I'm sorry, but there are far more intuitive and easy to use 3rd party forums like vBulletin and others. Why this custom one? I also can't get to these forums from SolidWorks anymore (back in 2014 and now in 2015 as well.)
Is it just me? Granted I don't use them frequently, but I shouldn't have to figure out the simplest things every time I do use the forum.
That's some very general criticism, especially the last sentence. If you can be more specific maybe someone can help.
Sorry, I didn't have time to be more specific yesterday. That came out of frustration after a confluence of several things happening at once with SolidWorks (crash, Simulation issues, difficulties in starting this thread on the forum...)
I am not one who spends a lot of time on the forum. I use it sparingly when I have a question. It should be extremely easy to use the first time you use it; intuitive user interfaces are not a difficult thing to create and should be priority number one for something like a forum. There are several commands off to the left but it took me quite some time to figure out where the command is to start a new discussion. For some reason it is hidden. Before I did that, however, I had to logon, like I do EVERY TIME I go to this forum. When I do go to the forum after using Bing or Google to ask the question (because it doesn't work through the SolidWorks interface and hasn't for me for a couple of versions now), I login so I can actually use the forum, but then it kicks me to the forum home page instead of the discussion I was trying to use....
*Sigh*
I haven't tried the search in a while, but there was a time (recently, so it may still be that way) when it didn't do what I intuitively thought it would do (like contain the search within the topic I chose.)
Again, this topic came out of frustration due to many issues with SolidWorks happening at once and getting me in a bad mood. Having said that, I have wanted to write this before simply out of frustration with the forums, but refrained from doing so. I couldn't help it this time.
Chris,
I agree with you that there's room for improvement. This discussion may help you if you'd like to take a look: Forum Posting .
I have been experiencing the same issue Alex has described. When I click on the forums tab from within solidworks, its just a blank display. I can only get into the forums now through internet browser.
I have only noticed this since upgrading to 2015. It was fine before then and how I always used to access the forum.
UI of the forum itself, is fine for me also.
The issue with the community pane inside the SOLIDWORKS task pane is a different issue.
We have an update coming soon that should address that case.
We can take this as a separate issue if needed. I'll make sure this is on the open issue list.
Seeing that anyone that doesn't want the American style date (middle-endian) pop up in their property tab built custom property HAS to switch off the SolidWorks Forum add-in. In short, everywhere but the USA, Belize and the Federated States of Micronesia.
There for I don't think there's going to be that many that will be using the forum tab from within SW who aren't located in the US or it's 16 territories.
Besides that there's the question if it even gets used that often by Americans because even if it wasn't for the above fact I would suspect that the majority of us that do use the forums will more prefer to use a separate program to research something rather then force a program that already has enough things to deal with into a role that is neither here nor there.
Of course, if the necessary study has been preformed that clearly indicates that it does get used by a decent share of the users on a regular basis then I more then understand the effort that is being put into debugging it especially if it would solve the 'date' issue in the custom properties.
What annoys me more than anything is when I first come to the forum, I am logged out of course, but let's say I was reading this thread, and hit log-in, you are allowed to do so, but then are sent back to the forum homepage. And clicking back to get back to your thread does not work, because of the intermediary log-in page in between.
It would be way more intuitive to go back to the thread I was reading, because obviously if I am logging in while on a thread page, I am more often than not about to reply/favorite/vote on that thread. Instead I have to copy and cut the thread url, log-in, am sent to the forum home, have to paste in the thread's url and go. No other forum is like that.
I wrote to Solidworks about it. No answer, no acknowledgement of receipt.
Just log in in another tab, and refresh the original tab.
We have this as an open issue and are looking to address this.
I'll insure this is on the open issue for the Forums.
Another thing about the forums that is irritating is the inability to go back to where you were in the list of topics/threads... If one clicks on a thread to read it then go to back out, it takes you NOT back to where I was but back to the TOP of the list of topics/threads that's not intuitive and since the forum hides past 12 or so topics you need to scroll down and hit more AGAIN for every time you back out of a thread to go back to the list of discussions NOT GOOD at all and very frusterating I can easily see someones frusteration when they are trying to deal with this ON TOP of searching for an answer to a problem they are experiencing.
