Go to Jive's own forum. What do you like and dislike?

[_Phos_four_dots_]

Have a look at Jivesoftware's own Clearspace (that's the name of the proposed new forum software here) support forum. You might even want to create an account so you can access everything any other user would.

http://www.jivesoftware.com/jivespace/community/support/clearspace?view=discussions

What do you like?

What do you dislike?

How would you make it better?

Don't spare the words, be specific and clear in your assessments and suggestions.

[_Phos_four_dots_]

First thing I noticed was the pop-up profiles that load when you roll over a user's name. <br /> <br />I personally find these annoying, and would opt to turn that off, if possible. But, it doesn't seem that users <b> <i>can</i> </b> turn that off in their Control Panel/Forum Viewing Preferences page. <br /> <br />Not good. <br /> <br />I'd like to hear whether it's possible for Cornicello & Co. to customize the installation to disable this globally, or to somehow make it a user preference? <br /> <br /> <a href="http://www.pixentral.com/show.php?picture=1nrFS3f3vJ0C9WYab1RZ2evY9qbeom1" /></a> <img alt="Picture hosted by Pixentral" src="http://www.pixentral.com/hosted/1nrFS3f3vJ0C9WYab1RZ2evY9qbeom1_thumb.jpg" border="0" />

[_Phos_four_dots_]

And here's a HUGE problem, as far as I'm concerned. One that is first and foremost above ALL other considerations:

That link in the thread starter, above?

It takes between 14 and 17 seconds to finish loading. YIKES!

Click on a thread title...9-12 seconds to load. YIKES! And I based that on a thread that is JUST the starter post... a thread with NO replies. DOUBLE-YIKES!

Click my mouse's "Back" button to return from that thread to the thread index...another 14 seconds or so.

On the Adobeforums as they currently exist, with my system & cable connection, thread indices and discussions that display the maximum allowed content take a mere 2-5 seconds at the very most when things are running as usual.

THAT sort of glacial performance, that one thing all by itself irrespective of any other changes that people may not adjust to straight awaywhen compared to the page load speeds we have nowmay very likely chase away current users in droves.

[Bob_Peters]

Phos±four dots:

I looked at the page but I did not encounter the speed issues you mentioned. I found the links and operation of the 'back' button to be very quick.

The problem I keep seeing in all these 'previews is the same:
(1) total display area including message and 'fluff': about 950 pixels
(2) actual 'information' content (including the name and avatar: about 690 pixels
(3) actual width occupied by message content: about 525 pixels

Now I pose the question to everyone: Does this strike you as efficient use of screen area?

[Guest]

took about 3 seconds here phos. and about 2 to go into a topic.

[_Phos_four_dots_]

Hmm...could be network congestion. I noticed some slowness in other travels today, too.

[Ann_Shelbourne1]

>Now I pose the question to everyone: Does this strike you as efficient use of screen area?

It does NOT!

I do not want to see screen-wasting avatars or personal notes of ANY kind (except for identification of Adobe personnel and Hosts) unless I choose to click on their names _ definitely NO pop-ups.

The whole right-hand column on the Jive site is a dreadful idea: who gives a damn about who the major participants are or how often they have posted?

Using a background image is a monumentally bad idea and just slows page-loading pointlessly especially the grayscale rendering of the ghastly Adobe swirl which was designed for the packaging of CS3 and has mercifully been dropped from CS4.

Text needs to be BLACK on white: pale blue and gray text are tiresome (in every sense of the word!) and I also find the use of pale blue in page design to be "cold" and unwelcoming.

But what I really detest is the attempt to make a serious and factual source of information (as the Adobe Forums have been since their inception) into a set of "oh-so-cosy" Chat Rooms for a Third Grade mindset and that is exactly what the introduction of avatars and personal mini-blogs does.

Put that sort of nonsense in Photoshop Elements if you must but please keep the Forums for the professional applications free from this extraneous junk.

[Guest]

No performance issues here at a quick test. Popup profiles do not happen in Firefox if using "NoScript" (tee hee!).

