Grouping Stacks - well that was a right ticking off. I shall never, never, never, ever mention the subject again. I'm sorry to say I grouped your Zipbar & Ziplist under a functional group, so I guess the update from you will sort me out again.
Not sure what a right ticking off is but I suspect it means I upset you. Not what I was going for but I think you'll survive. Not sure if you understood the point I was making or not, that grouping is a very minor UI feature within Stacks and does not effect the functionality of the stack itself. I'll speak for myself here, I personally don't like to call something and update/upgrade unless I've offered some substantial improvement or fix to it. Grouping is neither.
That's not to say these won't be updated, they will be in due time when there are other functional enhancements or bug fixes that can be put into them. I've been working on both today.
In the meantime you can group them however you like and if you've managed to do so on your own then all the power to you. I have no problem if you want to tinker with the stack innards. Will the pending updates undo what you've done? That's a good possibility. ZipBar will be grouped under "Menus" and ZipList will likely be "Lists" if that helps at all.
So if my reading was correct and your are upset, I'm sorry, that wasn't my intent. I was merely trying to put my position out there, right or wrong.
I understand your point, but "grouping" was a really big thing for us, buyer of stacks. Stacks 2 is finally there and as a beta tester I was very pleased that it was integrated. It really helps to have an overview of all the developers and their stacks.
So you have to think in our place too
And... if your stacks are grouped, we will automatically "notice" all of your stacks together and use it more often.
I'm not sure about a "redesign" but the "subtitles" of the various "subsections" should be reviewed and modified to "simplify" the question "Where should I post?"
I think a lot of the fat could be trimmed. chat this, chat that, 3rd party this, 3rd party that, Development this, development that, html help, questions, requests, tips, tricks... It boggles the mind!
Certainly fodder for another post all together, but how about simply...
Announcements (Official and 3rd party announcements. No pre-announcements please!)
RapidWeaver Questions (Asked, answered, tips tricks and requests)
Plugin Questions (Asked, answered, tips tricks and requests)
Stacks Questions (Asked, answered, tips tricks and requests)
Theme Questions (Asked, answered, tips tricks and requests)
Developer Questions (Asked, answered, tips tricks and requests)
Once upon a time searching the forum would likely get you an answer to an issue that one might be experiencing. These days with the sheer size of the forum it isn't so easy for new/casual RW users to find the nuggets of gold that are hidden away.
I quite like the suggested restructuring of the forum which I'm sure would work admirably if you know what you're looking for. The RapidWeaver software ecosystem is three dimensional with RW versions, Themes, and Stacks/Plugins as the axes. Finding the right place in this 3D world isn't easy and therefore getting the coordinates for the right forum posts that address what you are looking for isn't easy either.
For me the plethora of Themes and Stacks these days is overwhelming. There may be some excellent 3rd party stuff I should consider using. But can I bring myself to wade through the sheer volume of Announcement posts?
I'd like to think that the forum can be structured to make help for new and casual users more simple. RMS is surely following the flow of this thread so such a structure might in turn lighten the support burden for themselves? I'd think that a rethink of the structure of the forum that helps newbies would encourage them to become RW enthusiasts like all the 'old timers' commenting in this thread!
Tony
"The only good ideas are the ones I can take credit for." - R. Stevens
Although "grouping" is a nice "feature" of Stacks 2, I don't think it's complete yet.
"Groups" show up in an odd manner. For example; I have a "group" entitled "Unsupported" which appears right below a "group" entitled "Joe Workman", but my stacks "entitled" "myRapidWeaver" show up below "Unsupported".
We've had a brief discussion start about this very topic on the Dev Group.
I believe it's one of those features that's evolving. Once the "evolution" reaches a specific point you may or may not see Dev's taking more advantage of it.
As a guy who has 571 Stacks in his library, I look forward to how the "grouping" evolves.
ColorwaveA rock in the middle of the Pacific OceanPosts: 1,174Members
Adam-
At the risk of being seen as piling on to this little OT fork of this thread, I have to say that I find grouping to be a significant enough change to warrant an update. I've had quite a number of the 200+ stacks that I own updated just for updated grouping, and it is easy to list the changes that are involved in an update in the change log to let everybody know not to expect too much. With either Sparkle or email updates, it really only stings for a little while.
Your mention of the grouping convention you are planning, based on function, tells me that the Wild West is still a little active in this one aspect of Stacks 2. Only Wesley, that I can recall, has chosen to go with function over developer brand grouping, and I think he has said that he is going to follow the herd soon. I greatly prefer RWCentral style groupings, but Isaiah has been reluctant to go that route. I don't know if there are continuing discussions privately or on Twitter, but I haven't seen anything on the Stacks dev list about any official change of heart. Isaiah seems worried about the ambiguity of function based groupings, but Marten seems to have a very workable category system in place. I saw that Isaiah has said that finder ordered groupings is about to change, but don't know what he really has in mind (i.e. a minor tweak, or major change). Short of user initiated groupings, I like the idea of viewing my stacks by actual purpose the best.
On Topic: Nice to see that a discussion with some substance carried out with civility here. I wasn't too sure that we'd make it this far, to be honest.
