Reading multiple forums

[snowshed]

I would like to read a number of Softmaker forums regularly, but the whole philosophy of forums is not an efficient means for doing this.

Usenet newsservers are simply better for this, and far faster.

Would Softmaker consider supporting a newsserver, or associate with gmane.io? I already follow 4 software programs via gmane.

Thank you.

[martin-k]

While I have long been a proponent of Usenet, these days are long gone. There is no capacity at SoftMaker to open another support venue for a protocol that is, despite its advantages, frankly dead.

[snowshed]

What about gmane?

[martin-k]

That's a mailing list archive. I know of no way to feed out this forum to a mailing list, and we will not start mailing list as a new support venue.

[Jossi]

I receive some mailing lists and I don't see the advantage over a forum. What exactly are you missing here?

[snowshed]

I receive some mailing lists and I don't see the advantage over a forum. What exactly are you missing here?

You are missing how the mailing list or forum messages are displayed to the user. If you support the Usenet or a place like Gmane, when the user accessees the list/forum, you get a threaded view as in this link:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversat ... e:Nntp.jpg

The user can immediately see the relationship of posts and answers, and doesn't have to scroll through the messages trying to figure out who answered who in which message.

A benefit of this is it makes learning the program easier, as you can find the discussion topics that interest you quicker and easier. And you don't have to open multiple tabs in a browser to follow multiple forums. I follow 4 forums using Gmane, and know if there are any new messages or not, and never have to use a web browser.

Almoast as good is the Nabble interface used by The Document Foundation (Libre Office). But you still need to use your browser.

http://document-foundation-mail-archive ... .html#none

Many computers and users have poor quality monitors, so the thread lines may not be noticeable. But they are there.

I could go on, but I've concluded vendors don't want to do their best for supporting users anymore, they just want to do "good enough".

[Jossi]

I see, it's not so much the question of forum vs. mailing list which matters for you as the display in conversation form (AFAIK conversation threading is possible in forums as well as in mail programs). Personally, I don't like it, but tastes vary.

[snowshed]

by Jossi » Fri Oct 16, 2020 10:16 am
I see, it's not so much the question of forum vs. mailing list which matters for you as the display in conversation form (AFAIK conversation threading is possible in forums as well as in mail programs). Personally, I don't like it, but tastes vary.

Conversation views are not the same as threaded views. Conversation views simply group all replies to a particular subject together, in the order they were posted. It does not give any indication of which message a subsequent message is referring to.

"Thread" seems to have 2 definitions these days. One definition is grouping all messages with a particular subject together. The other is to display those messages showing their relationships to each other, as in the jpg I provided a link to.

Essentially, a forum is a conversation view. Topic=subject. But when viewing the posts, the messages are listed in the order they were posted, the same as a conversation view in many email programs today. The missing piece is, there is no way to tell if message 10 is a reply to message 7, or 4, or the original. The threaded view in my link gives you that information.

[Jossi]

Threaded view surely has an advantage in very big forums with dozens or hundreds of replies every day where you only want to read a small part of them in selected threads and can find them more easily. Here in the SoftMaker forum I read all posts, so it's easier to click Quick links > New posts and then the subjects instead of having to click for every single post separately.

[snowshed]

by Jossi » Sat Oct 17, 2020 4:43 am
Threaded view surely has an advantage in very big forums with dozens or hundreds of replies every day where you only want to read a small part of them in selected threads and can find them more easily. Here in the SoftMaker forum I read all posts, so it's easier to click Quick links > New posts and then the subjects instead of having to click for every single post separately.

How many forums do you read? Do you read any Microsoft forums? Apple fourms? Mozilla forums?

I would, if it didn't take so much of my time. I read them because I want to learn, and learn efficiently. Why would I want to spend an hour just checking for new messages if I can do it in a few seconds?

Have you ever used a newsgroup reader? From your replies, I don't think you have.

These are the newsgroups I follow:

If you count them, there are 25. (Gmane is an exception, since those are mailing lists formatted to work like a newsgroup.) I can immediately see which groups have messages I have not read. If I select a group, I can choose to show only unread messages, just like Quicklinks. But organized in different ways of my choosing.

This is the equivalent of Softmaker's Quicklinks:

Notice how the same amount of data is shown is less space? Think how many screens you might have to scroll through to see them all? Also note the view shows how many unread messages there are in each thread.

When I select a thread to view, I see how the various messages relate to each other.

If we did this the contemporary way, forums, I would have to open 25 tabs and use whatever system that particular forum has for showing just unread messages, assuming that forum has such a feature. And, if I want to reply, I have to go through login steps, since I will not stay logged into to anyplace on the web.

I can pretty much guarantee, that once a user learns how to use a newsgroup, they'll never want to go back to a forum.

FWIW, I do the same with email. I don't use a conversation view, that apparently was started by Google.

