JoeUser Forums Updated

Speed Improvements!

from JoeUser Forums

If you haven't noticed yet, the JoeUser forums has changed a bit.  Over at WinCustomize for the last half  year we have been coverting the site over from ASP to ASP.Net.  By doing this we are able to use many of the features in ASP.Net which help improve performance.   We have just taken the first step in bringing this updated technology over to JoeUser via the forums.   Hopefully the first thing you should notice is a speed improvement.  The .net code takes advantage of data caching which allows to reduce how often we have to access the database which helps make the site faster!

We are also in the process of updating the look of the forums.  If you will notice there are two links at the top of the forums (Forum Indexed View and Standard View). The new Forum Indexed View allows you to get a listing of the sub forums for each parent category.  There is a good chance we will make this default view of the forums so please let us know what you think about it.  But use it for a little bit before making a rushed descision.

We do expect a few glitches here and there so please let us know if you experience any problems.  Thanks and enjoy the forums!

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1,847 views 36 replies
Reply #1 from JoeUser Forums Top
I noticed, they look fantasic. But a weird thing happened to me when I clicked my blog I was redirreced to someone called mudflap, it happened twice.

Really nice forums though! Great layout and easy to navigate but what's the citizen such and such for - just extra info so we don't have to click on their name to find out if they're a citizen or elite/power user etc?
Reply #2 from JoeUser Forums Top
I'm not so hot on the new look, but I'm sure it's just that I was familiar with and used to the old style. It doesn't seem to be functionally worse...
except there are less articles displayed in the summary of each subforum. I'd rather see a few more instead of having to visit each one.
Still, I think it's fine.

trina - No, the citizen tag even applies to a friend who I know is a lvl 3 (and I checked, he's a Master Apprentice, but still labeled Citizen). Maybe they haven't applied the full effect yet...

edit: and I can no longer give Insightfuls to comments when viewed from the forums? Maybe I'm wrong, I'm still exploring...
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Reply #3 from JoeUser Forums Top
Love the new look.

Except...how do you give people an 'insightful' now, or does one have to go directly to the blogs to give points since it doesn't appear that one can do it in-forum?
And the posts don't have links to the author's blog site - I've always thought that was useful because I could go directly to author's blog if I wanted read more from someone I've found interesting.
Reply #4 from JoeUser Forums Top
3 times it did it again. mudflap

Master Apprentice? never heard of that one. Dharma, muggaz, trinitie don't have ciizen besides their names but gideon, bluedev, you, me - do

And what raven said -- I liked that link to the blog site shortcut also.
Reply #5 from JoeUser Forums Top
I don't like it. I liked the old style better.

I can't figure out how to troll/insightful either.

Man, now I have to figure out how to navigate around here again!

Oh, and I got diverted to Mudflap as well.
Reply #6 from JoeUser Forums Top
i was diverted to joe.joeuser.com

while im not mortally concerned about the troll/insightful rater, i would prefer to see more articles displayed per category. also, forum activity seems like a limited option compared to recent articles and recent posts.

still, it looks good. and thanks for the continued effort at making this a great free site. by the way, do you offer any premium services for this blog site?

tbt
Reply #7 from JoeUser Forums Top
Hey, I went to Mudflap too!

Do I have to take a citizenship test to become a JoeUserican?
I want to be a citizen!
Reply #8 from JoeUser Forums Top
im not sure this is on-subject, but how does one change his/her ranking from, what, citizen (1) to prouser (2) and so on or whatever and yadda yadda?

tbt
Reply #9 from JoeUser Forums Top
Some of the stuff is missing still.
Reply #10 from JoeUser Forums Top
Some of the stuff is missing still.


I'd give you an Insightful if there were a button (and I had any left today).
Reply #11 from JoeUser Forums Top
I've gotten redirected to the mudflap thing too...several times when I've tried it.

Other than that it's looking pretty smooth around here...

