Forums needs to be standardized.

JonM posted on Monday, July 17, 2006

This is not really a gripe about this particular forum. But forums needs some sort of standard or standard interface so I can read the 10+ forums I frequent daily from one place, sort of like an RSS aggreator application, with the exception of being able to post back to them. However, I don't want a mess like newsgroups (ugh).. I wonder how hard it would be to write an app that could interface with common messages boards. It seems like there are only about a half dozen engines out there.. hmmm.

DavidDilworth replied on Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Are you already using an RSS reader? If not, then can I recommend the excellent Sharp Reader. It's got support for tons of feed types and has an nice easy-to-use UI.

If you click on the links within an item it opens the browser window inside the application. Or you can open to a new browser window if required.

Q Johnson replied on Wednesday, September 27, 2006

David,

I saw your recommendation about Sharp Reader and gave it a try and have been very happy with it, as you might expect. Wink [;)]

But for some reason it hasn't "seen" a single posting here since 9/15. Are you experiencing this too?

I thought maybe a forum change in the RSS url may have caused it, but it still appears to be identical to the one I'm using.

FYI, I have the forum properties set to keep messages for a year, unlimited max items, and refresh every hour.

Thanks for the original tip and anything you can offer about this issue.

DavidDilworth replied on Thursday, September 28, 2006

Now that you've mentioned it, I've checked and I agree with your comments. I don't think it's a problem with SharpReader as other blogs/feeds that I am subscribed to are receiving recent updates in SharpReader.

So that would point to a possible problem on the server, although looking at the RSS URL it does seem to be okay.

So can anyone else using a different RSS reader either confirm/deny if their reader is correctly seeing recent posts?

ScepticalSwede replied on Friday, September 29, 2006