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[6233638]

I just went to post in the public "DPI" topic, only to find myself unable to find it.
Despite being a new feature, it was not pinned to the top of the forum, which seemed to be what you usually do around here.

Part of the reason I suspect it was not pinned though, is because there are so many topics already pinned to the top of that forum now.
I've mentioned it before, but there are so many pinned topics now, that it just becomes one big block of text at the top of the forum that gets ignored most of the time.

In my experience from running forums in the past, it's important to only use pinned topics for things that are actually important/new and needs the attention of most users.
If there's too much there, it just gets ignored, and anything new is easily overlooked.

Perhaps it would be best to pin new features to the list at the top for a week when they have just been introduced to highlight them, and unpin them after that, because the list of pinned topics is now larger than the list of normal topics when you visit the MC19 forum.

I wonder if it might also be useful to add a new Message Icon to the forums to highlight new features.

[JimH]

I think it's a problem either way.  It would help if we knew what people were looking for.  Then we could have a single post that said, "POLL: Is this enough information?".

[Matt]

I have an almost uncontrollable desire to sticky this topic.

[JimH]

I resisted that.

[JimH]

I just went to post in the public "DPI" topic, only to find myself unable to find it.

Is it this one?

[6233638]

Is it this one?

Yes it is. It was easily found by simply searching for "DPI" on the page, but I was expecting it to be pinned to the top of the forum as most new features are.
I had to scan over the list a couple of times to check that I wasn't just missing it though, because that's where I had expected it to be.

That's why I was thinking that maybe new features should only be pinned to the top of the board for a week or so.
That way they get the attention required, but that list at the top of the page does not continue to expand in size.
As long as the New Features topic stays pinned and gets updated, we have a good way of finding them.

I've updated my example in the first post to show what it would be like to scan the list of topics if there was a new Message Icon on the forum, which is only used for new features.

I have an almost uncontrollable desire to sticky this topic.

[MrC]

New features at the top of What board?  Windows?  Mac?  Linux?

It seems the default catch-all is, and will remain, Windows.  I think this is shortsighted, and sends a strong disparaging message to Mac and Linux users.

If JRiver is embracing cross-platform, the forums should reflect that reality, and that a significant proportion of threads are platform-agnostic in nature.  Yet there is no location for such posts.

I know you folks have a love of the past and your tradition, but, I'm just saying...

(I stopped my Tip of the Week, basically because of this).

[JimH]

We'll be better in the future.  I promise.

[6233638]

New features at the top of What board?  Windows?  Mac?  Linux?
It seems the default catch-all is, and will remain, Windows.  I think this is shortsighted, and sends a strong disparaging message to Mac and Linux users.
If JRiver is embracing cross-platform, the forums should reflect that reality, and that a significant proportion of threads are platform-agnostic in nature.  Yet there is no location for such posts.
I know you folks have a love of the past and your tradition, but, I'm just saying...
(I stopped my Tip of the Week, basically because of this).

That's a shame, as I was wondering what happened to your Tip of the Week feature - it was good information.

I think it will be difficult to do what you suggest until we have feature-parity across all platforms, and that doesn't seem likely any time soon.
I don't think a platform agnostic "Media Center 19" topic will do much other than cause confusion and give the moderators here more work.

But perhaps there could be a "Guides" section people can contribute to, which would be less platform specific (though things like my madVR guide would only apply to Windows) and I wouldn't mind seeing some changes to the basic forum structure.




On the subject of the New Features in Media Center 19 topic, I think this presentation is a lot easier to read than the current list:
 

Code: (New Features in Media Center 19) [Select]

[url=http://wiki.jriver.com/index.php/Upgrade_to_MC19]Here's how to Upgrade to MC19[/url].  It's $26.98 to upgrade from MJ8 or any version of MC back to MC10.

[list]
[*][url=http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=84084.0]Adjust the size of Standard View (for high DPI, TV, touch, etc.)[/url]
[*][url=http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=82865.0]TV EPG download scheduling[/url]
[*][url=http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=82733.0]User accounts[/url]
[*][url=http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=82737.0]Theater View fade-out (plasma burn-in)[/url]
[*][url=http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=82082.0]JRiver audio engine as an ASIO driver[/url]
[*][url=http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=82078.0]Copy a zone's settings to a new zone[/url]
[*][url=http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=82077.0]Simplified audio device selection[/url]
[*][url=http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=82075.0]RAW image support using LibRaw[/url]
[*][url=http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=82074.0]Real-time DSD output[/url]
[*][url=http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=82025.0]Improved audio analysis and volume leveling (R128)[/url]
[*][url=http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=82023.0]Adaptive volume[/url]
[*][url=http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=81983.0]Analyze audio for videos[/url]
[*][url=http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=81982.0]Improved memory playback[/url]
[*][url=http://yabb.jriver.com/interact/index.php?topic=81979.0]TV channel stacking[/url]
[/list]

[mojave]

Tip of the Week:  Look only in the Windows subforum for MrC's Tip of the Week 

Make the subforums similar to how views work in JRiver. It would be cool if we were to be able to click icons by our threads to tag which platform(s) it pertains to. In addition to selecting a Message Icon we could also select Platform Icons. A thread can't be posted unless Platform Icons are selected.

If a thread was marked as Windows/MAC, then it would show up under both subforums. If it was marked just Windows, then it would only show up under Windows.

I see guys posting in the Windows subforum that I know are only using Mac. There might already be a thread about their question (Analyze Audio) or they know they will get more views of their post.

[astromo]

Currently, isn't the big sticky, the Wiki?

No matter what method is opted for, there's a maintenance workload with providing good guidance information beyond a forum post that gets lost and forgotten.

I don't know how many times I've responded to a request for help and lo and behold, the answer can be found via the Wiki. The key problem is human behaviour, where most look for an obvious (to them) answer and give up after a number of attempts.

Is the answer to navigating information overload better structure of the forum / wiki or would there be more or less value in improving the forum search engine? Possibly also, provide guidance on how to best use the search function? The premise here is that the information isn't lost once a forum post is put up, it's just a question of how to find it.

[kstuart]

The  Bulletin Board Forum  system is woefully inadequate for what you are attempting to use it for, namely 100% of the support for a huge commercial software system.

It's like all of these guys who say they can find everything: