I read the bbs in flat mode, using Internet Explorer. As people have pointed out, the most efficient way to do it is to open each thread in a new Internet Explorer window. I do this by right-clicking the thread with the mouse, and then pressing a key on my keyboard that plays a macro: "N" followed by "Alt-Tab". This opens the thread in a new window, and returns me to the list of threads (minimizing the thread just opened) so I can repeat the operation on the next one.

This procedure doesn't always work as expected.

More often than not, the "Alt-Tab" does not minimize the new thread, but this is not a serious problem -- I find that just moving the mouse wheel does that. But sometimes the new threads will minimize, maybe 30 in a row, and then they stop doing that and remain up on the screen again.

What I can't figure out, though, is what rhyme or reason underlies the size and placement of the new windows. Sometimes they are small, sometimes they are large, sometimes they place on the left side of the screen, sometimes on the right. I should note that whatever size/placement the first one uses in any bbs session will be how they all place. I never know, however, from one day to the next what is going to happen.

I have been told that new IE windows will be determined by the size and placement of the most recently closed IE window, but this does not seem to be the case.

Can anyone explain in words of one syllable or less how multiple IE windows work?

tanstaafl.

They cascade from the current window position, usually.

Can anyone explain in words of one syllable or less how multiple IE windows work?

Poorly.

You might want to try using Mozilla's tabs. They're a little more consistent.

I think that's your opinion. Although I don't think Mozilla handles it poorly simply because it uses tabs (which I hate to use).

I happen to click on one thread at a time, and when I'm finished I either use Alt+Left to go back or click on the back button, or I simply click on the forum link on the top. I click on the link most of the time, because people post here so often that by the time I get to the third thread with new posts, some of the ones I've already read have new posts in them.

The thing is, I fail to see how opening 30 threads at once makes it easier to read the board. I would think that working through them one forum and one thread at a time would be better for keeping track of where you are.

All I can suggest is that you simply use the combination of:
-Shift+Left Click on the link
-Alt+Tab to go back to the forum

Wouldn't that work too?

Can anyone explain in words of one syllable or less how multiple IE windows work?

I'd love to know which words have less than one syllable I also think "poorly" has two syllables

Avant Browser

I happen to agree with wfaulk on this one. I use Mozilla tabs and find it very efficiant for browsing this BBS. I start at the forum list, and middle click on each with new posts to open them in new tabs. The new tabs get populated on the top from left to right, with the leftmost tab being the current window viewing the forums. After I have selected the forums I wish to see, I then middle click on the current tab (list of forums) and it closes. This places me on the first forum list page that I middle clicked on. Repeat this process with posts that I wish to see, and the end result is each thread that I wish to see in it's own tab. After I am done with them, just middle click and they're banished!

So simple, no alt-ctrl-winkey-shift-tilde to have to deal with, no macros, and everything is contained in one Start bar item, so if I have to minimize the window I don't get lost as to where I was.

This has the added benefit of One-Finger-Browsing(tm) as the button I use to view each tab is the scroll wheel, and I use that to scroll around within the thread itself. I can sit at my desk in the morning, and eat my cereal and browse the BBS at the same time! If I had to reach for the keyboard all the time I wouldn't get my daily volume of Chex.

Oh, I understand you like it that way, but I like the "alt-ctrl-winkey-shift-tilde" stuff. It's not like it's hard. Plus, your method doesn't solve what I was talking about with regards to people posting while you're reading. New posts arrive on these forums pretty damn fast!

everything is contained in one Start bar item

This also has to do with my liking the Alt+Tab far more than the Mozilla tabs. I much prefer to cycle through a group of windows equally. With the tabs, you can't switch between each page you are browsing and another window equally. You have to switch to Mozilla first and then switch to one of the tabs. That's what I don't like about it. It's not a fault of the whole idea of tabs, it's just that I prefer the other way. IMO, neither is better than the other, it's just that tabs don't suit me.

This has the added benefit of One-Finger-Browsing(tm)

See, as for me, my left hand is permanently grafted to the keyboard, and I like it that way my left pinky finger rarely moves from the Ctrl key. I think I'm more of a keyboard person than a mouse person.

Cool man, whatever works for you! I'm glad that we have several options for web browsers and can choose which one works best for us. I was posting that more or less because others may not be as clued in to the tabbed interface of Mozilla (or the IE extension that Rob posted about, or Opera) and wanted to share how it makes my life easier.

I know a few people that swear by mouse gestures, and I can't stand them, personally.

Yeah man, it's all good!

I do like that thing that Rob posted. I think that the additional mouse functions alone are attracting me enough to try it out. Does anyone know how I could go about getting that to work with regular IE or Windows in general? I really could use that "Right+Left click to go back" very much.

I love mouse gestures (Right+Left click to go back, etc.) but I still use IE as my main broser since I can't stand tabbed browsing. I am starting to get used to it more, but right now Avant is used for ebay, autotrader, and other site you constantly are going back and forth through pages with. It also is great for opening sites you know will feed you a ton of pop-ups. It blocks all popups no matter what the hell it is (login prompts included).