Alex
Alex,
When I'm looking at the forum I frequently right-click on a topic and open it in another tab. That way when I finish with I can close that tab, and I'm still at the same place on the list on the other tab.
Glen, I do the same, but it's a work around. the fact that it's one of this forum's problems doesn't change.
Sometimes, I'm reading different discussions, I have to have several tabs open for each sub forum and then open a new tab for each discussion just to prevent hitting the back button.
One more thing that I find very difficult with this forum, is tracking your bookmarks. You have to click your avatar at the top of the page to go to your profile, then click More drop down and then click Bookmarks.
And still can't understand why this forum isn't designed to accept cookies and each time I have to login.
Habib Ghalamkari wrote:
One more thing that I find very difficult with this forum, is tracking your bookmarks. You have to click your avatar at the top of the page to go to your profile, then click More drop down and then click Bookmarks.
That got fixed a while ago. It's under Actions.
thanks. I didn't know it was fixed.
I am well aware of that workaround Glenn... and with that said, I am also aware of how resource intensive multiple browser tabs are.
Especially when you are working, already have multiple windows open... and multiple tabs in each window.
Have you ever opened a browser window with 8 to 12 (Or more) tabs and looked at how resource intensive it is?
Not that this (Running out of system resources) is actually a problem, but..... I find it irritating that it consumes so much more resources to work around this problem, then it would to make the U.I. behave the way it SHOULD and was ACTUALLY DESIGNED to behave in the first place
On top of that... what is more intuitive? If I remotely modified your browser, so that each and every time the browsers back button was pressed it would take you back to your browsers home page.... would that be an acceptable course of action? Why yes, certainly you could figure out multiple workarounds, but does this behavior make sense in the first place? We have a back button on the browser to take you back to the previous page that you were on and a SEPARATE home button to take you to your browsers home page.
What would you think of your favorite browser if EVERY button on it took you to your browsers home page? I know this is slightly exaggerated but what is the real difference its just one little thing not behaving as it should.
No offense intended in any way... just a happy rant
Alex
Alex Crossman wrote:
Another thing about the forums that is irritating is the inability to go back to where you were in the list of topics/threads... If one clicks on a thread to read it then go to back out, it takes you NOT back to where I was but back to the TOP of the list of topics/threads that's not intuitive and since the forum hides past 12 or so topics you need to scroll down and hit more AGAIN for every time you back out of a thread to go back to the list of discussions NOT GOOD at all and very frusterating I can easily see someones frusteration when they are trying to deal with this ON TOP of searching for an answer to a problem they are experiencing.
Alex
Alex,
I just went back and re-read your post from yesterday. I didn't realize you're following the Forum from the Home page. I'd suggest you follow it from the All Content page instead, which is what I do. From there you can click on a link to go to a specific Discussion, and the back button will take you back to the same page, at the same place. The All Content link is also available from individual Discussion pages, but of course that will always take you to the top of page 1.
The only time I'm on the Home page is when I'm thrown there after logging in, and I immediately go to All Content.
And I'm not defending the way the Forum works, or making excuses, just trying to help.
While we're on the subject of first world problems, I also discovered the other day that individual post timestamps are not permalinks. For instance, if I want to bookmark a link that sends me straight to Greg Jankowski's post above from
Matthew,
Right-click the title in the post and select Bookmark This Link. You can also use the Copy Link Location option to obtain the permalink to post in other replies.
I am locking this thread. When bringing up issues or questions, please make them specific and on one topic.
There are a number of good questions in here and I will branch them into separate questions.
We will also get the open issue list updated.
I am locking this thread. When bringing up issues or questions, please make them specific and on one topic.
There are a number of good questions in here and I will branch them into separate questions.
We will also get the open issue list updated.