Just one question about basic performance

[Jacob Bugge]

Will the free flow of unified threads be retained, with successive posts filling the entire width, and with simple forum lists of threads, or:

A) Are we going to be put in boxes with forum member information to the left and possibly buttons to the left/right/bottom, so the flow is broken up and takes up far more space?

B) Will the threads be branched, so everything may become fragmented, and so subjects deserving their own threads will be buried deep?

C) Will the forum lists of threads be furnished with dividing lines and possibly arranged by subject rather than latest posts?

I believe those are the most fundamental question about the new forum; most other issues can be solved within the right frame, if needed.

Several times, strong pleas for mercy have been raised concerning threats A) - C).

It is so nice to easily find and pick a thread with new posts in the forum list, and then to run/read through and partake in a coherent and focused thread of successive posts, without things fading away in different directions, without the disturbance of having to cross unnecessary lines and perform unnecessary scrolling because of disturbing information, which might as well be reached by clicking the poster name or some popup button next to it in the line containing the poster name and time of posting.

Question(s) asked while anxiously waiting to see a preview.

[A. Patterson]

Just to weigh in with my two cents.

First, I disagree whole-heartedly that Avatars add nothing that isn't gleaned from posts. I might post formally but my avatar might suggest a more playful side. There's a reason so many forums have avatars, and it's not because people are dying to have pictures next to their text.

That said, I can agree that it's probably not particularly important for a professional site, though I've seen it done. It's probably not worth the oversight time for Adobe personnel though.

Likewise, signatures can lend a little personality or even a shortcut to user information. Options to not display signatures are very common though, so I don't know why this would be an issue. There are a few forums where I have my professional contact information & company affiliation at the bottom of my posts, much as I would an email. Sure, some of that can be found by clicking the user link (assuming there is one), but for signatures that provide useful information like that it can help lend credibility or weight. Sure, you can put useless fluff too, but that's part of the cues that tell you something about the poster, even if it's negative.

I'm more than a little confused about the angst about 'wasted space'. Every page of these forums wasted the the entire 'first view' with the original post, but no one seems to mind. I've never seen a forum that did this, yet I've never had trouble posting on those forums and following the discussion. They also don't stretch to fill the screen -- which can be good or bad. But it feels funny to read about wasting space when I'm looking at a forum that fills less than half my screen. I'm going to assume that the new forums don't assume 640x480 though :)

There are plenty of forums that go beyond stark text that are perfectly functional, and still very pleasant to read despite 'wasting' space on all sorts of things like avatars, post counts or other things. I post on several forums every day as I manage aspects related to my job & hobbies, but frankly I have a lot more trouble reading & following threads on this site than all of the others (which isn't to say I haven't seen some truly awful forums) -- and they 'waste' a lot more on the niceties.

I'm not trying to rag on these forums, they've served well. Especially when I learn they were written by a couple of guys locked in a room -- as a developer, I can appreciate that! 🙂 But honestly, even with all the bells & whistles you find on other forums I don't find this site loads any faster or displays anymore information at a go than the others. Frankly, I find I see less -- lord knows the number of times I'm responded to a thread thinking I'd read it in its entirety only to realize I read posts 12-15 out of 62.

[John_Cornicello_Photo]

Thanks for the other view on this.

Only one question, in your last line you say you've posted in the middle of a discussion. The forum software should not be offering you a reply box at the bottom of the page unless you are on the last page of messages in the discussion.

It probably doesn't matter now, with these going away, but if you run into that situation can you please send a note explaining how to duplicate that to userforum at adobe dot com? Thanks!

John

[_Phos_four_dots_]

Avatars and signature/professional info & affiliations/homepage URL/hardware specs/areas of expertise/hobbies/whatevs could all be rolled into a profile easily accessed by a click on the user's name (orPesci forbidonMouseover)

[Guest]

We've been round this so many times I now forget whether we've been told whether all these elements will be selectable in users prefs - which seems to me to be the best solution which would keep everyone happy. The ClearSpace documentation seems a bit unclear on the point.

