Some Comments

[Don Caldwell]

I'm sorry to sound ungrateful, Ruy, but....

IMHO the major strengths of the old TOCH were its simplicity and the speed with wiich it could be scanned. These are gone. This was the only board that I looked at regularly, every time I checked my mail. I can no longer do this -- it simply takes more mouse clicks and waiting around than I have the patience for. I'll now split my time among Eger's and some of the other WW II aviation boards.

Specific comments:

1. Sometimes the messages scroll off the right edge of the screen.

2. The "smiley faces" are simply childish. Who needs them? How are they supposed to improve communication?

3. The other icons look like misshapen bells. I have no idea what they mean or when they are used.

4. The yellow-on-red banner colors are hard to read. As someone said, what's wrong with Luftwaffe blue?

5. What's the objective of restricting some sections to "registered" users while leaving others open to all? I see no reason to have more than three sections: Housekeeping, Allies, and Luftwaffe.

All the best,

Don

[Ruy Horta]

This forum will be changing in time, but I just need time to learn all the ropes. Its not as easy as simply letting a WYSIWYG editor loose.

Same goes for the colors. BTW where was your comment when I asked for it a week or so ago? Actually I am planning to do create a number of themes, which can be selected in your userprofile.

I'm sorry to see you go in this way, but like I said before your cannot please everyone all the time.

You are driven away by the change, others were going away because of the limitations of the previous board. I'd rather have this new attempt implode than having done nothing and let the old wither away.

Thanks for all those years of commitment.

Thanks for the in part, constructive comments in your farewell message.

[Peter Mikolajski]

Well, I'll try to answer and give few tips how to more comfortably use new TOCH.

Originally Posted by Don Caldwell

IMHO the major strengths of the old TOCH were its simplicity and the speed with wiich it could be scanned. These are gone.

I disagree with you, Don. You still can quickly scan new posts. How?

1. Use web browser which will be able to store your login and password. I'm using (and strongly recommend) Firefox 1.0, which is much more safer than Internet Explorer and can keep a lot of passwords without loosing any of them.

2. Set TOCH in your Favourites / Bookmarks not on http://forum.12oclockhigh.net, but on http://forum.12oclockhigh.net/viewforum.php?f=4 - you'll get direct access to Luftwaffe part of TOCH.

3. When you are logged in, you'll see new threads (or new posts in old threads) with this icon:
Posts without answers are marked with another icon:
I'm sure that these icons can be significantly improved to make them more different.

Originally Posted by Don Caldwell

Specific comments:
1. Sometimes the messages scroll off the right edge of the screen.

It happens only when someone post long URL or large photo. URLs can be "shortened" with URL button. Photos wider than 700px will scroll messages when viewed on resolution 1024x768.

Originally Posted by Don Caldwell

2. The "smiley faces" are simply childish. Who needs them? How are they supposed to improve communication?

Smileys are part of phpBB package and there is no obligation to use it. But remember that many users are not native English speakers and sometimes one or two smileys can significantly help to understand their thoughts.

Originally Posted by Don Caldwell

3. The other icons look like misshapen bells. I have no idea what they mean or when they are used.

Few icons are quoted at the end of the page, others show their descriptions when you move mouse cursor over them.

- - This icon is linked with user's profile;
- - This icon allows you to post Private Message to selected user. Just remember how often people on TOCH started threads with "Mr.X, please contact me offboard on mymail@mymail.sth. Now you can send PM to someone without problems.
- - This icon allows you to send e-mail to selected user.
- - This icon is linked with user's website.
- - This icon allows you to get user's Yahoo! Instant Messsenger nick to contact him offboard.
- - This icon allows you to get user's ICQ UIN to contact him offboard.

Originally Posted by Don Caldwell

4. The yellow-on-red banner colors are hard to read. As someone said, what's wrong with Luftwaffe blue?

This forum engine can store few different colour schemes. I think Ruy will prepare few more for those who want to have more contrast or colours more related with Luftwaffe / VVS / RAF anything else.

Originally Posted by Don Caldwell

5. What's the objective of restricting some sections to "registered" users while leaving others open to all?

Don, remember that Ruy is still setting all this stuff up. But I think that writing on all TOCH sections should be avaiable for registered users only. There is a lot of spambots which are posting messages with porn ads or sth like that.

You've said about disadvantages, but there is a lot of positives:

- posts will not dissapear after few months;
- there is no ads;
- there is no annoying pop-ups;
- search engine has much more options;
- new messages in old threads will be shown on first page, not on last one;

HTH

Regards,

[John Vasco]

Peter,
Spot on. This style is used on other forums that I visit, such as the 'Les Paul Forum' (guitar) and it is far better to see the latest posts at the top of the section than to have to trawl through possibly pages to get to a 'same-day' reply.

[Christer Engdahl]

Warbird Information eXchange http://www.warbirdsresourcegroup.org...ons/index.html used a similar forum engine as the old TOCH forums. There were limitations to the to number of posts and if this limit was reached, it would crash. Scott and the rest of us had to keep an eye open for "strange behaviour" and I notified Scot on a few occasions of an imminent crash. Scot then promptly archived the forum and started fresh.
My guess is that the old TOCH forums had a similar limitation but it was managed in a different way, by letting the oldest threads vanish.

Scot made an attempt with an EZboard solution which was not well received. It died in its infancy. There were lots of discussions and the majority seemed to like the old forum but eventually, Scott went for phpBB for the WIX http://warbirdinformationexchange.org/phpBB2/index.php.

The new WIX is a "register to post" forum and that was, in the beginning, receiving a lot of objections but now, a few months down the line, everyone is happy with Scott's choice.
Well, maybe not everyone, a few have not been seen or aren't as active as in the old forum but the new forum has attracted additional members to compensate.

Scot and Ruy were facing the same or similar situations. Something had to be done and time has proven Scot having taken the right decisions and I'm sure that Ruy will receive the same verdict!

Christer

[Andy Mac]

Don,

You've provided these two excellent books, you have a duty to stay.

http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.d...sPageName=WDVW

I visit other aviation forums, and they are the same format as Ruy's, you will get used to it, and it is user friendly.

Honest !