show text abstract in discussion group post

[Joshua Lipton/Slowtrain]

I went ahead and got MetaTool but I'm not sure that it's going to be able to
do what I need. This code needs to be able to work within the Discussion
Theme that I've been modifying.

My thought with MetaTool was to create a metafield that inherited the body,
then redisplay that same field in the messagelist that appears in recent
topics. However, when I use the {metaDataMacros.showval({"membername}")
deal, I get "assignment over existing table object" error messages.

Would it not be better to have a custom macro that just inherited the body,
stripped out everything past the first 255 characters and then was a legal
macro that I could use in the Discussion Theme? I think this is the way to
do it, but I don't know enough Manila/Frontier to write a script like that.

If you do believe that I can do this in MetaTool, I wouldn't be shocked, but
please be more specific if you can.

Thanks,
joshua at theslowtrain.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jan M.J. Storms" <jan at storms.org>
To: "Frontier Users" <Frontier-Users at userland.com>
Sent: Thursday, December 19, 2002 4:23 PM
Subject: Re: show text abstract in discussion group post


> 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
>
>