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Do You Like The New Forum


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...reply to the user who said the old system did not indicate to him which posts he had already read. (I've forgotten who it was/ with the old system I'd still be at that comment page and would know.) That is clearly because he doesn't have his browser set up to highlight visited sites.

That would be me.

 

Problem is, sometimes I read this page from home and sometimes from work, so one browser doesn't know what I've read on the other.

 

Since the server knows where I've been (and broadcasts it moment by moment), it would be nice to think it could keep track for me what I've read and what I haven't.

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Since the server knows where I've been (and broadcasts it moment by moment), it would be nice to think it could keep track for me what I've read and what I haven't.

I've just noticed a link at the top of _some_ pages that says "go to first unread post." I guess this answers my question. ?

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I'll keep complaining as I find things to complain about, and promise to praise things that I find deserve praise. Paul deserves great credit for all his efforts.

 

Complaint: I see now that the longer threads are broken up into different pages. Yuk!

 

It certainly is *linear*, as if that's a good thing.

 

The loss of the *tree* system is major. I still don't see that any of the *improvements* outweigh that loss.

 

..How does the use of *breadcrumbs* benifit me?? I never had any trouble navigating the forum before.

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That would be me.

I see your problem. Hopefully this *improved* system will work better for you.

 

Can you imagine how difficult it would be for me to respond and quote to you (unlike the old forum) if I had to wait until tomorrow or the next day. Just in 20 or so posts I had to scroll thru 2 pages to find your original post, re-reading, re-reading...

 

What if there had been 2 days worth of posts?? I guarranty that I don't have the time nor inclination to wade thru old posts to reply. I just wouldn't bother. Sad..

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1) Everybody, I don't care much about "pretty"; I care about *communication*.

 

2) David, I had my own way of managing the home/office split. I would do a ctl-F search for the day's date. That would limit the number of "hits" I would have to check, and it was usually easy for me recognize the posts I'd already viewed from the other location. Not quite as useful in the new Forum.

 

3) I agree with Sandy and a few others that this linear "threading" sucks. Not being able to see the branching is almost enough to put me off participating in conversational exchanges. Some of you may be grateful for that, since the new format would make it difficult for you to identify and avoid specific exchanges (between myself and Göran, for example), and at the very least you would have to scroll past them.

 

4) I almost forgot this one, because it's a response to something that's now well off the page: Someone (I'm pretty sure it was Paul, but *where* did he say it?) praised the ease of following "topics". The trouble is that very few threads stick to a single topic, so here I have the option of hiding various unrelated things under the original topic or making several separate replies, each starting a new thread.

 

The trouble with the former is that I can't indicate multiplicity or shifts of topics by changing the "subject" line, and as others have mentioned, it can become impossible to determine what is being responded to.

 

One trouble with the latter is that there's even less possibility of identifying the message that prompted the split, since it will be buried without any pointer somewhere under a different topic. Another trouble is that suddenly we would have hundreds of different topics, and finding a particular one could become virtually impossible.

 

5) As haven't had time to explore all the possibilities here, but I wonder if there's a way for folks with slow connections to turn off the download of attachments on messages that include such.

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As one of the people who helps sweep the floors around here, I might add one or two things that motivated some of these changes.

 

First is a number of requests I heard to the effect, "Can I easily pull up all the posts I've made?" The answer was "No" in the old system. If you look at the html labels, you will see that there are over 16,000 posts in the old forum system. Having no search facility was a weakness that needed addressing. That doesn't mean we can't improve on some of what you're adjusting to here, but we need to keep searchability if we can.

 

Second, I know I have spent alot of time (as the assistant bottlewasher) deleting bogus posts and ridiculous ads for all manner of non-concertina nonsense and laboriously documenting each item I deleted for Paul so he could tweak the anti spamming features in the code. I haven't counted, but I would guess a hundred instances at least in the last year or two. This also took time away from editing and posting reviews, articles you submit, etc., which is what I should be doing. So, while I hope we can continue to wish for/pursue things like threading, these are two improvements I hope we can hang onto.

 

Ken

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Now that I've been getting the hang of this new snazzy format I feel comfortable in saying that I prefer the old one better. Information and ease of use are at the top of my list for which the old format excelled with its threading format and posting links changing colors once I viewed them.

 

The two nice things I like about this new format is the ability to do pictures and the calendar function, though both can managed by links from the old format. Is there some way to improve the old one to include pics and add a calendar component to concertina.net?

 

I still don't understand what a lot of the stuff on the new format means. What does the ipb button mean/do? The several types of envelopes? The crumbs are good only for the main general forums (or am I missing something?). The difference between Guided and Normal modes? :huh:

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The new system is simply no longer a conversation. It does not allow me to reply *directly* to a comment (starting a sub/nested thread) nor does it allow me to see easily a reply to one of my comments, if at all.

 

Here is my example of why I believe the new system is inferior. The old system would allow me to reply to the user who said the old system did not indicate to him which posts he had already read. (I've forgotten who it was/ with the old system I'd still be at that comment page and would know.) That is clearly because he doesn't have his browser set up to highlight visited sites. However, this comment/reply may show up dozens of comments away from that user's comments (depending on when I post it). He may never see it and will certainly not see it without reading every comment in the thread. Bad.

 

It's not too late, at least I don't think it is. You are our Benevolent Benifactor, you are omnipotent. I think this new forum is a mistake.

 

...And *breadcrumbs*?? What!!??

But I think you can reply to posts directly? I have clicked the quote button to reply to your post, and I think (but confirm this please) that you will be alerted that I have replied specifically to you : perhaps via your assistant (see the link in the top right hand corner of the window). the fact that your post is quoted will give anyone else who reads this the sense of where I am coming from.

Samantha

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The new system is simply no longer a conversation. It does not allow me to reply *directly* to a comment (starting a sub/nested thread) nor does it allow me to see easily a reply to one of my comments, if at all.

 

Here is my example of why I believe the new system is inferior. The old system would allow me to reply to the user who said the old system did not indicate to him which posts he had already read.  (I've forgotten who it was/ with the old system I'd still be at that comment page and would know.) That is clearly because he doesn't have his browser set up to highlight visited sites. However, this comment/reply may show up dozens of comments away from that user's comments (depending on when I post it). He may never see it and will certainly not see it without reading every comment in the thread. Bad.

 

It's not too late, at least I don't think it is. You are our Benevolent Benifactor, you are omnipotent. I think this new forum is a mistake.

 

...And *breadcrumbs*?? What!!??

But I think you can reply to posts directly? I have clicked the quote button to reply to your post, and I think (but confirm this please) that you will be alerted that I have replied specifically to you : perhaps via your assistant (see the link in the top right hand corner of the window). the fact that your post is quoted will give anyone else who reads this the sense of where I am coming from.

Samantha

But it won't tell me what post to go look at if I want to see the full context from which you clipped the quote. *That* is one thing the tree would do for me.

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Samantha, I checked with *my assistant* and it gave me no indication you had responded to me. It apparently will only notify me of a response to a new topic that I started. I don't need that sort of *assistance*.

 

In just a few days this software has become a hodge-podge of posts and threads. I've responded at several different threads but who knows where any reaction or response to my posts might be found!!?? I'm not even sure where and to what threads I've posted. I would assume that there might be a way to track my own posts (Is this true??). But I have more important things to do with my time than to go on a hunting trip for my own posts!!

 

This is Yukky!!.

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There's good and bad here. The software is more sophisticated but the thread model is complicated and the default fonts are too small for me to read, even on my hi-res monitor.

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Well, for me the new board is better than the old one in most ways. I think that we can make the font larger by selceting the font size when we post

 

One positive is that there are more posts now with the new board (although currently, most of these posts are about the new board). It seems that things were drying up with the old board and the number of daily posts were dwindling. Lets be patient and learn how to use the featres of the new board before we pass judgent. Pual has worked hard on this and I am sure that he has everyones best interest in mind.

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I'm finding this new format more and more a PIA.

 

When I first accessed the page today, I saw many dark blue envelopes, suggesting that many topics had posts that had been logged since I was last here yesterday. I read one of the threads and when I went back to the main forums page, all the envelopes had turned pale blue, suggesting that none of the topics had new articles, which obviously isn't true.

 

I suspect that the shade of the envelope is determined not by whether I have read all the posts, but whether there are posts that have been logged since my last visit to the site (which is now).

 

How am I to make any kind of sense of this?

 

I will sign off with the sig many of you have seen on rec.music.makers.squeezebox, but got mangled by the old fourm software the one time I tried it there. Let's see if it works...

 

______ /\/\/\/\

<______> | | | | | David Barnert

<______> | | | | | <davbarnert@aol.com>

<______> | | | | | Albany, NY

<______> \/\/\/\/

 

Ventilator Concertina

Bellows Bellows

(Vocation) (Avocation)

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I will sign off with the sig many of you have seen on rec.music.makers.squeezebox, but got mangled by the old fourm software the one time I tried it there. Let's see if it works...

Bummer :angry:

David, it looks like a bit of tweaking with the spacing of the top line should fix the sig.

 

I am finding the "view new posts" feature problematic. I visited the forum about an hour ago, and "find new posts" correctly located the 11 new posts since my previous visit. Having left the site and now returned, it's still telling me that those 11 posts are new ... however, the icons within the thread listings to jump to new posts are gone.

 

Michael Reid

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