The New Forum Software!

[JJ_Colorado]

Hi,

A friend is having problems accessing the forum since the new forum software was installed. Here is what he wrote. Can someone help?

Thanks,
John

----------------------------------------
I tried to access the forum with 3 different PCs, which were in no way
related to each other (one at work, one at home, one at a friends
house). I
can access the board as long as I don't try to login. After I login
however
I get a "The document contains no data" error and a blank window. From
this
moment on, every time I try to load the page, I get this message, even
if I
restart the pc.
As said above, this happened three times with different PCs. What do I
do
wrong?

[Sheap]

I'd say searching has taken a step backward under the new forum software. It's really *bad* that all the Posts for a given thread that fit the search show up in your results - IMO, this cripples the search functionality for this forum. At the most, this should exist as an option, that is turned off by default.

I have to agree that searching is a little clunkier now than before.

1) I prefer to search for "all" words vs. "any" words so I have to specify a search as for instance "+immortal +affliction" to find Posts pertaining to immortal healing. Which is OK, but if you don't know to do it, you will turn up hundreds of unrelated Posts.

2) I usually flip the search to "less than 1 year" instead of "less than 1 week." This requires a minimum of clicking, but still didn't have to be done before.

I've also found that it no longer defaults to the DOM2 forum when I go into search (although I know it did a few days ago).

I've never had it automatically search the DOM2 forum since the new software was installed. I would like it to. But the old software, while it *usually* searched in the DOM2 forum, sometimes defaulted to search all forums. I've never used any forums other than DOM2 on this server, though.

[tinkthank]

Thanks for seconding there.

I believe the "search" functionality is the single most important functional aspect of a forum like this. I say this not to want to rant or criticize unneedingly (since the folks here are doing a GREAT job!), but because it is important, especially for "newbies". How many times have we written something to the effect like "use the search function to search for XYZ, your questions will be answered very well there!" -- this is no longer a real option. I have still been unsuccessful in finding particular threads which I *know* are out there, imagine how this must be for someone who doesnt know they are there.
Sorry for the criticism, otherwise a GREAT job here, I just wish that the search functionality could be optimized (or simply reverted to the old forum type, that worked well).

[liga]

Aaargh ... I miss almost 2 days of forum ... I was thinking it was out ... the problem is that the new forum use an 81 port and it was closed by a firewall! ... now I'm back again

Liga

[Smauler]

I really appreciate what's been done with the forums. Previously, they were not intuitive to use. Personally, I'd suggest fonts being bigger. Too big may look a little silly on small screens, but too small is illegible on large. I run 1280*1024 and the fonts are very small, and I'm not old and blind either.

Also, I am a relatively experienced programmer with php, especially in bulletin board / forum conditions. I would be happy to help, ben@isbd.biz is me.