Observations on the "New & Improved" Forum
I've now lived with the new forum for a bit. I've been posting and replying to similar threads in the Adobe Premiere Video Lounge, since the changeover, but after some reflection, realize that this is a better place to, er-r-r vent. Still, there are some good points, so I'll list those first.
Ah, the new fora. Still getting used to them. Here are some reflections on the Pros & Cons, as I see them with IE7:
Pros:
1.) The general layout is nice
2.) Being able to add a link quickly, is a real positive
3.) The indentation of replies, to other than the OP. (More on this in the Cons section)
4.) The formatting capabilities are great, and easy to set, plus apply
5.) Ease of adding screen-caps, etc., is greatly appreciated.
Cons:
1.) Sometimes really slow, but could just be server overload, or maintenance?
2.) Sometimes the server will jump fora. You will be replying to a post in, say the PrPro CS4 forum, get the editing window, and hit Post Reply, to see that it went to some thread in the Acrobat forum.
3.) The slight color differentiation between "read," [updated] and "unread" threads on the main page, could be much better.
4.) The loss of the "red flags," is greatly missed
5.) The "New" banner on new posts is greatly missed
6.) The expansion of all replies, when opening an older thread is bothersome. I do like the Reply to and the indentation in Threaded View (not available in Flattened View, though now you get the post numbers, which are good for referencing in later posts). On the Chowhound (food and wine) forum, one has the ability to Reply To and the Replies are indented, as here. The biggest difference is that when one goes to an article for the first time, all replies are open and threaded, like here. Once they have visited that thread once, however, on the next visit all replies and Replies To will be closed. It's very easy to see the new posts since the last visit. Each reply has an "Expand" button, should you need to read it, and there is also an "Expand All" button at the top of the article page. This does away with the need for the old "New" banners from the previous forum. I do have to say that I was one, who championed the Reply To and indentions. I just did not expect it to be quite like this. Be careful what you wish for...
7.) Learning to NOT use Back, once I’ve posted, is coming along slowly
8.) Searching the old fora was pretty easy, if limited. The new Search *starts out* looking good, until you try to limit the Search to just one (or a group) of forum. Then, you have to scroll down a list of every product (and also many languages) that Adobe has ever made. You cannot override the drop-down (that I can find), and just type in "Encore," or "Premiere." The additon of "People" is good, but it seems that the search engine can't find most of them, even some of the forum MOD's.
9.) When a forum has multiple pages and you are past #1, going back to "Discussion" always takes me back to page #1. There has got to be some navigational trick that will get me back to page #X, regardless of whether I’ve posted, or am just reading. When you are doing anything on a subsequently later page, in a multi-page forum, you cannot stay there, even if all you do is read one reply. You are ALWAYS taken back to page 1.
10.) The loss of many stickies, especially some of the FAQ’s and instruction on posting good questions with proper info. Seems that the various MOD's are working overtime on getting many of these back. I applaud their efforts. It is not being missed.
11.) The inability for the cookies to be recognized, when entering the forum and logging-in is a hassle. A bigger hassle is getting logged-out, even if you just posted 40 sec. before. For all longer posts, I’ve taken to using a wordprocessor, as so many of my posts have been lost, because I got logged-out in the process. I have used the "Recover Previous," that in some cases saved having to re-type everything, but like an AutoSave in Premiere, you could still have lost a lot of editing.
I will have to say that often I have been amazed, as I’ve gone three full days and each visit I’ve been logged-in fine. Other times, I will have to manually do it for each and every session.
Just some personal observations, with more in the works, as I explore.
Hunt
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