I too like the way RWCentral has laid out his "high end sorting system". But is it really "grouping" or more a "quasi-tagging system" that he's coded in?
I recall that there has also been references on the Dev feed about "tagging" as well.
I vote for Adam's suggested forum re-organization.
I've actually been around here since 2008 but used the forum so little I forgot my previous log in.
Why do I use this forum so infrequently when I'm an active member on much larger forums... I think that is purely down to organization and structure as the other forums (RFF and APUG) also have advertising. Plus when I've asked question's here before (long before) the answer's were either all over the place or you never got an answer. Compare that to seyDesign's Google group, put a shout out "Looking for a stack to do ____" and you get 3 or 4 very quick answer's that are on the money. So, this forum is the last place I come for help. Obviously some other people feel this forum is also lacking as a new 'user group' has recently started up and in just a few day's has over 400 members. Why are people asking question's there and not here?
I have to go with other's who have commented on Stack's grouping, I think this is an important feature. With just over 200 stack's it's important to have them organized rather than a painful long list to scroll through. I'm sure this feature is still evolving and I hope in future the user can select grouping by 'Developer' or 'Function', both have there merits. Just now, I prefer by Developer.
ColorwaveA rock in the middle of the Pacific OceanPosts: 1,174Members
I too like the way RWCentral has laid out his "high end sorting system". But is it really "grouping" or more a "quasi-tagging system" that he's coded in?
I recall that there has also been references on the Dev feed about "tagging" as well.
Guess we'll have to wait and see how it evolves.
Listen, buddy, are you trying to pick a fight with me over nomenclature?***
***Just messing with you, but forum bonus points if you recognize the "buddy" reference.
I'd be delighted with a system that kept the developer groupings, but added a blog style function tag. If I couldn't remember the name of a particular slideshow stack, but searched for the term "slideshow" and got a list of all of them that I owned, that would preserve the best of both worlds.
Back again to the original topic, I think I noticed many of the usual suspects showing up to check things out with Gary's new RW forum that just lauched, and hope that it proves to be more useful than RM's Get Satisfaction experiment. I must say, though, that I really like this forum and what it has and can offer, and don't relish the idea of a more fragmented RW community.
Grouping Stacks - well that was a right ticking off. I shall never, never, never, ever mention the subject again. I'm sorry to say I grouped your Zipbar & Ziplist under a functional group, so I guess the update from you will sort me out again.
Not sure what a right ticking off is but I suspect it means I upset you. Not what I was going for but I think you'll survive. Not sure if you understood the point I was making or not, that grouping is a very minor UI feature within Stacks and does not effect the functionality of the stack itself. I'll speak for myself here, I personally don't like to call something and update/upgrade unless I've offered some substantial improvement or fix to it. Grouping is neither.
That's not to say these won't be updated, they will be in due time when there are other functional enhancements or bug fixes that can be put into them. I've been working on both today.
In the meantime you can group them however you like and if you've managed to do so on your own then all the power to you. I have no problem if you want to tinker with the stack innards. Will the pending updates undo what you've done? That's a good possibility. ZipBar will be grouped under "Menus" and ZipList will likely be "Lists" if that helps at all.
So if my reading was correct and your are upset, I'm sorry, that wasn't my intent. I was merely trying to put my position out there, right or wrong.
Adam,
Absolutely not - thought my "never, never, never ...." bit would be the clue to you that I wasn't wounded at all. Anyway, you actually persuaded me with your point of view, which sounds pretty reasonable to me. Your grouping are just perfect.
If you want to group, open up the plist of the stack in Textwrangler or whatever and insert the 2 lines, at the bottom as I've shown in my picture. Its possible to muck it up, but I'm sure a man of your caliber won't.
This thread has certainly strayed from the original topic, "Forum Ethics and a Little History"
This is one of the thing I find most confusing/frustrating about the forum; Not finding the information you need under the correct heading.
Although I think the ideas/opinions being shared now are great and useful, they don't belong here
Brian
Come on over to my Stacks Store, El Stacko.... or else!
Get some of the coolest, most eye-catching stacks available. Add the "wow-factor" your site deserves!
ColorwaveA rock in the middle of the Pacific OceanPosts: 1,174Members
Sorry, Brian. I try to at least momentarily venture back on topic at least a bit in every post, but it is easy to be distracted by salient topics. I don't know that I've ever participated in an online forum that was 100% business, with no extraneous conversation. It just isn't human nature. For "just the facts" solutions, I think conventional tech support means are still the best. I'd describe this type of interaction as "social solutions", in the trendy parlance of the day, vs. meat and potatoes tech support.
In keeping with my self-imposed guidelines, do you think the RW community needs another venue for community support and help (such as Devi8)?, Brian?
I have read this entire thread over the last few days and its definitely gotten off track. In order to corral the side topic, I have created the following thread... Enjoy!
Check out my Stacks Store with over 130+ Stacks available!!!
Video, Fancy Image, Sliders, Table, RSS, CMS, Responsive Stacks and much more... Follow Me on Twitter
***Just messing with you, but forum bonus points if you recognize the "buddy" reference.
Boy are you really trying to stir the pot aren't you!!!! Them be fighting words... LOL
Cheers,
Joe
Check out my Stacks Store with over 130+ Stacks available!!!
