Seriously, I'd like to know why there's still no way to edit posts on the forums by now.....this makes it really hard to update anything at all, and I imagine that this is a pain for those over at the trade forums.

I think people are missing something fundamental: 'Edit' is not missing because they lack the ability to impliment it, 'Edit' is mssing because it has been deliberatly restricted on these forums.

The time duration on the edit ability is one of the web features that is being reviewed by FFG. Late this year, early next year is the window that I've heard for it being changed.

BTW, if you really WANT to have the long term ability to edit your post, you can always do this:

Edit | Reply #3 |

Now anyone can edit this post whenever they want.

17:55 I'm still able to edit this post outside of the 5 minute window. Anyone else?

21:02 And I can still edit my post. So... I can edit my own thread, but no one else can.

I guess we've figured out a work around to edit our trade threads and other posts that will need ongoing editing.

They appear to have fixed that.

Intresting, I just get booted to the main screen.

As did I when I clicked on it. I think it's borke >.>

Oi vey.....so how exactly do you put that in? Just put in Edit or something???

Make a post.

When you're reviewing the post within the first five minutes after its creation, there will be a bar that looks like this:

It's a grey bar right above the text that you wrote.

Highlight the edit.

Ctrl-C (copy)

Then paste it into the text of your message.

If you want to keep it "super secret"

you can "edit" the word "Edit" and turn it into something like "." or another piece of punctuation. Then just click on it whenever you want to edit the message.

This is the short term work around for those who want to be able to edit their trade threads, as well as for those who want to modify their fan sets and such.

Long term, my understanding is that FFG will be extending the edit window.

Heck, you could just copy the code used in the "Edit" URL into a text file or bookmark and change the thread/message number.

This is also a test post to see if what I just said is completely fallacious or not.

Edit: It looks to me like the "efidt" number is the thread you're in, and the "efidm" represents the post number. efid seems to be the category number (general discussion vs deck building vs tournament report vs etc), and efcid I have no idea.

To edit any post that you made:

1. Copy the topic's URL
2. Hit the Quote button on your own post to get the efidm number of your post
3. Add "&efidm=#####" to the end of the topic's URL
4. Change the "edge_foros_discusion.asp" portion of the URL to "edge_foros_editar.asp"
5. Follow your new URL

Example: This thread's URL is http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=26&efcid=5&efidt=22076 . This post is efidm=22507, so my URL is http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_editar.asp?efid=26&efcid=5&efidt=22076&efidm=22507 . Which is exactly the URL I got from the "Edit" link above my post

Also, you can link directly to any post in a thread by adding "#efidm" to the end of the thread URL -- that is, the '#' character followed by the post's efidm. So you can get the efidm number of the first post on any page by following the "skip to page #" link and taking it out of the URL there.

If the ability to edit our posts is based on the link, and not the time, there's no reason to keep the time limit. All that does is mean that the less coding savvy members won't be able to edit their posts.

Also, as far as being subtle, a much better option then trying to hide it in a period, is just recolor the text of the link white. Since there's no underlines on links (not a good webdev practice btw) the only way to tell it's a link is to actually mouse over it.

aslum said:

Dude... I've already said twice in this thread, so I'll say it a third time - By end of year, or beginning of next year they're looking at having the edit window expanded. I don't think you'll see anyone including FFG staff arguing that the limit shouldn't change.

Antigoth said:

To me that sounds like "likely" not "definite". I didn't say I didn't think we were going to get it eventually, just that in it's current state it's pretty darn silly. In the meantime we still don't have it. I'm not sure I understand why it would be hard to fix the edit button. If I had access to the code I could probably do it in 5 minutes, even if it's written in Java or some other crappy language. It's going to be an if/then statement of some kind EG if ($currenttime<=($message_time_stamp + (5*60seconds)) display_edit_link(); All that probably needs to be done is get rid of the if/then bit. Regardless, the only real importance would be the syntax of the code, and again chances are very good it would be simply a matter of removing some of the code, not having to add in new code, which isn't actually all that difficult.

But then, what do I know, I've only been dabbling with web design since Al Gore invented the internet.

Aslum,

You're not dealing with a user based site. You're dealing with a corporate site, with a corporate IT department. I share your pain.

