iXolr 3.8 Instructions

If after reading these instructions you still have questions, please email ixolr-support@bjarneco.net.


Initial Setup

Settings


How it works

iXolr is an Off-Line Reader or OLR: it connects to CIX from time to time to download any new messages, and stores them in a local database on your iPad or iPhone.  iXolr can be set to download automatically every two minutes, or only when you touch the ‘sync’ button.

  1. Each message belongs to a thread of conversation, within a topic, within a conference.

  2. After you read a message, touch the ‘Next Unread’ button at bottom-right to move to the next unread message.

  3. Some messages are considered ‘priority’: they are messages which you have authored, or any subsequent comments to a priority message.  You can skip forward to new unread priority messages with another button.

  4. You can enter new messages either as comments to existing messages or as a brand-new conversation thread.  After entering a message it sits in the Outbox until you touch the Sync button.


iPad Main Screen

The key areas of the main screen are shown here:




The top-level list is the CIX conferences you are joined to and have downloaded messages from.  When you touch to select a conference, the view shifts to show the topics within that conference.  Touch to select a topic and all message threads in that topic will appear on the right-hand side of the screen.

(This is the view when you hold the iPad horizontally, in ‘landscape’ orientation.  Holding it vertically gives a similar view but the left-hand list pops in and out as needed)


‘My Messages’ shows all the messages you have posted in the last few months.


If you hold your finger down to do a ‘long press’
on a conference name you will get access to a menu with options to mark all messages in that conference as read, or to resign the conference.  If you have already resigned a conference you get options to re-join or to delete all record of the conference from the local database.



‘Long press’
on an individual topic gives you the option to mark all messages in that topic as read, or to download more messages from CIX to back-fill from before you started using iXolr.


‘Mute topic’ means that any new messages in that topic will be marked as Ignored, so they do not show up as unread.  This is useful if there is a topic you don’t ever read, but you still want to remain joined to the conference it is in.



iPhone Screens

The iPhone version uses the same components, but switches the display from conference view to topic view to threaded message view.



Threaded view

At the top-right of the iPad screen, or full-screen on the iPhone, is a one-line summary of every message in the current topic.  The text is indented to show which messages comment to which previous message. If you click on a line within this view then the whole message will display below.  Messages are shown in bold if they are the root of a thread, and shown darker when they are unread. Messages are only marked as read when you move forward with the ‘Next Unread’ button, so merely clicking on a message in the threaded view will not mark it  as unread.


Touching on the grey header bar for a thread expands or contracts all the messages in the thread.  ‘Long press’ on the header lets you mark an entire thread as read, or mark it as ignored so you won’t see any new messages in that thread - they will all be marked as read when downloaded.


The bar between thread summary and message view panes can be moved up and down by dragging on the up/down arrow symbol at the right.  Next to that is a ‘star’ button which marks the current message as a favourite so you can find it again in the ‘Starred’ folder at top level.


If the current message is in the Outbox awaiting upload to CIX, two more buttons are shown instead of the star button - Lock, which keeps the message held in the outbox until you unlock it, and Edit.


On an iPhone, the message display has two options for how the main buttons are displayed, which you can choose between in Settings.  The default is to have a toolbar at the bottom of the screen; the other choice is to have the ‘Original’, ‘Last Read’ and ‘Next Unread’ buttons floating and transparent so the full height of display is available to read the message.  In this mode, tap in the middle of the screen to make them appear, and tap again to make them disappear.


Toolbar Buttons

The Reply button
brings up a menu to reply to the current message or post a new message.

Reply via CIX - begin editing a message which will be a comment to the current message, to extend the thread of conversation.


Reply via email - fires up the iOS email editor, pre-filled with the email address of the current message author. Requires an Internet connection to fetch the email address, and requires that email is set up on your iOS device.


Share... - this button is present only on iPhone running iOS 6.0 or later; it opens the action sheet as described under Action button below.


Start new thread - begin editing a message which, when uploaded, will form the root of a new thread of conversation in the current topic.






The Action button
on iPad running iOS 6.0 or later opens an action sheet that lists services such as SMS, Mail, and Twitter (if you have them configured) that act on the current message, e.g. copying the message text into a new SMS message ready to send.


On iOS 5 it brings up the Message Actions menu as below.




Touching the message header, where the message number, author and date are displayed, brings up the Message Actions menu:

Withdraw message - used when you realise you have posted in error, and you want to remove a message you have previously posted from CIX.


Mark read - mark the current message as read (or unread, if it is currently marked as read)


Mark priority - mark the current message and all comments in the thread as ‘priority’.


Mark ignored - mark the current message and all comments in the thread as ignored, so they will not show as unread.  Use this when you find the conversation boring.


Copy cix: link - copy to the iPad clipboard a string of the form ‘cix:conference/topic:number’.  If you paste this link into a message then it can be followed like a URL in iXolr and other CIX OLRs, or in the online CIX Forums.



Outbox

When you create a new message in iXolr, it sits in the Outbox until you next touch the ‘sync’ button.  From the Outbox you can edit messages by clicking the blue arrow, or delete them by swiping to the right.


New in version 3.6, you can hold messages in the Outbox using the padlock icon on the message header.  This is useful if, for instance, you want to check a fact before posting.


Forums and Other OLRs

The message-downloaded and message-read status are maintained separately for each CIX client, so iXolr will not be in sync with Forums or Ameol or any other OLR that you use.  The command ‘Sync Unread with CIX’ will change the message-read status held by iXolr to match the last-downloaded message from CIX.


Hardware Keyboard

New in version 3.4, if you have a keyboard connected to your iPad then you can use shortcut keys to navigate:

  1. Enter - go to next unread message

  2. 5 - go to next unread priority message

  3. Up/Down arrow - previous/next message in topic

  4. Left arrow - go to root of thread or root of previous thread

  5. Right arrow - go to root of next thread

  6. O - go to Original message, that current message is a comment to

  7. P - toggle Priority status on current message and follow-up messages in thread

  8. I - toggle Ignored status on current message and follow-up messages in thread

  9. S - create a message to start a new thread (‘Say’)

  10. C - create a message to comment on the current message

  11. T - upload/download new messages to/from CIX


Known Issues

Special characters like —, € get mangled between iPad and CIX.