new forum software; a request

I know Pekka has been working on developing some awesome new software for this forum, and trust that it will make this forum an even better experience, once it is up & running.

I do have one request. Private messages. The current limit is 100 - I can not save any more than that. This has become increasing frustrating, as there are so many wonderful messages I have received from so many forum members that it is hard to decide which to delete so that I can make room for more. FOr months now, my total PMs have been at "99% full". I do this so that there is always room for one more message. Well, I just went thru all of the PMs again - inbox and outbox . . . and can not find a single one left that I am willing to delete. All 99 are very important to me, and many of them are chock full of extremely useful information and informative links - info that I constantly refer back to as I research various photographic opportunities or gear recommendations.

So, if there is any way the new software could allow us to save much more than 100 messages, I would greatly appreciate it. I really count on these PMs as future research material, and do not want to go thru the extremely time-consuming hassle of transferring them all to Word documents or emails. I like 'em right here on this site where I can most easily access them.

Tom, I agree more would be nice but fyi when you open pm at the bottom of the page is a function to download and save all your pm.

Yeah, you can do that, but if you do alot of buying and selling, it gets tedious. You can have multiple messages going back and forth between each sale, and then all of a sudden your box is halfway full. Plus, while you can download your PMs, you then have to save them in a place where you can find them, etc, and they're not exactly (at least with the way I save them, etc) in the most readable formats so it can be problematic with finding particular stuff.

Granted, some of this can be circumvented by requesting someone's email and working with them via email. This is probably the ideal way to go anyways since POTN is literally just a 'meeting place' when it comes to marketplace transactions and has literally no other involvement in the transaction other than the fact that person a listed an item and person b is interested in said item (which is obviously fine).

I'd like to see this increased as well actually..

Mistabernie wrote in post #15803107
Yeah, you can do that, but if you do alot of buying and selling, it gets tedious.

You must establish communication with buyers/sellers via email and NOT rely on forum pm system for that. If a party in a deal for whatever reason get banned you have no longer any way of contacting that person unless you have established other ways of contact. So the amount of pms available should really not be an issue.

Wether it will be increased or not I do not know. Only Pekka knows that.

Mistabernie wrote in post #15803107
Yeah, you can do that, but if you do alot of buying and selling, it gets tedious. You can have multiple messages going back and forth between each sale, and then all of a sudden your box is halfway full.

tommykjensen wrote in post #15804374
You must establish communication with buyers/sellers via email and NOT rely on forum pm system for that. If a party in a deal for whatever reason get banned you have no longer any way of contacting that person unless you have established other ways of contact. So the amount of pms available should really not be an issue.

Tommy and Mista Bernie,
Thanks for responding. I rarely use PM for any buying or selling activity. All of the PMs I want to save and reference have to do with things outside of buying and selling - that is not the reason I use the Private Message system here. Rather, I use it for sharing a lot of information between myself and other members - info such as photo locations in other locales, links to insightful gear reviews, discussions about the business of photography, etc.

I just wanted to clarify that, and make it clear that my need for saved private messages has nothing to do with the "POTN Marketplace".

I am aware that I can use email for these discussions instead, but I have found saved private messages right here on-site to be a much more convenient, faster, and easier way to get to the info I want. In fact, it is almost always better to stay on-site, no matter what one is trying to accomplish. Why leave POTN at all, if one is discussing things with other POTN members?

CyberDyneSystems wrote in post #15801699
Tom, I agree more would be nice but fyi when you open pm at the bottom of the page is a function to download and save all your pm.

Jake,

Thanks for responding - I appreciate it.

I tried the download function you suggested. It did work, but the result is almost useless - it downloaded and saved all of my PMs in one huge page, with no separation between messages, no shading to distinguish between those things written by myself and those written by the other person, no bold text for the subject lines, etc.

The reason I want to save a lot of PMs is so that I can get to individual messages quickly and easily - the format of the downloaded PMs will not allow me to do that at all.

It looks like Mista Bernie has had the same issues when trying to use this feature:

Mistabernie wrote in post #15803107
Plus, while you can download your PMs, you then have to save them in a place where you can find them, etc, and they're not exactly (at least with the way I save them, etc) in the most readable formats so it can be problematic with finding particular stuff.

Its not pefect but if you save PM's in xml format there are tools out there to read the file. Viewing in a browser will format the emails better than it is in the text file.

https://photography-on-the.net/forum/showthre​ad.php?t=387561

Thanks Tommy!