you ask? On other forums, it's possible to jump straight to the last unread post in a thread, which is not available directly on the cceforum.

This site is definitely not a replacement of the cceforum at all. Instead, it's just another way of reading it. It might not be any use to you, and if that's the case, that's fair enough - but for me, I wanted to be able to jump to a thread that had, say, 72 posts in it, and jump straight to the first post that I'd not read, without having to work my way through the entire thread (forward or backwards) trying to remember what I'd read, and what I hadn't read.

There are many things that this ccefeed site doesn't do. It doesn't allow you to reply to threads, but it does allow you to jump straight to a post on the cceforum so that you can reply. Why re-invent the wheel? And because of that, it doesn't let you start threads either, or send private messages, or any of that stuff. It's not meant to. It is simply a way of allowing you to read posts, and hides all the ones that you've seen. That's it. Nothing more, nothing less.

How To Use This Site

So, what do you need to do to use the site? Well, just register with an email address and password, and that's it. The email address and password does not need to be linked in any way to your cceforum details, because they are not linked in any way.

You register simply so the site has a way of recording which post you have read up to in a thread. Lots of users will use the site, so it needs to know how to differentiate users from each other. That's the only reason for needing to register.

First, Register

So, you first need to register with your email address, and note that since the site isn't over HTTPS, you don't want to use a password that absolutely must be kept secret from the world, since it'll travel over teh interwebs unencrypted. The site will store it securely though. So securely, if you forget your password, I won't be able to tell you what it is. Just pick a nice easy password. It's not as if this is a system that is storing your credit card, or anything, it's just remembering what posts you've read.

Upon First Ever Login

Next, you'll see all the posts from the citycyclingedinburgh.info site. The first time you go to it after registering, you will see *all* the posts that this ccefeed site has downloaded, so what you probably want to do the very first time you log in is click the "Mark all read" link at the top, at which point you'll have nothing to read. But then later today, once people have posted to the citycyclingedinburgh.info site, those will appear on the ccefeed site, and you'll be able to jump straight to the new posts without having to work out which posts you've read.

Threads Disappear

Once you've read a thread and go back to the index, it won't appear there any more. This is the point of the site. It will hide stuff that you've already read. If you want to re-read a thread again, go to the 'Show All Threads' link at the top of the page once you have logged in, where you will be able to see every thread, irrespective of whether you've read it or not. Click on a link, and it'll show you all the posts that the CCE Feed utility has stored. That's not every single post ever made, but it's every single post since around noon on 13-Dec-12, when the utility started to scan the CCE site. Alternatively, just go to the cceforum itself! All the posts are there, after all!

Mark All Read

If there are posts that you don't want to read, then don't read them, and instead just read the ones you want to read, and once you're done, cluck that "Mark all read" link up the top. That marks all threads as read, so you don't have to go and click through them all to make them disappear.

Delay In Posts Appearing

Posts used to take a while to appear, because Google Reader took a while to fetch them. Not any more. Now, it's no more than 60 seconds behind. Hurrah!

Show All Threads

By default, the main index will only show you threads which you have unread posts to view. But sometimes, you want to go back and re-read a thread again. This screen allows you to do that, by showing you the entire thread list that this CCE Feed utility has ever stored. Note that the list is quite long, so might take a few seconds to load, depending upon your computer's speed and your internet connection...

When you then go to read the thread, it will show you only the last 25 posts to start with, because some threads are literally gigantic. You have two options here - either click "show all posts" at the top of the screen, or alternatively you can change the URL in your browser if you're feeling confident... there's a parameter called "postlimit" which is by default set to (you guessed it) 25, so if you change it to another number, it will show you that number of posts.

Posts by user

Sometimes I remember someone posted something, but I can't remember what they said, so this makes it easier to track down the post. You just need to know the username from the CCE site itself.

Ignore...

Sometimes, there are threads which just don't interest you at all, and you never want to read that thread, irrespective of how many times people post to it. This feature allows you to mark threads that you want to ignore. You can change your mind later and "show" them again, if you want. Alternatively, you can still read the thread via the "Show All Threads" list.

In addition, you can "Ignore!" a thread directly from the thread itself. This is the normal way I ignore threads, tbh, because I start reading them, realise I'm not interested, so just hit the "Ignore!" link at the top to both mark it for future... erm, ignoring... and to take me back to the index in one fell swoop.