Not sure i like this new forum

Freeway
1

I liked the looks of this new forum but what I see in my Safari browser reads and feels too much like the dreaded email posts that i used to subscribe too - maybe it was a few of the new threads. But they were rather confusing and looked rather strange.

Also having had to start a new account due to hassles I was afraid that I would be getting this emails all the time.

I appluad the new site and the hard work that went into it; but this is not my cup of tea from the few threads i tried to read and follow. Seemed rather unorganized when I read them. Hard to tell what the heck was going on and in what order too.

Too bad is this is the only way to get help other than bugging the people at Softpress.

I do not like this new setting.

Sorry.

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

2

This is not a forum, is it. It’s an online mailing list. We seem to have gone back in time.

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

3

sorry - I do not like this at all.

NOT At ALL!!!

Seems like Walter got what he wanted afterall. The rest of uss have to deal with it or just not come back!

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

4

On 25 Oct 2007, at 15:50, simon_aughton wrote:

This is not a forum, is it. It’s an online mailing list. We seem to
have gone back in time.

… but upwards in quality!

–

best wishes

Paul Bradforth

http://www.paulbradforth.com

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

5

It’s playing nicer with Safari 3 (in the guise of the standalone WebKit browser).

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

6

Indeed, as the last post I made, re Safari 2, appears to have been lost in the ether, only to be emailed back to me as “undelivered” (I do not have email enabled for any of these lists).

7

If you need to keep a reference of what is said and when, yes, its
better by subscribing and downloading all the e-mails. But the online
version is not very user friendly for others that may not want this
option. It almost dissuades you from using it online, in preference
to email, and filling up (I’m sure other will agree) already very
busy email boxes.

The visual representation of the mailing list online (lets stop
calling it forum), is very restrictive (narrow). Get enough replies,
and will it disappear to nothing?

On 25 Oct 2007, at 16:01, Paul Bradforth wrote:

On 25 Oct 2007, at 15:50, simon_aughton wrote:

This is not a forum, is it. It’s an online mailing list. We seem to
have gone back in time.

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

8

Sorry, must add my two penneth. After all the hard work that’s gone into this, I am genuinely sorry to say, who decided that a 6" strip down the middle was a good idea?

On my 22" wide screen I’ve nearly 13" of blank screen! Sorry but to read this though Safari 2 is a nightmare!

K.

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

9

Is there a difference to FreewayTalk in Safari 3?

On 25 Oct 2007, at 16:50, Kryten wrote:

Sorry but to read this though Safari 2 is a nightmare!

10

Not sure David. I uninstalled v3 as it didn’t work too well for me.

K

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

11

On Oct 25, 2007, at 11:50 AM, Kryten wrote:

Sorry, must add my two penneth. After all the hard work that’s gone
into this, I am genuinely sorry to say, who decided that a 6" strip
down the middle was a good idea?

On my 22" wide screen I’ve nearly 13" of blank screen! Sorry but to
read this though Safari 2 is a nightmare!

K.

This is a design decision, made with love and for your benefit.

Optimum readability is 10 - 15 words per line, on average. Any more
than that and you lose your place as you go from the end of one line
to the beginning of the next. The old forum, however it may have
filled your screen with pixels, was murder to read quickly.

Walter

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

12

Walter, would a flexible width give the user the option to resize to their own preference?

  • says me rapidly getting used to doing this via email again, like the old, old, one before last, mailing list :wink:

On 25 Oct 2007, at 17:03, Walter Lee Davis wrote:

Optimum readability is 10 - 15 words per line, on average. Any more

than that and you lose your place as you go from the end of one line

to the beginning of the next. The old forum, however it may have

filled your screen with pixels, was murder to read quickly.

13

Sorry, must add my two penneth. After all the hard work that’s gone into this, I am genuinely sorry to say, who decided that a 6” strip down the middle was a good idea?

On my 22” wide screen I’ve nearly 13” of blank screen! Sorry but to read this though Safari 2 is a nightmare!

K.

Hey kryten I think the width of your monitor is the least of your problems, if everybody presses ‘quote all’ you will need a monitor about ten feet deep.

Sorry Walter, I’m sure this works fine for the email subscribers but the web version needs some work - at least for me. I really don’t like it

I definitely preferred the forum, it might be ‘optimum readability’ but by the time you work out what is new content inbetween repeat after repeated quotes I just lose the thread.