[Kath-H]

I don't think anyone knows - in any case, with a multi-column layout, killing the avatars and such would likely still leave a bunch of empty space.

[Guest]

According to my latest research, it looks like this kind of thing is not end-user customisable in the Jive software. Unless the end user customisations can be extended by administrative customisations, which is possibly possible.

[PJonesCET]

Don' the Designers know how to Make the boxes that would have Avatars not be a Fixed size set to nothing (not even zero) in hight and width. That way the Avatar box would only take up enough height and width for the Avatar. The way this forum look like a a Chart anyway and it easy to do at least in DreamWeaver to make chart cells have not any height or width until there is something in them.

[A. Patterson]

John, it's not that the reply box is there, it's that I see a red flag indicating a response and jump in expecting to see the latest new message -- which it does just fine. The trouble is that on the forum I frequent (Illustrator SDK) more than a post or two is unusual, so I assume what I'm seeing is the sum total of new posts. But if for some reason there's been a minor flurry (meaning maybe 4 or 5 posts) then I'll only see the first few and one or two will be dropped onto the next page. I'm not complaining about that either -- every forum does something like that -- it's more that I've never found it obvious that there are more responses.

And the reply isn't there, I just hit 'Post Reply' to the last one and go to work. It's at least half my fault -- I should be looking to see if there are more posts -- but I never seem to notice if there are. I see that there's a (#X of Y) post count, but at the end of a string of time & data numbers, that just blends in. At least, I think that's why my eyes skip right over it. So there's no bug, except maybe a minor one in presentation.

[Guest]

You might also want to check your preferences and increase the numbers in the Misc area for following lines (mine is set to 99999):
Maximum characters to show per page:
Maximum messages to show per page:

[Stan Jones]

> check your preferences and increase the numbers in the Misc area for following lines....

What a great idea! Didn't even know that was there.

[Guest]

It pays to be inquisitive!

[Jacob Bugge]

Still, you cannot get an unlimited number of posts per page.

It would be nice if you could get that, or at least 500.The present limit is seemingly determined by size of posts, up to maybe about 140.

[_Phos_four_dots_]

The current display limit is, ummmm...limited.

Connection speeds keep getting faster. I want to load BIG HUGE pages. Huge amounts of content. While I'm looking at and reading the stuff at the top of the page, the lower part will be loading. And by the time I'm ready to scroll, there will be a ton of stuff down the page waiting for me to catch up.

What's that you say? You don't have a monster-fast connection?

Then you should be able to go into your user control panel and specify that you want LESS content to load onto the page you see.

(((And no avatar/sig-file content that you don't care to see.)))

[Jacob Bugge]

We have passed the limits in these threads:

http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?128@@.59b7f6df
http://www.adobeforums.com/webx?128@@.59b7ebfe

And we shall soon reach the limit here too, unless we stop talking about it.

[Guest]

Hard to know quite where in these threads to post this - and I'm sure as hell not going to start another one - but here's some stuff about how (in a default Clearspace installation) users can customise at least some of what they see.

"Designing Pages with Widgets"

http://www.jivesoftware.com/builds/docs/clearspace/latest/DesigningPagesWithWidgets.html

If you look at the table of what can be amended by who, you'll see a long list of "widgets" that can be incorporated in your Clearspace home page as you see fit, or omitted. No, that doesn't customise the forum view, but at least it's much in advance of what end users can do here (unless I've missed something all these years).

[Jacob Bugge]

Oz, I believe this is the right thread.

[Kath-H]

Interesting - however, from the types of widgets etc., it doesn't look like forum software, more something for people collaborating on a project.

[Guest]

I think they are to do with overall site content monitoring (or selected) - part of what makes the whole thrust of the Jive software quite different in scope from this one.