What would you change about the FB ecosystem?

[cha0s]

Another thing I remembered now (cause it just bit me... again) is the way the forum rejects your edits if you edit right after you post "You cannot post so soon..." :P

[joseywales72]

In my opinion, FB forum does not need avatars or off-topic or something flashy. I even like the color scheme very much. Plain, readable. But if files could be attached to posts, that would be great. There were many user submitted snippets, libraries etc that have gone forever with file hosting sites. People find the links while searching the forums but the files are long gone.

Also some kind of web based chat for quick questions/answers may be useful.

Automated nightly SVN builds would also be great.

Maybe there can be a subforum just for the sake of updating headers for ext.libraries. For example, there would be a GTK thread and volunteers may take bits and pieces of the header to update it.

A stickied thread for user submitted tutorials on different topics maybe.

I am very glad for the renewed excitement over the development and the future of Free Basic. I guess we all owe a thanks to Victor for coming back. I love this language and the community.

Just my thougths. I am not a native speaker, so sorry for my probable mistakes.

Anil

[cha0s]

We have a webchat, kinda. It's a Java applet to talk in the #freebasic chatroom on FreeNode. http://www.freebasic.net/chat/ but it would be better to use something like qwebirc. We also may have to do something about the trolling that happens in #freebasic :P

Automated builds are an example of something that can be easily done, technically but just not with our current hosting solution (sf.net is a huge bottleneck to releasing, I said it)

I do think that we would be best off if we do provide any flash to the forum like avatars, it should be an optional and opt-in thing. There's no technical reason we couldn't have 2(or more) skins on the forum. We can start simple and improve down the road if desired.

I think we should consider hosting projects here, that way instead of a forum which can lead to a very unstructured conversation, we could have actual issue trackers for people to be able to deal with their projects. Code hosting may be a stretch (because of the maintenance involved), but we maybe could host releases? It would be trivial for a project like ext to link to its google code repository for that, while allowing them to have a presence here as well. We could even consider allowing user voting on projects to allow sorting by 'most popular'... just ideas.

I think the user tutorial thing falls under the responsibility of the Wiki, which should also be prominently displayed on more than just the front page. The wiki solution we have seems pretty suitable, but could use some tweaks... stylin and I were discussing haveing disambiguation landing pages for instance for the quirkier BASIC keywords like SCREEN.

[duke4e]

Af for moderating off-topic (or any other subforum for that matter), I'm willing to help since I visit forums few times daily.

[jevans4949]

cha0s: could this be achieved with an "artwork on/off" button on each panel?

I also like Merick's idea of links to the code archive from the forum panels. You might need a repository separate from the archive for "problem code".

[John Spikowski]

Another thing I remembered now (cause it just bit me... again) is the way the forum rejects your edits if you edit right after you post "You cannot post so soon..." :P

The SMF forum software has a admin setting to set the delay time between posts to prevent flooding.

I have read this forum is based on phpBB and the facilitator saying he wrote it from scratch. If your getting a post reject then that tells me that submit attempts are being checked and more then likely a admin setting.

[cha0s]

Yeah, it would be super slick to have transformations for forum posts, drupal.org does this like [#345] links to issue345. We could feasibly do something like [wiki:print] to link inline to the wiki page, or [project:fbext] to link to the fbext project page, and also directly to issues if we actually are able to implement some kind of project management hub.

@jevans, IMO that would be better set as a global user setting, set your 'skin' i.e. have one barebones like currently as the default, and have an option to use the flashy one. I personally wouldn't focus too much on developing a flashy theme until we had replicated the current functionality we have (as that would be the default, anyway)

[smagin]

I like the forum layout as-is (the design, its simplicity and colorscheme) but the ability to attach files would be great.

Also I think the site itself lacks some eye-catchers like screenshots of games developed with FreeBASIC, shots of most popular IDEs usable with it (e.g. FBedit), all with links and concise descriptions. Short how-tos won't harm too (e.g. "download this, then that, tweak some things and you are ready to go").

Also the daily automated builds would be great. Well, maybe not daily ones but "each change in SVN" builds. And the preservation of previous builds (like dosbox: http://builds.tharos-online.de/) would facilitate the rollback in case of regressions in newer builds.

Thanks!

[Lachie Dazdarian]

http://games.freebasic.net/ is always opened for cooperation with http://www.freebasic.net ;)

but that is after FB.net redesignes its maing page.

[jevans4949]

Another thing that could possibly be moved off the main forum pages, to speed acccess, is game screenshots. Although they are good to see, you don't need to see them every time you re-enter the topic to see new comments.

[angros47]

What about a "donate" feature? Many open source projects ask for (and get) money, to help supporting development.

A "DONATE WITH PAYPAL" button could help.

[TheMG]

The SMF forum software has a admin setting to set the delay time between posts to prevent flooding.

Yes, most forum software has such a facility.

-------

On a serious note, I think the front page should be completely redesigned. I'm not asking for any "flash" as people say, but it is very hard to navigate, it doesn't show the communities two greatest assets very well (the forums and the wiki), and is very outdated.

[Dinosaur]

Hi all

I like the forum the way it is, no mudslinging as it was on the old Qb site, easy to read etc. But changes that would really help.

1. As suggested above "File Attachments"

2. Although I like the colour scheme, what would be nice if the attached files
code blocks and quote blocks are visible in colour with the FBEdit style
off syntax highlighting.
That will make the code samples so much easier to read.
I wouldnt mind betting that very few of you look at your code in shades of grey. So why do that on this forum.

3. Text formatting on this site is worse then the cheapest text editor they give away with breakfast cereal. Unless you format it in an editor first and then post it, you can spend hours just trying to make it look right. I mean why have an edit window that is narrower then the text visible above that window. On my 23" screen I have 130mm of grey nothing on either side of the posts, and 180mm on the side of the Reply Edit box. Was this designed for the orange 9" screens?

Regards

[1000101]

2. Although I like the colour scheme, what would be nice if the attached files
code blocks and quote blocks are visible in colour with the FBEdit style
off syntax highlighting.
That will make the code samples so much easier to read.
I wouldnt mind betting that very few of you look at your code in shades of grey. So why do that on this forum.

The problem with that is not everyones colour and stylization is the same. I probably don't use the same highlighting as you. I wouldn't worry about changing that so much with the exception that any clarity would bring.

[Dinosaur]

Hi all

The problem with that is not everyones colour and stylization is the same.

Another way to learn from other members. Soon you would recognise whom the post was from, by looking at colour/style.

Regards