How to write an index

squeaky · 10 January 2007 at 1:35PM

Right, here we go...

Quick links:

1. Getting Started - on this page just scroll down a tiny bit

Making your index post (steps 1 to 4)
Editing (step 5)
Spacer posts
Playing safe (backups)

2. [post=3965366]Making Links[/post]

Simple thread link collecting
Simple posts (in a thread) link collecting
Smarty pants link collecting

3. [post=3977778]A couple of requests[/post]

Very short threads
Duplicate threads

4. [post=3977783]Formatting and Layouts[/post]

Basic fonts
Fonts and headings
Menu links and buttons
Smileys and images
Bullets, tabs and indents

5. [post=3977789]Getting Organised[/post]

Hierarchy of headings
Instructions
Groups and subgroups
Quote boxes
Keeping track of where you are
Finding yourself again
If you forgot to make notes

6. [post=3977803]Using button images as links[/post]

How to do it
Notes on copyright
Keeping your own copy

7. [post=3977841]Cross referencing[/post]

8. [post=3997197]It's your index - your baby[/post]

9. [post=3997206]A word of caution[/post]

10. [post=3999012]A note or two for Board Guides[/post]

Step One:
Please highlight and then copy the text in the quote box below:-

This post is going to be a complete collection of ALL "whateveritis" threads here on Old Style. Please do not add any posts or questions into this Index Thread but do your best to choose from the many threads below one which is most closely related to your query and by all means join that one.

Note: I can't close the index thread to stop posters asking questions on it because then you couldn't post into it either.

Step Two:

Start a new thread with the title:-

The Complete Whateveritis Collection

(and obviously change whateveritis to the right subject

)

Step Three:

Paste the text that you just copied into the post, and click on the submit button as usual. (and obviously change whateveritis to the right subject

)

Step Four:

PM me to let me know that you have started your collection and I'll then paste into it the contents of the original collection that you are taking over and add any others that are currently in the MEGA Index. (I have to do it this way because you can only edit your own posts - so if I was to start your collection you wouldn't be able to add anything.)

Step Five:

I'm pretty sure that most of you will know some or all of the things I'm going to cover here, so please bear with me as I try to make it comprehensive enough to make it easy for less experienced members to manage.

If my explanations of any of the steps still leave you with questions by all means ask them in the discussion thread so that somebody can help you. One really good source of help is the MSE A-Z Guide written by sra and linked here:-

Unofficial A-Z (Look here first)

Edit button: In your own posts, in case you haven't found it yet, there is an edit button in the bottom right corner of your post as shown here:-

This opens the basic edit window as shown below, and if you're happy working in that one, fine

I have found that clicking on the "Go Advanced" button makes editing easier and it gives you more options in the grey tool bar just above the text window.

Tip: On the right hand side of the toolbar are some small arrows that allow you to change the size of the text edit area. This is very helpful when working up and down a long index list.

Tip: If you are still seeing codes like [ b]some text[/b] you will be much better off changing your editor to the WYSIWYG one. Help on how to do this can be found in the MSE A-Z by sra which is linked to just above here.

Spacer posts:

Some of you will have been handed Indexed Collections that run to more than one post already, some of you will purposely choose to start your index with one post for each section, and sooner or later very nearly all of the rest of you will have to use more than one post for your index because there's a maximum limit to the size allowed for a single post.

As your index continues to grow you might want to insert a new section between two of your existing ones, and this can be a tedious and a scary operation. I'll explain...

Supposing the list of your posts looks like this:-

Index page
Section 1
Section 2
"
"
Section 5

And you need or want to place a new section between sections 1 and 2.

You are going to have to start a new blank post in place 7 like so:-

Index page
Section 1
Section 2
"
"
Section 5
blank

Then you are going to have to move the contents of post 6 into post 7, then post 5 into post 6 and so on.

So if you then blank post 3 (the old section 2) you'll have this:-

Index page
Section 1
blank
Section 2
"
"
Section 5

Only then will you be able to write your new section. And the more posts that your index covers the more posts you'll have to move every time you want to change things about.

The answer is to deliberately write some "spacer posts" between each of your sections so that you can simply write your new bit into one of those when you need to expand.

As a bare minimum I'd advise that you add three spacer posts bewteen each of your index posts. So in other words, you'd have to write four posts for every "extra" post that you want to add to your index as you first build or expand it. Three spacers and one for the new bit. The forum software does not allow you to make a completely empty post - so just scribble any old rubbish into the text area as long as it is more than ten characters long.

