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What's Wrong With WinCustomize?

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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.

59,169 views 151 replies
Reply #51 from WinCustomize Forums Top
(Not sure if that's what Lantec was getting at with his #1).
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No..that's another issue I failed to mention......example: I load a thread that has 13 pages of replies and read to #630 then later I see that the page has been active and is up to #670 and has 14 pages. I open it and it starts me at page 1 reply #1. Then I have to click the >> to get to the last page (last item per Bebi's post) and then the < to go back one to reach post #631.....
Reply #52 from WinCustomize Forums Top
No..that's another issue I failed to mention......example: I load a thread that has 13 pages of replies and read to #630 then later I see that the page has been active and is up to #670 and has 14 pages. I open it and it starts me at page 1 reply #1. Then I have to click the >> to get to the last page (last item per Bebi's post) and then the < to go back one to reach post #631.....
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Annoys the hell out of me when that happens  :( 
DeskScapes - Bring your desktop background to life.
Reply #53 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Move the drop down star rating button position away from the download button. absolutely. and wc definitely needs a makeover. looks dated for a customizing/skinning site.

wish list.... media area for just the players. winamp,xion, and maybe a foobar2000 section as well. also make it mandatory to upload screenshots in .png format rather than .jpg. so many good shots,but lots of quality loss due to compressions. it's been awhile since my last shot, so maybe i'm wrong about that. still.... .png is the way to go. :)
Reply #54 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I agree with much of what Lantec has posted. I really really agree about the Rating button which needs to be moved away from the download button, I have accidentally rated so many skins It's just not fair to the skin designers. also I think that when I select which galleries are shown I should only have to do it once, not every time I re-login to the website. It's an annoyance. The forums are very old school and could use some serious updating.
Reply #55 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I think everyone has covered the items I was going to raise but I would especially like to see the return of the personal customization of the site where SUBSCRIBERS can change the look of how they view the site, as highlighted by Koasati. After all this is undoubtably the best and most popular customization site in the world and should we not show everyone that fact from the moment they hit the front door?

I totally concur with WG's request on the ObjectDock Gallery. Backgrounds and Icons should be kept separate for the reasons he outlines. Likwise on the DX items.

One suggestion that concerns me is the 'Rip Report' button. Nice idea, but you will get some clowns come to this site and just hit this button just for the sheer hell of it or to be a nuisance. That will quickly annoy some of the moderators. A bit of thought needs to go into this one and I would suggest that it be a facility that is only available to subsribers.
Reply #56 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Nice idea, but you will get some clowns come to this site and just hit this button just for the sheer hell of it or to be a nuisance. That will quickly annoy some of the moderators.
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It would only be annoying before teh mods got a chance to explain the error of their ways.  :)
Reply #57 from WinCustomize Forums Top
One suggestion that concerns me is the 'Rip Report' button. Nice idea, but you will get some clowns come to this site and just hit this button just for the sheer hell of it or to be a nuisance. That will quickly annoy some of the moderators. A bit of thought needs to go into this one and I would suggest that it be a facility that is only available to subsribers.
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The Rip report button would only work for members, and any member sending in a crap load of false rip reports, I imagine would be dealt with ;)

Reply #58 from WinCustomize Forums Top
If this hasnt been said. fix the personal page date\comment order problem.
Reply #59 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I can't believe this hasn't been mentioned yet (or I overlooked it) but it's SLOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW. I was just trying to get back to the forums home and waited....and waited and waited some more, so I'm posting again since I seem to be stuck here. :-"

I don't know if it's just me (something in the way from the WC server to my ISP) but it seems to take bloody forever to get a link to load.  X-( 
Reply #60 from WinCustomize Forums Top
but it's SLOOOOOOOWWWWWWWW
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It is really slow. Sometimes I get dns errors (?) too. Sometimes I hit stop button and start over.

