Well, after a long meeting with Van this afternoon, i can safely say that almost of all the suggestions made on ways to improve BeoWorld even further can be implemented!
I will list a few, and will list more as we fix them, so please don't be too concerned if an issue you raised has not yet been addressed. ALL comments were noted and discussed, from every forum post to every email or PM i have recieved. The list was almost 30 pages long..
Post amounts per thread - we have increased this from 15 posts per page, to 25 posts per page. Is everyone happy with this?
Access to Main Site Homepage from Forum - This is actually accessable by hitting the "Leave Forum" button at the top right hand side of the page. We now understand this may not have been clear enough! - so we are going to rename the link "Main Site" or something similar. We will also try and rename the Tab on the Gold/Yellow index bar "Forum Home" as opposed to "Home" - but this depends on the forums standard settings and wether we can access them.
Field that shows who started a thread - After checking numerous other Community Server websites, it does not appear to be a standard function/setting in the software. However, Van is checking this out, and if it can be added - it will.
Notification of PM's - This can be done by yourselves, and an FAQ will follow. However, in addition to this, Van is looking at a number icon next to the word "Inbox" at the top of the page. So, for example if you have 3 unread messages, it will say " Inbox (3) "... This may require additional updates and/or software - but we are looking into it.
Moderation of Posts - There have been cases of innocent looking posts being set for moderator approval due to the spam or bad word filters being a little "too keen". We will be reviewing this, but anti-spam is a big issue and we do not wish to give them an inch! Has anyone noticed we have not had one single occurrence of spam or bad links??!! That's the filters doing their job!
Access to BeoWorld on PDA/Mobile Phones - The main site was built by Firebrand, and was designed to work on these applications. However, Community Server may not have been - and problems have been reported. We are looking into this, as the new version of CS may have this inbuilt. We will inform as soon as we know anything.
Time Settings - Some may have noticed that the times of posts when looking at the homepage is all wrong. This is due to the server for the main site being in the UK, and the Forum Server being in the US. As the Forum 'imports' the info into the Main Site, they are having a 'behind closed doors' argument about exactly what time it is in their little computer-land, as they are both in different time zones. Van and i tried to figure this out, but we thought it best left to the programmers.. It is being dealt with.
Product Browse Section - Although we think the search a product facility is excellent, we are going to tweak the product search section and make it filter a little more strictly. For instance, if you specify "Beolab 3" and hit search, it comes up with all products with 'Beolab' and '3' in the title.. We will look at this and also list the products in column form as has been requested. This then gives you THREE different ways to find a product. If you can't find it after that, power down your computer and give up! LOL
Google Web-Search - Some sites have this facility under the 'Search' option to search the site, or search the web, and you can choose which you would like. This functionality is provided by Google, and we plan to add it to the site in the near future.
Forum is slow.. - We checked out the website of Community Server itself, plus several others, and BeoWorld was actually the fastest to load and use at the time! It will be slower as there are far more layers and applications running behind the scenes, and this inevitably slows it down. We are currently enquiring wether there is anything we can do to speed it up though, and will do whatever we can to make sure BeoWorld will be as fast as technology will allow.
Getting back to Homepage - Whilst on the main section of the site, just click on the BeoWorld Logo to return to the homepage at any time. As for the Forum, we are looking at the possibilty of having a click link at the bottom of every thread page to return you to the main forum index section. We cannot find it in the settings, but it could be custom written (at a cost).
Smileys - Some members have said they take an eternity to load, so we will be stripping out some of the never-used, or lesser used ones. This ought to speed things up. They are a one-click and gone application though, so if you need multiple smileys you will need to keep opening the box. However, less smileys will make this faster.
Photo Section - We will be opening this up for registered users to upload as they wish. However, each member will have a photo limit and/or disk space limit. This is to stop members uploading colossal files and clogging up space on the server. Each photo will have a perfectly acceptable allowance, and we are thinking between 15-30 images per user, possibly with Gold and Silver Members recieving more disk space as they are the ones actually paying (in part) for the server! Fair's fair..
Text too Small - The text on BeoWorld is actually of a standard size. It is your own computer that controls it. For larger text, you need to alter the settings on your machine.
Page too narrow - On some of todays 'ultra widescreen' monitors, the page can sometimes appear extremely narrow, and is being wasted. However, on a 4:3 monitor it fits perfectly. There are standard page sizes, (see the B&O main site which is very similar to BeoWorlds) and what are called 'Fluid' pages. A fluid page will fill any size screen, but in the case of BeoWorld this would completely mess up the templates in place and make the pages look a complete mess. We will be staying as we are for now, certainly until all the old style monitors and laptops are in the bin!
Topic Listings - It was mentioned that when you hit say "General Forum" and the list of topics is displayed, the only thing that caught your eye was the times of the posts as they were in bold. We are looking to change the Topic Headings to Bold, and hopefully they will be more legible.
Jumbled years on Price Lists - We will add to the Database Content Management Software and alphabetical and numeric sorter, which will correct this!
Double Spacing when you hit Return - This will be looked at, and single return will be implemented if possible.
As i said, there are other issues which are in hand, and the ones not mentioned here will appear in FAQ's linked to threads which will follow - i promise!
Lee