If there's an IT dept, then it should be fixable as soon as they ask for it. That's what they're getting paid the big bucks for right? I could understand it if it's a fairly small IT dept, like the Library I work for, I have 5 hours a week (Wednesdays usually) to work on our website. Then again, maybe FFG's IT dept just has a really long xmas break. Still it's entirely within reason for FFG to tell their IT guys, "Hey do this thing" and expect it to happen fairly quickly. I can understand something like increasing the speed taking a long time (or never completely happening because Edge Studio relies WAY too much on Javascript and tables) but something simple like this shouldn't be that hard, unless they really don't know what they're doing.

aslum said:

I am sure it is on their "to do" list but I doubt it is super high priority. Right now I would guess getting the entire site fully stable and running with constant use is priority #1.

Editing post is nice, but far from something we can't live without. Same goes for custom avatars, nice but I think the speed, stability and the reliability of the new site is a much more major concern for those working on it.

I can edit all my posts regardless if they were posted last week. I don't see the problem here.

GraveLord said:

Yep. At this point me too.

All you have to do is know the edit command:

http://new.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_editar.asp?efid=XX&efcid=X&efidt=XXXXX&efidm=XXXXX

Replace the X's with the appropriate #'s. All of which can be found if you mouse over the link of "report to moderator" which will give you the message#'s that replace the X's.

Just went in and updated my trade list that I posted back on 11/21/08

Erm.. I'll take that back. Seems like I can only edit in the ones that I started? hmmm... time to mess around and find out.,

... a few minutes after posting around forums...

so, I went to trace a few posts including the ones I thought are forever-editable and found out that I couldn't. But I did find out one thing that seems to work, but since I only tried it in this particular post then I'll use my own personal example.

I was posting in my event announcement about the GCC giving updates. After I typed in the updates I proceeded to try to edit the 1st post and I was successful. That's what made me think that all my posts were editable regardless of time because I posted that thread over a week ago. I've just tried it again and I was given the option to edit my 1st post once more. So here's what I'm thinking.. without having to use complicated scripts like Antigoth did, theorethically you should be able to edit the 1st post of the thread you started after posting a reply. Then there's a 5-minute window that'll allow you to edit the starting post.

Not so much a complicated script, as just understanding how forums generate URLs.

aslum said:

I -hate- people like you. Actualy hate is no where near strong enough to describe how much I loathe people with this retarded, uninformed, impractical view of web development and IT work.

Theres these things called priorities... If its not a high priority its likely not going to get imediate attention. And honestly considering the forums are still useable for the vast majority of users, with one small group of users being upset that editing is not working how they want it. The editing bit is probably a medium to low priority.

Theres also this thing called testing... Those of us who actualy work in the web development field tend to like to do this, unless we're armchair codewarrior hacks claiming something can be done in 5 mins if we had access to the code. Just because you don't think changing something in one place won't affect anything else its always good to make sure. This is especialy good in instances where we have people like you as users, who while upset about the one issue, will scream bloody murder if it breaks, or alters something else we didn't catch because we didn't test.

Thirdly theres this thing called deployment... It takes time. And generaly requires another quick round of testing after it has occured to make sure everything works on the server as well and that no configuration issues are missed. Typicaly those of us in the field like to make deployments that solve several issues as multiple small deployments leave more room for error. And as stated above, with users like yourself, if something breaks when you go to fix something else users have a tendancy to get even more irate.

Antigoth said:

WOW!!!! That is Awesome!!!! Thanks alot!

BlindProphet said:

Thanks for calling me retarded. I'm glad the fact that I actually do web development so might have faint clue what I'm talking about has nothing to do with anything.

BlindProphet said:

I dunno how Edge does it, but we have a test server and a live server. And we back everything up regularly, especially before deploying a change that could have far reaching consequences, even if it's a minor code change such as changing the duration of something. Part of prioritization is also looking at the amount of time each task will take. If given a low priority task that will take 10 minutes to implement and 5 minutes to test there isn't really a good reason to ignore it in favor of a higher priority task that will take weeks. Those 15 minutes aren't going to realistically affect the longer tasks completion time.

BlindProphet said:

Unless you're using some sort of wonky CMS deployment shouldn't take very long at all. Especially on something that should be a very simple code change. A decent FTP program should allow you to push through changes fairly quickly. And assuming you've done proper testing in the first place, that second round of testing on the live server (which I won't disagree with you, is ALWAYS a good idea) shouldn't be difficult. And of course you've got that backup handy so if somehow there is an error you can push the previous build back up and go back to the drawing table on the test server.

I'm sorry that you hate me and think I'm retarded, but for your information I've been doing web development professionally for 2 years. So yeah I might not have a legion of codemonkeys at the end of my whip, but I do kind of know what I'm talking about no matter how much it may grate you that there is ever anything I could be right about.

Hrm.....maybe we should sticky this for the time being? Might be useful for people who want to edit stuff and doesn't know how to.