~Zoo
Reply #12 from JoeUser Forums Top
I like how it looks, but it is... bothersome because I am so used to the old one (also, I had fav'ed the politics forum, and the link stopped working, and that confused me until I read this post, so if we could possibly put redirect links, that would be helpful instead of the "An error has occured while proscessing".
Reply #13 from JoeUser Forums Top
I too get redirected to Mudflap's. Why?

I am not worrying about it too much because I rarely use the forums. I mainly just look at the bar to the right of the screen and read articles that sound interesting. I haven't used the forums in ages, but I went to them today and I liked the new look.
Reply #14 from JoeUser Forums Top
Looking good. All the little quirks I had with Firefox are gone now. My line breaks work, I get the edit box at the bottom. Seems to be coming together.
Reply #15 from JoeUser Forums Top

Many of the unfamiliar items are cary overs from our WinCustomize code.  Like the Citizen and Master Apprentice items you saw are honorifics for the users on WinCustomize (ie Mr T-man or Citizen T-man).  We decided to get the new forums in place a bit prematurely (before all the old functions were re-implemented and WinCustomize specific code stripped) because we felt that the old forums were so slow that would be more beneficial to speed things up.

 

Reply #16 from JoeUser Forums Top
It's not a bad decision to upgrade, even if you have to implement things as you go. Speaking of... where can I get a cool user icon like you have? (Looks pretty superhero-y)
Reply #17 from JoeUser Forums Top
The avatar icon can only be uploaded over at WinCustomize at the moment from the My Account page ( https://www.wincustomize.com/myaccount.aspx?p=3 ).
Reply #18 from JoeUser Forums Top
I like the new setup but have a few suggestions for making the site better still.

The article sorting protocol brings the the thread most recently replied to to the top of the list. That's OK, but I'd like to see an option to sort by original post date, too.

I'd also recommend that when you click the link to view replies, the replies be sorted in ascending order (Z to A) - having to scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page to read the newest replies, especially in heavily replied threads, is a pain and needlessly time consuming. I'd even put the Add Your Comments dialog at the top, myself. Again, if there were an option to sort either way according to personal preference, that would be great.

I've found that accessing JU via SDC is far faster than via Firefox, even with pipelining enabled and I'm on cable. I'd like to be able to set the Forums home page as the default Joe User link in SDC, but I haven't seen a way to do that.

If some or all of these suggestions are already implemented & I'm just too stupid to find the radio buttons, let me know. Otherwise, please consider them.

P.S. I also see that some of the graphic elements (drop-down list button) are not getting skinned, whereas they do get skinned in the old layout. Hopefully, that's just one of those things still "missing."

Thanks,
Daiwa
Reply #19 from JoeUser Forums Top
And it looks like you can't view a list of all the Politics channel - it won't intermingle the Repub/Dem/Intl subgroups the way the regular Politics Channel does, unless I missed something.

Cheers,
Daiwa
Reply #20 from JoeUser Forums Top
Oh, and it could use a link to your Watch List.

Sorry to be pestering this thread.

Cheers,
Daiwa
Reply #21 from JoeUser Forums Top

Sorry to be pestering this thread.

That's not "pestering" that is "bug reporting"

Please feel free to make comments.  It's the only way the web guys will know what's "wrong".

Reply #22 from JoeUser Forums Top
So far I am a fan. I like the layout and, yeah, it does remind me of WC (which is a good thing). Looks like a step in the right direction.
Reply #23 from JoeUser Forums Top
Oooh, and my icon shows up! Killer.
Reply #24 from JoeUser Forums Top
The new look isn't bad, and speed is always a good thing, but the site seems to be acting very strangely. Links are not all going where thay are supposed to and when I signed in on my blog I found myself logged in but at the wrong blog site.

It also took me three tries to get to the forums. Nice look but reliable performance seems to lacking at the moment.
Reply #25 from JoeUser Forums Top
Love the new look. So much faster too, I am impressed. No trouble on my end so far - whew!