BB Private Message storage limits...

[bogs]

I was wondering if it were ever going to be possible to increase either the number of folders you can create in the private message area, or alternately, increase the amount of messages that can be stored there.

In the year or so that I have been with the community, it is the single hardest thing to work around on the boards that I have encountered.

You are limited to 50 messages total in the inbox, and you can create up to 4 folders to hold additional conversations, neither of which is ideal.

The difficult part in this is that I often want to separate my discussions in the pm sphere by user. I certainly talk to a lot more than 4 users, often for extended periods of time, either in collaboration on something or in answering questions. This usually generates a lot of back and forth replies which quickly eats into the 50 message limits.

This is the first board I've ever encountered this on, and finally decided to ask if it is possible to increase either or, ideally, both of the above limits?

Thank you for any responses

[FourthWorld]

I've been tempted to write LC Ltd about this, but so far you and I seem to be the only ones vocal about the limit.

For myself, I've found it easy enough to use PMs as a place to share email addresses where I can keep my conversations all in one place. So for me this has been only a minor inconvenience.

What would be an ideal limit? I can make time to write Support if you haven't already.

[bogs]

What would be an ideal limit? I can make time to write Support if you haven't already.

I had meant to get back to you yesterday, but managed to get hit pretty hard with the flu, so this may not be completely coherrent.

I would think the upper limit for folders should be unlimited. Folders take up, after all, close to no space, couple kb.

I've never seen on any board a limit per count on messages, usually it is a space limitation. The only problem I can think of there is determining how much space a single message takes up. If I save your post to a text file, I know that is about 478 bytes, but that is a short message.

I then copied and pasted an entire conversation (6 responses) out of my inbox, that came to 1.9kb. However, I would assume that the pm replies are more like email, so I went and did a search ~

Determining the average size of an email message is difficult because of all the factors that come into play. However, in general, an average email is about 75KB in size.

On a small forum I belong to, started by a single guy, I had an average running around 300 messages, which assuming the above is fairly accurate, would have come to 22500 kb, or 22.5 mb

Rough 300 message total...

Selection_001.png (5.21 KiB) Viewed 5736 times

So, perhaps 50 mb of space, instead of 50 messages in the inbox, and an unlimited number of folders to organize your messages into.

Like I mentioned earlier though, I'm somewhat delirious at the moment, my thinking may be way off.

[FourthWorld]

Apparently phpBB uses message count, and I believe the number used in ours is the default.

https://wiki.phpbb.com/Maximum_private_messages_per_box

A note to Support at LiveCode dot com may encourage them to raise the limit above the default.

[bogs]

I want to thank you for the link, Richard, I found it very enlightening.

[bogs]

I've been tempted to write LC Ltd about this, but so far you and I seem to be the only ones vocal about the limit.

You were the first to think about it (in print), and apparently I was the first to ask anyone about it, I was told this question has never come up before

I suspect the reasons for that may be pretty wide ranging, not necessarily due to a lack of interest in it (although that may well be it!).

Think about it like this for a moment. You and I both thought about it. I hadn't asked until now (although, as I mentioned, I've been on other forums and used the messaging extensively on those).

You thought about it and never asked. How unique do you suppose we really are? I think most people will see something, like the way it works (or not), but instead of mentioning it will, depending on its importance in their overall lives, simply find a way to work with (or around) said thing and move on in the path of least resistance.

I would guess this falls into that category. Of course, I only have a sample of 2 to base that on in this case

[FourthWorld]

Yes, most questions have an actual audience larger than the number of people who write it.

Personally, I've spent most of my time on things either essential to my work or with a larger number of requests behind them, so I haven't made this a priority for myself.

But you're welcome to write Support and ask for the limit to be raised.

[bogs]

But you're welcome to write Support and ask for the limit to be raised.

Already done, have a tentative response (I've said it before, I'll say it again, Heather really is awesome), just waiting to see how it goes.

The post above yours was just me thinking outloud, as it were, about some things that we discussed while waiting for the udpate on the status of the request

[bogs]

The Lc team has delivered my (and possibly your) forum xmas gift, if you ever desired more message capacity, check your PM boxes now