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Better still: why don't you tell me how you would like it to work. We're working on something similar (but not actually nippets - snippets will come easily once we have this next feature done) so now's a good time to tell me whet you want r don't want.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Thanks for asking!
I have uploaded image that shows mockup of what I would like - please see here: http://www.codeproject.com/script/Membership/Uploads/15759/snippetmockup.png[^]
Here are points I think should be considered:
- Snippets are organized by language.
- Images are not allowed in a snippet article.
- There is no download in a snippet article - readers can cut and paste from snippet page, maybe with help of special "Copy" button. (Copy button would also facilitate keeping track of usage).
- Snippets must be standalone - not require any third-party non-free library or SDK. Dependence on things like boost/WTL/MFC or other freely available library is OK, and should be stated in environment (see Snippet Wizard below). Snippets that are useless without purchase of vendor products are not allowed.
- Each snippet has its own forum just like articles.
- Each snippet has rating just like articles.
- Snippets accrue points for authors just like articles, at the rate of 10 snippets = 1 article.
- You can bookmark and watch snippets just like articles.
- Member page should have Snippets Submitted link just like Articles Submitted.
- There could be "best snippet" monthly competition.
- Snippets are small and compact, and the UI to view/search for a snippet should be the same. In mockup, note there are two lines per snippet plus one blank line. The idea is to view as many snippets as possible in available space.
- You should be able to specify how many snippets you want to view per page, and how they are sorted - see mockup. You should be able to remain on Snippet main page to do searches, sorting, etc.
- The Snippet Submission Wizard should be very streamlined. There should be a (limited) space for author's comments, platform dependencies, and compile/environment requirements (e.g., "COM must be initialized before function is called", "Function only works on Vista", "Platform SDK must be installed", etc.). Snippets have a title, but no description field.
I encourage everyone to post your comment here, so Chris will know what you would like.
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My thoughts, in order of apearance:
1. The main problem of snippets is finding, nor presenting them. With due respect, the current search engine in respect to simplicity and responsiveness is probably not up to the task
2. Instead of "starting wiht an article, and take things away", start from ground up. What more than an edit box do we need?
title, snippet, comment, language, tags.
3. Tags. I know, Web 2.0 is a fad, but the fixed hierarchy of CP articles doesn't bite it, and tags are here to stay.
list of "known tags", to consolidate spelling etc.? Tags given by community?
4. Related Snippets
On your comments:
Mockup:
"Updated", "Bookmark" and "Watch" don't matter on the results page - to much bloat. OK as popup menu.
I'd rather have a list of tect, or abbrev of the comment there.
Use ajax-style UI updates to quickly view one of the snippets in the result. Navigating to a new page doesn't cut it.
Snippets that are useless without purchase of vendor products are not allowed
Disagree.
Each snippet has its own forum just like articles
I'd prefer wiki-style over author-bound, or a comment wiki? Yes, this opens up a can of community-management worms. As old fart and supported, I of course have not much problems with limited editing rights 
Thinking about it, I wouldn't like a forum mostly because of the clutter - the forum quickly is larger than the snippet!
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
blog: TDD - the Aha! | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighist
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First, a disclaimer: i hate snippet sites. I love the idea of having snippets, but i've never seen an actual repository for them implemented in a way that didn't disgust me. Code gets added, and it rots. Frequently there are numerous submissions from numerous authors, presenting similar solutions to the same problems, rarely ever improved based on comments, never consolidated in a way that would make it easier for someone looking for a solution to pick the proper one. All too often, code is ripped directly from a project, and gets uploaded with bizarre dependencies or side-effects still in place. Comments are hit or miss; maybe the author explains why he's using ValidateRgn() instead of BeginPaint()... or maybe he leaves it up to the end-user to work out, or guess at, or just use hoping that the author wasn't on a paint-huffing binge when he wrote it.
So yeah, those are my prejudices, the reasons why i'm so down on seeing snippet articles posted here. That said...
Hans Dietrich wrote: Images are not allowed in a snippet article.
I don't see any point to disallowing them across the board. I strongly feel that they should be removed if they aren't useful - gigantic screenshots of a snippet for calculating bounding box intersection, or someone's logo for instance. But disallowing them seems like it would only encourage the attitude of "code and run, don't think, don't write" that i fear.
