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With a topic title like that, only forum die-hards will read and reply :)

I've been going through the forum template (not on the live server, for once) and cleaning it up - removing all the table-based-layout cruft, making it easier to use, and throwing away features that don't contribute. (Bock had already done a bit of that back when we opened these forums.) Some of the features are easy to throw away (does it really matter how many post views a thread has? Do you really need that information in the forum index?), others I'm not so sure, so I'll post in here.

Number 1: the forum jump box. Useful? Ever used?

Image1.png (5.27 KB)

Forum jump box screenshot

Maxim,

I never use that box, infact I didn't even know it was there, so I would say ditch it.

I never scroll that low on the page to see it. It's not shown in threads though, where I think it would be the most useful. I know I've seen boards with the jump shown in threads. Even so, I rarely use it.

Excellent. Next: "VIew previous topic - View next topic". It navigates to the next or previous as listed in the forum index, but since that's a dynamic order (threads get "bumped") you never know what thread that's going to be, it changes over time. Thus it also gives crappy Google results.

So, does anyone use it? I'll add those rel="nofollow" attributes, but maybe getting rid of it completely is the way to go.

[Edit: rel="nofollow" doesn't stop Google spidering the page, so that wouldn't help. Besides, as seen below, nobody uses it.]

Maxim wrote

Some of the features are easy to throw away (does it really matter how many post views a thread has? Do you really need that information in the forum index?)

I'm not sure why, but I kinda like this.
I never used the JUMP TO feature.
Next topic/prev topic also seems useless. It's even confusing, as in some forums (not SMS Power), I often click 'next topic' instead of 'next page of posts'.

I use the forum jump box on larger boards, but don't think I ever have here. Never used the previous/next buttons.

I like to see how many people have viewed a thread i have posted or how many people have viewed a thread since i posted on it. It doesnt matter in the grand scheme of things but I just like it.

Can we have a feature that shows who is online on the forum at the moment? I think this encorages a sense of community rather than being alone on the forum.

I was planning on moving the view count into the thread view itself, instead of being on the index - since people generally want to know the number for a particular thread.

(I might also try changing all instances of "topic" to "thread", it's annoying to have the two terms meaning the same thing.)

The "who is online" part has been taken out from the start, but personally I quite like it on other forums so I might add it back. It's available on the admin page (with more info than just who's there), and it's generally not very spectacular - right now, there's me and 15 guests, and probably more than half the guests are bots (search engine spiders, for example). So the feeling of being alone might be reinforced...

I might want to take some advice later from hotshot CSS wizards, it's hardly my speciality. Well, let's see if I ever even finish, my wife gets back today so I won't be allowed to spend 7 hours per night on the computer any more...

this might be just me but if i log on another forum and there are a few other names i recognised logged in i tend to stick around a wile and perhaps post somthing or wait for sombody to post. as I am logged into sega8bit forum all day wilst at work.

OK, I just turned "who's online" on again for the forum indexes, not for individual threads. Does it help?

Maxim wrote

Excellent. Next: "VIew previous topic - View next topic".

I do find that useful, but given that I can already browse backwards and forwards by clicking buttons on two different toolbars or use a mouse gesture, it's pretty much just visual noise. :-)

thats great :) thank you

191 users online at once?? surly thats some kind of google crawler situation? I think the most ever at sega8bit is 35.

Search engine spiders usually don't hammer the site quite so simultaneously (although they do account for a lot of our bandwidth). It'd be better to have a "most members online" count really, or I might take that bit away since it's not very useful.

Hmm, I never noticed this before (!):

http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewonline.php

Maxim wrote

Hmm, I never noticed this before (!):

http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewonline.php

I like that page Maxim, I had noticed that in my local install of phpBB before but never recognised what it was. I find it funny how all the guests are evenly distributed throughout the various forums.

I know for a fact that some of our members tent to only ever look at 1 particular forum, even for myself its usually the music/dev forum, I thought you may want to know this, eventhough its useless.

And I like the who is online thing.

I never used the previous/next feature thing in my life, on any forum. Since I use Firefox, I just open all the threads I need in different tabs by clicking on them with the wheel.

I use the jump to thing quite often on other forums with more sections, but it's not so useful here. But yeah, it can stay.

Yay for the who is online page.

Tom wrote

I never used the previous/next feature thing in my life, on any forum. Since I use Firefox, I just open all the threads I need in different tabs by clicking on them with the wheel.

Ditto.

Keep it as simple as possible.

Author	Message
Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14740 Location: London	Does anyone use this forum feature? Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 1:31 am Last edited by Maxim on Fri Feb 09, 2007 4:24 pm; edited 1 time in total
	With a topic title like that, only forum die-hards will read and reply :) I've been going through the forum template (not on the live server, for once) and cleaning it up - removing all the table-based-layout cruft, making it easier to use, and throwing away features that don't contribute. (Bock had already done a bit of that back when we opened these forums.) Some of the features are easy to throw away (does it really matter how many post views a thread has? Do you really need that information in the forum index?), others I'm not so sure, so I'll post in here. Number 1: the forum jump box. Useful? Ever used? Image1.png (5.27 KB) Forum jump box screenshot

Jacko Joined: 01 Feb 2004 Posts: 1464 Location: Sunny ol Tamworth, New England NSW AU	Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:10 am
	Maxim, I never use that box, infact I didn't even know it was there, so I would say ditch it.

