@Big Mike, I think the technical effort is pretty impressive, but I somewhat agree with @SMCJB:

SMCJB 

The problem with this is that it can not distinguish between good links that benefit from expanding and links that just bloat pages. ... I worry that while this feature will be amazing in some situations that overall it's just going to make threads longer and longer and your going to be paging through looking for the actual meaningful posts.

My initial take is somewhat the same, although I will wait to see it in full implementation. I wonder if expanding the link to a big graphic is actually what is most useful. Perhaps it would be better to just have the link.

Here's an example of what I mean. I often quote outside sources (I understand this change does not yet apply to links outside of FIO, but bear with me), and when I do I always supply the link so you can go read it yourself. In this case, I think it is clear that the bare link should just be left alone, something to click on if the user wants to, but in fact it would just show some of the same text I just quoted (but not with any selection I used (as in, putting in ellipses -- the three dots that indicate text edited out -- that I may have used.) In this case, this change would drive me crazy, and make it harder for a reader to read. Granted, this is for an outside link, but sometimes I do the same thing for FIO quotes and links too.

Let's see if I can put up an example using a FIO link. I'll quote something and then supply the link (normally you wouldn't do both, but why shouldn't you be able to?):

So here's a quote, taken from a post from the spoos thread you quoted above:

josh 

I am positioned long from 2623 but really it's a toss-up here. The selling was pretty aggressive today. 2620 was Monday's VPOC and we have (in principle) tagged it after hours.

Here's the link, as just a plain, ordinary link:

Spoo-nalysis ES e-mini futures S&P 500 I am positioned long from 2623 but really it's a toss-up here. The selling was pretty aggressive today. 2620 was Monday's VPOC and we have (in principle) tagged it after hours. @mtzimmer1 ( took the words right out of my mouth about higher value. …

This is what I want: quote, then a plain link if anyone wants to use it.

I copied in the link from your post referring to this entry (I wanted to get the new effect), and got this:

Spoo-nalysis ES e-mini futures S&P 500 Lame Ducks Both Fed Chairman Bernanke’s remarks yesterday and President Obama’s speech last night about his jobs plan; combined, failed to reassure the market that a solution to the country’s economic woes was at hand, and the …

It expanded, which is technically terrific, but (a) it's not what I wanted, (b) I don't see how it's useful or if it adds anything, and (c) although the link I pasted in from your post references the same post I quoted, post 794355, it's not the post it actually displays in the expanded graphic (which may just be a technical issue, not the design. If it's the design, I don't see why it should be. Sorry. )

So again, I think the technical effort is pretty impressive, but I am not sure about the result. I should point out that Slack does this, and it grinds my teeth every time I just want to put in a link and I get a big graphic, which sometimes doesn't really refer to exactly what I linked to anyway.

I will reserve judgment until I see it in use, but I don't see it as a plus. Not being a Negative Nancy, , but this is how I'm taking it at first blush.

Bob.

@bobwest, I used that exact same post from @josh a few pages back with my big test post. It worked fine on that post, and still does after having updated that post repeatedly.

I am going to try it again here using your URL (which appears to be same as mine)...

Spoo-nalysis ES e-mini futures S&P 500 I am positioned long from 2623 but really it's a toss-up here. The selling was pretty aggressive today. 2620 was Monday's VPOC and we have (in principle) tagged it after hours. @mtzimmer1 ( took the words right out of my mouth about higher value. …

Yup, it worked as it should -- which is directing towards the particular post, not post #1 in the thread. It only shows post #1 in a thread if there isn't a direct post linked.

I'll have to look exactly at why your post didn't do that.

Ahh @bobwest ok I see the difference.


Your link that didn't work right:
https://nexusfi.com/elite-circle/13452-es-s-p-500-futures-contract-futures-spoo-nalysis-sp500-spx-post794355.html



Normal:
https://nexusfi.com/elite-circle/13452-es-s-p-500-futures-contract-futures-spoo-nalysis-sp500-spx-3630.html#post794355


See the small difference? Your URL actually isn't the final destination, if you load it in Chrome you'll see it quickly redirects to another URL (mine). Out of curiosity, where did you copy that URL from so I can take a look at the structure... ?

In the meantime, I will add a regex to account for this and it will process correctly once I finish that. In response to the feedback about the size of the block, I have worked this morning to reduce the size by around 50% while still conveying the information I want to be there.

Mike

Tracking the Link Expansion bugs features ok, ok -- things:

1) xxx-post<yyyyy>.html URL not being picked up, need regex. Thanks @bobwest
2) Non-image thumbnails are being displayed and thus broken
3) Killing myself to make it smaller since @SMCJB and @bobwest both say it's "f'in enormous" (direct quote)
4) Styling is erratic today as I tweak relentlessly, mostly trying to resolve #3

Mike

Hi Mike,

It's always great fun to track down f'ing little bugs, right? (Definitely joking )

Here's the url that gives us the expansion to the wrong post. I went to your post, post796032 (#2478 in this thread), pressed the Quote button, and did a ctl-C on the url that you had there. I then went to a new post in this thread and did a ctl-v. Normally I would have used the globe icon on the toolbar, but I didn't because I wasn't sure if it would work yet with the new link expansion, and I wanted to see what would happen. I did the same thing just now, and it still gives me the wrong post:

Spoo-nalysis ES e-mini futures S&P 500 Lame Ducks Both Fed Chairman Bernanke’s remarks yesterday and President Obama’s speech last night about his jobs plan; combined, failed to reassure the market that a solution to the country’s economic woes was at hand, and the …

I do see that the url is not the same as you gave just above.