My connection takes about 40 minutes to download a 1 GB file from Microsoft web sites (most big files come from there). So, it is not my connection.
Reply #61 from WinCustomize Forums Top
My reply is already on the site, but the page has not comeback. It is still going on.
Reply #62 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Actually a few weeks back.. like on 'random' visits to main page totally locks up my browser.. Can't even close it. Finally opens up but after a loooong lockup.
Reply #63 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I totally agree that this site needs to be skinnable. It was before and I understood the reasons it wasn't implemented at first in the re-design but it has been promised to return and yet still hasn't. This must be possible to do even on a basic level. Yahoo, Google, MSN they all have pages that are skinnable.
If you are concerned about the speed of loading the site, well those who want a fancier skin will have to make due with it loading slightly slower, though with broadband around that shouldn't be a big impact really.

I agree also with the frustration mentinoned above with the OD icons. Someone makes several and releases them separately I assume in order to increase their visibility. I find it hand if I want just one but they flood the updates, there must be something that can change there.
To go along with this some skins come zipped when they shouldn't be. They should have the proper extension as in .wba. They are zipped because they include wallpapers, etc but these should be separately linked so I can download the windowblind and easily install it like its meant to work.
Reply #64 from WinCustomize Forums Top
That can be done now by going to the address bar and changing the number at the end to whichever page you wish. It would be more convenient if there was a numbering system for pages to click on though.
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Hankers - Thank you for quick response, but I was misunderstood. If I am looking at Wallpapers for example, I start at page 1 of 322 ... I've seen the first 50, now I want to come back later and be able to find 51 without clicking through the first 50 again.

Reply #65 from WinCustomize Forums Top
That's what he means. In the url in your addressbar, there will be &p=50 at the end, just change it to whichever page you want to go to.
Reply #66 from WinCustomize Forums Top
That can be done now by going to the address bar and changing the number at the end to whichever page you wish. It would be more convenient if there was a numbering system for pages to click on though
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Sorry, but what I mean is, in Wallpapers for example there are 322 pages, if I've looked at the first 50 I would like to come back later and be able to pick up at 51, not click through the first 50 again.
Reply #68 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Sorry, but what I mean is, in Wallpapers for example there are 322 pages, if I've looked at the first 50 I would like to come back later and be able to pick up at 51, not click through the first 50 again.
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Do you mean the first 50 wallpapers or the first fifty pages? If it's the first fifty pages then what Hankers and Bebi says works. If it's the first fifty wallpapers then no go.
Reply #69 from WinCustomize Forums Top

2. More active moderation: if someone starts posting the same question over and over in different sections (cross-posting) because they think they'll get a better response if they plaster it all over the place, close all subsequent cross-posts and refer them to their original post. Or if someone accidentally posts in the wrong category, moving it to the proper one.
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That's done already.  The number of threads I [for one] post 'redundant' to and subsequently hide/delete is quite significant...;)

Reply #70 from WinCustomize Forums Top
I concur with pretty much all the 'what's wrong's so far mentioned.  Mine [being selfish] are just the admins' end of the site's interaction.  All sorts of room for improvement [though I'm quite adept at through-hoop jumping for workarounds]...;)
Reply #71 from WinCustomize Forums Top
Move the drop down star rating button position away from the download button
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NO! Replace the stars rating with favs+...

...we are all tired to read threads about the low rating people are getting.
Reply #72 from WinCustomize Forums Top
could we make it so you can sort a search with the current 'last updated' etc drop down menu? at the moment it just sorts the entire gallery, so i have to edit the url if i want to find the most downloaded photoshop icon for example.
Thanks
Reply #73 from WinCustomize Forums Top
also make it mandatory to upload screenshots in .png format rather than .jpg. so many good shots,but lots of quality loss due to compressions.
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I've never had a problem with degradation. If one is careful about it, it is possible to upload a SS as .jpg with unnoticeable loss of quality. I always save as as .bmp/.png then convert it to .jpg before upload.
Reply #74 from WinCustomize Forums Top
More help for new skinners in the forums.

Give clearer descriptions of your software, ie; icon packager cannot resize icons larger than 72 pixles.
Reply #75 from WinCustomize Forums Top
In the galleries section, it would be nice to include a list of the moderators for each category. That way one would know which mod to contact with upload problems/questions.