XCS TechSupport Forums
 

Please would everyone review my site and tell me honestly what you think!

all comments and suggestions are more than welcome

www.xxplosive.cjb.net

thank you

Re: XCS TechSupport Forums
 

Maybe this is just me, but even though the site is customized, it still seems to remind me of a default Invision Power Board skin. I think it's the shade of blue ;) I would also recommend that you stretch the site out to perhaps 90% of the visitors screen size. Most people enjoy browsing forums that way better. You also have a few forums with zero posts. To get the ball rolling, get you and a group of friends together, and post to the board like absolute crazy. That gives others content to read, and entices them to register and join in. Post lots of interesting questions yourself - both easy and hard. (Even ones you know the answers to already!) If you're lucky, you'll get people to register and answer you. Another technique to get the site started is to register multiple usernames, and post with one, and answer your own questions with another. That gives the impression that it's not just one administrator who is posting on the site.

Re: XCS TechSupport Forums
 

Thankyou for the feed back!

i know what you mean about the skin..but i like it ;)
however there is a skin selector for the members to use if they dont like my taste! :cheesy:

thanks for your honest opinion!

btw, i made the site wider! :lol:

thanks hun, Lee

Re: XCS TechSupport Forums
 

I see you made the site wider, but now it has a horizontal scroll at 800x600 resolution. Instead of using absolute width in pixels (i.e. table width=750) you should use relative widths, that stretch with the visitor's browser window (i.e. table width=90%)

Re: XCS TechSupport Forums
 

Hi,

The second group name has a typo. You mean "Solutions".
I like the forums you selected.


It got me wondering, actually. . . when you get one of the off the shelf message board thingies, do you get source code?
Could you add actual features - beyond skins, I mean?

For example.. when someone is adding a message, or editing one they added, could you add a new button and code behind it to actual create a new feature?

The messages are going into a mySQL database, right? Are they normal tables and fields (i.e. unencrypted ) that can be accessed by custom queries?

If the answer to both of those is "yes, sure, no problem", then I have what might be a quite interesting idea for something new.

:-))
Dan

Re: XCS TechSupport Forums
 

Something else I noticed is that you have an Old Post archive for people who posted questions that have been solved. I don't like this because it puts all of the threads, that were previously categorized, all into one clump. Therefore making it harder to find the solutions to their problems. For example, if I have a windows problem, I would rather look in the windows forum to see if my question was asked and solved already, and if not, post in there. I'd rather not first start searching and sorting through a whole archive of everything looking for whether my question was previously asked. Before then going and posting in a different forum on the site.

Re: XCS TechSupport Forums
 

i got a new skin :D still blue though!

my board is highly changeable, i can change just about everything, even the lay out of the forum, about the "old post archive" im going to delete it :D
and the forum is now at full width!

please tell me what you think!

BTW, do you have a banner for this site? approx 100X77px? so i can promote you on mine!

Lee

Re: XCS TechSupport Forums
 

Much, much better!! My favorite is The Simpsons theme I think :) We have some 468x60 banners you can choose from at http://www.daniweb.com/techtalkforums/linktous.php - we also have the db logo that is near the bottom of every page: it's 150x80

Thanks soooo much for linking to us :) So appreciated!

Please give further feed back
 

Hello again!

Dani kindly reviewed my support forum about 3 weeks ago and made some suggestion so i have made some changes!
Please take a look at my site and leave me some feed back as for what to change now if anything! My site is HERE

THINGS I HAVE CHANGED

1] Added a skin selector
2] Added a live chat room
3] Added a visitor feed back forum
4] Changed the default skin
5] Deleted the "archive"
6] Added "top 5 new members script"
7] Changed the forum to full width but changed back by members requests.

Thankyou.

Lee

Re: XCS TechSupport Forums
 

I merged your two threads as to keep everything related to the same site together. As for your forum, I really like it. The color scheme is good and so is the logo. I think that the Top 5 Statistics should be moved to the bottom of the site, however. When visitors visit your site, you want to quickly show them what the site has to offer as efficiently as possible - before they click 'n' leave. The way you have it now, all that new users will see upon loading your page, is a screenful of usernames that mean absolutely nothing to them. By moving it to the bottom, it isn't a distraction to prospective members, yet still available for returning members to scroll down and check out the line-up.

A problem I'm encountering is despite the skin selection chooser, each time I click to go to a different page, it resets it to the matrix theme. I'm not logged in.