Quote - "Not to be too negative against the 'negativity', but I take it that none of you use other forums? Almost every other that I regular (CGTalk, Randi, mine, Daz3D to name a few) uses php-style forums just like this (except mainly phpBB or vBulletin). So, if you really hate this forum, how do you justify going to any others just like this one??? Seems double-standardish to me. Let the flames roll in. ;)"

I frequent a couple of other forums besides the standard 3D ones, several use phpbb, two use vbulletin, and they don't all look like clones of each other (which is one of the reasons I've read for Renderosity using this forum software). They also have avatars, post bumping, threads that show as read properly, support screen resolutions other than 1024x768, different color schemes, and just about every other feature people have been asking for on this forum, and they're quite a bit faster. 2 of the sites, both using vbulletin have far more members than this site, with one having around 131,996 registered members. So for the programmers that say "We can't do that with this software because it can't handle the massive membersize of the site" or claim they can't implement another feature because of software concerns, I'd suggest looking into another, more widely tested, forum software. Heck, if the Wizards of the Coast website can handle literally hundreds of thousands of members, with minor problems (although I don't think their search function works, oh well, nothings perfect), then there is absolutely no reason that a site like Renderosity, which is for many the "main" Poser site, can't get and use a forum software to handle this site's forum needs quickly and painlessly for both users and programmers.

2 of the sites, both using vbulletin have far more members than this site, with one having around 131,996 registered members. Renderosity has around 450,000 members. Just FYI :-)

Quote - "2 of the sites, both using vbulletin have far more members than this site, with one having around 131,996 registered members. Renderosity has around 450,000 members. Just FYI :-)"

erm no. thats registered accounts and it's quite a bit incorrect. the actual number of users is quite a bit lower once you prune off clone accounts (has been quoted at an average of 3 per active user) and dead accounts (ones that have not been used in six months or more and locked accounts). lets keep things realistic here shall we...

How many of them actually visit on an even weekly basis? I've never seen the tally of "Members Online" on the front page here higher than two thousand something. So to be honest, the actual number of people browsing these forums is probably far less than even 10 thousand at one time.

To answer an earlier question, PHP is just a scripting programming language. There is nothing about PHP that makes "PHP"-Forums similar, or like anything in fact. It's that most are based on earlier Open Source coding efforts, i.e. they are mostly all iterations - some small some large - of an earlier work, that's why they look like "PHP-Forums". This Bondware 2.something < 3.0 Forum is clearly based on something like phpBB. While it is probably contractually and legally safe to hide it's original source, it is copyrighted code being used as a base, and it is normal to credit that effort publicly on the site somewhere. That Renderosity doesn't do it, when it itself gets so "high and mighty" about copyright infringements, I find unacceptable. As should many readers here... Another problem, as noted earlier this was not designed to run quickly, but it is clearly 2 to 3 times slower today than it was day 1. Time to give up on it, me thinks.

Moved to Community Centre.

Ockham, I couldn't find a thumbs down smilie so will this one do you?

I like it just fine! Never heard so much belly aching in all my life...

Quote - "To answer an earlier question, PHP is just a scripting programming language. There is nothing about PHP that makes "PHP"-Forums similar, or like anything in fact. It's that most are based on earlier Open Source coding efforts, i.e. they are mostly all iterations - some small some large - of an earlier work, that's why they look like "PHP-Forums". This Bondware 2.something < 3.0 Forum is clearly based on something like phpBB. While it is probably contractually and legally safe to hide it's original source, it is copyrighted code being used as a base, and it is normal to credit that effort publicly on the site somewhere. That Renderosity doesn't do it, when it itself gets so "high and mighty" about copyright infringements, I find unacceptable. As should many readers here... Another problem, as noted earlier this was not designed to run quickly, but it is clearly 2 to 3 times slower today than it was day 1. Time to give up on it, me thinks. "

FYI: Don't talk about things you don't know anything about. These forums were written from the ground up without the use of even so much as one line of code from another forum such as phpBB. How do I know? Because I've spend 150 hours writing it so far. I know there are problems and we are working on them. I know speed is an issue and we are fixing that. If it's a color choice, I didn't do it. The site design team did. If it's a coding issue, you can guarantee I've already heard about it and we're doing our best to make everyone happy. Keep in mind that each thing someone has asked for, there has inevitably been someone else pleading with us NOT to do it. So sometimes we have to make hard decisions. Things will get better. I promise. And eventually, it'll grow on ya.

These forums were written from the ground up without the use of even so much as one line of code from another forum such as phpBB. i figured as much; you guys know about copyright and giving credit. people say the dumbest things sometimes. i am curious as to why you wrote it from scratch though, since there are some excellent open-source boards around.

If people don't like smilies, avatars & message status icons they can always filter them out.