Video, Fancy Image, Sliders, Table, RSS, CMS, Responsive Stacks and much more... Follow Me on Twitter
I think a lot of the fat could be trimmed. chat this, chat that, 3rd party this, 3rd party that, Development this, development that, html help, questions, requests, tips, tricks... It boggles the mind!
Certainly fodder for another post all together, but how about simply...
Announcements (Official and 3rd party announcements. No pre-announcements please!)
RapidWeaver Questions (Asked, answered, tips tricks and requests)
Plugin Questions (Asked, answered, tips tricks and requests)
Stacks Questions (Asked, answered, tips tricks and requests)
Theme Questions (Asked, answered, tips tricks and requests)
Developer Questions (Asked, answered, tips tricks and requests)
I can agree with this in order to simplify the forum...
Cheers,
Joe
Check out my Stacks Store with over 130+ Stacks available!!!
Video, Fancy Image, Sliders, Table, RSS, CMS, Responsive Stacks and much more... Follow Me on Twitter
I agree with Gille that the comments should just be disabled in the Announcements forum. Allow the originator of the post to add updates to their post if needed, but disable the comments from other users. As developers do updates, then they should be able to add an update to their post and get it bumped up to the top of the Announcement forum. That would make the most sense to me as a RW user. What I dislike most about the Announcement forum currently is that a really old announcement can get bumped up to the top by just a user say "This is a great stack. Thanks."
I think that this is a great idea. For my next announcement, I will make sure to create a separate thread in the Stacks Chat Forum for all of the chit chat about the stack. We will see how that goes...
Cheers,
Joe
Check out my Stacks Store with over 130+ Stacks available!!!
Video, Fancy Image, Sliders, Table, RSS, CMS, Responsive Stacks and much more... Follow Me on Twitter
In keeping with my self-imposed guidelines, do you think the RW community needs another venue for community support and help (such as Devi8)?
I don't think that the RW community needs another place to hang out. No offense to the Devi8 effort, but I don't need another place/thing to track. By having many places, you are going to be spreading the knowledge around and making it more difficult to find. Imagine that you are new to RW and when you have a question, there are 4 different places where you could find the answer. Wouldn't you rather have 2: the forum & the developer?
Cheers,
Joe
Check out my Stacks Store with over 130+ Stacks available!!!
Video, Fancy Image, Sliders, Table, RSS, CMS, Responsive Stacks and much more... Follow Me on Twitter
This thread has certainly strayed from the original topic, "Forum Ethics and a Little History"
Isn't this what happens in "community's"?
In the other forum's I mentioned there is a strong sense of community, threads do run way off topic and some are over 30 pages long but I still find the information I'm looking for.
This thread really has 3 topic's now...
1. Forum etiquette.
2. Stack's organization.
3. Forum re-organization.
However the 3 are somewhat linked. Frustration with the recent changes in Stack's has led some people to vent on the forum, plus there is a real inability to find information here and maybe a re-organization is in order.
In keeping with my self-imposed guidelines, do you think the RW community needs another venue for community support and help (such as Devi8)?
I don't think that the RW community needs another place to hang out.
If there was a better sences of community here then I would agree with this, but as it is I welcome Garry's efforts.
I feel I need to qualify my statement slightly better...
In 9 months (probably less) on seyDesign's Google Group I've come to feel a very strong sense of community. I've made a few friends, exchanged emails with people from all over the world and would have no 'fear' in posting extremely stupid question's or 'fear' of trying to help somebody out only to have somebody else jump in and lambast me for being totally wrong.
Here though it is the absolute last place I think of coming to for help. As I'm still learning RW I'd not consider trying to help somebody else here unless I was 100% certain of the answer.
On seyDesign's group people's personality's definitely come through, topic's do stray way off topic but it is absolutely the best place I've encountered for learning RW with some of the best people in this community prepared to help.
Some of these "personality's" can be quite rough but very few (1 I can remember) ever complain about it, it's all taken in good spirit.
seyDesign is a much smaller community and it's specialized towards Adam's products but people are free to ask for help, support and chat about anything.
If there was a better sences of community here then I would agree with this, but as it is I welcome Garry's efforts.
I feel I need to qualify my statement slightly better...
In 9 months (probably less) on seyDesign's Google Group I've come to feel a very strong sense of community. I've made a few friends, exchanged emails with people from all over the world and would have no 'fear' in posting extremely stupid question's or 'fear' of trying to help somebody out only to have somebody else jump in and lambast me for being totally wrong.
Here though it is the absolute last place I think of coming to for help. As I'm still learning RW I'd not consider trying to help somebody else here unless I was 100% certain of the answer.
On seyDesign's group people's personality's definitely come through, topic's do stray way off topic but it is absolutely the best place I've encountered for learning RW with some of the best people in this community prepared to help.
Some of these "personality's" can be quite rough but very few (1 I can remember) ever complain about it, it's all taken in good spirit.
seyDesign is a much smaller community and it's specialized towards Adam's products but people are free to ask for help, support and chat about anything.
