Postby baxissimo » Wed Jan 11, 2006 02:36
I don't want to sound ungrateful, because obviously you've put a lot of your precious time into putting this forum together. But frankly, I cringe every time I have to visit these forums. The reasons are many:
1) The load times are atrocious. I'm not sure if it's the server or the internet connection it's hosted on, or because it's in the UK and I'm in Japan, or because of the heavyness of the format, but anyway it takes between 5 to 8 seconds for every single basic operation. Posting takes even longer. I simply don't have the patience to even consider hitting the preview button.
2) The format is too busy. All these DHTML popups and stuff are distracting, as is the "Experience Point" system shown for every user. If people think the XP system cool, then great, make a link to the info for those who care, but I'd really rather not have to see this big garish block of information I don't care about attached to every single post. Such irrelavent info should be the single most visually salient thing on the page. The one bit of info I do care about is WHEN an article was posted. That's in a tiny font down at the bottom of the post. I'm constantly mistaking the date when the user joined the forum for the posting date because the former is written in high contrast bright bold blue letters on a white background right at the top left corner, while the latter is in tiny black on gray lettering down at the bottom of the post.
3) Is it just me or is there no way to login other than going to the main CEGUI homepage? First, I would rather the site log me in automatically. Yes there are security issues, but for goodness sake, it's not like CEGUI.org.uk is a financial institution or something. But second there really really should be a way to login from any given forum page. It's really annoying to go to try to reply to a post only to see those messages at the bottom saying "You cannot start a new topic; You cannot reply to posts, etc" Hello? Why not? Is this topic locked or something? Oh wait... oh, ok. I guess I'm not logged in. Ok where's the login button? Huh? It's got to be on this page somewhere, right? No? Hmmm, where is it then? I could swear I saw it somewhere. The main forum page? Nope. Oh, yeh the CEGIO front page. Ok. Open CEGUI home page in a new browser window, etc etc you get the idea. Bottom line: Down where it says "You cannot reply" it should also say in big bold letters "YOU ARE NOT LOGGED IN - TO LOG IN CLICK HERE".
4) I wish there were a big prominent link at the top-level forum page for "what's new". I think there is such a feature -- I found it once -- but it's got some name that wasn't obvious to me, like "list all", or perhaps it was buried in one of those DHTML menus.
Those are the main things. I'll admit that part of the problem is that I just don't like forums very much. But I don't feel the same level of dread at all when I go visit the ogre3d forums. The pages look clean, not busy, they load up quickly, all the links you need are right at the top of every page, and I get logged in automatically.
I like it!I'll check the timeout on the cookie though.
I like Firefox a lot (use it almost exclusively when on Winders/Linux)...maybe I'll switch on OS X. Will be tough though: Safari is quite nice also.
