New web newsreader - requesting participation

[foobar]

Adam Ruppe Wrote:

> In the other newsgroup, I've been talking about a little
> web news program I've been writing as a spinoff of the
> potential new homepage idea.
> 
> It's to the point where it is usuable, but still kinda buggy:
> 
> http://arsdnet.net/d-web-site/nntp/thread-index?
> newsgroup=digitalmars.D
> 
> Source code: http://arsdnet.net/d-web-site/nntp.d
> 
> NOTE: it does /not/ automatically check for new posts. I have
> to manually trigger that right now (I don't want it annoying
> the news server automatically while still in the testing phase.)
> 
> It will lazily load a message on demand though if you know
> it's message ID:
> http://arsdnet.net/d-web-site/nntp/get-message
> 
> Get it from the Message-ID header in the post.
> 
> 
> 
> Anyway, here's the features:
> 
> a) It isn't god awful slow. The PHP web news currently on digital
> mars, as best as I can tell, actually polls the news server every
> time you go to it's index! This does aggressive local caching.
> 
> b) It actually lets you select text...
> 
> OK, if I list every annoyance with the current web news, I'll
> never stop. Moving on to new things:
> 
> c) It tries to convert news posts to HTML, so the paragraphs
> wrap to the browser, links work, quotes are put into the proper
> tags for indentation, and it tries to auto-detect D code and
> put it in a <pre> block - which my javascript can make inline
> editable and runnable. Example:
> 
> http://arsdnet.net/d-web-site/nntp/get-message?
> newsgroup=digitalmars.D&messageId=%
> 3Cmailman.1085.1296409409.4748.digitalmars-d%40puremagic.com%3E
> 
> With script disabled, you'll see the code in a different colored
> block. With script enabled, you'll see an Edit button there
> too.
> 
> d) It tries to convert HTML emails back to plain text. (Ironically,
> so it can turn it back to html...) This gives uniformity across
> the various mime types. Similarly, if the type is
> multipart/alternative, it will only show the text version.
> 
> e) It also makes an attempt to preserve deliberate whitespace,
> for things like ASCII art or purposefully short lines. If it
> can't make heads or tails of it, it bails out and shows the
> original message in a <pre> block for human consumption.
> 
> f) Tries to be fast and lean.
> 
> g) Written in D!
> 
> h) Already read messages is tracked by your browser - if the link
> is visited, it puts up a different color url.
> 
> Coming as I find time:
> 
> a) References to bugzilla entries should be automatically
> converted to links.
> 
> b) Viewing threads by date or by threaded view.
> 
> c) Posting with the option of automatic quoting.
> 
> d) Syntax highlighting of D code in posts.
> 
> e) Maybe, maybe links to documentation of functions referenced,
>    if I can find a good way to get them automatically. Integration
>    with my dpldocs.info site is the way I'd do it.
> 
> e) Any more ideas? I'm reluctant to add too much, but if I like
>    an idea - or if you want to write the code :) - I'll be open'
>    to adding it.
> 
> 
> Known bugs:
> 
> Lots of content types aren't handled right and it ignores
> character encoding.
> 
> It doesn't always recognize code. This would be ok, but if it
> sees one line as code but doesn't include one of them, it would
> confuse the reader. Example:
> 
> http://arsdnet.net/d-web-site/nntp/get-message?
> newsgroup=digitalmars.D&messageId=%3Cii4lbj%242bes%241%
> 40digitalmars.com%3E
> 
> (Look for "auto str =")
> 
> The reason for this is it detects code lines by looking for
> semicolons and open braces. It will call something a generic
> <pre> if there's a lot of whitespace in it - figuring it is
> probaby ascii art (if it thinks the whitespace has human
> significance, it tries to preserve it), but it still isn't
> a perfect detection function.
> 
> I'm open to ideas. We want to detect code, but not flag
> regular English text.
> 
> 
> 
> I'm also open to graphical styling ideas. I put up a dark
> theme here because the white was hurting my eyes, but I change
> on if I like light or dark almost at random. (Depends on the room's
> lighting conditions I think). But I didn't do any more graphic
> setup other than the max-width.
> 
> Multiple color schemes is an idea I like.
> 
> 
> 
> BTW, as a fun fact, this post is about 1/4th the size of the
> entire nntp.d code file!

This is great work! looks SO much better than what we have right now. 

I'd implement the following filters/parsers for text posts:
1. common human markup such as: _foo_ (underline), *foo* (bold) etc, 
2. parse BBCode.

The NG could standardize on BBcode or some other light-weight marking going forward to make this even more straight forward.