I maybe comparing Apple's to Oranges though...
So Google Groups bring a much different experience than the forum since its mostly all done through email. I have debated for some time about creating a google group as well. However, I have not done so yet because I ultimately felt that user should be able to use this forum for help and advice. I even joined the SeyDesign group for a short while but could not handle the amount of messages flowing in. I would never be able to keep the squirrels at bay by being in that group!
I don't think that you would ever be criticized for asking a simple question on this forum. I spend a decent amount of time here and can't say that I have seen once instance of that happen.
Now where I feel that I get the best sense of community with RW is on Twitter. I chat with users all day long via Twitter and have become pretty good friends with some of them.
Cheers,
Joe
Check out my Stacks Store with over 130+ Stacks available!!!
Video, Fancy Image, Sliders, Table, RSS, CMS, Responsive Stacks and much more... Follow Me on Twitter
Love the ideas about simplifying the forums and restructuring what happens in announcements. Either Adam's of Gille's ideas would be good.
As for a Reviews forum, I really saw something uber-simple that could be set up in 20 minutes. This thread is now so long (and I'm headed out of town) that I can't take the time to find the original poster but the "other" review site stood little chance of success because:
1. It was on another site. (Not trying to be funny, just stating the obvious: for a long time most users came to these forums. They didn't want/need yet another place to go. That may be changing recently.)
2. I may remember this bit incorrectly, but I vaguely remember the other site being somewhat ponderous. By that I mean it seemed it took a lot of hoops for a user to submit a review (or they had too address lots of different pre-set criteria). Again, I may be wrong, but for some reason I remember thinking: "yikes, I don't have time to submit a review here."
We have several good models of review sites working quite well. And I can think of a few companies that set these up (even if there ends up being much critical review of their own products) to build a greater sense of trust and community around their products. I don't know about the Mac App store reviews (don't read them), but have found several other places invaluable.
I believe Sundog commented that people would need to take posted reviews with a grain (or 2 or 3) of salt. Of course. That's how these things work. But most users know how to spot trends. If there are 10 reviews of a product, and 8 say it has major problems, then there's something amiss with the product. I'm not paying attention to one specific comment, but the trend in comments does tell a story. Most of the time what I see is one or two people chiding a product that wasn't really the product's fault—but the trend in comments (and comments to the off-base commenters) provided a very clear and different story. None of this is particularly difficult and many users are used to how to "read" reviews of these sorts.
However, another reason for having a Review section (perhaps with some general guidelines clearly posted) is that it would potentially help create a better sense of community. These forums are becoming less relevant for me, e.g.,, as there's frankly less and less useful information on them. (To be fair, this is partly due to my aversion to the constant marketing hype that goes on.) But something like a review forum I would check often. It would be interesting.
I think overall most people would only post positive reviews (not always of course). I don't have much free time for things like this forum, so if I took the time to write a review it would be about a product I was really happy with and wanted to highlight it with other users. The main point is a Reviews area would provide many people with a way to contribute to the forums even if they don't have a specific question. It's that sense of "contributing" to something that helps create a greater sense of community.
As I've thought about how a Review section in the forum might work (or not), it occurred to me that as a RW user I would MUCH prefer to see actual real life examples of users who have actually USED the various themes, plugins and stacks on live websites. These examples would tell me much more about the product than reading a review -- since a review can be written by both a complete newbie who is just starting out in RW and a seasoned RW user (who's opinion I would trust more). But if I was able to click on a link and see that product in use, it would be much more useful to me as a user to determine if it would do what I would need it to do.
I would like to suggest the possibility of adding a "Third-Party Real-Life Use" forum section. It would be a place for both users AND developers to share how the products can be used in the real world. (In fact, I would encourage developers to start a thread for each of their products and post their own real-life demo pages that feature their product in use and include a list of keywords that describe their product -- thus allowing users to search within this forum to find real-life uses of "slideshows" stacks, as one example.) Then users can add their own real-life examples below the developer's own posting. As time goes on, there would be a growing number of examples that new users to RW could REALLY benefit from seeing -- not only to check out the products but to also see other RW websites. (I know there is a forum to showcase your website, but for some reason, the idea just doesn't appeal to me, whereas this idea does.) Also, users could check out these examples in various different browsers, etc to make sure they function the way they should.
In the case of stacks, what would be even more beneficial in this type of forum would be for users to share "HOW" they got the stack to perform the way they did on their website by taking screenshots of the stack HUD and to post any special CSS they might have added to enhance the stack, etc. It could become a bit of a "How-To" type of forum as well for those users who want to take the time to share.
This is the type of forum I would follow in a heartbeat and it would be a much more truthful showing of what the products can do -- a "picture" is way better than a thousand word review any day. Also, this type of forum would promote a more positive tone all around as compared to a "review" type forum which is just itching for a *itching (if you follow my drift).
A nice sticky at the top of this type of forum laying out a few posting guidelines and tips would be all that is needed to get the ball rolling. Also give moderators the ability to combine/move the occasional posting that should have been added to a previous product's thread. Then we'd have a very, very useful forum that is newbie-friendly and a very practical resource.
