Captain Ewok,

Thanks for putting up the portals page. In a recent thread you stated that suggestions to make this page better are welcome, so I am making this thread to do just that.

The Portals Page

My first impression of the page brings me to the following two suggestions...

Don't show the entire posts .. something more like the format that you get from the "New Posts" shortcut on the forums page which displays

Topic Title Forum Topic Starter Replies Views Last Action

but only topics STARTED by country specific posters... and a configurable number of posts being displayed per page (or at least more than five posts and more than one page accessible) Considering the high number of posts being made by members with a beneficiary from my country of choice and the amount of time that I am available to invest in browsing VJ, it is unlikely that I will be able to find information within those 5 posts that is pertinent to my current case status, however it is likely that I will miss many posts that are pertinent.

It would also be nice to choose which forum to view country specific posts from, at the point I am at right now my interest would be in the Foreign Embassy and Consulate General Discussion Forum .. in the past it would have been K-1 General Discussion Forum .. in the future it will be something else, but it would be nice if I could view forums that are specific to my current situation.

At this point I will cease with further suggestions until I know if these two are possiblities, as I don't feel that the portals page will be of much assistance to me as far as researching goes if they are not possible; I do, however, like the information available on the side panels of the page and will use the page for that purpose if for nothing else.

CB

Capt. Ewok...

Since I was the first to discover it, I should have first crack at suggestions / potential upgrades of the Portals Page (Beta). Please extend the list of those living in your area to anywhere from 10 - 20 member views. Also, when you click on view all, there is no search criteria for those living in your area. More suggestions to come. I did not want to let this thread fade away but I have to think about other things myself and potentially others would like to see. Of course, just small quick updates because I'm sure that you have better things to do... Thanks!!!

By the by, it's a very cool addition and I really like being able to see the new members so that I can pass on some of the information that we have accumulated on the K1 process for the Manila Embassy.

As always... Cheers!!!

Sheriff Uling

I plan to update the Portal Page more this weekend or sooner . Great tips! Should the portal page be more obvious (is it used a lot)?

I like it alot! Is there a more obvious " tab" to get to it, other than though "My Assistant"?

I think I have mostly updated the page with all your suggestions. I can improve the page fwd/back feature I know.... I also have not added the ability to pick how many Topics to show at once. I have reduced the topic to a summary / scrolling window. I have made the local member list show ten by default. Whew!!

is this a typo that was supposed to say NOW ?? if so, then where is the control to change this setting ..??

Yikes typo yes. I have not added that yet. Might add it soon though . Very soon!

How has it been working? Any other suggestions?

you must not be able to display more than 5 posts on the portal page; as well you must not be able to display only posts from a specific forum (foreign embassy and consulate general discussion). I assume these things because you didn't address that suggestion either by post here or changes to the portal

is there any way to search specific forums (not the entire board) and if so can you search that forum for posts made by members from a certain country?

Thanks

I can probably address some of those thngs just did not have the time before. I will get them added this week!

Thanks Captain, it would be a great help ..

I added a simple way to view more or less topics per page (five or ten). I also refined the page change menu.

Thanks Captain, less likely to miss a post now ..

You probably thought I forgot about this! Nope . I have now added this feature. I am thinking this is probably one of the most useful tools for all members (seriously). Now members can go find posts from people from their country not only in general but specifically tuned to the portion of the immigration journey they are at (example is to list topics from Brazil only made in the K1 Forum). It should make it easy for new members especially to find out a bunch of information on the step of the journey they are at.

Hopefully this turns out as good as I am hoping!

Thank you CountryBoy for the EXCELLENT idea!!

Example (Brazil Topics in the Working and Traveling Forum):

http://www.visajourney.com/portals/index.p...zil&ppage=5

On the UK portals page, you list the new UK members twice...once on the left-hand side of the screen and again on the right.

Also, I don't see the point of listing the ones that live near London.

The info on the left is for your country. The info on the right is for the portal page you are viewing (view a different country to see what I mean). If you are visiting your own it may be similar. The people close to you list is for people from your country that live near you in the US (based on your local office filing at defined in the User Control Panel). You listed London in your profile however your should list your USCIS local office in the US if you want to list people that live near your address in the US.

Captain,

Glad I could be of help !!!

a few more questions that I have since this option is now available:

When I go to my portals page (philippines) then I use the drop down menu to choose Mylene's stage of the journey (Embassy), I show the last 5 new posts in that forum from of a total of 814 topics.

a.) is there anywhere that I can change my defaults to show like 25 threads per page instead of 5? (in the thread view my default is set to 40 .. and I wish I could set IT to 100, hehe)

b.) is there any way that I can search the 814 relevant topics for keywords? an example could be; japanese police clearance .. it may take alot of wading thru posts to find a relevant topic at 5 per page but I'm sure there are several somewhere within those 814 posts, searching the country specific, forum specific results would yield them without the wading.

I know I always ask alot, but if it makes it easier on the front end then I am all for it...

Thanks again Captain,
CB

I did get it to show 10 instead of 5 posts. The link above the posts says 'show more' or 'show less' depending on how you've got it set. Realize it's not much more, but a little better. I do LOVE this new feature!

London's in my profile because that's where the visa was processed.

My location is the UK and my husband is British, so I guess that's why I get the double dose of UK. It's not entirely obvious; I used to QA websites for Fortune 500 companies and I wouldn't have passed it for that reason and for the strange image underneath the 'Welcome back' message. What's the point of that? My username is too long to be wedged in there and I'm guessing many other peoples' are as well.

Well, I think it looks mighty fine!

One little problem on the UK portal -- If you click the link for UK DCF Timelines (left hand side, under "VJ United Kingdom Timelines") it redirects you to China DCFers. Interesting data, but not relevant to us UK people!

Can you point this to the correct page? I noticed that the K1, K3 and IR1/CR1 links all point correctly -- I will assume this is not discrimination against us DCF folk!

BUMP

a few more questions that I have since this option is now available:

When I go to my portals page (philippines) then I use the drop down menu to choose Mylene's stage of the journey (Embassy), I show the last 5 new posts in that forum from of a total of 814 topics.

a.) is there anywhere that I can change my defaults to show like 25 threads per page instead of 5? (in the thread view my default is set to 40 .. and I wish I could set IT to 100, hehe)

b.) is there any way that I can search the 814 relevant topics for keywords? an example could be; japanese police clearance .. it may take alot of wading thru posts to find a relevant topic at 5 per page but I'm sure there are several somewhere within those 814 posts, searching the country specific, forum specific results would yield them without the wading.

never answered / thanks

I will see about adding more topics viewed at once and also a search tool .

You can now view 5, 10 or 20 at once.

Thanks Capt... I always know when you institute an update because I have to log back in... It's all about figuring out what you updated after that... I'm just letting you in on my trade secrets... Hehehehe!!!

UK DCF bug is still there... Also, now when I click to the next page through the UK Portal, or increase the number of threads shown, it automatically defaults to K1 posts only. If I try to amend it to show "All" posts I cannot for the life of me make this work! It keeps going to K1.

Any chance of this getting fixed?

All the bugs you mentioned should be fixed now . Let me know if you see them or anything else.

Perfect-o! Thanks, Captain.