These posts then make your index look a bit untidy, but there's no problem there - just PM any of your Board Guides and we'll "hide" them for you until you need them. Then, when you do, just PM us again to tell us where you need to add in your extra index bit and we'll be happy to "unhide" one of your spacer posts for you.

I promise you that this little bit of extra work now pays off in the long run.

Note: When you are shuffling your posts about, or splitting a bigger page into two smaller ones - make sure that you copy & paste the sections concerned and not cut & paste. That way you can check that everything has gone well before going back to your original post and then cutting out the items you've moved. If you make a mistake here the only person who can recover your lost links for you is the webmaster - and if he's very busy you'll be fresh out of luck. So remember - copy first.

Playing safe: If you're a bit unsure about things you can save a copy of your index post(s) on your own machine...

Change from the WYSIWYG editor to the standard one. The MSE A-Z by sra can help you here if you don't know how to do it.

Now when you click on your edit button you'll see all the hidden codes such as [ b]some text[ /b]

Select all of the text and, using your bowser's Edit menu right at the top of your screen - choose copy.

Paste this into windows notepad or the word processor of your choice and then save it.

Then switch back to the WYSIWYG editor and start your changes.

The next part of the tutorial is in the post immediately below this one, so please just scroll down.

.

squeaky · 10 January 2007 at 1:45PM

In this post:

Simple thread link collecting

Simple post (in a thread) link collecting

Smarty pants links

Now we're getting to the real job

You can choose to work backwards from the most current threads to the oldest or to work forward from the oldest to the newest. (I've found it easiest to work forward from the back - less chance of missing anything, but the choice really is your own).

IF I have been able to hand you set of threads from the MEGA Index then you only need to work backwards to (or forwards from) about page 400 at the time of writing. (This is pure guesswork on my part. We have over 500 pages of threads which means more than 10,000 threads in total and only about 3,000 are in the MEGA. So if you find that I'm way off, please let me know and I'll edit the 400 accordingly).

I'm going to show you two ways to build your index. First the simple one, and then the (purely optional) smarty pants merge-proof one. By all means choose the one which is easiest for you, but in either case - once you have made a couple of links you'll wonder what all the fuss was about. Promise

Note: The best way to work is to have two windows (or two tabs) open. Have your Index post open in the first one and click on your edit button. The second window should have the Old Style forum listing in it, or the long single thread that you are indexing. (Actually, to start with, you might like to have a third window or tab that has this post in it so that it's easy to refer to until you get the hang of things).

Simple Thread Link Collecting:

Go to your start page (first one or about 400) or the last page you were working on (more about that later) and take a look at the list of threads.

Using the search facility really doesn't work here, you'll miss threads, so your mark one eyeball is the best tool you've got

If you are doing "yoghurt" for example it'll be pretty obvious if the post has that word in the title - so grab it as shown below.

I'm sorry, but you are going to have to actually look at the contents of all the threads whose subject is not obvious from its title. i.e all the "help please..." and "how do I...?" and "I made a mistake..." sort of thing, and if it's one of yours grab that too.

If you've had to go and look at a thread - use your browser's back button to get back to the list page.

Place your mouse at the end of the name of the thread as shown here:-

Take care that the mouse pointer is a and not a or you'll be taken off to the thread

Now press and hold the left mouse button down and then move the mouse left until all of the title is highlighted:-

Let go of the mouse button and then move it into the highlighted area as you can see above - right click and choose "Copy" from the little menu.

Now move to your other window, choose the place that you want to add your link into (an empty line) and again right click in that place but this time choose "Paste" from the little menu.

That's it. One easy link gone and got

Of course, if the title of the thread is not very helpful you will need to change it...

If you have a link name such as this:- Help please...

Place your mouse cursor just inside the name:- Help please...

Hit backspace until you get to the beginning:- elp please...

Type in the new name: Hedgehog fritterselp please...

Then delete until the rest of the name is gone:- Hedgehog fritters

This way we make sure that you don't accidentally remove any of the hidden code tags that make this a link.

Tip: If you're comfortable with mouse operations then you can either carefully highlight the link name as shown above, or double click on it, and simply type your new link name there.

That's it. You're done

Simple Posts in a thread Link Collecting:

There's no real need for me to write this one up for you because it is well covered in the MSE A-Z guide written by sra which has been mentioned above.

