show text abstract in discussion group post

[Jan M.J. Storms]

Joshua Lipton/Slowtrain scripsit dd. Thu, 19 Dec 2002 11:35:49 -0600

>Alright... here's a poser that my limited (but growing by leaps and bounds)
>Frontier/Manila knowledge has me stuck at.
>In my discussion group, I want to in let's say the topic list show the first
>200 characters of the post.
>
>My example:
>
>--------START EXAMPLE------------------------
>
>Topic: (this is where the subject goes - I have this right)
>Posted by (author - again, I have this)
>On (date - I''ve got this right too)
>Total Messages (got it) | Reads (got this too)
>
>(this is the part that I need help implementing) This is the first 200
>characters of the post and this is what makes me so very interested that I
>actually bother to click on this particular link instead of the myriad of
>other posts. It helps me as a user figure out not just from the subject, but
>from the beginning of the body whether I should waste my valuable time on
>clicking into this .... (end the part that I need to figure out)
>
>-------END EXAMPLE----------------------------
>
>Your help is totally appreciated... if this is so involved that you would
>have to do extensive work to accomplish this, let me know how much it takes
>and I could try to work something out, but in the spirit of my small
>checkbook, I'm really hoping someone has done this before.
>
>Thanks!
>Joshua Lipton
>slowtrain
>
>

You can do this with MetaTool. Create an alternative topic listing with it.

Jan Storms