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[]J.C. said:
I hope they do NOT use the dhtml menus as such.[/]

Do you mean the dhtml menus that were introduced some time ago in Open Topic? I actually liked those a lot.

Good decision by Infopop to combine Classic and Threads into a single product, especially since the software "engine" and the threaded feature are the two main differences between the products.

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>Maybe becuase we just don't like the idea? Just because something can be added
>to the code doesn't mean we're going to. We're not going to throw every
>feature ever requested into the bucket and make our product some sort of
>overdazzling confusion.
>Some things are better left out. Subforums are one of them.

It's not like you are required to use subforums if they are available. It's a choice, you can use them, you don't have to use them. I don's see what is so confusing about this.

The way I see this, particularly since you are going to abandon ubbthreads, many people will switch to products where they have the choice.

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"The way I see this, particularly since you are going to abandon ubbthreads, many people will switch to products where they have the choice."

That can be said about any feature that someone asked about but was not added, no?


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Hardly, since subforums is a major and important feature.

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[]Anno said:
Hardly, since subforums is a major and important feature. [/]

Why?


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[]Anno said:
Hardly, since subforums is a major and important feature. [/]

That's clearly your opinion, and while some people do agree with you, as I explained above, it is not necessarily the opinion of the majority of our customers.


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To categorize and archive posts for instance.

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For people who don't like the DHTML menus, maybe there should be an option to revert to the current UBB.classic/UBB.threads UI if the admin chooses. I really like the idea of DHTML menus. UBB.x pioneered the idea, and now vBulletin 3 uses something based on the same idea. The new UBB should be the world's third messageboard system to do so.

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The goal of the UI is currently to replicate Classic with the appropriate hints from Threads.

This, therefore, would not include extensive DHTML menus. That isn't to say that we aren't considering some DHTML goodness (such as hiding admin bits and icons you can't use), nor that we might change our minds before beta and decide to go with a more Eve-like UI. But for right now, you can count on the relative simplicity of the current layouts. It should feel comfortable and familiar to all current customers.


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[]Charles Capps said:
The goal of the UI is currently to replicate Classic with the appropriate hints from Threads.

This, therefore, would not include extensive DHTML menus. That isn't to say that we aren't considering some DHTML goodness (such as hiding admin bits and icons you can't use), nor that we might change our minds before beta and decide to go with a more Eve-like UI. But for right now, you can count on the relative simplicity of the current layouts. It should feel comfortable and familiar to all current customers. [/]

Maybe DHTML menus could be added in a future version 2.0. I remember when UBB.x had a UBB.classic-like look.

One hint from threads that should be added is the proper implementation of threaded view. To be fair, there should be a general reply button as well as individual reply buttons. Without the individual reply buttons, threaded view would be very ineffective. Another option should be where users can click a checkbox for if they want to display [Re: Username] or not.

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[]Charles Capps said:
The goal of the UI is currently to replicate Classic with the appropriate hints from Threads.
<snip>...</snip>

But for right now, you can count on the relative simplicity of the current layouts. It should feel comfortable and familiar to all current customers. [/]

Excellent!


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[]Pink Jazz said:
Ian Spence at UBBDev said it will replicate Classic's look, but I think that is only pure speculation.[/]

[]Charles Capps said:
The goal of the UI is currently to replicate Classic with the appropriate hints from Threads. [/]

Ahhh, looks like someone does know something

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[]Charles Capps said:
The goal of the UI is currently to replicate Classic with the appropriate hints from Threads.
[/]
Ack, that'll play well with Threads users.

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Navaho, thanks for the response. I totally understand the need to appease the majority of infopop clients.

I just wanted to share my thoughts. I'll just have josh or someone hack it in.

For me, subforums are needed because of the diverse amount of subject matter that my forums cover...it's not a necessity, but it would be helpful...

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I am keeping out of the sub-forums debate - I do not want to get lashed by Navahho again


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A good admin-menu is important.
I've been playing with Vbulletin 3, and the admin menu, well, it's not exactly the quickest and easiest of things to use! Way too many options and submenus
Threads is a whole better admin wise. Lets hope the new version is also just as easy to use.

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>That's clearly your opinion, and while some people do agree with you, as I
>explained above, it is not necessarily the opinion of the majority of our
>customers.