DMEnduro Joined: 27 Apr 2005 Posts: 420 Location: Australia	Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 5:52 am
	I never scroll that low on the page to see it. It's not shown in threads though, where I think it would be the most useful. I know I've seen boards with the jump shown in threads. Even so, I rarely use it.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14740 Location: London	Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 7:54 am Last edited by Maxim on Thu Feb 15, 2007 9:06 am; edited 2 times in total
	Excellent. Next: "VIew previous topic - View next topic". It navigates to the next or previous as listed in the forum index, but since that's a dynamic order (threads get "bumped") you never know what thread that's going to be, it changes over time. Thus it also gives crappy Google results. So, does anyone use it? I'll add those rel="nofollow" attributes, but maybe getting rid of it completely is the way to go. [Edit: rel="nofollow" doesn't stop Google spidering the page, so that wouldn't help. Besides, as seen below, nobody uses it.]

Bock Site Admin Joined: 08 Jul 2001 Posts: 8649 Location: Paris, France	Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:35 am
	Maxim wrote Some of the features are easy to throw away (does it really matter how many post views a thread has? Do you really need that information in the forum index?) I'm not sure why, but I kinda like this. I never used the JUMP TO feature. Next topic/prev topic also seems useless. It's even confusing, as in some forums (not SMS Power), I often click 'next topic' instead of 'next page of posts'.

anagrama Joined: 11 Dec 2004 Posts: 354 Location: Newcastle, UK	Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 9:58 am
	I use the forum jump box on larger boards, but don't think I ever have here. Never used the previous/next buttons.

james costello Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 537 Location: England	Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 10:10 am
	I like to see how many people have viewed a thread i have posted or how many people have viewed a thread since i posted on it. It doesnt matter in the grand scheme of things but I just like it. Can we have a feature that shows who is online on the forum at the moment? I think this encorages a sense of community rather than being alone on the forum.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14740 Location: London	Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 10:48 am
	I was planning on moving the view count into the thread view itself, instead of being on the index - since people generally want to know the number for a particular thread. (I might also try changing all instances of "topic" to "thread", it's annoying to have the two terms meaning the same thing.) The "who is online" part has been taken out from the start, but personally I quite like it on other forums so I might add it back. It's available on the admin page (with more info than just who's there), and it's generally not very spectacular - right now, there's me and 15 guests, and probably more than half the guests are bots (search engine spiders, for example). So the feeling of being alone might be reinforced... I might want to take some advice later from hotshot CSS wizards, it's hardly my speciality. Well, let's see if I ever even finish, my wife gets back today so I won't be allowed to spend 7 hours per night on the computer any more...

james costello Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 537 Location: England	Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 10:53 am
	this might be just me but if i log on another forum and there are a few other names i recognised logged in i tend to stick around a wile and perhaps post somthing or wait for sombody to post. as I am logged into sega8bit forum all day wilst at work.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14740 Location: London	Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:19 am
	OK, I just turned "who's online" on again for the forum indexes, not for individual threads. Does it help?

benryves Joined: 12 Apr 2005 Posts: 391 Location: London, United Kingdom	Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:32 am
	Maxim wrote Excellent. Next: "VIew previous topic - View next topic". I do find that useful, but given that I can already browse backwards and forwards by clicking buttons on two different toolbars or use a mouse gesture, it's pretty much just visual noise. :-)

james costello Joined: 17 Dec 2005 Posts: 537 Location: England	Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 12:07 pm
	thats great :) thank you 191 users online at once?? surly thats some kind of google crawler situation? I think the most ever at sega8bit is 35.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14740 Location: London	Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 2:42 pm
	Search engine spiders usually don't hammer the site quite so simultaneously (although they do account for a lot of our bandwidth). It'd be better to have a "most members online" count really, or I might take that bit away since it's not very useful.

Maxim Site Admin Joined: 19 Oct 1999 Posts: 14740 Location: London	Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 3:00 pm
	Hmm, I never noticed this before (!): http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewonline.php

Jacko Joined: 01 Feb 2004 Posts: 1464 Location: Sunny ol Tamworth, New England NSW AU	Posted: Fri Feb 09, 2007 11:21 pm
	Maxim wrote Hmm, I never noticed this before (!): http://www.smspower.org/forums/viewonline.php I like that page Maxim, I had noticed that in my local install of phpBB before but never recognised what it was. I find it funny how all the guests are evenly distributed throughout the various forums. I know for a fact that some of our members tent to only ever look at 1 particular forum, even for myself its usually the music/dev forum, I thought you may want to know this, eventhough its useless. And I like the who is online thing.

Tom Joined: 16 May 2002 Posts: 1356 Location: italy	Posted: Sat Feb 10, 2007 8:09 pm
Tom Joined: 16 May 2002 Posts: 1356 Location: italy	I never used the previous/next feature thing in my life, on any forum. Since I use Firefox, I just open all the threads I need in different tabs by clicking on them with the wheel. I use the jump to thing quite often on other forums with more sections, but it's not so useful here. But yeah, it can stay. Yay for the who is online page.

extrarice Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 3	Posted: Tue Feb 13, 2007 1:26 am
extrarice Joined: 03 Aug 2006 Posts: 3	Tom wrote I never used the previous/next feature thing in my life, on any forum. Since I use Firefox, I just open all the threads I need in different tabs by clicking on them with the wheel. Ditto.

idrougge Joined: 01 Jan 2005 Posts: 360 Location: Stockholm, Sweden	Posted: Wed Feb 14, 2007 12:36 am
	Keep it as simple as possible.

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