Little Island Client Manual

Start the Client Panel Controls Menu Options Reading Comments Posting Comments Editing & Deleting Comment Info User Profiles Try it Out Updates Finally

To use the Little Island Client (LIC) you will need the Firefox browser with the Greasemonkey add-on. With these will be able to install the LIC user script. Once the script is installed you will need to reload this page to enable it.

Start the Little Island Client

Once a web page has finished loading, hold down the Alt key and press L. You should see a panel with a blue bar at the top open up from the bottom of the browser tab like this:

Screen Cap of Little Island Client panel opened on the home page.

Open panel of the Little Island Client.

This is the main interface for the client and the area where the comments for that page (if any) will be displayed.

Panel Controls

Little Island Client top bar.

There are three controls and two display areas on the top bar of the panel. From the left:

Menu

Hovering over this will show a small pop-up menu with options for logging in and refreshing the comments on the page (more on these a bit later).

Login Status Display

This shows your current status: pink for 'Logged Out', green for logged in. When you are logged in this will show your user name.

General Status Display

This area shows messages about your current or last action. Click on this to reveal a list of the most recent messages.

Resize

Allows you to change the height of the panel. To use resize, click once to grab the resize button, move the pointer to the new position and click again to release. When you change the height the new setting will be remembered the next time you open the LIC.

Normally you cannot move the top bar beyond the top or bottom of the browser tab but you may occasionally find, after resizing the browser window on your desktop, that the panel top has disappeared beyond the edge of the tab. If this happens you can close the panel with Alt+L and then press Alt+K to open the panel again in minimum mode, with just the top bar showing. You can then use the resize control to open it further.

Close

Closes the panel. You can also use Alt+L.

Menu Options

Pop-up menu.

On the pop-up menu there are four options.

Login...

This will open a login pop-up dialogue. To log in to the little island server enter your user name and password and click OK. If your login is accepted the login display on the top bar will turn green and show your user name. There is no need to log out before logging in, which might be useful if you are experiencing problems.

You can register here for a Little Island account that will allow you to add your own comments to pages.

Log Out

This will immediately log you out of the server. The login status display in the top bar will turn pink and display 'Logged Out' if successful.

Renew Login

This is a special option used to set things straight when you experience problems posting comments. If there is a serious error while you are commenting, the LIC might invalidate its token or fail to pick up a new token after using one. In such cases you may receive a 'User not authorised!' error. If this happens even though you are shown as logged in, use the this option to request a new token from the server. If your request is refused you may need to log in again.

Refresh

This will tell the LIC to check the server again to see if there are any new comments. The LIC will check the details for that page to see if there are any updates. You can force the client to download the latest cache page again without checking by holding down Ctrl when you click.

Reading Comments

Comments are organised in threads with replies to each comment indented below the parent. The thread with the most recent reply will appear at the top.

Very long threads will have some of the earlier replies hidden to make more room for recent comments. You can tell if there are hidden comments because the parent and reply comments will display either Show Hidden Replies or Show Hidden Parent links. Clicking on these links will request the full comments from the server which will then be inserted into the thread. This may cause the thread to reorganise slightly. To help you keep track, the LIC will focus the display to the first of the most recently added comments

Very long comments, when first displayed, will be abbreviated with a link to download the full comment.

To speed things up the Little Island Server caches comments in pages of about 100. If there is more than one page of comments you will see a Get More Comments link at the bottom of the display. Clicking on this will request the next page from the server and the additional comments will be inserted into the page with the existing comments. It should be noted that the Refresh menu option only downloads the first cached page as this is where the most recent changes will be found.

On rare occasions you may find that there are hidden comments surrounded by deleted comments that do not have the Show Hidden... links. In such cases you can hold down the X key while clicking on the "(Deleted Comment)" text to load any hidden parent or reply comments.

Discussion threads can sometimes get very long and difficult to navigate so there are a few tricks to keep control. Clicking on the head of a comment (the blue part containing the title, user name and date) while holding down certain keys will cause the LIC to focus on other comments related to it:

W + Click: Focus on the parent comment.
S + Click: Focus on the first reply.
A + Click: Focus on the previous reply to the parent comment.
D + Click: Focus on the next reply to the parent comment.

