DaveRolph wrote:As you probably gathered I am a big fan of the Forum, within a couple of weeks I have learned so much and I am impressed with the positivity and humour of the members, I have managed many forums in the past and they can easily get out of hand unless properly managed so well done all involved.
I know one of the challenges is deciding on the different groups and there are many on here which has obviously had a lot of thought, I only hit 2 problems (and its probably me than the site).
Thanks Dave, These comments really do mean something...
Myself and Paul do our best but we certainly aren't I.T experts
All the glory goes to the members, There isn't a forum without you guys.. Its the passion of you all that make this place tick
DaveRolph wrote:
Searching
I have searched a number of times and
The following words in your search query were ignored because they are too common words: .
You must specify at least one word to search for. Each word must consist of at least 2 characters and must not contain more than 14 characters excluding wildcards.
Its strange because before posting this I tried a few and they all worked, any advice welcome.
Portal Home
Again its probably me but I am not sure how to catch up with everyhing I have missed since last being on-line, does the recent topics relate to new ones or new + replies ? the latest news section does not seem to show all the latest ?
The search function is pretty rubbish to be honest unless you can remember certain words or phrases from a post that you're wanting to re look at.
I tend to use google search and type in something like..
"f-ribs and sibs honwave launch wheels"
The results are generally better than our own search function.
The portal...
It was something we did without for a while until the main index got so full it started looking more like a essay than a forum menu.
We wanted to add images, links, possibility of advers etc.. the portal was our main option (limited to compatable software)
There are options to enhance it further but most members seem to use the board index now.
Perhaps with your feedback it may prompt others to give a little more feedback ???
The software we use works very well and actually gets better the more it's used. Having come from a similar based forum (vehicles not boats) that had thousands of members and multiples of daily posts the portal page was remarkable.
We are looking at a completely new forum base or maybe just an up to date version of what we're running at the moment. Thats's something that will hopefully something we can pull off before the end of the year.
USER EXPERIENCE....
The index page options are a great place to start and navigate round the site,
For full effect of the forum "cookies need to be allowed"
"View "unanswered posts" will show
all posts that members have written but nobody has replied to.
"View unread posts" will index all the posts that "YOU" have not read
If it's a post you've written and nobody has replied and you need some feedback, you can always use the "Bump Topic" button at the bottom of the page, this will bring it back into the "Active Topics" section again
"View new posts" shows the posts made since your last login, If you log out and back in again, the list will be empty. I find this a pretty useless function to be honest
"View active topics" are generally topics that have had posts within the last 7 days.
"View your posts" displays any topic that you have commented on, active long standing members may well find upto 40-50 pages worth.
In my personal opinion, i find that using "active topics" regularly seems to do the trick. if you look for the little orange envelope next to the title
- unread posts
- icon_post_target_unread.gif (151 Bytes) Viewed 2965 times
that indicates there has been new posts on that active topic since your last visit.
Always check at the bottom of active topics, you'll see any additional pages.. for example {1} {2} {3} shows there are 3 pages of active topics over the last 7 days..
25 posts per page, That gives you some indication of how active the forum has been.
Hope that helps
you all a little?
If i've missed anything (as i'm falling asleep with my ipad in my hands) please do ask...
We can't guarentee we'll get it right but we'll certainly have a go
