What's Wrong With WinCustomize?

Yes, we want your complaints!

from WinCustomize Forums

This March, WinCustomize turns 7.  For seven years the site has grown in terms of visitors, bandwidth, quantity of skins etc.  And the site itself has gone through several revisions in that period.  Today, we're on the 5th iteration of WinCustomize, and on the whole it still bears a striking resemblance to that first site launched back in 2001.  For good or ill, a lot of the decisions that went into that first site determine direction to this day.

While there have been a lot of improvements, there are probably a lot of places where we've failed to meet expectations.  WinCustomize 2007 was focused on a solid foundation, code that was stable and expandable.  Now we're in a position to focus on the UI and the presentation more, to improve the user experience dramatically.  This is where you come in.

About a year ago, we sought your opinions on how Stardock had failed the community.  Your comments on what you felt we could be doing better has helped us make a lot of changes and improvements to our products.  Well, we want to try that again, only this time specifically with WinCustomize.  We want to know what doesn't work, what sucks, what you hate, what you want fixed about WinCustomize.  We are looking for very specific critiques of the site, it's functionality, layout, user interface etc.

This thread is about critiques, it's not about defending the site, it's not about telling us how much you like the site.  If we are going to improve the site in the future, we need a very clear picture of what is broken and needs to be fixed.

A week from today, I will be going through the comments on this thread and compiling a master list of complaints and critiques.  We will use this list when we start the requirements and design work for the next WC update later this year.

59,168 views 151 replies
Reply #1 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Once upon a time, you could choose from several site themes. I would really like to get that option back. I miss my Universe Metal WC. (I got used to the new layout, but I still don't like the 'look')
Reply #2 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Move the drop down star rating button position away from the download button.
Multiplicity - Control multiple PCs using one keyboard and mouse
Reply #3 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Here's my critique , and this is specific to the fourms. and this may also address Snoop Froggy Froggs issue with the quality of the bug reports on this site.

I think the support forum should be heavily moderated as to how issues should be posted. And it should be made clear before posting on a sticky thread at the top. For example ,

Type of issue:

What version of the software

etc etc

Any other threads are deleted with a note to see the sticky for format

That way you should be able to get better quality bug reports and the forums are not clogged with whiny threads like 'I get black borders on my Windows , WB sucks , wah wah wah !!!! '

Reply #4 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I think the site needs consistant navigation across forums, galleries,  and personal sites.
The top navigation is "almost" the same but not quite.  Side bar navigation would be nice too.

The same functionality for author names in teh forums in the galleries (PM, view profile, etc.)

Allow some skin-ablility.  Post the CSS for the UI so that skinners can upload to a WC theme gallery or jsut create one for their own use.


Reply #6 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Don't include unsolicited WindowBlind themes with the periodic WB updates.
End of quote


huh?

The title is "What's Wrong With WinCustomize?" not "what's wrong with WindowBlinds"
Reply #7 from WinCustomize Forums Top
This also isn't a "Please add this completely new feature" thread.  Look at what's there. already.  A wishlist thread is a separate effort.
Reply #8 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I like the NetFlix/Yahoo style star rating. You just click on the star. There are gotchas like after you rate it you won't know what is the overall rating. That means another one that shows overall rating.
Reply #9 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Move the drop down star rating button position away from the download button.
End of quote


Seconded. Maybe a simple 10 pixel drop could do it?

Have to agree with Koasati but, think that option should be for an add-on for subscribers only.
Reply #11 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I agree with Ken. This has been discussed and rediscussed in many different posts, yet nothing is ever done about it.

For such design heavy experts, I'm amazed and dismayed that such a simple thing is not acted on.
Reply #12 from WinCustomize Forums Top
There should be separate DX Objects, Widgets,Gadgets and Stand Alone galleries.
Reply #13 from WinCustomize Forums Top
A Vista icon for IconPackager just like Windowblinds.
Reply #14 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hopefully some of the bugs on the site will be fixed on the next update:

1. guestbook dates on personal pages are wacky.

2. Unable to delete entries from guestbook

3. When I do a skin update I get a message saying "because of your access level, the skin is auto-approved. Your skin will be up in aprox. 1 min."
I know this isn't true!
Reply #15 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I am on 8 meg Broadband and pages still load like on dialup , even with regular cache cleaning, Trusted Sites etc ...
~ ~ may be it could be a bit faster to load pages ...
Reply #16 from WinCustomize Forums Top
This might fall under the header of "New Features/Wishlist", but it goes to how I utilize the site (and how I imagine many other casual users sue it as well):

We need a Personal Favorites page (like a My Yahoo-type page), where we can define what new skins or themes are shown (by type, date, popularity, etc), along with any new articles posted in the past (however many) days. I would also like that page to not be naviagted away from (have any link clicked form it open in a new tab). I know this would personally save me much time and many clicks each time I visit the site. Maybe we already have that and I just don't know how to sue it.