The only downside I can see to this would be when the links to real-life examples no longer work OR when the user switches products/stacks. They might not remember to come back into this forum to update or remove their posting. So in those cases, a moderator would be needed to remove that particular posting or to somehow mark it as INVALID.
Christi: LOVE your idea! I think reviews could still be helpful, but real-life examples are always more powerful.
I don't know the solution, but I'd almost have to create a special RW site for my real-life examples as most of my sites are private (for courses). I could do this easily enough though by creating a special "examples site." And that kind of "examples site" could last a long time. (Maybe there are even better ideas about how examples could last a long time if specific sites are private or go away.)
Real-world examples can also sometimes convince me to NOT use a product (this is a good thing from an end-user perspective). Recently a developer provided links to websites made with their theme. The examples actually convinced me the theme was not for me. So even though it was a negative outcome, the examples were highly useful.
I have read this entire thread over the last few days and its definitely gotten off track. In order to corral the side topic, I have created the following thread... Enjoy!
I have recently built nearly 40 Media Stacks, each one of which I load separately and then test them on a Stacks page. Without exception, RW hangs on the FIRST startup. When I Force Quit and reload all works well. I don’t report these as they would only end up on the RMS “list of to-dos”.
Ken,
Just to clarify: if you don't report an issue you're seeing it's highly unlikely we'll be able to fix it. Each release (and that includes 5.0.x, 5.1.x and 5.2.x) we've made lots and lots of small changes, trying - where we can - to hit small niggles that users report. The only caveat being that if a user is having a problem it's unlikely to be something we can fix unless it's reported
Our powers of mind-reading aren't quite there yet, so your feedback is always appreciated - even if we can't immediately effect the changes, or need to work with third-parties to fix this up.
As always, your bug reports - support@realmacsoftware.com - are appreciated.
Thanks!
-N
Nik Fletcher, Product Manager, Realmac Software Twitter ~ Blog
This... the RapidWeaver Forum - the commumity - everything around it... I have NEVER seen anything like it anywhere! It's unique. One of a kind! The help I have gotten - through the years... has been unique. Ask - receive! And I have asked many STUPID questions - never - never - never a stupid answer!!! Doesn't mean it can't be better. Doesn't mean the forum can't be optimized... easier. More simple. Better.
There's some language specific forums... dansk - danish. Tysk. German. English. Engelsk.. this is the web. The web don't speak danish. It never will... Sooooooo... question is - year - what's the question ? Things change. Move... Move fast. This is the internet. The web. Never sleeps.
The people around 'this'. Real Mac Support - All the 3d party developers... This is a UNIQUE community.
Comments
That's not to say these won't be updated, they will be in due time when there are other functional enhancements or bug fixes that can be put into them. I've been working on both today.
In the meantime you can group them however you like and if you've managed to do so on your own then all the power to you. I have no problem if you want to tinker with the stack innards. Will the pending updates undo what you've done? That's a good possibility. ZipBar will be grouped under "Menus" and ZipList will likely be "Lists" if that helps at all.
So if my reading was correct and your are upset, I'm sorry, that wasn't my intent. I was merely trying to put my position out there, right or wrong.
I understand your point, but "grouping" was a really big thing for us, buyer of stacks. Stacks 2 is finally there and as a beta tester I was very pleased that it was integrated. It really helps to have an overview of all the developers and their stacks.
So you have to think in our place too
And... if your stacks are grouped, we will automatically "notice" all of your stacks together and use it more often.
But like you.. this is just my opinion.
Gille
http://www.stackscenter.com
RwGrid - Rapidweaver Website Showcase
http://www.rwgrid.com
Once upon a time searching the forum would likely get you an answer to an issue that one might be experiencing. These days with the sheer size of the forum it isn't so easy for new/casual RW users to find the nuggets of gold that are hidden away.
I quite like the suggested restructuring of the forum which I'm sure would work admirably if you know what you're looking for. The RapidWeaver software ecosystem is three dimensional with RW versions, Themes, and Stacks/Plugins as the axes. Finding the right place in this 3D world isn't easy and therefore getting the coordinates for the right forum posts that address what you are looking for isn't easy either.
For me the plethora of Themes and Stacks these days is overwhelming. There may be some excellent 3rd party stuff I should consider using. But can I bring myself to wade through the sheer volume of Announcement posts?
I'd like to think that the forum can be structured to make help for new and casual users more simple. RMS is surely following the flow of this thread so such a structure might in turn lighten the support burden for themselves? I'd think that a rethink of the structure of the forum that helps newbies would encourage them to become RW enthusiasts like all the 'old timers' commenting in this thread!
"The only good ideas are the ones I can take credit for." - R. Stevens
Christ the King Church - RapidWeaver site at http://www.christthekingchurch.org.uk
"Groups" show up in an odd manner. For example; I have a "group" entitled "Unsupported" which appears right below a "group" entitled "Joe Workman", but my stacks "entitled" "myRapidWeaver" show up below "Unsupported".
We've had a brief discussion start about this very topic on the Dev Group.
I believe it's one of those features that's evolving. Once the "evolution" reaches a specific point you may or may not see Dev's taking more advantage of it.
As a guy who has 571 Stacks in his library, I look forward to how the "grouping" evolves.