[_Phos_four_dots_]

I have the NoScript add-on, Peter, and it was enabled for my first speed test on the page load. That doesn't mean I have my NoScript add-on configured the same way you do, though. It has a broad function set. But in the configuration I usually use, the onMouseover image for user profiles popped up.

However, I disabled both NoScript and and AdBlock Plus, thinking maybe that might be the cause of the slow page loads. I even enabled 500MB of Firefox browser caching, which I normally have switched off, as it doesn't seem to make a difference to me on most sites. It didn't help, either.

I just tested my performance at http://www.speedtest.net and I'm getting about 5.96.3 Mbps D/L speeds from several test servers within 200 miles.

So, I have no idea why you guys are getting fast loads and I'm not.

[Guest]

what ann said. all good ideas.

[_Phos_four_dots_]

::Phos.... is spending the afternoon popping in and out of his pixel dungeon, busying himself with creating static mock-ups of Clearspace pages, the layout of which will probably prove impossible to pull off in the actual app::

8| 8| 8|

[Guest]

I don't have a big in-principle problem with the look of Clearspace, so long as any obvious wasted-space issues are minimised. It seems kind of big and bold which frankly suits my eyesight.

My problem remains chiefly with what seems to be poor support for identifying and going directly to unread content. A bit like having a beautiful looking car with great performance but no steering wheel. Maybe I'm wrong - I await our own testbed.

[Kath-H]

(And I think it will derail yours).

[Kath-H]

>My problem remains chiefly with what seems to be poor support for identifying and going directly to unread content.

Yep. My number one requirement.

[_Phos_four_dots_]

I'd surely like to be invited to the test forum when it goes online here.

John C...you have me in your address book! Give me a little ring-a-ding-ding!

XD

[Bob_Peters]

Ozpeter and Phos±four dots:

Please do NOT lose sight of the fact that many users don't use FireFox. Whatever the final design it must be browser-agnostic. Otherwise, it's a lousy design.

[Guest]

Indeed, Bob, I fully agree.

The popup thing that Phos mentions might, perhaps, have a customisable time setting. As it is on the forum he's linked to, personally I doubt whether I'd be troubled by it as the time setting does mean you have to hover pretty deliberately. But if making that happen slows down the page load in the first place, that's a different problem.

[Bob_Peters]

Ann Shelbourne:

So, what you are saying is that, on the whole, you 'sorta, well, maybe would prefer, if nobody objects, to see something just a little, shall we say different from what has been shown so far. Me too :)

[Guest]

http://www.jivesoftware.com/jivespace/thread/38414?tstart=0 is a good example of the indenting that seems to happen - but it's indented on the left only, so that posts get narrower and narrower until a certain point where the width gets fixed with lots of whitespace to the left.

Hopefully that can be turned off so that all posts are below each other with the same width as the first post.

[_Phos_four_dots_]

> " Whatever the final design it must be browser-agnostic. Otherwise, it's a lousy design."

That goes without saying, Bob.

But I think is is a Very Bad Idea® to tweak any web property from here on out in any way that compromises w3c standards, or which caters to those folks who are using what are essentially radically outdated browsers.

Doesn't work in I.E 6 or older?

Offer a polite "tough cookies" to those users and expalin to them that they need to quit living in the coal-fired, insecure past.

:)

[Kath-H]

Along with the massive wasted space to the left and right, that could get very very silly very very quickly.

[Kath-H]

Part of the point of those standards is that any site should 'degrade gracefully' so it's still usable in older browsers.

[_Phos_four_dots_]

Kath...

Ever been to forums that make quoting messages push-button easy, and put each one inside of ever-shrinking boxes? I see mindless users doing that without editing all the old, irrelevant content, and it gets very ugly, very quickly.

(Umm, yeah...didn't we push that "feature" to its absurd limits over on TD_O's forum?)

THAT'S something I'm biting my nails about.

[Kath-H]

What's worrying me is having a poke around over there (Jive) - they seem to be still working out a massive number of bugs.

[_Phos_four_dots_]

Plus, there's a 3.0 version of Clearspace coming out in a month or two.

What fresh hell will that conjure up?