The direct link to that tutorial is here:-

Inserting links in posts

Smarty Pants Link Collecting:

This applies to both those of you who are collecting threads and those of you who are producing an index of single posts in a long thread.

These links look rather more complicated at first glance, but again, once you get the hang of them you'll find them quick and easy. I actually prefer working this way.

They are much easier for members to use because they allow you to join a thread anywhere in the middle at that post instead of opening a "View Single Post" window. This is especially true for those of you who will be indexing a single long thread rather than making a collection of threads.

The big value of these shows up if threads get merged (and some will, more on that later) because, as I say, a member will get to join a thread at the point that your link leads to.

So... getting to grips with smarty pants links...

In the top right hand corner of every post is a number that denotes the actual post order in that thread. If you're making a thread collection the post we'll be aiming at is always #1. If you are indexing a long single thread then each post has its own number. (in the case of this post that is #2)

Hover your mouse over the number (don't click) not the # symbol like this:-

While it is there take a look at the status bar of your browser, right down in the bottom left hand corner, and you will see something like this:-

If you pop up the page and hover over the number 1 in the first post it should look exactly like the image above.

At the end of the money saving address shown there you can see:-

p=3965231&postcount=1

Two different numbers. The postcount=1 is the number for the post in this thread and so every thread has a post number one.

The p=3965231 part is the unique number for that post. It doesn't matter where or how often that post is moved - its number will always stay the same. This is what we'll use to make your link merge proof.

What follows is the only bit that's complicated but everybody who I have taught this has to got the hang of it by the time they've done three links - so don't despair

The explanation is long to make sure that I don't miss anything, but the work itself is pretty quick. Promise

Start by actually opening the thread that you want to link to.

Pop back to your edit box in your other window.

Pick the spot where you want to add the new link into your list and create a blank line:-

Armadillo Casserole recipe please

Hedgehog Fritters

Click in there with your mouse and then type this:-

Armadillo Casserole recipe please
[post=
Hedgehog Fritters

Don't close your edit window here - just move to the one that has the thread in, hover your mouse over the number in the top right corner as shown above, and make a note of the p=1234567 type number in the address - again as shown in the second picture just above.

It's up to you, memorise it, or scribble it down on a pad - you can't copy and paste it, sorry.

Add the number straight after the equals sign so you should now have this:-

Armadillo Casserole recipe please
[post=1234567
Hedgehog Fritters

Then add a closing square bracket so you should have this:-

Armadillo Casserole recipe please
[*post=1234567]
Hedgehog Fritters

I found that switching windows to now copy and paste any but the longest of thread titles was a pain and that it was quicker to just type the name in. The choice is yours - but now add the name of the thread:-

Armadillo Casserole recipe please
[*post=1234567]Elephant Tongue Soup
Hedgehog Fritters

Now finish off with the closing tag so you have this:-

Armadillo Casserole recipe please
[*post=1234567]Elephant Tongue Soup[*/post]
Hedgehog Fritters

That's it - you just made a smarty pants link

Please note that I had to add the * into the last examples to stop the forum software from turning them into a link. It does not need to be there in your own links when you write them.

If you are making these links you must be careful to get the number right - otherwise your link will go off to a completely different post (and thread, and even forum). It's a good idea when you first start to press the submit button and then check the new link before you then start again to add a new one.

Note: The most common error I made when doing this was to write in the number for the thread instead of the number for the post. So if your link sent you off to somewhere you didn't expect - check this first.

It can be a real pain trying to track down the original thread that you intended to link to later on when you discover the error. Especially if you changed the name of the link to be different to the title that the post used.

The next part of the tutorial is in the post immediately below this one, so please just scroll down.

.

squeaky · 11 January 2007 at 2:59PM

In this post:

Very short threads

Duplicate threads

While you are collecting your thread links could you please consider doing us a favour.

These are purely optional, only do them if you have the time.

Very short threads:

If you keep an eye open on the right hand side of the forum listing you may notice that some threads only have one or perhaps two answers - like the post by HeyBigSpender here:-

It's very likely that posts will contain something on the order of:-

Post #1 - Can I cook an armadillo in its shell?

Post #2 - Sure! see Armadillo Casserole

Post #3 - Thanks!

Don't bother to index post #1 (especially if you've come to realise that this is a common question) just grab the link supplied in post #2 if you don't already have it.