Yes, it is my opinion and that of many other customers of yours.

So you are only considering changing or adding a feature if the majority of your customers would like to see it?

I can imagine that the majority of your customers don't want to see that you abandon UBBthreads. Does this mean you won't start this new unified product and halt the development of UBBthreads?

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Given you run Invision and not a ubb, what does it matter?


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JC, look at the second link, where she/he runs ubbthreads

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Ahh, never the less, I fail to see the point in further discussion.

It was to be added, it was pulled, it has been removed from consideration afaik.

*goes off to play LOTR ROTK*


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I aggree with Anno on this, Although I do not have any idea what the rest of the threads base of license owners think on this I am not very happy with this decision of theres to abandon threads. I have been with threads for a very long time and feel somewhat let down by this decicision of infopops. Just because people may want features that other boards have does not mean that they want to use another board per se but if you force a decision on them to move to another board they may in fact move to another board with another company.

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Pappy - I am not sure that they are abandoning threads - look upon this another way - maybe they are scrapping ubb.classic and renaming ubb.threads to make it appear that the two products are merging. Could be wrong, but I personally think this is closer to the truth.

Mind you it was only a month or two ago, that Infopop said 'ubb.threads and ubb.classic are going nowhere' - maybe they felt threatened by a brand new bb software company that has just announced their product, which does include groups, sub-forums etc., and looks like a cross between threads & vb. (the alpha screen shots look very good - maybe Pink Jazz did them )

I think that the ubb.ng will be very good for all threads owners - and having the competition of another forum software, will keep them on their toes, so that their market share is not lost.

It is sad that they will not reconsider sub-forums - but as I have invested two licences, and still have a couple of years to run for updates on one of them, I will stick with the new product, and hopefully hack into it sub-forums.


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I think infopop need to do this to stay ahead.
It's a good idea and am looking forward to it!

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It's a smart business move in my opinion. Looking forward to the new software.

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Me too

They can't put all feature requests in... what'd be the need for a site like threadsdev then?


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This is good business as long as the new product contains features the customer wants like subscriptions subforums etc.

Infopop for a long time has carried so many products to appeal to the masses yet consolidating resources will now give them the ability to compete effectively against Jelsoft's VBulletin which is the number one board out there I think now in sheer numbers and this also will allow them to add the features you all want.

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ahh but there is another aspect.. to the debate.. Many of us run our own board. It is a hobby, perhaps or a business venture. But what then when you take on a new gig. You are providing support and have convinced a paying customer to go in the best direction you had to offer at that time. Now you are faced with more options. You then will have to decide if you wish to support multiple forums. yours, and theirs. If you decide to upgrade stay or go elsewhere. Going back to your client ask for more money is not always an easy task but if there is compelling reasons such as - by the way the software we just got licensed for is End of lIfe and will slowly be come unsupported - meaning interest in the community will be devoted to either the new program or the competing product. And then at that point weigh the options accordingly. Find out what is important to you. Loyalty, Features, Support, Service, Experience, Cost, Time, Energies, Emotions, Skill, etc. only when you organize these things in priority and compare will you only begin to make an informed decision. Everything else is conjecture & speculation.

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There will always be growing pains as a company evolves, and such as the combination of classic and threads, this is no different. How thin should a company spread themselves? A hosted product, a hosting service for downloadable products, a php/mysql product, a legacy product...

All of that equates into a lot of money spent sparingly on a lot of different areas, let alone the vast array of support knowledge required to support all areas. You will always have your customers who are threads fans, you will have your classic fans, and there is no denying that. But at what cost will this continue to thrive? All of the additional administrative and logistical issues caused by multiple platforms in essence cause the price of each product to be higher than competitors. This higher cost may yield a small number of satisfied clients, but in the end, costs the company a great deal of money because someone can go down the block and get another forum that does essentially the same stuff but for a much more affordable price. This in turn makes it even more difficult for this company to compete, so prices cannot improve due to the volume of sales.

That is why this merger is so great. Prior to this, you had teams devoted to each platform individually, on two very different technologies and philosophies, each trying to please two niche groups of people. In essence, everyone wants the same thing, a great message board with great features, great speed, great support, and a thriving mod community. By separating each group, you have segmented a community that are longing for the same things, costing not only development time, but revenue because of the very different products.