FreeStack Theme
MacSupportCasts
{ old forum post count = 6128 }
I have 50 I think and doesn't remember all of them. So grouping is a must for me.
571..... wow
http://www.stackscenter.com
RwGrid - Rapidweaver Website Showcase
http://www.rwgrid.com
At the risk of being seen as piling on to this little OT fork of this thread, I have to say that I find grouping to be a significant enough change to warrant an update. I've had quite a number of the 200+ stacks that I own updated just for updated grouping, and it is easy to list the changes that are involved in an update in the change log to let everybody know not to expect too much. With either Sparkle or email updates, it really only stings for a little while.
Your mention of the grouping convention you are planning, based on function, tells me that the Wild West is still a little active in this one aspect of Stacks 2. Only Wesley, that I can recall, has chosen to go with function over developer brand grouping, and I think he has said that he is going to follow the herd soon. I greatly prefer RWCentral style groupings, but Isaiah has been reluctant to go that route. I don't know if there are continuing discussions privately or on Twitter, but I haven't seen anything on the Stacks dev list about any official change of heart. Isaiah seems worried about the ambiguity of function based groupings, but Marten seems to have a very workable category system in place. I saw that Isaiah has said that finder ordered groupings is about to change, but don't know what he really has in mind (i.e. a minor tweak, or major change). Short of user initiated groupings, I like the idea of viewing my stacks by actual purpose the best.
On Topic: Nice to see that a discussion with some substance carried out with civility here. I wasn't too sure that we'd make it this far, to be honest.
Ron
Colorwave Imaging & Colorwave Hosting
I too like the way RWCentral has laid out his "high end sorting system". But is it really "grouping" or more a "quasi-tagging system" that he's coded in?
I recall that there has also been references on the Dev feed about "tagging" as well.
Guess we'll have to wait and see how it evolves.
FreeStack Theme
MacSupportCasts
{ old forum post count = 6128 }
I've actually been around here since 2008 but used the forum so little I forgot my previous log in.
Why do I use this forum so infrequently when I'm an active member on much larger forums... I think that is purely down to organization and structure as the other forums (RFF and APUG) also have advertising. Plus when I've asked question's here before (long before) the answer's were either all over the place or you never got an answer. Compare that to seyDesign's Google group, put a shout out "Looking for a stack to do ____" and you get 3 or 4 very quick answer's that are on the money. So, this forum is the last place I come for help. Obviously some other people feel this forum is also lacking as a new 'user group' has recently started up and in just a few day's has over 400 members. Why are people asking question's there and not here?
I have to go with other's who have commented on Stack's grouping, I think this is an important feature. With just over 200 stack's it's important to have them organized rather than a painful long list to scroll through. I'm sure this feature is still evolving and I hope in future the user can select grouping by 'Developer' or 'Function', both have there merits. Just now, I prefer by Developer.
***Just messing with you, but forum bonus points if you recognize the "buddy" reference.
I'd be delighted with a system that kept the developer groupings, but added a blog style function tag. If I couldn't remember the name of a particular slideshow stack, but searched for the term "slideshow" and got a list of all of them that I owned, that would preserve the best of both worlds.
Back again to the original topic, I think I noticed many of the usual suspects showing up to check things out with Gary's new RW forum that just lauched, and hope that it proves to be more useful than RM's Get Satisfaction experiment. I must say, though, that I really like this forum and what it has and can offer, and don't relish the idea of a more fragmented RW community.
Ron
Colorwave Imaging & Colorwave Hosting
Adam,
Absolutely not - thought my "never, never, never ...." bit would be the clue to you that I wasn't wounded at all. Anyway, you actually persuaded me with your point of view, which sounds pretty reasonable to me. Your grouping are just perfect.
regards
Ken
I did catch the "buddy" reference.
And I'm with you, I'm looking forward to how things shape up/forward with Grouping and the possibility of Tagging. Best of both worlds.
FreeStack Theme
MacSupportCasts
{ old forum post count = 6128 }
If you want to group, open up the plist of the stack in Textwrangler or whatever and insert the 2 lines, at the bottom as I've shown in my picture. Its possible to muck it up, but I'm sure a man of your caliber won't.
Ken
This is one of the thing I find most confusing/frustrating about the forum; Not finding the information you need under the correct heading.
Although I think the ideas/opinions being shared now are great and useful, they don't belong here
Brian
Get some of the coolest, most eye-catching stacks available.
Add the "wow-factor" your site deserves!
In keeping with my self-imposed guidelines, do you think the RW community needs another venue for community support and help (such as Devi8)?, Brian?
Ron
Colorwave Imaging & Colorwave Hosting
http://forums.realmacsoftware.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/53323/
Joe
Check out my Stacks Store with over 130+ Stacks available!!!
Video, Fancy Image, Sliders, Table, RSS, CMS, Responsive Stacks and much more...
Follow Me on Twitter
Check out my Rapidweaver Book coming Summer 2012.
Boy are you really trying to stir the pot aren't you!!!! Them be fighting words... LOL
Joe
Check out my Stacks Store with over 130+ Stacks available!!!
