Workarounds for the forum format...?

[henrik_o]

First, I realize this is probably a Developers subforum issue, but since it does not concern development for the shopbot or related software itself but rather this forum I'll post it here and hope the admin moves it if it doesn't fit in.

Right, the format of the talkshopbot forum has been driving me crazy. I have to keep the Help page constantly open and flick back and forth to do any formatting beyond a simple bold or italics. I don't know how people cope with this, maybe you just learn it in time or have some shortcuts handy, but for a newbie as me it's a mess.

I've written a very simple editor tailored to the format here. It's not a very elegant way to do it, since it still involves back and forths, but at least I don't have to type in the tags every time.

It basically works by having two text spaces, one for writing and formating, with a second displaying the code ready for copy/paste into the post window. As can be seen in this picture, here's the main text space with some formats.


21163.jpg

And here's the secondary text space with the auto-completed forum tags ready to be pasted.


21164.jpg

I've resized the window to keep the proportions within the limits imposed by the forum, but the actual editing window could be much larger.

This is still very basic, and I don't have a valid license to propagate this code, but if there's any interest in it I figure I could finish it up, pay the fee, and release it as a freebie.

Anyway, this is one example of getting around the awkward format of this forum, how do you guys cope with it? Is there a much simpler way I'm just missing?

[srwtlc]

FireFox with tabs open for each. Otherwise, I agree that an update is due.

[paco]

If you're a FireFox user, you may want to have a look at Clippings Add-on (extension).

Pretty useful for other forum too...

[tuck]

I personally think that an upgrade is long past due. These are great boards for ShopBotters, but the format is cave man.

[hines]

I had spoken to Ted Hall and others about this before, which is how the "email you when a new post is made" function got turned on. A good point Ted made was that he likes to know how people feel about this but he wants factual information instead of a general "this sucks" explanation. Shopbot is listening but we need to explain ourselves and make a good case. One reason I would like to see a new site is for a new forum search. The current one is very difficult to use and majority of the results are useless.

[dray]

Improving the forum....

Theres not much wrong with it for casual conversation but anything more than that its too hard and too frustrating to use.

What I would like to see is..
1. in the forum line up, a files section where we could upload files to share!

2. I would like to be able to upload images up to around 500 kb or more. The people on this forum come from a very broad background, alot of questions people ask dont get answered because people just dont understand what someone is talking about. It takes like 20 mins to try to upload a pic, figure out its too bug, resize, find out its still too big then resize until you cant make out what it actually is.

3. make it fun and more interactive.

There are benefeits to both the forum users and Shopbot by adding a files section. Every day after work I carve something cool but its such a hassle to upload pics. Today I Vcarved a 6' chinese dragon, yesterday and the day before I used cut3d to "slice" a 3d nude model and cut it out (its bitchen!!!!). The day before I "sliced" 3d YODA head.. I dont bother posting pics because its a hassle!

There are some cool pictures in the "virtual show and tell" but it should be called a gallery.

Inside the gallery its confusing to navigate, there are folders, archives etc.

Inside gallery the moderator should be posting the coolest stuff up top to show what creative minds can do with a bot. Monthly contests.

By adding a files section it keeps the board active, gets people talking and showing pics of "that" carved file. It also shows perspective new shopbotters that it doesnt come second to a Thermwood.

I have said this before and heard it at the jamboree from other shopbotters. "This is where I came forst before buying a bot" at the beginning it was cool so I ordered a bot, by the 3rd month waiting for my bot I had seen enough moose heads and not knowing much about what it could do I almost cancelled my order.

I opened up the yahoo site to share files, we have a ton but ran out of space, I have been going back and forth with Jack , he did alot of research on finding a good board and host. So I was just going to host a board with almost unlimited space.

Before buying any cnc people gather files to cut and to look at what other people are cutting.

Does it make more sense to have shopbotters and other people looking into cnc routers to come to someone elses site for files or to look at pictures?

To me it just makes sense, but then again I dont know everything.

This is a realllly reallly good fully customizable forum, test drive it
http://www.vbulletin.com/

Oh yeah.. Usually board mods are Members! you dont need to pay someone to mod the boards.

I want to post stuff like this just to make people scratch their heads and go "what the ????" =P



Image removed by forum admin
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[myxpykalix]

Danny,
i agree with you however you're wasting your breath...watch and see how long it takes for your post to be deleted or censored because of the pic. btw, did you check out that hosting server i sent you the link for? It looked like a pretty good deal but there were some technical questions that needed to be asked regarding what type of frontpage extensions and other filetypes that will be used in this bulletin board forum creation, that i didn't have the answers for. I'll check out your link to see if i can figure out the answers.

[myxpykalix]

Danny,
vbulletin looks like what:
http://www.sawmillcreek.org/ runs. You might go there and look up Keith Outten. He runs that board and he has weighed in on this subject before and the only thing i recall from him was that his board was a lot of work. But i don't think we need to have anything as big as his is.

[terryd]

Gentlemen,

I would rather that shopbot spend their resources to continue to improve the operating software. The forum is great as a "commercial/industrial equipment" support tool. If you want to post pictures of two guys in overstretched thongs then take this oppurtunity and create your own site. Not everyone needs the comic book version to understand a great novel. This site is not about supporting your whims and desires. This site is about supporting a machine called "shopbot". Not many companies are willing to make an asset like this forum available gratis. As a matter of fact I can't think of any others at this time? Stop focusing on what's wrong and appreciate all that is right and remember just a few years ago a great number of the prolific posters would have never even been able visualize a CNC Router let alone own and operate (with massive forum support) one.
My 2 cents.

Terry D

[bleeth]

Terry:
Bravo!! Leave the smart a-- stuff (like the photos above) back on the grammer school playground where it belongs.

The efficient posting of photo's and files to share, however, would be a vast improvement. This is something that Shopbot's good friends at Delcam have set up on their forum and it is a valuable idea resource for viewers and posters alike.