You may not have noticed, but we were offline for a few minutes so Public Address could be upgraded. There are some improvements under the hood, but also some goodies I asked for on the basis of the way people have been using the forums.
Now available are:
Support for new YouTube HTML5-friendly embeds in forum comments
So the videos you post should play on your mobile device. And everyone else's, naturally. And the onboard embed player now has the full-screen toggle and quality options.
Support for youtu.be short URLs on forum posts
Same deal as before, in that you paste in the URLs -- just the URLs -- of YouTube clips and they automagically embed in your post. But now you can use the short URLs too.
Support for Vimeo on forum posts.
Yay Vimeo! Same deal. Paste in the URL.
Support for multiple attachments on forum posts
'Specially for Capture, where it was becoming a bit of a chore having to post a different comment for each picture uploaded. Try and be sensible about how you use it, though.
The ability to remove attachments from forum comments
So while your 15-minute "edit window" applies, you can take out a bung attachment (and so can the moderators) without deleting the whole comment.
Improved URLs in the forums
We all like nicer URLs, right?
Thanks to Gary Henson and all at CactusLab for the improvements.
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This is probably a good time to remind everyone of a few other helpful features ...
• If you select the text in a comment you want to quote and click "Reply", that text will pop up inside the <q> and </q> tags -- so long as you haven't already typed anything in the comment box.
• If you want to make a link in a forum post and you can't decipher the instructions on the page, it should look like this:
[[http://publicaddress.net/|this is a link to a really cool website]]
So "this is a link to a really cool website" will be your link text. Don't forget to put the "|" symbol between the URL and the link text. It's right there to the right of your keyboard.
• Uploading photos? It's there for Capture discussions, but you can do it any discussion. Be appropriate about it what you upload, please.
• You can use the "choose file" button to upload an MP3 audio file and it will display in its own player.
• If you're following a conversation and you just want to jump straight to that, you can go straight to:
http://publicaddress.net/system/
It's a legacy of the days when the forums and Public Address "classic" were separate sites, but people -- me included -- find it useful.
And coming up in the next week or two ... if you're logged into the PA System, there will be a "last read post" button. Yes, you asked for it and you'll get it ... soon!
Please do feel free to test out these features here and let us know how it goes. But don't ask for any major new features. I got no money ...
And meanwhile, you are still officially the most discursive audience on the New Zealand internet. Keep talking:
