What do you think of This Forum Software

jdeslip

I personally don't like it very much. Everything feels way to cramped and busy compared to say ubuntuforums or fedoraforum. I

I think the right side panel should be shrunk considerably to expand the left panel.

I would get rid of the latest featured blogs part. And move the latest forum posts and popular threads to the top or bottom.

I'd allow more post per-page. I hate having to click next-page so often. A default of 10-20 should be sufficient.

inyonimakhaza

The Forum is not too bad. There should be the possibility to remove some settings (the automatic subscription when answering to a thread or the automatic "New Post"-Email for example - both reported to the "Bugtracker").

In addition, one could work on the forum's performance and and clear up the right sidebar, so the forum itself gets more room and look less cluttered.

mfillpot

I don't like the predefined width of the main pieces on the site. On my monitor with a 1650x1050 resolution there is alot of wasted space that I would like to be filled with relevant data. Would it be possible to modify the format to leave the right bar at the same width, but extend the left (data) portion to fill the remaining screen space?
This should make a better use of the space for users with resolutions that differ from the standard 1024x768.

I also agree with jdeslip's recommendations.

inyonimakhaza

1

atreyu

I agree with the others about the design needing some tweaking - especially the main window needing to be widened. I would add that the design at the top of the forum also is wasting too much space (do we really need to see large pix of our own profiles?) . For me, the first post does not appear until about two thirds of the way down the screen (1280x1024). It would also be nice to have the content in the right frame be preference-driven (like slashdot, e.g.). And, hey, my ' is escaping!

bproffitt

The width of the forums is something that we will be addressing following the formal launch of the site. Its functionality is working very well, but the width of the content is a bit tight.

Thanks for the feedback,
Brian Proffitt

W6BI

I think I found a problem with the blog editor; you can't insert a hypertext link. (You can create the link but not insert it into your blog entry. Nothing happens when you click on Insert).

Orv

Burf

Well, its going to take some getting used to. Right now I'm still trying to find my way around and learn how to navigate the site.
My biggest complaint right now is that it takes a looooooong time for the ad in the upper R/H to load. If that doesn't improve, I will have to add it to my list.

fedry

The common direction of reading is from left to right. So, I think it will be better if the user profile is located on the left side of the message.

Anyway, this is just personal preference. :laugh:

cdecker

I like the idea that there might be one day when all things linux related may be on one big Forum, where all great minds work together on helping each other. Problem is that the Forum the way it is right now does not feel right. The width of the post content is too narrow, making posts very long.

bproffitt

Keep the comments coming; we're taking notes.

BKP

ikis

It's certainly an improvement to the old one (lol). But I would like to find the old posts somewhere (valid digression, me thinks).

Since I usually only frequented the old forum and not the rest of linux.com, this now is a blow of fresh air indeed, with all those links at the top. Now for the forum software, I can't judge yet its functioning but all the features available are to be praised.

Mathieu

I'd say the same than some of you. The left Panel is too small, and the User panel, otherwise, the panel in the forum where the name and avatar of the writer is displayed, is really to big, as the main point here is to be able to read the content, not to see the avatar or name of the writter.

I really think that the all forum should take all the width of the screen or almost all of it.

j.lathian

I quite like the new forums. But, as others have said I think some things should be tweaked a bit better.

- Smaller right column, bigger left column. Or, wider page with wider left column.
-Comma between the users viewing said topic in the forum

That's all I can think of right now because I just signed up. The new site gave me the ambition to sign up. The older one which I didn't really often go to is in the dust now, and I think the people who made this happen are doing an excellent job. The site looks a lot more appealing visually, and hopefully will provide a lot of content for users and the community alike.
_____________

Just for the record: I just went to preview my post, and it didn't come up after two minutes of waiting. I just posted the topic anyway, and it has appeared.

Not only commas between users, but the table with the users viewing the forums should be fixed as well. I'm sure it's already taken into consideration, but there's a screenshot of the problem attached to the message. I'm running Firefox 3.0.10.

"Select image file to attach" when browsing, and selecting said image the URL is white conflicting with the selected form. Once highlighting the picture URL it turns blue. I'm not sure if the Desktop Environment covers those colours, or if it's the site, or my default Firefox theme. Could be the same with "Select file attach" form, too.