Video, Fancy Image, Sliders, Table, RSS, CMS, Responsive Stacks and much more...
Follow Me on Twitter
Check out my Rapidweaver Book coming Summer 2012.
I can agree with this in order to simplify the forum...
Joe
Check out my Stacks Store with over 130+ Stacks available!!!
Video, Fancy Image, Sliders, Table, RSS, CMS, Responsive Stacks and much more...
Follow Me on Twitter
Check out my Rapidweaver Book coming Summer 2012.
I think that this is a great idea. For my next announcement, I will make sure to create a separate thread in the Stacks Chat Forum for all of the chit chat about the stack. We will see how that goes...
Joe
Check out my Stacks Store with over 130+ Stacks available!!!
Video, Fancy Image, Sliders, Table, RSS, CMS, Responsive Stacks and much more...
Follow Me on Twitter
Check out my Rapidweaver Book coming Summer 2012.
I don't think that the RW community needs another place to hang out. No offense to the Devi8 effort, but I don't need another place/thing to track. By having many places, you are going to be spreading the knowledge around and making it more difficult to find. Imagine that you are new to RW and when you have a question, there are 4 different places where you could find the answer. Wouldn't you rather have 2: the forum & the developer?
Joe
Check out my Stacks Store with over 130+ Stacks available!!!
Video, Fancy Image, Sliders, Table, RSS, CMS, Responsive Stacks and much more...
Follow Me on Twitter
Check out my Rapidweaver Book coming Summer 2012.
Isn't this what happens in "community's"?
In the other forum's I mentioned there is a strong sense of community, threads do run way off topic and some are over 30 pages long but I still find the information I'm looking for.
This thread really has 3 topic's now...
1. Forum etiquette.
2. Stack's organization.
3. Forum re-organization.
However the 3 are somewhat linked. Frustration with the recent changes in Stack's has led some people to vent on the forum, plus there is a real inability to find information here and maybe a re-organization is in order.
If there was a better sences of community here then I would agree with this, but as it is I welcome Garry's efforts.
I feel I need to qualify my statement slightly better...
In 9 months (probably less) on seyDesign's Google Group I've come to feel a very strong sense of community. I've made a few friends, exchanged emails with people from all over the world and would have no 'fear' in posting extremely stupid question's or 'fear' of trying to help somebody out only to have somebody else jump in and lambast me for being totally wrong.
Here though it is the absolute last place I think of coming to for help. As I'm still learning RW I'd not consider trying to help somebody else here unless I was 100% certain of the answer.
On seyDesign's group people's personality's definitely come through, topic's do stray way off topic but it is absolutely the best place I've encountered for learning RW with some of the best people in this community prepared to help.
Some of these "personality's" can be quite rough but very few (1 I can remember) ever complain about it, it's all taken in good spirit.
seyDesign is a much smaller community and it's specialized towards Adam's products but people are free to ask for help, support and chat about anything.
I maybe comparing Apple's to Oranges though...
My purpose was to initiate a dialog on improving our community. Making the Forums for friendly and useful.
But I have no issue with moving the next stage of this conversation to a new thread. At least for the Stack 2 part of the topic.
This thread will remain open for discussion too for other parts of the conversation.
Inside Rapidweaver - Books, Themes and More...
So Google Groups bring a much different experience than the forum since its mostly all done through email. I have debated for some time about creating a google group as well. However, I have not done so yet because I ultimately felt that user should be able to use this forum for help and advice. I even joined the SeyDesign group for a short while but could not handle the amount of messages flowing in. I would never be able to keep the squirrels at bay by being in that group!
I don't think that you would ever be criticized for asking a simple question on this forum. I spend a decent amount of time here and can't say that I have seen once instance of that happen.
Now where I feel that I get the best sense of community with RW is on Twitter. I chat with users all day long via Twitter and have become pretty good friends with some of them.
Joe
Check out my Stacks Store with over 130+ Stacks available!!!
Video, Fancy Image, Sliders, Table, RSS, CMS, Responsive Stacks and much more...
Follow Me on Twitter
Check out my Rapidweaver Book coming Summer 2012.
As for a Reviews forum, I really saw something uber-simple that could be set up in 20 minutes. This thread is now so long (and I'm headed out of town) that I can't take the time to find the original poster but the "other" review site stood little chance of success because:
1. It was on another site. (Not trying to be funny, just stating the obvious: for a long time most users came to these forums. They didn't want/need yet another place to go. That may be changing recently.)
2. I may remember this bit incorrectly, but I vaguely remember the other site being somewhat ponderous. By that I mean it seemed it took a lot of hoops for a user to submit a review (or they had too address lots of different pre-set criteria). Again, I may be wrong, but for some reason I remember thinking: "yikes, I don't have time to submit a review here."
We have several good models of review sites working quite well. And I can think of a few companies that set these up (even if there ends up being much critical review of their own products) to build a greater sense of trust and community around their products. I don't know about the Mac App store reviews (don't read them), but have found several other places invaluable.