Hans Dietrich wrote: There is no download in a snippet article - readers can cut and paste from snippet page, maybe with help of special "Copy" button. (Copy button would also facilitate keeping track of usage).
I agree with this one. All code should be in the article proper, although a means of marking bits of the code as belonging to one file or another, with an option for the user to download the code in that form wouldn't go amiss (in the case of C++ especially, where traditionally even trivial bits of code often require both a .h and .cpp file... but, also handy for HTML+CSS+JS solutions, C# + XML solutions, etc).
Hans Dietrich wrote: Snippets must be standalone - not require any third-party non-free library or SDK. Dependence on things like boost/WTL/MFC or other freely available library is OK, and should be stated in environment (see Snippet Wizard below). Snippets that are useless without purchase of vendor products are not allowed.
I don't really have a strong feeling about this; if done right, the system should work equally well for folks posting and searching for Crystal Reports formulas as it does for C++ classes, without one interfering with the other. While it certainly isn't desirable to encourage blatant advertizing via snippet-posting, i think that's only a problem if we adopt the current article system (one owner, one editor, a voting/reporting system the only option for removal of inappropriate material).
Hans Dietrich wrote: Each snippet has its own forum just like articles.
Absolutely.
Hans Dietrich wrote: Each snippet has rating just like articles.
I'm... not so sure. I hate the idea of allowing scores of competing snippets for a given problem and hoping that enough people vote to allow picking out the best one. What if they all have problems? What if i think the problem itself is bad ("how to disable context menus on a web page") and vote-slam all answers for that reason alone?
I'd rather give editors the power to quickly remove or combine duplicates and sub-par snippets, and leave the comment system as a means of providing feedback.
Hans Dietrich wrote: Snippets accrue points for authors just like articles, at the rate of 10 snippets = 1 article.
Eh... Naw. Snippets aren't articles. If ten snippets together would make a good article, then the author should do that - but i expect a lot more from an article than ten random bits of code.
No reason not to keep separate stats for snippets though.
Hans Dietrich wrote: 8. You can bookmark and watch snippets just like articles.
9. Member page should have Snippets Submitted link just like Articles Submitted.
Sure.
Hans Dietrich wrote: There could be "best snippet" monthly competition.
Eh... Naw. I fear that once you turn this into a popularity contest, any hope of collaborative review or editing goes out the window.
Hans Dietrich wrote: The Snippet Submission Wizard should be very streamlined. There should be a (limited) space for author's comments, platform dependencies, and compile/environment requirements (e.g., "COM must be initialized before function is called", "Function only works on Vista", "Platform SDK must be installed", etc.). Snippets have a title, but no description field.
IMHO, something closer to the forum post editor might be appropriate - subject, body, replace signature with tags, improve code editing, and we're there. The rest of the stuff can be folded into either the snippet body (in comments) or as tags.
Final thoughts
As you might have guessed, i'm in agreement with peterchen that this should be a wiki-style system rather than a one-snippet-one-author system like articles. I want to go in and see that twenty people have edited a given snippet, that there have been bloody arguments over the appropriate ways to use an API, that MSDN and the KB have been referenced. I want the snippet to be the collective best work of all of CodeProject, not one author's late-night hack tossed to the dogs.
If we end up doing snippets just to cater to the mob currently hammering the article wizard with badly formatted crap, then i don't see how it'll do anything but drag down the reputation of the site as a whole. I'd hate to see that, especially when we have the chance to make it so much more.
Citizen 20.1.01 'The question is,' said Humpty Dumpty, 'which is to be master - that's all.'
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Hans Dietrich wrote: http://www.codeproject.com/script/Membership/Uploads/15759/snippetmockup.png[^]
Just was curious regarding the script /Membership/Uploads? Does CP started to give File Attachment feature to messages? How do you access it? Or is it currently restricted to a few members only?
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts... --William Shakespeare
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Go to My Codeproject page. On right you will see My Uploads. If this is not on your My Codeproject page, then there must be something required, but I do not know what that is. Somebody should start a FAQ on this stuff.
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Also, how about a listing of FAQ's per forum. Why ? there are the same questions that are asked over and over again. If there were a readily accessible list (perhaps downloadable) of FAQ's this could benefit members, although this won't totally stop repreating questions but may reduce their frequency.
modified 1-Aug-19 21:02pm.