So here's what happens if I just do a simple Quote of your entire post, as people would normally do. Same thing:

Big Mike 

Hey guys, I'm happy to announce a major upgrade & feature to all posts. When you make a post that contains a URL, the site will now examine it and auto-expand it, to make it far more useful. Here is an example of me linking to the Spoo's thread, a post made by @josh recently. Spoo-nalysis ES e-mini futures S&P 500 Lame Ducks Both Fed Chairman Bernanke’s remarks yesterday and President Obama’s speech last night about his jobs plan; combined, failed to reassure the market that a solution to the country’s economic woes was at hand, and the … With time, I will also expand this feature to work with external (non-FIO) links. But this will require a substantial amount of increased work, so for now, I am launching the feature to work only with FIO links to threads & posts. I will try to expand it to work with Downloads/Indicators as well, in the future. Please give me some feedback, and please report any problems here. This is the most complex and ambitious project I've done to date, so there are bound to be some bugs I have not yet identified. So, if something looks weird, please let me know here in this thread. Mike

Here's what I get if I go to josh's post, copy the url from the browser address bar, and run it through the globe icon first. We get no expansion, just does it the old way, which is probably not a surprise:

Spoo-nalysis ES e-mini futures S&P 500 I am positioned long from 2623 but really it's a toss-up here. The selling was pretty aggressive today. 2620 was Monday's VPOC and we have (in principle) tagged it after hours. @mtzimmer1 ( took the words right out of my mouth about higher value. …

Here's what I get if I go to josh's post, copy the url with ctl-c from the browser address bar, and paste it in here just with a ctl-v. The sumbitch works!

Spoo-nalysis ES e-mini futures S&P 500 I am positioned long from 2623 but really it's a toss-up here. The selling was pretty aggressive today. 2620 was Monday's VPOC and we have (in principle) tagged it after hours. @mtzimmer1 ( took the words right out of my mouth about higher value. …

So when I do a Quote from your post, I get the wrong link in the quote window, and I also get the same wrong link if I copy the link from the quote window and paste it into another edit window.

When I copy/paste the url directly from the browser address bar after going to josh's post and clicking permalink to be sure I got the url, the pasted-in url works as it should, with the expansion.

The Quote function is the problem. It gives the url that doesn't work properly.

When I use the globe icon at the top of the edit window, it just displays the bare link, unexpanded. That probably is just another thing to be coded.

I think I got all of this right....

Bob.

Tracking the Link Expansion bugs features ok, ok -- things:

1. xxx-post<yyyyy>.html URL not being picked up, need regex. Thanks to bobwest.
2. Non-image thumbnails are being displayed and thus broken (dropped dynamic image idea, replaced with static FIO logo)
3. Killing myself to make it smaller since SMCJB and bobwest both say it's "f'in enormous" (direct quote) made it much smaller now
4. Styling is erratic today as I tweak relentlessly, mostly trying to resolve #3 Styling is mostly fixed
5. Width of container is not working correctly, visible when post has a right-side element such as a Poll, Twitter, or Facebook block along with the enhanced link expansion content fixed
6. When quoting a post with a link expansion, the quoted link expansion links to wrong destination -- per bobwest, haven't duplicated
7. External links and non-post FIO links still need to be added
8. Ajax for reply and thanks count needs to be implemented
9. During a reply, the preview section formats the link expansion wrong fixed

Mike

Big Mike 

Spoo-nalysis ES e-mini futures S&P 500 I am positioned long from 2623 but really it's a toss-up here. The selling was pretty aggressive today. 2620 was Monday's VPOC and we have (in principle) tagged it after hours. @mtzimmer1 ( took the words right out of my mouth about higher value. …

This is a test of a quoted post containing an expanded link. Ignore this post.

Mike

Big Mike 

Tracking the Link Expansion bugs features ok, ok -- things: xxx-post<yyyyy>.html URL not being picked up, need regex. Thanks to bobwest. Non-image thumbnails are being displayed and thus broken (dropped dynamic image idea, replaced with static FIO logo) Killing myself to make it smaller since SMCJB and bobwest both say it's "f'in enormous" (direct quote) made it much smaller now Styling is erratic today as I tweak relentlessly, mostly trying to resolve #3 Styling is mostly fixed Width of container is not working correctly, visible when post has a right-side element such as a Poll, Twitter, or Facebook block along with the enhanced link expansion content fixed When quoting a post with a link expansion, the quoted link expansion links to wrong destination -- per bobwest, haven't duplicated External links and non-post FIO links still need to be added Ajax for reply and thanks count needs to be implemented During a reply, the preview section formats the link expansion wrong fixed Mike

Ok most everything fixed, let me just list current outstanding:

1. xxx-post<yyyyy>.html URL not being picked up, need regex. Thanks to bobwest.
2. When quoting a post with a link expansion, the quoted link expansion links to wrong destination -- per bobwest, haven't duplicated
3. External links and non-post FIO links still need to be added
4. Ajax for reply and thanks count needs to be implemented
   

If you encounter additional problems, please report.

Renamed the "Automated Trading" section to "Quantitative Trading".

Quantitative trading includes algorithmic, high-frequency trading (HFT), or statistical arbitrage trading. Typical topics cover finance data science, machine learning, model research, and evidence based results with backtesting/forward testing.

Moved the Matlab/R/Python subforum from Platforms -> Quantitative Trading.

Mike

I'm made some adjustments to the thread listing page (ie: browsing a forum), to clean it up.

Mainly, I removed some worthless icons that were consuming a lot of screen real estate.

I also corrected a problem where the forum description was missing.

Please report any problems.

Mike