Autodesk Discussion Groups Feedback

[#1]

Are you by chance somewhere near Emeryville, CA ?

[#2]

Talking about AUGI's forum website, not the software they use that is behind the scenes (don't care about brands or how popular or unpopular they are, just my experience using the site).

Other than the fact it has never had Newsgroup access in a very long time (this place did before this last change)...

• Go into Control Panel at AUGI: what can you do to change how things are displayed or organized? nada. Compare to this site's newer My Settings.
• Find the correct discussion group for AutoCAD LT, act as a new member, in less than 5-seconds from the main page HERE.
• Do that HERE link-thing I just did above over there. Only if you know HTML coding.
• Try and customize your log-in page over there like you can do here now to only display groups you want to see at the top.
• Avatars. really? Emoticons/smileys as part or the post headers, how childish. What's next, facebook friend-ing? Tweets?
• Where is the simpler easier to use Rich Text  posting options? They only have HTML coding, and then only if the individual admin has it on. Or vbcode for the average user? Otherwise plain text all the time. Bullets? Order Lists?
• - Try the other display options easily that match "My Settings" Preferences over here, or the Macro feature, or the Layouts feature. Or the Text size feature.

AUGI is a great organization (you should belong), the majority of it's members are savvy CAD and Computer users, their forums are primarily designed for that target audience not the average AutoCAD user who's awareness of vbcoding to simply write a note asking for help is not there. Attend an AUGI function in your area and meet some very talented folks.

The AUGI forums contain no better information than the ones found here or elsewhere, except you get a bigger more diverse audience and responders here, as these Autodesk forums are less divided and fragmented than AUGI's.

Welll, you did ask for my opinion

[#3]

According to Streets and Trips...

2266.7 Miles or 4 days, 3 hours, 33 minutes, and that's including 4 overnight stops!!

[#4]

Dean, you should tweet all day long.  If they had that here I would finally sign up to twitter.

[#5]

I was going on a hunch that maybe you were closer to the source....

It's only about a 12 hour drive for me. Out the window that theory.

[#6]

Maybe it is more of a what browser are we all using issue? or what computer.

What works fine for say IE8 may not work as well for say Firefox.

I use IE8 on a Dell Precision 690 with XP pro SP 3 with a 3Ghz processor.

It could also be as simple as someones Virus protection.. Norton vs take your pick..  We use Trend Micro Client/security agent for example.

[#7]

>Maybe it is more of a what browser are we all using issue? or what computer.

IE7  -  I will try intalling IE8 and see it that helps.

My PC specs are identical with the exception of the processor (3.2GHz).

Also I temporarily shut down symantec, no change - still very slow.

ACADuser

[#8]

Thank you for giving reasons for your opinion Dean, though I don't personally agree with most of your reasons:

* As for Control Panel options, I find AUGI adequate and don't need more options, so it doesn't matter.

* As for finding the right discussion group, I don't even remember how to do it for either forum. I found it and bookmarked it for both, so it doesn't matter.

* Avatars? Don't care one way or the other.

* Plain text only? Doesn't bother me - just like the now defunct NG. Bullets? Can do it just like this.

I'll acknowledge that this forum does have a few nicer features, but the issues I have with it, and the nicer features of the AUGI forum, make the AUGI forum much more user friendly to me. That's my opinion, with no disrespect intended for yours.

[#9]

After upgrading to IE8 from IE7 the forum is much faster.  Whether that was the cause of slowness is questionable, maybe it's because I had to restart my computer after the install? Could have had some bugs that MSRT just prior to the install ?  Maybe bigbrother can no longer bully IE with the upgrade ?

As for now it's much smoother. 

[#10]

---

kenkrupa wrote:

Thank you for giving reasons for your opinion Dean, though I don't personally agree with most of your reasons:

* As for Control Panel options, I find AUGI adequate and don't need more options, so it doesn't matter.

* As for finding the right discussion group, I don't even remember how to do it for either forum. I found it and bookmarked it for both, so it doesn't matter.

* Avatars? Don't care one way or the other.

* Plain text only? Doesn't bother me - just like the now defunct NG. Bullets? Can do it just like this.

I'll acknowledge that this forum does have a few nicer features, but the issues I have with it, and the nicer features of the AUGI forum, make the AUGI forum much more user friendly to me. That's my opinion, with no disrespect intended for yours.

---

Reply to both Dean and KenKrupa. I agree with you KenKrupa.

See attached for my first issue. I pressed the "Quote" button and this is what I see in my edit window. I don't understand why the formatting is lost. I would like to be able to read your message while I'm composing mine (without scrolling down).

I don't care about bbcode or html or any other markup for that matter, ASCII is fine with me. If I need bullets, I'll use this
* Bullet 1
* Bullet 2

As far as customizing the startup screen, you can do this with vBulletin.

Just off the top of my head, here are a couple of things vBulletin can do that I don't see here....
* Multi-quote
* Show you a preview of the message without opening the message (when hovering over a link)
* Apply a reply to a thread using AJAX (so the whole page does have to refresh)
* Why doesn't this forum hold the formatting as it's entered in the editor? (See below)

Here is one sentence Here is another, on a new line Here is the third, on a new line. Here is the fourth, but are they all going to be run together....?

Of course, I had to manually enter HTML code to get the other paragraphs in this message to break.. How are people unfamiliar with HTML expected to know how to do this?

Thanks.