This forum

[Intel_C_Intel]

What on earth just happened? I posted to the "Passing arrays to Fortran COM methods" thread. Then, because I was frustrated at the forum software removing newline characters, I posted to the "Forum messages not posting " thread. Then I saw this mess. (in case it changes I have a screenshot here)

Arrrggghhhh. This thing is SO frustrating.

[Steven_L_Intel1]

I've seen that sort of thing when less-than and greater-than characters appear in the text, but aren't HTML tags. I've complained about that. Not sure exactly what happened in your case.

Steve

[Intel_C_Intel]

Hmm, then I think what happened is posting this code without "pre" tags:

  long stuff[6] = {1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6}; 
  pITest->foo1(stuff);  
  pITest->foo2(6, stuff);

I see that the screwed up stuff in the message list under the "Passing Arrays to Fortran COM methods" thread starts with "foo1(stuff); ..." which is the part of my post immediately following the first instance of a greater-than character (in the C++ method call).

maybe I'll try this in a "test" thread.

-John

[Intel_C_Intel]

Well, forget about a test thread. This clearly happens even with "pre" tags. Do people have to avoid GTs and LTs? How is code best posted, especially dealing with f90 or C++ pointers? I don't think > and < seem to work. I dunno ...

[Intel_C_Intel]

Hi Steve,

I don't suppose newsgroup access will be coming any time soon, huh? I wish it would so I'd have an option of using a newsreader as an interface to this forum and dumping this "thing".

I certainly sympathize with you; having a distant corporate group responsible for a disappointing, sub-par public interface to your users. I'm going through the same thing at my company. [sigh]

-John

[Steven_L_Intel1]

Re: newsgroup access...

Not in the immediate future, but I'm still hopeful it will show up someday. I do think this is an improvement over the old software - really, the most annoying part is how it ignores line breaks and gets confused by certain characters in the text. That may get straightened out over time.

Steve

[Intel_C_Intel]

Ok, here's a question about posting replies. When you post a reply, (review it and then press the OK button) the brower moves to a page showing the thread that you just posted to, which now includes your reply.

Question: why do the html links at the top of that page read 'Compilers | 158 ' instead of 'Fortran | 158' or maybe 'Compilers | Fortran | 158 '??? Wouldn't it make more sense and make it easier to link back to the Fortran forum main page if it did what I think it should? Currently I use two options to get back to the Fortran forum's main page after posting - Back button clicks or clicking on Compilers then on Fortran. Geez, Fortran is the only forum under Compilers! Anyone else think this is odd? Or is it me? :)

-John

PS Notice that I remebered to use | in my message instead of a GreaterThan symbol which just would have screwed up the view of this thread more than it is!

[Steven_L_Intel1]

Yes, I agree that would make more sense. I've already mentioned that to the forum technical staff.

Steve

[Intel_C_Intel]

Thanks, Steve.

... After you mention it, what then? Their record for responsiveness over the last 18 months is, ummm, unremarkable; and in no way do I think that is inaccurate. But I do know that it is out of your control and I certainly do appreciate your efforts communicating with 'em.

Thanks,
John

[durisinm]

I agree with John's last post. All the suggestions and requests Steve makes to the people who support this forum seem to fall on deaf ears. I made an entry in the place Steve suggested to complain about some of this forum's features and got nothing in reply--no acknowledgment, nothing.

I realize that this support group is probably busy with lots of things other than the Fortran forum, but surely we deserve more attention than we've gotten so far. Does this group have a boss to whom we can direct e-mail?

And what about all the other Compaq forums I see listed? Are they set up with the same features as the Fortran forum, and are the users of those forums satisfied with this?

Mike Durisin

[jackosullivan]

Obviously Compaq is not the right organization to support this kind of message board service. A "messge search" through ALL of the forums returned no hits at all for "message board" (w/o the quotes) nor does just "message" get anything, although "forum" gets 1000.

Browsing around the others forums, I found that most of them have only one or two threads and those are only one or two (if the original inquirer is quite lucky!) messages deep. The severe technical problems this message board software has would hardly be noticed in such a shallow-water computing environment. And the largest other one I could find (102 messages in about 60 topics, pertaining to "Insight Manager") had no topic pertaining to the forum itself. Folks who ask simple questions get simple ansers and go home. They don't engage in the kinds of wonderful dialogs the CVF forum creates.

As only "one of 237 forums" -- that's how many enmtires ther are on the "forum home" page -- it's no wonder this one gets so little attention -- even though we probably account for at least half of Compaq's "forum" traffic. In fact, we probably represent infinitely less than 1/237 of the company's income.

All that said, is there some way that the Fortran Forum could negotiate with Management to simply provide a hotlink to a REAL forum website (say, something with software like they use at www.mcmaster.com ) and let that be Steve and Company's hang-out?

Perhaps even one run by volunteers?

Perhaps set up on previous-generation surplus Compaq servers?

[Intel_C_Intel]

Hello Steve,

Can you please find out what is the archive policy for this new forum? Obvoiusly, my preference is for messages to live forever.

hth,
John