Gary

14

On 25 Oct. 2007, 12:21 pm, diarbyrag wrote:

Sorry, must add my two penneth. After all the hard work that’s gone into this, I am genuinely sorry to say, who decided that a 6” strip down the middle was a good idea?

On my 22” wide screen I’ve nearly 13” of blank screen! Sorry but to read this though Safari 2 is a nightmare!

K.

Hey kryten I think the width of your monitor is the least of your problems, if everybody presses ‘quote all’ you will need a monitor about ten feet deep.

Sorry Walter, I’m sure this works fine for the email subscribers but the web version needs some work - at least for me. I really don’t like it

I definitely preferred the forum, it might be ‘optimum readability’ but by the time you work out what is new content inbetween repeat after repeated quotes I just lose the thread.

Gary

There are naturally some teething pains to be expected here, and your comments are an important part of making the forum side of things as forum-like as it can be, given the constraints of a mail-backed system.

I have been on many boards where the expected practice is to not quote, or to quote very lightly. The expectation is that you will read a thread in order to pick up that context.

Would it be better if the quotes just didn’t show on the Web?

What I fear is that without the reminder that they are necessary, we would fall into the black hole of posts that arrive without any sort of context (in an e-mail in-box). And anything that requires a trip back to the Web has missed the entire point, from the mail perspective.

I can’t build an artificial intelligence to determine how much to auto-quote, but you can edit the quotes to your heart’s content before you send your reply. So if you fear what Quote All would do on a “tall” thread, perhaps you might want to scroll through there and delete a few lines from the preceding commentary.

15

firstly to prove I’m not a just a moaner :slight_smile:
well done for the ‘remember me’ bit - not tried it yet.

I realise it is early days but the change affects the forum users the most. I tried the email forum when I first started using FW 2+ years ago and found it hard to follow with all the repeat quotes - especially as most of it was a foreign language to me - the forum made it more friendly somehow - with the avatars etc, plus I know the threads were just as long but having a fixed page length made it seem less daunting.

and there appears to be no way to send a private message any more - unless I’ve missed it ? - has been quite useful on occasion.

BTW Walter - I did cut and paste Krytens post before but you cannot tell it is a quote when you do that - unless you add brackets or something.
Is there a way to select a part of a topic and have an ’ insert selection’ quote button or something

I for one have appreciated all the help and hard work that all you guys inside and outside of Softpress put into the product, the actions, the tutorials, etc. but I would like the web forum (sorry), email list to work a little more like it did previously

Enough for now I’m going to logout now for the hell of it :slight_smile:

see you all later

Gary

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

16

I have to say I like the design - clean and bloat-free, not unlike The Guardian’s http://talk.guardian.co.uk (and a refreshing change from the usual PHP discussion list layout). Is it not possible to subscribe to a particular thread, though?

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

17

Ok, tried the “remember me” option. It doesn’t.

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

18

On Oct 25, 2007, at 3:18 PM, Michael wrote:

Ok, tried the “remember me” option. It doesn’t.

I can see that the key is set in the database. Ccan you check your
browser’s cookies, and see if you can see one called fwtalk[remember]
set on site .freewaytalk.net?

If it is set there, then you may need to refresh your browser a
little harder, or quit and restart your browser. The cookie is set on
each browser, so if you try with a different browser on the same
computer, you will need to set it all over again.

What browser are you using at the moment, too?

Thanks,

Walter

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

19

This is a muddle: a message I sent a while ago seems not to have come through, another one came through almost immediately.

I won’t repeat the whole message that apparently has got lost, I’ll just say this:

I don’t like this new version of Freewaytalk on the Web. I’m sure of that.

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options

20

On Oct 25, 2007, at 3:18 PM, Michael wrote:

Ok, tried the “remember me” option. It doesn’t.

I can see that the key is set in the database. Ccan you check your
browser’s cookies, and see if you can see one called fwtalk[remember]
set on site .freewaytalk.net?

If it is set there, then you may need to refresh your browser a
little harder, or quit and restart your browser. The cookie is set on
each browser, so if you try with a different browser on the same
computer, you will need to set it all over again.

What browser are you using at the moment, too?

Thanks,

Walter

Don’t see it in my cookies. Safari version 2.04

freewaytalk mailing list
email@hidden
Update your subscriptions at:
http://freewaytalk.net/person/options