Suggestion: Have my own pool of prewritten answers I can use to respond to a thread.

[James Mason]

It'd be nice if I could make some ready to respond answers that I use frequently.
I.e. "get DDU, (link), install latest drivers (link)" without having to type it out each time.
I know I could use notepad, but it'd also be a nice way to maybe even have a counter of how often that message was the answer for a problem.

 

[hdmark]

could just use excel

but that does seem like a cool idea

 

[James Mason]

I was hoping for something more intelligent, maybe I could add keywords to my prepared answers so the popup when associated keywords show up in the thread.

 

[ssddx]

http://www.autotext-software.com/

or similar...

most of the users here just tend to use excel, word, copy links from their bookmarks. a few like me write from scratch from memory. i find copied answers a bit too impersonal which just isnt my style.

 

[Titillating]

Well, this may not be quite what you mean, but you can use tutorials as a sort of 'canned, general response'. However, this only works if the thread is tagged with the same tag as the tutorial, or it will not show up in the "Add a solution" dropdown menu when posting replies. Bit of a clunky method, truthfully, but it's all we've got at the moment.

 

[James Mason]

I wonder, If I wrote a bunch of tutorials, and then added the tags myself to the threads (because we can do that apparently) would that "work?"

 

[James Mason]

Hmm, I wish the add tutorials thing was better than just a drop down list, but it may work. Maybe I just need to name my tutorials in a way that makes them easy for me to find.

 

[ssddx]

provided the tutorials are well written, complete and informative i suppose that is an option. remember tutorials exist to be helpful and independent on their own not just to act as some sort of quick-text reply.

that really is not going to answer the vast majority of what you come across however since there are far too many topics to write tutorials about.

how about this one http://www.phraseexpress.com/

 

[James Mason]

provided the tutorials are well written, complete and informative i suppose that is an option. remember tutorials exist to be helpful and independent on their own not just to act as some sort of quick-text reply.

that really is not going to answer the vast majority of what you come across however since there are far too many topics to write tutorials about.

how about this one http://www.phraseexpress.com/

Yeah, but having less "comprehensive" tutorials is what I'm in need of. The biggest problem is I have to read all the tutorials I'd want to use before deciding to use one, and then likely direct them to only a certain section of that tutorial as well.

 

[ssddx]

i'm not sure of the current status of the system, though in the past we have had a rash of pretty inane tutorials which really were not worthwhile to be on here which ended up needing to be sorted through. while we do encourage tutorials i think we want to keep them to at least a certain level of quality. that is not to say short tutorials are bad - just as long as they are useful and complete and can be used on their own not just as a place to pull text from.

imho though trying to use the tutorial system as a way to quickpost text is more trouble than its worth and i'd look at another option which actually posts text into threads. just my thoughts, you can decide what you want to do.

 

[James Mason]

Hmm, I just threw a short guide together, it was a bit weak at first so I improved it, and now it's disappeared -_- (probably deleted, I understood it might have been, so i went back and made a couple of better detailed steps to improve it to what should have met the requirements)

Also, like say I wanted to use Darkbreeze's tutorial, http://www.tomshardware.com/faq/id-2492424/laymans-simple-guide-solving-graphics-card-issues.html , it doesn't show up in the list because the list stops right at the I's for that thread's tags.