My Favorite Forums

We had a conference the other day and decided that it wasn't that useful since there was a way to access the same links via the main navigation dropdown menu. Instead, that space at the top of the sidebar would be better served with links to today's posts, which was moved from far down.

The DaniWeb homepage is going to be entirely retooled to actually be useful, so hopefully it will make a good first destination when you visit the site.

Well, I guess the regular users who have posted asking what happened to it and wanting it to be returned were not at that conference. I've seen 8 posts on it since it disappeared yesterday.

Well, 650,000 users cannot be involved in every single discussion. Even 20 regulars who post in the feedback forum only represent the most vocal members and not necessarily an accurate representation of all devoted members.

Point is we had a three hour discussion among a group of people each with at least a few hundred posts. The conclusion we came to was that everybody uses the site differently and there's no way to please everyone because everyone wants their favorite way of browsing the site to be the most prominent.

Removing the favorite forums from the sidebar was only the first half of the puzzle and I wanted to finish it up before I addressed my reasoning for the entire change.

If you need the space, get rid of "Most Recently Viewed Threads" and put back My Favorite Forums.

It's not about there being space in the sidebar ... it's about what gets priority at the top of the sidebar. Plus, My Recently Viewed Threads (which, btw, is personal to you) is also in the works of being moved to the homepage only.

I understand you can't please everyone, however it's also worth considering 648,000 of the users you mentioned probably have less than 3 posts each, while the bulk of the answers to questions here come from less than 100 members - the vocal ones.

Many of us had to adjust our ways considerably with the last rounds of major changes. Having settled into new habits, it's frustrating to see a useful feature that we've settled into taken away.

Well then be more vocal about which features you use and how you use them. :) i.e. When you first visit DaniWeb, how do you begin your visit?

When you first visit DaniWeb, how do you begin your visit?

I started by looking at "my favorite forums" and I'm not even trying to be funny. For us moderators, the removal has an extra downside, because I can't see if there are any new reported posts when I enter DW. I now need an extra click. That's all is fine by me, but it doesn't make my life easier. (Perhaps there's still a hidden link somewhere...?)

I'm just trowing in a suggestion here, but how about user-customizable lay-out? Some people might like to see "latest posts visited", but I don't. Instead I would like the "favorite forums" back. If we could select our "modules" in the user-control-panel, then everyone is happy again ;) This could potentially be a shitload of work though.

Well then be more vocal about which features you use and how you use them. :)

It's hard to read your mind about what you're going to get rid of next. :icon_wink:

i.e. When you first visit DaniWeb, how do you begin your visit?

UserCP, which used to give me My Favorite Forums.
I pretty much never start at the main page.

Finding this thread would have been 2 clicks from my usual start. Now it was a bit more navigating and several more clicks. No big deal, but I'll probably just avoid the extra navigation and clicking and skip it.

I also miss the double-click "mark forum as read" feature from MFF (didn't Jul ask for that one somewhat explicitly once?). I suppose I could do extra navigation to do the same; again, I'll probably just skip it and lose new posts in the pile.

The replacement thing that gives me search results is not to my liking compared with MFF. I'll probably just skip it.

So I guess to a large extent, I'll skip finding new threads to a larger extent, and see fewer and fewer replies to subscribed threads. I was probably viewing too many threads before, so this goes well with trying to cut down on time spent on DW. I'm sure the new defeaturing will grow on me, and I'll enjoy more time elsewhere (now if I could only trim down on my Google Reader subscriptions in the same way!).

>Well then be more vocal about which features you use and how you use them.
Do you want a weekly status report about how we use the site? When you change things in a seemingly arbitrary way without asking for specific feedback from us, it's hard to give you the information you want. You could start a thread asking what we think of your ideas for future changes, but that would make far too much sense. A "conference" with some imaginary group of people who apparently know better than your highest volume users is clearly a much better choice. :icon_rolleyes:

>When you first visit DaniWeb, how do you begin your visit?
I have the main forum list bookmarked. The home page doesn't exist as far as I'm concerned, so any improvements you make there don't affect me.

> Well, 650,000 users cannot be involved in every single discussion.

I guess nor they would want to as many of them are here for a quick solution.

> Even 20 regulars who post in the feedback forum only represent the
> most vocal members

Correction, the most "faithful" and "caring" members; members who care when things change.