Quote - " So, if you really hate this forum, how do you justify going to any others just like this one??? Seems double-standardish to me. Let the flames roll in. ;)"

At least they work right where this one sure doesn't.

Quote - "These forums were written from the ground up without the use of even so much as one line of code from another forum such as phpBB. i figured as much; you guys know about copyright and giving credit. people say the dumbest things sometimes. i am curious as to why you wrote it from scratch though, since there are some excellent open-source boards around."

They wrote it from scratch because most of the decent OS boards out there are GPL'd, meaning they couldn't sell the software, which is what Bondware does -- they sell software and hosting services. Since they charge for the software, hosting, and the service, they are not interested in giving away anything, which the GPL would require. Renderosity is the beta testing pit for them. Has been forever, which is something a lot of people forget. You are the unwitting testers for a software product that is sold off to others who have no clue. Pretty sucky, huh?

FYI: Don't talk about things you don't know anything about. These forums were written from the ground up without the use of even so much as one line of code from another forum such as phpBB. How do I know? Because I've spend 150 hours writing it so far. I can only commiserate with you, cause I know how difficult that was, but why hadn't you checked what the other boards offered? Why the sort-by-last-answer option is not written into the preferences? Or even made permanent? Or why the e-bots don't have the actual post anchor in them? Or why the smilies are not on the page with the reply textarea and clickable? Or why the reply form has to be on the same page with the rest of the thread? Or why the old posts don't use the thread title instead of the first line? Or why there are no formatting commands to use? Or those to insert links into the body of the post? Or why there's no actual quote tag instead of the DIVs? The current situation looks like an awkward mix of the old ez forum and a php forum. BTW, when I click on Post Reply, the reply gets posted, but the page is never loaded back into my browser. It just keeps on hanging there, like the server didn't send the refresh command or something. Opera 8.53, the latest one. And yes, it works properly on every other forum I visit. PS. Interestingly, this post went through without a hitch.

#1 - Avatars Avatars are a bad thing. They increase the load time, they take up so much space that in order to read the actual messages I have to scroll far enough to the side that I can't even see the avatars anyway, and therefore have no idea who is saying what. And if I increase my screen resolution, I can't read the text because it's so freaking small to begin with. Totally useless, IMO. #2 - Smilies Like we need these. Especially the huge ones. Yeah, right. I have always disliked smilies. Especially animated smilies. Most especially HUGE animated smilies. PUH-LEESE. Could we possibly lose these juvenile toys? #3 - overall Layout, etc. I hate it. I hate ALL php based forums. YUCK!! But I hate this one most of all BECAUSE IT JUST DOESN'T WORK!!! Of course, I know y'all will not go back to what DID work. You never do. Therefore, I'm pretty sure Renderosity is soon going to be one of those sites that gets removed from my bookmarks list. Or at the most, moved to my "Bookmarks, Archive" folder so that it will be there if I need to re-download past purchases, which, frankly, at the rate y'all are going is going to be the only useful thing about the site. Kate, the Disgruntled and Close to Fed Up

Quote - As for other forums, here's my favorite: http://forums.dpreview.com/forums/forum.asp?forum=1034 It's a huge place with many thousands of users, yet it's fast, very fast. Even threads with multiple hi-res photos load almost instantly (while the photos "paint" in). It's plain, uncluttered, and professional. Navigate around this place a while and you'll see what ease-of-use and speed mean."

What you must remember about DPreview is that those images aren't hosted on Phil's site; they're links to external personal domains or photo hosting sites such as PBase and Flikr. I personally believe this is the direction Rendo should have gone. Hosting a million images is ridiculous bordering on foolish, and, as Rendo themselves have discovered, extremely taxing, as they trimmed back the three per day policy to a one per day policy of uploading images...unless you pay $ for the extra uploading permission. Phil's web site is one if the ten most popular web sites on the Internet as well as one of the busiest, and I'll have to agree the site is very fast to load. It is by far my favorite place to hang. The only negative I and others have about DPreiew is that you cannot edit your posts. While that is a minor inconvenience it would be nice to be able to do that. Those members who belong to DPreview also belong to other photography web sites that are php boards and the feeling of most is that they don't particularly care for php boards because they all look the same. Adding avatars and smilies are cute I suppose, but they're not in high demand at Phil's site. Different caliber of users, I suspect. Not in the intellectual sense...it's just not an artsie-cutsie site. And I've never seen the words 'Love and Hugzzzzz!' and 'Byeeeee!' used there, either. I've usually enjoyed Rendo, but it has always reminded me of a chick flick. Oh, and of course, it has thread bumping. And it ALSO accommodates the user's screen size as do most other php forums do, unlike these new forums here. I still cannot understand why the hell 1024x768 was chosen as a maximum. 1280x1024 is rapidly becoming the standard. Whoever is making decisions about this web site has his head tucked firmly up a '90s butt.