new format hard to use

je1449@aol.com · Post by **je1449@aol.com** » Apr 14th, '05, 18:17

Not trying to be disrespectful, but as a dinosaur turning 50 this june, I find this new format really difficult.

The old system was so simple, even I could navigate it!

Some times more is not better!

Anyone else feel the same way??

John Edwards

Neil Gordon · Post by **Neil Gordon** » Apr 14th, '05, 18:52

Give it another seven years or so and you'll get the hang of it. <s>

Guest · Post by **Guest** » Apr 14th, '05, 19:03

Hey John,

This format is different but not all that bad once you use it awhile. I felt the same as you and didn't log on for a long time but once I did it started to sort out. Now it's about the same as the old BBS to me (and I'm a lot older dinosaur than you!).

Keep trying. I had an "aha" moment and it all became clear after that.

Al Levesque · Post by **Al Levesque** » Apr 14th, '05, 20:44

John,

Some of us with 15 or 20 more years have had more opportunity to experience new things. That makes it easier for us older guys to adapt. When I was younger I thought it would be the other way around. Stick with it and you will get the hang of it. Just count the other old fogeys on this board in addition to me and you can see how easy it must be to use.

Al

M. R. Bober · Post by **M. R. Bober** » Apr 14th, '05, 20:53

Hey you young whippersnapper,
The new format is a bit like fungi. It will grow on you.

Back in the days when ships were made of wood and men of iron, there was only one format (actually it was a threemat.) The board has a few display options, and I suspect one of them may be more comfortable for you.

Ever best wish,
Mitchell Bober
Sunny Annapolis (where in the Historic District access to the Internet is by hand stamped courier carried covers), MD

Tom · Post by **Tom** » Apr 14th, '05, 21:04

I think I've mastered it as well as it can be mastered. I can navigate around in it OK but I just don't like it and find it very awkward. I've read the same posts over and over again until I'm sick of them and don't like them all pushed up to the front again every time someone adds a post. The search function is almost unusable now and as more and more posts get in there I think it's going to become overwhelming. Who's got time to read 478 posts on "stainless steel" when more than half of them don't have anything to do with stainless steel? In about 5 more years you're going to have 1500 posts to go through and 1000 of them won't have anythng to do with the topic. Don't feel bad, you are not alone. But, hey, I guess it's better than nothing.

Paul Kamins · Post by **Paul Kamins** » Apr 14th, '05, 21:42

I am admittingly not very computer savy. However I have had no problems yet with this new format except shrinking a picture 25 times to make my avitar (I'm sure there is an easier way). I have sucessfully used the search function a handful of times. I am blown away by the new features that make using this board MORE fun than ever. Avitars, the e-mail reminder that someone has responded to a post, and the poster's potential BIO.......amazing. Still have'nt figgured out spell check or posting a picture, but I know with a little study, these will come . I do think that the emotions are totally goofy and should be banished. Hats off to Cathy and other designers of this new format.

Dick Barthel · Post by **Dick Barthel** » Apr 15th, '05, 07:29

I wasn't a big fan of the new system until I experimented with the settings to find the presentation that suited my taste. As for searching the archives, I think it fair to say that the old search system also left some room for improvement.

Under the new system, with a certain setting you can tell at a glance if anything new has been added to a thread you've been following. Under the old system you would have to keep reviewing old threads by going way down the board and click on to see if it had changed. Also, if you were away from the board for a week or so and replied to an old thread, the chances that anyone would read your reply was slim and none.

I'm impressed with the number of hits that are occuring for each thread. I searched for my favorite thread by typing in 25D using ascending order (I think ascending, I always get that backward!) and soon found Bruce Bebling's pictures of his beloved vessel. To date there have been 2,235 hits! [Granted, probably 2,000 of those hits are Bruce and John Vigor admiring their work of art.]

I hope you guys stick with it. On this board, everyone's viewpoint is appreciated and respected. And Walt and Cathy are the type of people that listen and make changes whenever possible.

Dick

TyTwo · Post by **TyTwo** » Apr 15th, '05, 09:17

I build/maintain websites for a Fortune 500 company for living and I think this is a horrible user experience. Maybe I'll get used to it, but that's not what you generally go for when building a website.

Please don't take this as a knock at the administrators. I love the board and the people who run it. Just a comment on the vendor who built this.

ew

dasein668 · Post by **dasein668** » Apr 15th, '05, 14:36

Allia CD 25 wrote:I build/maintain websites for a Fortune 500 company for living and I think this is a horrible user experience. Maybe I'll get used to it, but that's not what you generally go for when building a website.

How about building us something that you like then.

TyTwo · Post by **TyTwo** » Apr 15th, '05, 15:03

I thought that was coming. You can't afford me:) But seriously, it's not something I could do. This is just off-the-shelf application. There are many. They all have pros and cons. I happend to prefer the old one. What I work on are really document-serving websites. Customers come in looking for a specific manual, download or whatever and it gets served up. Very different than this. Sorry if I sound overly critical.

dasein668 · Post by **dasein668** » Apr 15th, '05, 15:29

I also build websites for a living, and I also don't do web-application development, so I wouldn't try to build a better BB package either. But I find this to be one of the best off-the-shelf BB apps out there. Yes, there's room for improvement, but I don't know of many things that don't have that... So it definitely comes down, largely, to personal preference—like so many things in life.

RMeigel · Post by **RMeigel** » Jul 15th, '05, 16:06

I'm not 100% comfortable with the search engine on this new board. When the recent CD27 swim ladder posting came up, I wanted to link to a message in the archives that I'm pretty sure I posted. So I searched under "author". Came up with a lot my posts, but I'm not convinced it captured all of them, and for sure it didn't come up with my swim ladder posting.

Robin

bilofsky · Post by **bilofsky** » Jul 16th, '05, 16:24

Hi, Robin -

Is this post the one you were looking for?

I found it by searching on "ladder robin".

Searching your posts by author, it also shows up. In the search results, it shows as a thread entitled "Reboarding a CD27 from the water".

The search displays the thread title and the original poster. It would be better if it displayed your post and title within the thread, especially for the author search.

Regards,

Walt

Cathy Monaghan · Post by **Cathy Monaghan** » Jul 17th, '05, 10:59

Hi Robin,

The board's search results can be displayed by either "posts" or "topics". Try clicking on the check box for "Posts" the next time you do a search. Then do the same search selecting the "Topics" check box instead and you'll see what I mean.

Don't search under author for anthing that we posted before February 2005. The board will only search for REGISTERED USERNAMES and we didn't have any registered usernames before that time. But you can search on the author's name by including it in the "key words" instead.

Cathy

The Cape Dory Board

new format hard to use

new format hard to use

Re: new format hard to use

You get used to it -- different, not bad

Format

I can't believe it's butter !

New Format

Couldn't agree more

Re: Couldn't agree more

Search experiences

Post you searched for