Then, please, and this is our main request - can you make a note of the link for post #1 on your favourite notepad or scratchpad?

When you have a few of these collected then please PM one of us and we'll either merge them to the link from post #2, or if it's the ninety ninth time this question has come up just bin it to help reduce the clutter.

As I say, all of the above is purely optional - but it would be a help if you have time to do it. Thanks

Duplicate threads:

You're going to have quite a lot of threads on very similar subjects, and that's fine. Group them together in your index in whichever way you've chosen. (more on that later)

But there will be times when you have a couple, or three, threads that are exactly about the same thing. May even have the exact same titles. An example here would be "removing permanent marker from a leather sofa".

Can you check please to see if the last posting date (in column two of our picture above) of the oldest thread is before the date of the first post in the newer thread.

If there's a gap between the dates then again can you make a note of the pair (or triplet) of these posts and again PM one of us when you have a few collected. These threads are ideal to merge together because they won't get all tangled up.

As I say, all of the above is purely optional - but it would be a help if you have time to do it. Thanks

The next part of the tutorial is in the post immediately below this one, so please just scroll down.

.

squeaky · 11 January 2007 at 3:00PM

In this post:

Fonts

Fonts and headings

Menu links and buttons

Smilies and images

Bullets, tabs and indents

The Collection that you have chosen to write is entirely your own and I don't expect you to keep the original layouts, or even anything except the links themselves, should you wish to change them.

Nor do they need to be clones. In fact, if each Collection has its own look it'll help stop people being confused about why they can't find a shopping tip in the cleaning index

That said, I'd like you all to consider the various guides that follow. And they are all guides with just the one exception which is a definite please do not do.

None of this advice is written in stone and some of it will certainly change when we get feedback from members. The post in this link explains more:-

[post=3997197]Your Index - your baby[/post]

Fonts:

Font types: The default font used by the forum (verdana) is just fine. Times New Roman is disliked by most people suffering from dyslexia because the little tail bits tend to lead their eyes away from the next letter in a word. A favourite font here is Arial, which is available from the font list in the toolbar of your edit window.

Font sizes: The standard forum size is fine, please try to avoid using the smaller size one.

Font colours: Basic black text colour for your general text is perfectly acceptable for most. If you really hate it you're not going to like the next bit:- the pastel colours are difficult for some people to read because there's not enough contrast between the "ink" and the "paper" so choosing a colour that is close to black anyway would be much preferred.

Fonts and headings:

Font types: By all means use a different font if you want to give some emphasis to titles and headings, but try to be consistent and not use twenty different fonts - just use one font that differs from your standard text font.

Font sizes: Again for sizes - try not to need too many different sizes, aim for consistency between the different levels that you choose when you are organising your lists.

Font colours: When picking colours aim for consistency between levels. Also bear in mind that colour blindness means that some people will not be able to easily tell the difference between orange and red and/or red and green. So if you used red for your main headings and orange for sub headings (especially if they are the same size) there are people who would not be able to tell the difference. This is also true for red and green, so try to avoid this. Again, the darker colours are easier for people to pick out.

Menu links and buttons:

Those of you who already have (or will very soon have) a Collection that runs to several pages should consider having their first page as just a quick links page to each of your sections. The choice of links that you use is entirely up to you. You may only want a simple list, or you might like to have a brief introduction (as on page one of the MEGA Index) and then have a clickable link to take the member to the relevant page. Again consistency is best - choose your link text and size etc and use it everywhere. The same is true for buttons. It makes them much easier to spot when people are quickly scanning for the section that they want.

Text Links: By all means use a standard hyperlink if you wish. If you are going to use a standard "click here" sort of link then something like this one works well:-

Click Here

Button links: Buttons are fine. The one used in the MEGA Index was well received from a visibility point of view. You can by all means choose your own button graphic - but do please consider copyright. Searching on google using either "free images", "free buttons", or "free clickme.gif" should help you find sites which make their contents available free of copyright. (I'll add how to use a button as a link lower down this thread)

Smileys and images:

We all know that "A picture's worth a thousand words" so if you want to use a picture of a pile of vegetables, or a bath full of porridge to let people know what your Collection is about then feel free. Again you must ensure that any pictures you use are free of copyright.

