Suggestions

Thanks Persie,
That does work but it's that which we have lost for the Contacts column.

I have had Contacts alter their username and trying to find them again in umpteen pages of contcats is ............... I leave it to others' to decide. And I have had no success in searching.

Your well commented Finnegan's dance is happening in another place; "Hot Matches" has suffered the same approach to unfunctionality (to coin a phrase).

I began to compile a list of "features" (my euphemism for bugs or non-working functions) but have given up for the number of my personal gripes that will probably never be fixed.

In my opinion, this site began its decline when designers began mucking about with the perfectly operable Hot Matches system. After complaints (not just me I guess) we got the missing functions back again. But I keep wondering "what will be the next problem I encounter?".

A simple example is the new tree system, yes you can access the old tree style but that can only be accessed from the drop down list as clicking on someone else's tree in a message defaults to the new style. Why not make this a global entry for the user. The new style tree is useless for my system.

I really do not think this system has a proper development strategy - it appears more like being tinkered with. At least that is how it appears to an old IT consultant like me.

Where the contact has been about a relative one can place the cursor over the word relation at the top and that will alphabetically sort by surname. A little down arrow will pop up.

Otherwise if I know my contact's name I search by Christian name only, sometimes get a few to choose from but that works.

I don't like the fact that if you don't open all the posts from a person at the same time and only open one to find out that wasn't the one you wanted: you cannot go to the next one you have to do Finnegan's dance... I stepped out and I stepped in again. It is a nuisance having to click on to something else on the tool bar and then back again.

I think it has got a bit faster today since they made some changes.. it is for how long that is the worry.... we tend to lose faith in it when it keeps on malfunctioning for a lot of posters.

Persie

I'm just confirming (additional to my first post at the top) that the ability to SORT messages in ascending/descending sequence was ALWAYS available. All you needed to do was click on the NAME at the top of the column. This was so much easier and I haven't yet been able to get the search box to find anything however long I wait.

I'm sorry but I guess that those who are now servicing the site are newbies to it otherwise they would know that sequencing always worked. If you didn't then you sure did miss something of real value.

I rarely visit the site now and only keep it going in case someone contacts so I cannot say when the sequencing was removed.

I concur that this site's functinality (and speed) is poor and I am wondering if I should renew; it's tempting not to bother.

I know many page lists are allegedly sortable as you describe, but I'm not sure My Contacts was ever searchable that way. There is no column even for First Name, Last Name or Date. Inbox and Sent Messages can be sorted by Date, though.

That said, it still needs fixing.

PS I rarely use the contact GR option on the site. Jus email direct to [email protected]. Usually gets a response within hours on a working day - may not be the one you want but at least a response.....!

The list is currently fixed in reverse date order, i.e. most recent at the top. I can't recall ever being able to sort it in any other sequence, hence this would be a valid request for an Enhancement to the system.

As far as searching is concerned I have over 80 pages of contacts, over 1,600 names, and can verify the search facility does work for either contact name or relation as I use it all the time.

However, recently it has slowed to a veritable crawl and is now prone to regular time-outs with the dreaded purple error message that is plaguing so many members at the moment - three attempts for a search that I have just tried this minute, before it worked. So yes, that aspect needs fixing.

I can no longer see a way of sequencing contacts in ascending or descending sequence so finding contacts is bad. The contact search is a waste of time. Even when I know the contact name exactly it doesn't find them in my list.

Generally, this site has gone from bad to much worse and is now almost unuseable in comparison to other similar services..