I believe Sundog commented that people would need to take posted reviews with a grain (or 2 or 3) of salt. Of course. That's how these things work. But most users know how to spot trends. If there are 10 reviews of a product, and 8 say it has major problems, then there's something amiss with the product. I'm not paying attention to one specific comment, but the trend in comments does tell a story. Most of the time what I see is one or two people chiding a product that wasn't really the product's fault—but the trend in comments (and comments to the off-base commenters) provided a very clear and different story. None of this is particularly difficult and many users are used to how to "read" reviews of these sorts.
However, another reason for having a Review section (perhaps with some general guidelines clearly posted) is that it would potentially help create a better sense of community. These forums are becoming less relevant for me, e.g.,, as there's frankly less and less useful information on them. (To be fair, this is partly due to my aversion to the constant marketing hype that goes on.) But something like a review forum I would check often. It would be interesting.
I think overall most people would only post positive reviews (not always of course). I don't have much free time for things like this forum, so if I took the time to write a review it would be about a product I was really happy with and wanted to highlight it with other users. The main point is a Reviews area would provide many people with a way to contribute to the forums even if they don't have a specific question. It's that sense of "contributing" to something that helps create a greater sense of community.
I would like to suggest the possibility of adding a "Third-Party Real-Life Use" forum section. It would be a place for both users AND developers to share how the products can be used in the real world. (In fact, I would encourage developers to start a thread for each of their products and post their own real-life demo pages that feature their product in use and include a list of keywords that describe their product -- thus allowing users to search within this forum to find real-life uses of "slideshows" stacks, as one example.) Then users can add their own real-life examples below the developer's own posting. As time goes on, there would be a growing number of examples that new users to RW could REALLY benefit from seeing -- not only to check out the products but to also see other RW websites. (I know there is a forum to showcase your website, but for some reason, the idea just doesn't appeal to me, whereas this idea does.) Also, users could check out these examples in various different browsers, etc to make sure they function the way they should.
In the case of stacks, what would be even more beneficial in this type of forum would be for users to share "HOW" they got the stack to perform the way they did on their website by taking screenshots of the stack HUD and to post any special CSS they might have added to enhance the stack, etc. It could become a bit of a "How-To" type of forum as well for those users who want to take the time to share.
This is the type of forum I would follow in a heartbeat and it would be a much more truthful showing of what the products can do -- a "picture" is way better than a thousand word review any day. Also, this type of forum would promote a more positive tone all around as compared to a "review" type forum which is just itching for a *itching (if you follow my drift).
A nice sticky at the top of this type of forum laying out a few posting guidelines and tips would be all that is needed to get the ball rolling. Also give moderators the ability to combine/move the occasional posting that should have been added to a previous product's thread. Then we'd have a very, very useful forum that is newbie-friendly and a very practical resource.
The only downside I can see to this would be when the links to real-life examples no longer work OR when the user switches products/stacks. They might not remember to come back into this forum to update or remove their posting. So in those cases, a moderator would be needed to remove that particular posting or to somehow mark it as INVALID.
Okay, enough about my idea. Thanks for reading.
<a href="http://www.solarblasterfans.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.solarblasterfans.com</a> • <a href="http://www.raynproofroofing.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.raynproofroofing.com</a> • <a href="http://www.wigs-by-esteticadeella.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.wigs-by-esteticadeella.com</a> • <a href="http://www.factures4learning.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.factures4learning.com</a> • <a href="http://www.wigs-things.com" target="_blank" rel="nofollow">www.wigs-things.com</a>
I don't know the solution, but I'd almost have to create a special RW site for my real-life examples as most of my sites are private (for courses). I could do this easily enough though by creating a special "examples site." And that kind of "examples site" could last a long time. (Maybe there are even better ideas about how examples could last a long time if specific sites are private or go away.)
Real-world examples can also sometimes convince me to NOT use a product (this is a good thing from an end-user perspective). Recently a developer provided links to websites made with their theme. The examples actually convinced me the theme was not for me. So even though it was a negative outcome, the examples were highly useful.
Ok Joe, Thanks buddy
http://www.stackscenter.com
RwGrid - Rapidweaver Website Showcase
http://www.rwgrid.com
Thanks for the feedback: we'll see what we can do about re-arranging the forums somewhat.
-N
Twitter ~ Blog
Just to clarify: if you don't report an issue you're seeing it's highly unlikely we'll be able to fix it. Each release (and that includes 5.0.x, 5.1.x and 5.2.x) we've made lots and lots of small changes, trying - where we can - to hit small niggles that users report. The only caveat being that if a user is having a problem it's unlikely to be something we can fix unless it's reported
Our powers of mind-reading aren't quite there yet, so your feedback is always appreciated - even if we can't immediately effect the changes, or need to work with third-parties to fix this up.
As always, your bug reports - support@realmacsoftware.com - are appreciated.
Thanks!
-N
Twitter ~ Blog
There's some language specific forums... dansk - danish. Tysk. German. English. Engelsk.. this is the web. The web don't speak danish. It never will... Sooooooo... question is - year - what's the question ? Things change. Move... Move fast. This is the internet. The web. Never sleeps.
The people around 'this'. Real Mac Support - All the 3d party developers... This is a UNIQUE community.
Tx.
http://www.denflinkegrafiker.dk · http://www.vissenbjergtryk.dk