It would be best not to litter your Collection with them - the basic point of your index is your list. People searching are looking for speed not erm... "entertainment" so a picture on page one is plenty

Note: A fair number of people still view the forums using smaller screens such as 800x600. If your picture is large it widens the window area and then text disappears off the right side of the screen forcing people to have to use the horizontal scroll bar to go back and forth trying to read - and it's a real pain. Honest. So if you normally view in larger resolutions such as 1024x760 or bigger and you're not sure if your picture is OK, just give me a shout and I'll check it for you.

Bear in mind too there's a fundamental difference between your every day posts and your Indexed Collection. As often as not any given member is only going to read your every day post once. In fact, if it's in a thread that they are not interested in they might never read it. But your Indexed Collection is different. People are going to visit it lots of times - so images and smilies can get boring pretty quickly.

Smilies: Fine Just keep the numbers down.

Animated smilies: These get boring pretty quickly, are often distracting, and a fair number of people actively dislike them. So for preference, remembering the differences mentioned above, save them for your every day posts.

Flashing smilies and images: This is the one thing that you are asked very definitely:-

Please do not use flashing images.

They can cause people to have epilectic fits and / or seizures.

Bullets, tabs and indents:

How you organise your layout is up to you (more on this below) but if you are going to use these then here are some points to consider:-

Bulleted lists generally lead the eye between the points you want to make more effectively than tabs or indents.

Unordered lists like this one that just have a bullet point to the left are fine for shorter lists (up to five) but with more than this readers can lose track.

For longer bulleted lists you can use an ordered list with numbers.
see?

Bulleted lists and indents are only available when you use the Advanced editing window.

Note: If you do choose to use a bulleted list in a post then you must take care to remember to always then work on it by clicking the "Go Advanced" button. If you try to do a quick fix in the basic editing window you'll find that you suddenly develop huge spaces between odd bits of your layout.

The next part of the tutorial is in the post immediately below this one, so please just scroll down.

.

squeaky · 11 January 2007 at 3:00PM

In this post:

Hierarchy of headings

Instructions

Groups and subgroups

Keeping track of where you are

Finding yourself again

If you forgot to make notes

Despite its shortcomings, many of which you will have spotted in the formatting and layout post above, and more of which you will spot in this post - the MEGA Index is still a fair model for an index, and will be better still once I have time to go back and implement all these changes myself.

You must remember that it was very much a work in progress and that I was banging in links as fast as I could and then reorganising sub headings and groups when there were enough links collected in any given section to warrant it. You're going to find yourselves with the same dilemma as you build yours.

Old Style isn't the only board which has indexes by any means - so do have a look around and pinch the best ideas from the other indexes that you will see.

So that said, here are some hints and guidelines on organising and presenting your index:-

Hierarchy of headings:

Some of these are pretty obvious, but I'll list them anyway...

Bigger is perceived by most people as stronger and more important than smaller. So your main title should be biggest, main sections next biggest, and subsections smallest. Not forgetting the tips in formatting and layout.

Bold is perceived as stronger and more important than plain text and sometimes will catch a reader's eye before a larger text does.

Darker and richer colours are often perceived as stronger and more important than paler pastel ones.

As an example of not quite right, the current edition of part of the MEGA Index looks like this:-

FOOD

This is where you'll find threads about food itself rather than how to cook it. As you'll see it is subdivided into several sections:-

CHICKENS

Some people will be drawn to the "chickens" text before they notice the paler "Food" text and may not appreciate that "Food" is a title, or indeed a link, and that "chicken" is merely a descriptive heading.

So try and pick colours and sizes etc to follow a top down "strong" order.

Instructions:

This really only applies to indexes with multiple pages where you need to instruct your reader to scroll down and so differentiate from your chosen heading formats. This example from the MEGA Index is weaker:-

The first of the sections listed above is in the post directly below this one. Just scroll down.

And this one from this tutorial is stronger:-

The next part of the tutorial is in the post immediately below this one, so please just scroll down.

Groups and subgroups:

By and large there are two main ways I do this, but if you come up with others then I'll be more than happy to pinch your ideas

You can either edit your link names to always start with the same word - like this:-

- Yeast - The care and feeding of
- Yeast For Breadmakers
- Yeast free bread
- Yeast - Fresh v Dried?
- Yeast - out of date
- Yeast, request for info
- Yeast - Use by date

Or you can provide a subheading of your choice like this:-

Yeast:

The care and feeding of
Yeast For Breadmakers
Yeast free bread
Fresh v Dried?
out of date
request for info
Use by date

Again, you can choose to use indents or bulleted lists and, as always, try to aim for consitency.