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I just updated an article, and noticed the following:
"[ ] I have read and understood the (link to some guidelines)"
The link should be set to open in a new window. Prrease!
(My browser warned me, but one might still lose major edits when auto-clicking message boxes)
Preview does not preview the article, but refresh the page
My spelling sucks today (today?)
The new "gold / beta member" feature rocks!
We are a big screwed up dysfunctional psychotic happy family - some more screwed up, others more happy, but everybody's psychotic joint venture definition of CP
blog: TDD - the Aha! | Linkify!| FoldWithUs! | sighist
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peterchen wrote: Preview does not preview the article, but refresh the page
Added to bug list.
Will be fixed soon.
Sorry for inconvinience
Sincerely,
Elina
Life is great!!!
Enjoy every moment of it! 
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Hi .
I'd like to submit an article but I receive this error.
The basename you chose already exists
in the section you wish to post your article.
Please choose a different basename
But there is no article with my basename.
Can I solve this error ?
Thanks in advance
Sorry for my English. I'm a freshman .
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There probably is, and you do not see it  .
Two ways to solve the problem:
either choose another basename, or submit an article through the email to
submit at codeproject.com
Sincerely,
Elina
Life is great!!!
Enjoy every moment of it!
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Probably you're right .
However thanks Elina .
Sorry for my English. I'm a freshman .
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This happened to me also. I was submitting an article and hit the back button. I was at the second step and got back to the firs step. Hitting next didn't work because there was already another basename with the same name?! There should be a resume function of some sort (or an URL that we should go back to in case something happens in the process of submission).
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In the C# forum the "Unanswered question" link seems to return all questions regardless of answered state.
Simon
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Even better, it shows some re: posts in the list. Actually, I see this on the new posts list on the main page sometimes too, re: some post is shown as a new post, when it's a reply to an old one.
Christian Graus
Please read this if you don't understand the answer I've given you
"also I don't think "TranslateOneToTwoBillion OneHundredAndFortySevenMillion FourHundredAndEightyThreeThousand SixHundredAndFortySeven()" is a very good choice for a function name" - SpacixOne ( offering help to someone who really needed it ) ( spaces added for the benefit of people running at < 1280x1024 )
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We are working on it.
Should be good now
Sincerely,
Elina
Life is great!!!
Enjoy every moment of it!
modified on Thursday, June 5, 2008 11:38 AM
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Yup. Works fine now. Nice one.
Simon
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While confirming my understanding in this permalink (http://www.codeproject.com/script/Forums/View.aspx?fid=1645&msg=2583671[^]), accidentally, I missed out one of the closing tags (</tt>) and when I submitted it, the entire layout next to the message was showing up in TT (Teletype) font.
Just thought of letting you know that something similar to Blogger Comment Textarea, a quick XHTML checker for broken (unclosed) XHTML or an implicit close of unclosed tags after the message should address this issue. Isn't it?
P.S.: For the permalink that I mentioned, I have corrected the </TT> myself by using the 'Modify' link.
Vasudevan Deepak Kumar
Personal Homepage
Tech Gossips
All the world's a stage,
And all the men and women merely players.
They have their exits and their entrances;
And one man in his time plays many parts... --William Shakespeare
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Looks like deleted articles are appearing on RSS. Today I clicked on a link from my FeedDemon and resulted in an article deleted message page.
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Added to ug list
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: Added to ug list
I like the idea of an ug list - so much more descriptive than bug list
Graham
Librarians rule, Ook!
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Innovation. It's my middle ame.
cheers,
Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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Chris Maunder wrote: It's my middle ame.
I never knew your full name was Chris Ug Maunder.
Nobody can give you wiser advice than yourself. - Cicero
.·´¯`·->Rajesh<-·´¯`·.
Codeproject.com: Visual C++ MVP
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Do you still see Deleted articles in the RSS feed?
(Most likely, the reason you saw deleted article is caching.
The page is cached for 20 minutes).
Sincerely,
Elina
Life is great!!!
Enjoy every moment of it!
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I see this[^] which ended in a page not found. This[^] one was displayed twice.
Thanks
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