Even with all the little things that need to be fixed or adjusted in the Forum, I have to say this is light years ahead of the old beta email list. Not having to listen to cranky old programmers complain about stuff not belonging on the beta list is worth it for me. A much better solution, good job!
Did you researched the age of those cranky people? Some are Xojo Engineers. 
No research, they just appeared to be old and cranky from the tone of the complaining. Just making a wise crack, nothing to discuss here.
It’s usually Joe trying to keep people on topic, and while I don’t want to reveal personal information, let’s just say he’s far from old.
During the active beta periods, I understood. But when nothing was going on and we were all twiddling our thumbs, didn’t seem to make much sense asking people to quit talking about Real Studio just because it didn’t relate to “the beta”, even though there was no “the beta” to even look at. And Joe never sounded cranky.
In any case, running the beta through this forum is much more organized, a lot easier to tell what is going on.
[quote=1900:@Melvyn Pate]During the active beta periods, I understood. But when nothing was going on and we were all twiddling our thumbs, didn’t seem to make much sense asking people to quit talking about Real Studio just because it didn’t relate to “the beta”, even though there was no “the beta” to even look at. And Joe never sounded cranky.
In any case, running the beta through this forum is much more organized, a lot easier to tell what is going on.[/quote]
The problem is two-fold.
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The additional off-topic messages make it more difficult for people to see the announcements we need them to see. While that is true of on-topic discussions as well, that is a necessary burden to suffer. When the topics are not beta-related though, there is no benefit to offset the risk of missed announcements.
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The beta list is not public or archived. Off-topic conversations are generally better for the NUG, since there is no reason to exclude the non-beta users. They could benefit from the conversation, they should be allowed to.
Agreed. Even though I admit to being just slightly old and cranky myself!
I’d rather have the mailing list. To each his own, I suppose.
I think this forum software is well-done, and has some nice features compared to PHPbb (etc).
However, the speed at which I can scan information, decide what’s worth reading, and read (or skip) it is about 5x faster with the mailing list than this (or any) forum software.
So, I too, miss the mailing list - I value my time and don’t like systems that needlessly spend it for me.
Agreed, nothing against this forum (which, despite it’s current bugs, is pretty nice), or even the original.
Right. The only thing on the forums that I appreciate over the mailing list is the ability to clearly post code blocks. If the mailing list would allow HTML, I could simulate that too.
Yes, nothing wrong with that. The reason I like the forum is it keeps the conversations together. much easier to follow an issue that is not resolved in two emails. Under the mailing list, the back and forth conversations were all mixed in with replies to replies to replies, everything gets copied over multiple times, inter-mixed with reply characters or vertical lines depending on how each mail client handled it. Very hard to follow after a few back and forths.
I do agree with Diehr, the mailing list was faster at ignoring what was of no interest to you.
But as you said, to each his own, makes the world go 'round.
Then you were using the wrong email client. Many email clients have (at least optionally) threaded conversations for well over a decade. Even gmail does a very nice job of threading conversations.
This is perhaps the nicest forum software I have seen so far (there are some REALLY bad ones out there), but that said, I still find it WAY slower to try to navigate and skim new messages than using an email client with good keyboard shortcuts and instant jump to the next message. Or thread.
And the slower your connection, the worse it is (mine is about 30Mbps but forums are still WAY slower than email).
I understand why Xojo may like it from their perspective, and that is there choice and I will respect that. Just saying it is inherently way slower than a (good) email client and good keyboard shortcuts.
Right, but I really don’t want to turn other parts of my business upside down to accomodate the RS beta mail list. We have auto-processing of orders that generate encryption keys and mail them out, etc… all tied into the database. And I don’t really want to check email in more than one place.
I guess the point is moot for Xojo since it will remain forum based now, but the way to solve the above is to filter each list to different folders (you really need to be doing this anyway) and then only use a threaded view in the folders where you want that. Other folders you may want reverse chronological or whatever.
Regarding checking email in more than one place, decent email clients will allow you to pull email from multiple accounts too. So if you use a unique email for various things, you can still see them all at once.
But this is off-topic on how to use the forums so I’ll not beat the horse any longer.
We already check mutiple accounts from different servers from the same client, that’s not the issue. I know what works best for my business. Changing email clients so I can better see the mail list for an obscure beta mailing list list is not in the cards.
I am having a MUCH harder time to follow the flow of information for I gather that flow in my mail client. Now I have to fire up a browser and wade through a list that I can hardly filter and organize the way I want to. So, the forum is a huge step back in efficiency for me. I was using smart mailboxes to filter communications with certain keywords. Now I can’t do that. Quote levels were MUCH easier to scan for me and having a “like” line doesn’t make any sense to me. It is never specific enough to really say what exactly I liked… so this is a pat on the shoulders for the facepalm, err, facebook generation, but to me it is a waste of space and clutter that doesn’t help in any way. There. Now I said that.
I’m warming up to the forum, but what I really miss is the “push” aspect of the mailing list. I have to make a conscious effort to go to the forum and see what’s up, whereas the mailing list stuff arrived in my email box, and I dealt with it (or tossed it). I didn’t have to fire up Safari and go looking for news.
The other hand I see is the possibility of someone asking something, and you could never come back to check that “old” topic. This way, you’ll never know and won’t give that requested feedback/answer.
I am a bit older an some would say cranky… and I MUCH prefer a mailing list…
IMO a mailing list is much more efficient time wise than searching through a forum. Also getting all post when they happen is a lot more productive for the betas (and the NUG) IMO.
I suspect Xojo (REAL) likes the control a Forum gives … but it does make it more work to follow what’s going on for some of us.
I never had a problem dealing with off topic posts on the REAL mailing lists. In a good email client one can scan messages a lot faster than on a forum and threading can be used if you like.
- Karen
Karen I’ve never found you cranky & welcome to the Beta glad you made it.