Very long lists can be hard to read, so the odd space line between either similar posts or by alphabet, if you're not using subheadings, will help.

Quote boxes:

An example (my fault not RacyRed's) would be this one:-

Breadmaking - Hints, Tips, and Recipes

Old StyleThe Index

Old Style Browse from the start

Old Style Add your own recipe

The purpose of these was to try and differentiate between an index that was actually held (often by someone else now) in a completely different thread, and those links which are the ones that you have collected for your subject index itself.

They're ugly, ungainly, don't really work as intended, and I shall be binning all mine when I get back to work on the indexes that I still maintain.

You are more them welcome to bin the [ /quote] tags in any index that I have handed to you.

Again, how to lay these out is your choice but I'll take a bit of time here to explain just what they are about so that you can then adapt what follows to suit your own pages.

A bit of explanation first for your readers will help such as something like:-

Apart from this index we have a very long thread about wotsit recipes and this has its own separate index.

You can view that index by following this link:-

The Index for the wotsit recipes thread

If you'd like to join that thread and read it from the beginning you can find it here:-

Browse from the start

If you only want to quickly add your own wotsit recipe to the end of the thread then please use this link:-

Add your own recipe

Note: The "add your own recipe" link is not a standard link and it is a bit of a cheat. Here's how to do it:-

First write - Add your own recipe - into your index.

Open the wotsit recipe thread in your other window

In the address bar at the top of the page you will see an address such as:-

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=131166

Click into the address box and on the end of the address add the following:-

&goto=lastpost

So now your address looks like this:-

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=147549&goto=lastpost

Do not click on your Go button!

Select this new address and use it in the ordinary way to create a hyperlink. The forum software will search for the last post in the thread and create the correct address to take your reader there when they click on the link. Such as this one:-

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?p=3917989#post3917989

Finally, bit more explanation helps, such as:-

Below here is the collection of links to lots of other threads which are about wotsit recipes:-

Keeping track of where you are:

Few of you will be able to complete your index in one sitting, and in any event there are always going to be new posts or threads to collect - so you really need to make a note of where you last got to, and the best place for this is the bottom of your index page.

When indexing posts in a single thread:

This is pretty straightforward, all you need to do is to make a note of the post count number in the top right hand corner of the last post that you have indexed such as #97

You can also, once you have fully caught up, place a marker post in your thread. Something like:-

Hi everyone, I have indexed this thread up as far as this post. So every post before this one can be found in the index here:-

Link

Posts following this one have not yet been indexed.

This isn't just helpful for you - it helps your readers too. When doing "catch up", leave your last marker in place for the moment, and do your indexing - then copy the contents of your marker into a new post. Finally, delete your old marker using the "Edit" button in the bottom right corner of that post.

When indexing a collection of threads:

This is by no means simple as it is always easy to get tripped up - but the following helps to keep track:-

Make a note of the full and proper name of the last thread that you indexed. NOT the name of the link that you used for it if you changed it.

Make a note of page numbers. At the top of the forum list it will tell you, for example, that you are on page 435 of 577. (more on this below)

Make a note of the date of the last post in that thread as shown in a column to the right in the forum listing. This is because if, by chance, a member spots the thread and posts into it - the post gets moved to the top of the forum listing and won't be there any more!

I normally write this in small script at the bottom of an index because the only person who needs to read it is me and it's less of a distraction to people searching your index.

Finding yourself again:

This can be anywhere from very simple to truly difficult, and believe me - I learned all of the tips above the hard way.

When indexing posts in a single thread:

At the top right of each page of the thread is a set of navigation boxes. As shown here:-

If you hover your mouse over each page number you'll see a little box which shows the post numbers that are on that page - so you can just skip along until you find the page that has your last indexed post in it and click on that one.

When indexing a collection of threads:

The forum always lists pages from page one - so this means that all subsequent pages end up being given different page numbers as new threads are added.

This means that even though you made a careful note of "page 435 of 577" your thread is not going to be there any more.

But...

If you look at the navigation boxes on the first page you will something on the order of "page 1 of 579"

So in this case (579 minus 577) there are two extra pages of threads. An increase of two.

So... with a bit of luck - although your last thread will not be on page 435 any more, it should be about two pages further on in page 437.