All the best.
Justin

LKP

Personally I think that the fact that it works like an included file in the site template is what makes it kinda uncomfortable to use so either the template is modified or layout is changed a little bit to make forums wider

The profile part might allow users to change a few things forum wide like someone already said, posts subscription for one, maybe things like receive or not mail regarding subscriptions, and so on

not that it should turn into a bloated forum platform though because I like the fact that it is very minimalistic

fianno

Yeh its cramped. thats the trouble with wordpress forums. They never seem to reduce the size of the righthand side bar. I dont think its needed at all in the forums. Maybe have it collapsable?

j_e_g

My comment isn't about the forums itself, but rather, the registration process you need to endure in order to post to the forums. It would greatly reduce the frustration if a registrant could check whether his chosen username was "already in use" _before_ he filled out two pages of information. It's tiresome having to continually fill out that info just to be told to start all over again because somebody already chose that username. Obviously, as more people register, this situation is going to become more and more prevalent. I just filled out the bare minimum of info once I realized that I was going to have to repeat the process several times.

malcarada

You could add a new thread on the distributions, called "Others" so nobody feels left out.

fianno

j_e_g wrote:

My comment isn't about the forums itself, but rather, the registration process you need to endure in order to post to the forums. It would greatly reduce the frustration if a registrant could check whether his chosen username was "already in use" _before_ he filled out two pages of information. It's tiresome having to continually fill out that info just to be told to start all over again because somebody already chose that username. Obviously, as more people register, this situation is going to become more and more prevalent. I just filled out the bare minimum of info once I realized that I was going to have to repeat the process several times.

wow we take things like that for granted on most sites. Thankfully my name wasnt taked.

dave

Hey Brian! I actually like the nice tight layout as far as lending to a consistent look and feel. But my laptop has a rather high resolution of 1920x1200 so like others I would welcome some options for wider displays. (perhaps for logged in members only?)

Now that I'm thinking of it, I do have Greasmonkey installed. Perhaps I can fix this myself.

melik

I'm not fond of the forums.. its too crammed up, especially on my netbook with 1024x600 resolution.

I say we get rid of the sidebar at the right.

quaid

+1 to returning old forum posts. A set of threaded and static HTML pages at the same URL or redirected to from the old location would be enough. It's about reading and learning from the past, with new discussions happening here.

quaid

Regarding the usability of the software on the forum, it seems pretty good so far, with only a half-dozen posts under my belt.

I did have one oddity where I quoted in parentheses, and it became an emoticon ("like this"). But the wysiwyg editor is pretty smooth and lightweight.

I am now a big fan of web apps with a lot of typing in fields that implement autosave, such as Wordpress now has. That would be a good feature to add, especially since we are logged in already.

dsparil

How do I get the subscribe option unchecked by default when replying to a thread?

Skripka

Yea...I don't like reading right to left....and the clutter is some of the worst forum clutter by design I have seen. It is really quite painful to try and use.

There is LOTS of room for stuff-but only 5-10 replies per page? RLY?

I know we use Linux, and we are used to doing things different way...but this is a ridiculous mess of a forum if I've ever seen one. Not one standard layout anywhere on it. I mean, per page, there is less content here than there is in 24 hours of CNN news coverage-that is how bad the clutter is.

dsparil

malcarada wrote:

You could add a new thread on the distributions, called "Others" so nobody feels left out.

I second this.

vtel57

Myeh... it's an unusual set up, but I think I could get used to it. Would be nice if the posting area was a wee bit wider, though.

temmu

newspaper.

skinny columns.
makes it easy to read lots o' text.

if i 'm posting looong questions / answers
i break it up into short, easy to read phrases
even if the sentence is long.

so, me, i have no problem with the posting area size.

ooo ooo what's that directly above me? could it be?
it is!
hello, eric!

Skripka

temmu wrote:

newspaper.

skinny columns.
makes it easy to read lots o' text.

if i 'm posting looong questions / answers
i break it up into short, easy to read phrases
even if the sentence is long.

so, me, i have no problem with the posting area size.

ooo ooo what's that directly above me? could it be?
it is!
hello, eric!

Yea well...some of us are on 22" LCD panels or bigger and are annoyed by the fact that garbage gets more space than content.

cmdln

I definitely dont like how its squished in the left column. I have a bunch of wasted space on my wide screen and I would prefer it to be filled with text instead of forcing me to scroll down.

Also what happened to the old forums? All of the content was piped to /dev/null?

vtel57

I didn't mean the posting area, actually. I mean that the finished posts (reading area) could stand to be a wee bit wider. My boo-boo!