Quote - GUYS!!!!

PLEASE LEAVE YOUR TEXT COLOUR AT THE DEFAULT!

By changing it to black....

well you're becoming invisible to all of us who finally got rid of the white background.....

Them's the breaks when ya give people that sort of flexibility. Since there's no way for people to know what color others are using, there will be those times when you simply will never see the posting becuase the text conflicts with your settings.

The same issues arose int he old store format, as well, with merchants using black text on a white background that would suddenly vanish on a screen with such.

Gets even harder for those of us who had things like a really really dark green background, for instance...

Some observations:

1 - Renderosity has used PHP for ages.  The "ez" pages are php pages with a different extension.  So the "PHP forums" marketing spin crap is just smoke.

2 - Swade -- your ignorance about the capabilities of others and your arrogance in assumptions is giving me a huge laugh. Please, continue.

3 - The software for the forums is not finished being written. Yes, that's right -- they have converted the site over to forums that have not been finished yet. While it tells you a huge amount about the consideration that the site Owners have for the people that frequent this place, I can safely say that the people who run it more or less are not quite that inconsiderate, and are likely doing everything that they can to fix things as fast as they can.

4 - Every single complaint thus far has revolved around 2 issues: functionality and presentation. And, actually, the second one is tied into the first one.

The previous software allowed the end user the ability to customize pretty much everything about their experience with the site.  As Renderosity is switcing over to a new software base, that functionality of presentation has changed, and so people are saying "give me the old one back" when what they mean is "give me the ability to change it like I used to back".

Likewise, the previous software allowed us to do a great many different things (search by username, format posts, etc).  There has long been calls and complaints to bring in addditional functions like signatures and bbcodes and avatars.  Rather than shoehorn them into the old code (which seems to be something that the Poser users are pretty pissy about for some strange and unknown reason), they are writing a whole new codebase that starts with those new features.

Now, given that the code is not finished (that is, they haven't even finished adding stuff to it), and that the software is intended for sale once it is finished, they are using Renderosity as a beta testing pit for the software.

And we are the beta testers.

As a result, it is our job to make sure they add everything we want them to add.  And to do that, we have to be vocal about it, and be vocal in groups, as that gives them a measure of just how important the feature is for them to work on implementing it.

In short -- no one is whining.

They are responding to suddenly finding themselves the unwilling participants of a beta test in the most appropriate way possible:  they are making the flaws, bugs, and quirks of a bad piece of software known tot he designers of that software, who, in turn, are making it better as fast as they possibly can.

Sooo

 A - don't stop telling them what they screwed up., Do it more often and louder. IF eer there was a time they needed to listen, this is it, and I suspect they will with the competition they refuse to acknowledge floating around them like sharks circling for the kill.

 B - Give them time to fix it.  This isn't like the open source boards where you can grab additional open source code and plug it in and poof, it works.  They cannot use any open source code at all.  Even for reference (using it for reference makes it a derivative and still subject to the licensing).  So they have to write it all from scratch, using pretty much only the manuals or software which they have to pay for themselves. That's gonna take a while.

5 - Just wait until they start beta testing the new gallery software :D

I'm going to suggest limiting images in sigs to no more than 120 wide by 60 high, and to restrict the text to 5 lines at the most. I could go into long and somewhat convoluted rationale's for it, but, basically, its a workable methodology that allows for people to have a pleasant image and or a complex signature without interfering with the informatin presented in a negative manner. OTher than that, the only restrictions I'm going to suggest are that the same ones that apply to adult site linking apply to siglines (no links to adult websites). well, all except maybe Raunchyminds...

The forum module they sell is the older one, and this is the new one that will replace it, being developed and beta tested here.

heh. I strongly suspect the motivation has something to do with the "renderosity" style brokering of php apps style site bondware started up last year... That and the catch phrase of "php" -- thought it was funny they said php was here since the old bondware was php, lol

xfx - Dodger's site. He's done an ipod for sale.

Quote - "The lake of professionalism is stupendous. How is it possible to put online such a buggy piece of software. Even Curious Labs would not dare to do that. Never heard of beta-testing ? Not a very good advertisement for Bondware Web Solutions."

ROFL!!! Hon, YOU are the beta tester. For Bondware. Fun, ain't it?

who you callin' nice?

One thing I should note, on my part, is that I have no interest in seeing the "old" forums return. What I would like to see is the functionality of the old forums return. Unfortunately, the problem with renderosity is that its still the beta testing grounds for the software that Bondware sells. It will be a while before that functionality level is returned, and, like most things, the administration of the site and the owners will simply be as quiet as possible and hope it all goes away.

Freestuff, galleries, memberlist, store -- basically, you can search by member name anywhere in the site and get relevant results. Except the forums. The Workaround isn't a workaround, though. A workaround would accomplish the same task -- it doesn't, because the relevancy isn't present. The "hits" are too varied and great to be truly useful. In a different thread it was pointed out that google and other services use the same basic features, ut it failed to mentiont hat they filter those results further -- without the filtering, which the username only bit is all about -- the results are useless. Sorta like googling "Poser" and only trying to find clothing for Victoria...

What they want is the ability to do a search by author, Teyon, that's all. Not a search that pulls up every possible mention of that author, just the stuff that author, specifically, has done. IT's a standard function of every forum search ever built, becuase the capability, by itself, is critical to the operation of a forum that has any value -- be it for abuse like they fear, or for actual, practical use. A search for you, in the 3d Modelling forum, pulls up threads that you never even replied to. But you are mentioned in them, for example. And, interestingly enough, such threads are given a higher relevancy. Its probaby great programming, but it's crappy policy crippling the capablitity by design. No one would care if renderosity wasn't that important to them, either. The forums here contain information that goes back many years that is, literally, found no where else. Destroying that functionality reduces the value renderosity has to the members in many way...

What's incredible, to me, is that the software that they are obviously emulating, has an incredibly responsive and extremely fine grained search capability that's much more effective than the one they've designed themselves. It can handle a greater load than theirs can, apparently. Its also far more extensible -- and by laymen who have little or no actual experience or knowledge of the methods by which it functions. I will say one thing, though -- williamsn is handling the critcisim pretty well -- he hasn't come out frothing quite yet. Clint's gotta be thrilled to not be on the hotseat for this one....

It isn't. Thanks to the combined aspects of relevancy and multiplicity, the results done that way will pull up any mention of that person in any thread. Since there is zero indication (as ever) of what operators are in effect or not, there's no effective way to limit or sort the results according to your criteria. Nah, it's fooked.

yep...

Idiocy In Action. Period. I have to say, though, I love the way you utlize something that was active for only a short time (the removal of search capabilities in the old forums) as justification for a continuation of what was, without question, a case of idiocy in action. These are forums we're talking about. They are a text based medium. As such, they should be subject to greater search capabilities, with finer granularity, not less. Without an effective search engine, you have, as noted in several threads, lol, basically rendered the entire concept of forums in which learning is supposed to go on (and i'd pull up a good eight dozen examples of that being the corporate policy regarding the purpose of the forums if the search function was even partially effective for a search of that nature) worthless insofar as renderosity is concerned. At this point, the only value they have is for short term issues -- meaning that if someone actually wants to learn something by asking a question, they'll have to ask it again and again and again, becuase the answers will be even more impossible to find and effect than they ever were before. Get off your high horse and go abck and look at the code for the original search engine system and actually work at making it work better, not crippling it.