Once one product is finalized, with the benefits of both classic and threads, you will have more people focused on ONE product, and you will have a development community that will more than double in size, and overall, simply a better product that can compete more readily in the online community market.

Sure, I'm the first one to say there are some things in threads I don't like compared to classic, just as there are some classic things I don't like which threads does. Some of my users have trouble with threads compared to classic or your vb/phpbb sites, but others really like threads compared to those. You will never please everyone 100% of the time, but by combining the best of both and focusing the strengths on one product, this really is a win-win for everyone involved.

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If the client wants to upgrade to the new software it doesn't cost anymore as long as their current member area subscription is still current.


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[]AllenAyres said:
If the client wants to upgrade to the new software it doesn't cost anymore as long as their current member area subscription is still current. [/]

Only in respects only the forum, license, but there is the other costs, time, effort, the learning curve. If all the features that we have to by mods are not available day one. We have the other cost of emotional counselor to thousands of dissatisfied members of our sites, in any event a re-education for all involved will be required. There is a cost, nothing is free. But knowing and budgeting this can ease future transitions and better prepare the inevitable.

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[]Jeremy said:
... You will never please everyone 100% of the time, but by combining the best of both and focusing the strengths on one product, this really is a win-win for everyone involved.[/]

I just wanted to single out this bit...

We understand completely that we're not going to satisfy everyone. I'm personally quite surprised (and pleased!) that there hasn't been more of a negative reaction.

The real power of the actions we're taking hit me about two weeks into development. It went something like "OMG, we're actually killing Classic and Threads! What are we thinking!?"

It's a very hard thing for me to think about. I've spent the past three and a half years of my life working on UBB.classic full time. Rick's spent even longer working on UBB.threads. For all intents and purposes, we are our products. And here we are, stopping development... halting work on things that are very important in our lives. It's really quite a shocking thing.

But the new product is going to make up for that loss. In fact, the very nature of what we're doing has me hyped up enough to not really worry much any more about the death of Threads or Classic.

I think that the end users will be basically satisfied with the new look that the product will bring. That's honestly probably the only thing they'll probably notice at first (other than different URLs and the handful of new features).

I think that board owners will be basically satisfied with the features we'll be adding, not to mention the potential awesome performance thanks to the cache.

I think that the code hackers (that's you folks) will have a field day playing around with all the cool things that Rick and I will be building in. This is my true passion - making cool things for others to tinker with.

In the end, this will be a positive change.

Of course, some people will be dissatisfied. We can't stop that. Oldschool WWWThreads customers probably won't appreciate the looks or the handful of sacrifices we've made to get caching working. Oldschool UBB.classic customers probably won't appreciate the PHPness. There will be some people that, for some irrational reason, won't even give the new product a chance. It will be insulted and torn apart just for existing while the other two downloadables are retired.

But we're ready for this. We're expecting this. We hope that the naysayers will realize that the future is much brighter now.


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[]
probably notice at first (other than different URLs and the handful of new features).
[/]
Please tell me the new product will be seamless, or at least offer the user a redirection to the same topic. When I went from clasic to threads many users were upset as the book marked pages no longer worked.

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[]Ian_W said:
I am keeping out of the sub-forums debate - I do not want to get lashed by Navahho again
[/]



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[]Please tell me the new product will be seamless, or at least offer the user a redirection to the same topic.[/]

There will be a move kit that will silently redirect users. It'll even send the proper HTTP code (301 instead of 302), which should allow supporting browsers to silently change the bookmark to the new page location.


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[]Oldschool WWWThreads customers probably won't appreciate the looks or the handful of sacrifices we've made to get caching working.[/]

Are you willing to divulge information on said sacrifices?

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User-side options that change the data used to generate a page would break the page if it was cached. In general, these type of features either need to go away entirely, or they need to be made admin options instead of user options.

As an example - at the current time, we've cut the ability to sort topics within a forum on the user-side. This is now an admin option.

The sorting operation is expensive, and a new instance of the cached postlist page would have to be generated for each of the two possible ways each of the available columns could be sorted. That would basically negate the benefits of the cache.