As for actual complaints, I have to agree with the Star Ratings drop-down; it gets in the way or causes me to start downloading (again) a skin I'm rating more often that not.

The text editing for forums and comments needs to be udpated. There is a great deal of good code out there that would allow the formatting of these things without the [tag]'s. It's a little ole-skool. And an in-line spell-checker for posts would be great as well (maybe we could get it to automatically Capitalize and punctuate everything that needs to be, as few things bother me more than people who write in all lower-case and neevr use a comma or period...).

Other than that, nothing else comes to mind.
Reply #17 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Better search in the skins categories. If you don't spell the word exactly right you get a Cannot Find window.
Reply #18 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Too much multiple posting of the same topics. ID's picks of the month is a great thing but we don't need another thread pointing to ID's thread. Same goes for almost every announcement Frogboy makes. There are multiple threads and trying to follow things is confusing. I am sure you all have your reasons but..I'm just saying. :)
Reply #20 from WinCustomize Forums Top
What is for me the most desapointing part is all what's concerning forums: it's (for me) a big jumble where i'm just unable to find if something has already been posted or not ...  :NOTSURE: 
Reply #21 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Hola Zman,

It would be nice to sort WB skins by WB6, WB6XP, WB6Vista or both WB6XP/Vista. This would allow users wanting WB6 skins to find them easier. The sort by last updated doesn't necessarily mean that the skin was optimized for WB6. I'm only talking about windowblinds here. I'm not sure but it may help in other skin galleries too.

By the way, it's almost Wednesday, which means, it's almost Friday so smile and have a great week. :)
Reply #22 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I would love to see all gallery items at once standard.
Reply #23 from WinCustomize Forums Top
When it comes to customization, Wincustomize is the ultimate site for new ideas and total customization. The content and the idea of the site is a PC enthusiasts dream, so let's have the website interface reflect this, with custom buttons extra colors or chrome, shiny black, 3D designs, image backgrounds or anything that gives the site a professional look that says WE KNOW CUSTOMIZATION.

Check out some sites like the Computer Graphics Society website, as well as some of the website interfaces on deviant art. These are the kind of interfaces I'm talking about. Who knows, with a new paint job, you'll probably attract even more people to your website, that's always a plus!

This website has the potential to look as good as it can make your computer look.
Reply #24 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Ok....I know some people aren't going to want to hear this again and it will more than likely get shot down...again...but since you asked.

Give dock backgrounds they're "own" library! That has been my pet peeve for a long time. Yeah yeah, I know...pngs/icons are used with Objectdock...and icons are used with WindowBlinds but you don't see that library flooded with icons. And it really sucks doing all that work creating backgrounds only to have them buried under tons of pngs/icons...many of which are repeats of similar pngs/icons that have been done over and over.

And I call them png/icons because as far as I'm concerned the only difference between them is about 2 seconds to convert them from one to the other.

Then there's the theme png/icons that "should" be zipped up together but are spread out as single uploads...AND they are also allowed to be uploaded to the Misc icons library...and its only because of they are now icon/pngs. The fact that they can be converted so easily either way makes it unfair to those of us that take the time to create backgrounds for people to use and kinda stifles our motivation to continue creating them when we know they will only get buried...I know it has for me.

Creators of icons should simply include a png version of their icons along with them...its done on other sites...why not here?

Reply #25 from WinCustomize Forums Top

WC is... fugly. The internet's premier skinning site looks like it was designed by a 4 year old.

How I long for the old, old site with it's changeable skins. Skins which were made by skinners...

The forum needs a dramatic makeover. There are so many categories it's just ridiculous. It's as though on a whim someone says "I have a topic called XYZ, lets create a XYZ category". Then, two minutes later, there's a WXY category too, because, even though its in the same alphabet, WXY isn't the same as XYZ... Does my head in  :( 

The little icons bottom right in every post. Anyone know what they are? Thought not! A text 'report thread' etc makes more sense. Rate this reply? What is that for?

A 'report this comment' and 'report a rip' buttons on skins so us mods can get to the action fast ;)

Most important, a list of moderators, and some indicator of who is currently on the site. With a big shiny PM button so folks can get hold of someone in an emergency.