I say "about" because the page numbers can change as new threads tick over to a new page as a post is added, and then won't change again until a full page's worth of threads have been written. So your post may be found on 436, 437, or 438.

There is no other way to work this out that I've found, sorry, so you're stuck with a bit of maths. If you do find another way then please please let me know

If your thread is still not there:

There are a couple of common reasons why...

Somebody spotted this thread in your index and has posted on it - so it has now been moved up to page one.

This is where the date comes in. Go back to the most probable page (437 in our example) and look for the posts that have the same "last post" date on them. You should be able to pick up where you left off from OK.

If you're still a bit stuck you could go back to your index and click on the link for that thread. Scroll back past the new posts until you reach the older one that you last did and look at the time of the post. That should get you very close indeed.

You inadvertently used the name of your link instead of the proper name of the thread.

In which case, go back to your index, click on the link and make a note of the correct name. Then look for your thread as described above.

Tip: If you have your browser set to reload all your tabs with the last page that you were viewing you'll be able to shortcut most of this, it's very handy. But I would still recommend that you note the last place you were indexing as described above. A serious crash might mean that you are unable to reload and then you'll be totally lost. Another lesson I learned the hard way.

If you forgot to makes notes:

If you forgot to make notes and don't have a clue where you were last working there's only one answer...

Guess.

It's not as bad as it sounds. Honest

Here's the trick...

Just guess a page that you think might be somewhere close to the last page that you worked on.
Pick any thread on that page and see if it is already in your index.
If it is, step forward say... 20 pages. (If it isn't - step back.)
Check a link on that page.
Keep going until you find a link that isn't on your page. (or is if you are working back.)
Now you know that your last place of work is somewhere between the link you just checked now, and the link you checked before.
What we're going to do now is use the "halving technique"
Step back half the distance to the last place you were looking and check a link on that page.
If it's still not in your index - step back half the distance remaining from where you are now to the earlier page.
If it is in your index - go forward by half the distance.
keep halving the distances in whichever direction until you are left with a single page.
Your last place of work is somewhere here.
Now check the first and the last posts on this page.
One of them should not be in your index and one of them should.
If this is not true then you may have missed a step somewhere. Don't panic - you have to be close - so shift to say three pages to either side of where you are and start checking and halving again.
Now just use the same halving technique with the posts on the page and you'll get there.

And you thought indexing was easy

Actually, kidding aside, for the most part it is. It's also fun, very interesting reading back through older threads, and very rewarding.

.

squeaky · 11 January 2007 at 3:01PM

In this post:

How to do it

Copyright

Saving your image

For those of you wishing to use button images as links you need to be able to know how insert an image into your post and also how to make a hyperlink.

Guides on how to do this can be found in sra's MSE A-Z linked below:-

Unofficial A-Z (Look here first)

and the quick link direct to each of those are here:-

Images

Links (Inserting in Posts)

Using images for a link is very similar to using text.

Get the address of the image you want to use.

Use the image button on the toolbar in your edit window to place the image in your index at the appropriate point.

So now, still in your edit window, you will have something like this:-

Now go and get the link for the thread or post that you want to link to.

Highlight the image in the same way that you would highlight the text you would use for an intended hyperlink. (It doesn't show up very well, sorry.)

Use the hyperlink button in the toolbar in your edit window in the usual way.

There ya go - a smarty pants button link!

Some notes:

It is very important that you take care to source your button image from a site that is free of copyright.

Be aware that if you haven't chosen to save your button image in somewhere like photo bucket and the site that you got your image button from disappears - your image will disappear too and nobody will be able to see, find, or use your link. So it would be a good idea to save a copy of the image (the image itself - not the url for it) on your own computer.

If your button does disappear - give me a shout and I'll help you restore it from the one you have saved.

squeaky · 11 January 2007 at 3:03PM

It's been suggested that some Indexes, such as the Cleaning section of the MEGA Index, would benefit from some cross referencing. Something on the order of:-

Sub headings based on the item you wish to clean:-

Clothes
Glasses
Sofas
Windows

Each with their collection of links and then followed up with a list of cleaning agents and what they can be used for:-

Astonish
Bicarb
Borax
Lemon
Vinegar

And so on.

If you think that your own index could benefit from this approach and you think it will be managable, then by all means work that way.

When it came to doing the MEGA Index, and especially for parts of it such as cleaning, I really did consider it. But ran into a slight problem just because of the sheer size of it. Here's why...

To take a single hypothetical example:-