There are some user options, such as favorite forums and the ignore list, that we can make work without breaking the cache. The postlist, by far, will be most impacted by the handful of things that are being removed. (How often do you really sort a forum by anything other than topic start time or topic last reply time?)


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[]It's a very hard thing for me to think about. I've spent the past three and a half years of my life working on UBB.classic full time. Rick's spent even longer working on UBB.threads. For all intents and purposes, we are our products. And here we are, stopping development... halting work on things that are very important in our lives. It's really quite a shocking thing.[/]

I hear ya. Scrapping something you've worked with for years takes some guts.

I'm not sure if I'll like the new product, and as I'm not a big fan of how classic works and looks (not strange, as I'm an oooold wwwthreads user) I really hope the merge won't leave the threds 'feel' completely out. But I'm not going to judge it before I see it, and I do understand the need for consolidating work efforts and starting from scratch.

I do trust you and Rick to create an awesome product though, so I'm not worried.

Really the only thing that worries me is that I won't have full knowledge of how it works, having worked with the code in threads for years, in both Perl and PHP, I feel I know it inside and out. But I would have to start from scratch as everybody else with the new product and that would mean I'll probably never know the new system as well as threads. I'll be a complete newbie! =] Scary thought. =P

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[]Gardener said:
Really the only thing that worries me is that I won't have full knowledge of how it works, having worked with the code in threads for years, in both Perl and PHP, I feel I know it inside and out. But I would have to start from scratch as everybody else with the new product and that would mean I'll probably never know the new system as well as threads. I'll be a complete newbie! =] Scary thought. =P [/]

I have those same concerns and I'm trying to not let it scare me.
At least we'll all be complete newbies, so with some PHP/MySQL knowledge we'll have an advantage. And ya never know... since threads is so old, and so much stuff has been heaped in and out and reworked over time, a total rewrite of everything may prove an easier system to hack.

I too am not usually receptive to change. I LOVE UBB.Threads - but we'll wait and see. I do know that us ThreadsDever's will have a definate advantage over the UBBDev people, with the PHP/MySQL stuff. So the change will probably be tougher for them to swallow.

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Let me point out the advantages of each product.

Advantages of UBB.classic:
  • UBB.classic displays the names of users online on the main index and forum display.
  • UBB.classic has more spider-friendly pages.
  • UBB.classic does better with the post flagging icons.
  • UBB.classic's user list is searchable.
  • UBB.classic uses numbered page search results.
  • UBB.classic has better user-defined time settings.
  • UBB.classic has a better private messaging system.
  • UBB.classic has a disable Graemlins option.
  • UBB.classic has an option to hide Quick Reply.
  • UBB.classic displays a review of the entire thread while replying.
  • UBB.classic has better forum navigation. UBB.threads only goes down to forum level, UBB.classic goes down to thread level.
  • UBB.classic includes better icons.


Advantages of UBB.threads:

  • UBB.threads has both flat and threaded display options
  • UBB.threads has [:"red"]color[/] and underline UBBCodes.
  • UBB.threads has an alphabetic/numeric sort in the user list (The toolbar with the letters and numbers. Clicking on the letter a will only show usernames that start with a, clicking on the letter b will only show usernames that start with b, and so on.).
  • UBB.threads has a built in calendar feature.
  • UBB.threads has a better polling feature. The poll does not display in a pop-up window, and users are not required to vote in all of the questions.
  • UBB.threads can upload attachments
  • UBB.threads can upload avatars
  • UBB.threads allows users to select their desired language file.
  • UBB.threads can search using a date range.
  • UBB.threads can display a preview of the post body while searching.
  • UBB.threads bolds and italicizes search terms in posts.
  • UBB.threads allows users to choose CSS color templates (such as Frosted and Greenday).
  • UBB.threads allows titles for thread replies.
  • UBB.threads hides the edit button on posts that you cannot edit.
  • UBB.threads has a "mark as edited" feature for editing posts.
  • UBB.threads allows users to either return to the forum OR view thier post while posting or editing.
  • UBB.threads allows users to collapse/expand categories.
  • UBB.threads displays the number of users viewing a forum on the main index.
  • UBB.threads "who's online" feature displays who is actually browsing the forums, rather than who was browsing the forums in a certain time frame.

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