Ahhh, exactly what I needed. Thanks, that makes things alot easier.

-Shift+Left Click on the link
-Alt+Tab to go back to the forum

Wouldn't that work too?

This is exactly how I read the BBS.

Oh, I should add the popup killer too:

Ctrl+W

Which just happens to be the same thing as search in pico (yeah...I'm a weenie...I barely know enough to get by in vi). It's rather disconcerting when you go to search a web page for a particular word and end up closing it instead.

Yeah. Ctrl-E does something evil (like send without confirmation or something) in the editor of a news reader I use on occasion.

The way I figure it - although I haven't tested the theory - is that new windows will appear in the same position/size of the last, final IE window that you close.

Hmmm, kind of hard to explain - say if you have 3 windows open, you close all three, the size/position of new windows will be the same as the last one; i.e. you have to completely close IE for the size to be changed!

That's what I reckon anyway.

Cheers.

On my machine, the size does rely on the size of the most recently closed window, but the position is always cascading. Perhaps it's different on your computer?

I always maximize all my windows, so it doesn't bother me how they size/position themselves.

is that new windows will appear in the same position/size of the last, final IE window that you close.


That's kind of what I thought was supposed to happen.... but it doesn't seem to be doing that, unless I am misunderstanding something.

Let's start from scratch -- clean screen, no Internet Explorer running. I click on the IE icon in my taskbar, and Internet Explorer comes up, not full screen but in a window that fills the entire screen other than the taskbar. I suspect that this initial window follows the rules about matching the position/size of the final IE window that was closed previously.

Subsequent IE windows that are opened while the initial window remains open appear at a much smaller size, and in [apparently] random locations. Wherever the first of these additional windows opens, and at whatever size, all subsequent windows will open in the same location and size, stacking one on top of the other.

I want them stacked this way -- but I also want to control where they open, and what size they are when they open. I never know from one day to the next how the subsequent windows will start out.


Is it possible to pre-define these additional windows? If so, how do I do it?

tanstaafl.

Is it possible to pre-define these additional windows? If so, how do I do it?

I have a "IE Window Place" registry file (.reg) which ALMOST does this.

REGEDIT4

[HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Internet Explorer\Main]
"Window_Placement"=hex:2c,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,01,00,00,00,ff,ff,ff,ff,ff,ff,\
ff,ff,ff,ff,ff,ff,ff,ff,ff,ff,ae,01,00,00,f1,ff,ff,ff,5b,04,00,00,4d,02,00,\
00

Any time I want a new set of IE windows to be placed in that certain location, I double click on the icon for this file. I'm then free to open up a bunch of new windows and they'll all drop to this location, until such time as I CLOSE an IE window. Once I close an IE window, the registry entry gets rewritten again.

Now, there's a little trick that this file does which works around the cascading feature and makes it work for a whole new set of windows and not just the first one. I stumbled upon this, and I'm sure it's a bug (one I'm happy to exploit in this case)... If the top edge of the window is off the screen when its position is saved, new windows won't cascade. So this regfile has it in a position where the top edge of the window is a couple of pixels off the top of the screen. That's the only way I was able to kill the cascading.

The problem, though, is that this doesn't work in all instances of IE and in all situations.

It works for:

- New windows when you're launching IE from scratch.

- New windows from pressing Shift+Click on a link on an IE page.

It does NOT work for:

- New windows launched via Rightclick-on-a-link-then-select-Open-In-New-Window from an IE page (N).

This is really irritating, too, because there's yet ANOTHER bug in Internet Explorer that affects this BBS: In order to read in flat mode, I want the window to scroll down to the newest unread message when I open a thread. But when I Shift+Click on the link, it won't scroll down (it stays at the top of the page). Only when I do the rightclick-then-open-in-new-window trick does it properly scroll down to the unread messages in the flat thread. So it's a catch 22 if you're just using IE.

I happen to be able to work around this because I don't view the parent thread listings in IE. I happen to view the parrent thread listings in a VB program that I created. So when I do rightclick-open-in-new-window on a thread title, its effectively launching a new instance of Internet Explorer, and it both correctly sizes the window based on the .reg file and it also does the scroll-to-new-messages correctly.

First off, I think your problem is how your first window is opening. That first window is opening as a "normal window." I think that doesn't have anything to do with any of the "new windows" but I don't know why.

When you say "Subsequent IE windows that are opened" I'm not sure how you're opening them. Do you mean all the new ones opened through the first and/or each successive window, or by the quicklaunch button again.

I would say to try right clicking on the IE button on the quicklaunch bar, and go to properties, then choose "Maximized" under "Run:"

Now, after you open that initial window, and it opens maximized, see how subsequent "new" windows react now.

First off, I think your problem is how your first window is opening.

I've tried it both ways -- opening the first window maximized, and also opening the first window as a normal window.

Either way, opening the subsequent windows (by right-clicking on the thread and then typing "N" for new window) causes the new windows to open up where I don't want them. Except that sometimes, for a day or two maybe, they will open up where I want them. (Where I want them is defined as being anyplace other than top left of the screen!)

tanstaafl.

I think I'll just stick with 'Poorly'!