So, if you wish to find the last reply to a certain comment, use S+Click to focus on the first reply then use A+Click on that reply to focus on the previous reply. The focus list wraps around so the previous reply to the first will be the last reply.

When the LIC focuses on a comment it will flash the comment head for emphasis. If the comment you have asked to focus on is currently hidden then the LIC will flash the 'Show Hidden...' link of the relevant comment.

Posting a Comment

There are two types of comment: root comments that form the beginnings of threaded discussions, and reply comments which form the structure of these discussions.

To post a root comment click on Compose New Comment link just under the top bar. This will open the comment composition dialogue.

Little Island Client new comment dialogue.

Comment composition.

There are two fields, title and body. The title field is optional and is text only (no HTML). The body field may contain HTML.

At the bottom of the dialogue are three buttons. Cancel will close the dialogue, Test will show you how the comment will look when posted, and Post immediately posts the comment to the page. When you click on Test the LIC will send the comment details to the server which will then return the title and body as they would be stored in the database.

Comment test.

The comment test display also has three buttons. Cancel will close the dialogue, Edit will return to the comment composition panel, and Post sends the comment to be posted as-is.

Successfully posted comment.

A successfully posted comment will immediately appear in the display.

To post a reply click on the Reply link at the bottom of a comment. The comment composition dialogue will then open at the point in the thread that the new comment will appear. This could be some distance form the the comment you are replying to if the thread is busy.

Little Island Client reply comment composition.

Reply comment navigation.

Editing and Deleting

When you are logged in you will notice that there are two additional links at the bottom of your own comments: Edit and Delete.

The Edit option will open the composition dialogue with the title and body of the post filled in for you. You may then make changes to the comment and test it, just as with a new comment. When you click Post the comment will be updated. Edited comments will have a red time stamp that indicates when the last edit was made.

The Delete option allows you to delete your own comments. To use it you must hold down Ctrl + Alt while clicking. This will open a dialogue box to confirm your choice. Comments without replies can be deleted completely from the page, but those with even one reply will only have the title and body deleted and will show as (Deleted Comment) in the display. This is because the comment must be retained in a minimal form to support the structure of the thread. If all of the replies below a deleted comment are also deleted the deletion process will work its way up the thread deleting every previously deleted comment that, as a result of the latest deletion, no longer has replies.

Comment Information

All times shown in the comment head are GMT, the time used by the server.

Hovering the mouse pointer over a comment title will reveal its UCID which can be useful in reporting problems.

User names may contain Unicode characters which can lead to confusion where characters from different languages appear interchangeable. For instance, the names Adam and Adаm may appear identical, yet the latter actually uses the Unicode character U+0430 for the lower-case 'a' and refers to an entirely different user. In comment headings names that contain Unicode characters are shown in purple rather than blue. In addition, when the mouse pointer hovers over a name it will cause any Unicode characters to turn red, while the rest turn white. Example:

ASCII: Adam
Unicode: Adаm

User Profiles

Each user has a profile which is accessed by clicking on their name in the head of a comment.

User profile display.

When you are logged in and click on your own name you will be given the option of editing your profile. This works exactly like editing a comment except that you can leave both title and body blank if you wish. Anyone using the LIC will be able to read your profile by clicking on your name.

Click on the Close link at the top right when you are finished reading a profile.

Try it Out

Why not give it a try now. Just hit Alt + L to open the LIC panel on this page and post a test comment.

If you want to give the system a workout, head over the to Comment Test Page and find out what you can do in your comments.

Updates

The Little Island Client is still evolving so there are changes ahead. When new versions of the client become available you can re-install the user script by clicking on a link to it anywhere on this site, such as this one. After updating you should restart Firefox.

Greasemonkey sometimes has problems with updating scripts. If your client version isn't changing after an update, try uninstalling the script first with Tools -> Greasemonkey -> Manage User Scripts.... Select Little Island Client in the panel on the left then click on Uninstall at the bottom. Restart Firefox then return to the Little Island home page to reinstall the LIC.

To find out which version of the LIC you are using hover your pointer over the Menu control. You can also click on the status display before you do anything else to see the version displayed at the bottom of the pop-up list.

The current version is 0.09.06.13.

Finally

If you have any ideas about how the Little Island Client should work or would like to report a problem then please contact us and help us improve the service.