> Well then be more vocal about which features you use and how you use them.

Pretty twisted way of asking for a feedback, eh? :-)

> When you first visit DaniWeb, how do you begin your visit?

UserCP; the subscribed forum list along with the no-email thread subscription works wonders for me. I've never seen the main page, ever.

> The DaniWeb homepage is going to be entirely retooled to actually
> be useful, so hopefully it will make a good first destination when you
> visit the site.

How about keeping on making changes to the main page *without* touching the existing layout? :)

After all there seems to be a lot of space on the right as Mel said; this change seems as if you are forcing all the existing members to visit the home page before they start their daily routine surfing.

But then again, this thread has the same feel as the "quick reply v/s advanced reply" or "IT professional's lounge v/s Geeks Lounge" thread, so bleh. :-)

I never ever go to the main page, i start my visit at forum 26 every time. Its what i have as my bookmark. Then if My Favourite Forum shows that there are posts to be read in other forums i will go to them.

At the moment i am reducing my activity because i can't be bothered going and checking out all the forums in case there has been a post, thats why the golden folders next to the forums on My Favourite Forums were so good.

I agree with everyone else, most of the people i see have less than 5 posts, and i dont think they even CARE about the features of the site. But this is quite annoying, if you care so much about what gets the top spot on the side bar, why dont you put it one or two down?

Personally i have never used anything else apart from My Favourite Forums on the side bar, and im very sorry to see it go.
I wish perhaps that three hour discussion had included some of us.

When I come to DW I have the C++ forum bookmarked. So the first thing I do is look at the threads in that forum to see if I need to reply to any of them (via the New button). Then I'd use the Favorite Forums links to do the same with the other favorite forums. In the 4+ years that I have been a member here I think I may have visited the DW Home page 5 or fewer times.

When I come to DW I have the C++ forum bookmarked. So the first thing I do is look at the threads in that forum to see if I need to reply to any of them (via the New button). Then I'd use the Favorite Forums links to do the same with the other favorite forums. In the 4+ years that I have been a member here I think I may have visited the DW Home page 5 or fewer times.

I browse daniweb the same way (except I visit the C# forum :)). The nav bar up top is a pain because you can't get directly to some of the forums that are 2-levels deep, ie MSSQL. I will probably skip reading some forums in the interest of saving time.

Why not create another page.php on daniweb that has a single daniweb logo and the MFF --- no other content. That would keep me happy for years to come. Quick page load time and customizable

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attached screenshot. problems in IE, safari, and chrome.
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When I come to DW I have the C++ forum bookmarked. So the first thing I do is look at the threads in that forum to see if I need to reply to any of them (via the New button). Then I'd use the Favorite Forums links to do the same with the other favorite forums. In the 4+ years that I have been a member here I think I may have visited the DW Home page 5 or fewer times.

Practically the same for me, but for the PHP forum.

Also +1 to Sknakes point, I look at the HTML and CSS & Site Layout often, and that is 2 layers.. not a huge difference in the amount of time to get there, but it was so much easier when they were always on the right.

I also rarely view the homepage, had to go look just now to actually remember what is on there (I can see why it is useful, but personally I have no use for a list of topics from all forums), I almost always enter the site from a bookmark to PHP or Geeks Lounge, if not then its from history.

>When you first visit DaniWeb, how do you begin your visit?
Sorry, late reply. I went out of town. I hit the User CP first as well, to check subscribed threads. After that, I keep an eye on Favorite Forums to see if new posts pop up. The fact that it was always visible while I was looking through other things was what made it so useful. As a mod, it's handy to be able to keep an eye on reported posts without having to go check some other page all the time.

Dare I hope? :)

Dare I hope? :)

Lets all pitch in and have a mountain of doughnuts at her door Tuesday morning if she fixes it :)

At least it proves that Dani does still listen to what members of the community say...

> At least it proves that Dani does still listen to what members of the
> community say...

Yeah, that's really a nice thing; especially when almost all the regulars are out on the streets baring their pitchforks and torches, foaming at the mouth. ;)

I hope Dani has been too busy to re-implement this feature as opposed to having a change of heart... Either way its Wednesday so no doughnuts

It's baaack :) Thank you Dani :)

Thanks for bringing it back! Happy Holidays Dani. :)

Woohoo! Merry christmas! Thanks Dani :)