One of the purposes of having a computer is to make it easier, quicker, and more efficient to do daily tasks. Forums are a step backwards in this case. Why would anyone want to use a system that takes more time where there are quicker ways to do the same task?

Not to mention that formatting a reply like this is a helluva lot easier in my newsgroup reader than it is here.

I hate having my time wasted by someone else, and forums do that. We all have the same number of hours in a day, and how you choose to use it, is your choice.

[Woody44]

I could go on, but I've concluded vendors don't want to do their best for supporting users anymore, they just want to do "good enough".

As a user, not in any way associated with SoftMaker or any other software publisher or vendor, all I can say is that I strongly disagree with you on this. This format works very well for me. I dislike "threaded" arrangements. When I first encountered the new "threaded conversation" mode on a computer that had recently had Outlook 2019 installed on it, the default view drove me crazy. I couldn't get any work done until I had devoted the time necessary to research how to turn it off and get back to a "standard" arrangement.

My advice to SoftMaker on this is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." In my opinion, this forum works very well and there is no need to change it to anything else.

[snowshed]

I could go on, but I've concluded vendors don't want to do their best for supporting users anymore, they just want to do "good enough".

As a user, not in any way associated with SoftMaker or any other software publisher or vendor, all I can say is that I strongly disagree with you on this. This format works very well for me. I dislike "threaded" arrangements. When I first encountered the new "threaded conversation" mode on a computer that had recently had Outlook 2019 installed on it, the default view drove me crazy. I couldn't get any work done until I had devoted the time necessary to research how to turn it off and get back to a "standard" arrangement.

My advice to SoftMaker on this is, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." In my opinion, this forum works very well and there is no need to change it to anything else.

Hi, Woody.

I'm sorry your experience with a "threaded conversation" was not good. It sounds like the idea is new to you. It's not a new idea, and I suspect Outlook 2019 is a poor place to learn about threaded views.

I had a rather lengthy tutorial written here for you, but a wrong button push wiped it all out. That is highly unlikely to happen with a newsgroup reader. I'm not going to do it again, online in real time.

If you want to talk about threaded views, send me an email if possible. Not a private message. If a private message is your only option, I'll hope I get a notification, and we'll switch to emails.

Hope to hear from you.

[Woody44]

Snowshed -

Candidly, I don't know whether to thank you for your offer of a tutorial, or to be insulted by it.

You must be aware that not all people think in the same way and process information in the same way. I have stated that I have tried threaded views and that I don't like it. That's not the way my brain processes information. I'm happy it works for you, but it doesn't work for me. Since I am on record as not liking it, why would I want to learn [more] about it? I know how it works. I hate it.

"If it ain't broke -- don't fix it."

[snowshed]

Snowshed -

Candidly, I don't know whether to thank you for your offer of a tutorial, or to be insulted by it.

You must be aware that not all people think in the same way and process information in the same way. I have stated that I have tried threaded views and that I don't like it. That's not the way my brain processes information. I'm happy it works for you, but it doesn't work for me. Since I am on record as not liking it, why would I want to learn [more] about it? I know how it works. I hate it.

"If it ain't broke -- don't fix it."

Hi, Woody44.

There was no insult intended.

Maybe we should call it "experience". I've been on this planet long enough, and used computers long enough to know that when someone says they've used XXXXXXXXXX they often have not had the opportunity to try other ways of doing the same job, so they truly don't know of anything that may or may not work better.

I've always wanted to know, "Is there a better way to do this?" Most people don't have that interest, and they are the ones that don't get the most from their computer systems. I like to know how other computers do things, and it's interesting what you can learn.

Take Windows Libraries, which was introduced with Windows 7. Based on the name "Libraries", I had expectations of what it did, and was honestly pissed off when I found out how it worked. But I did some "thinking" based on what I knew about how computers work, and I discovered Libraries are a snow job. You can duplicate/replicate what Libraries do all the way back to Windows 98, probably older as I don't remember. You can duplicate what Libraries do on a Mac. And I suspect it can be done in Linux.

I know that the meaning of words often change over time, and that implementations of an idea can get worse rather than better over time.

I do know people think and learn differently. IMO, that's why some find Windows easy but not Macs, and the reverse. Some people still prefer command line operations over GUI operations. And that 's fine with me. All I want people to do is experience and learn something about other ways of doing things before deciding what fits them.

Coupled with this, the producer of a particular software has to provide a competent and correct implementation of a feature. Based on what I see in Google Images (which has gone downhill), I could not find an Outlook example of the type of threading I'm talking about.

I have to help a friend find out what went wrong with her Office 365 installation, so I'm going to install the 1 month free trial. Hopefully that has Outlook 2019, so I'll be able to see what Outlook's threading, by MS's definition, looks like, and I'll get back to you here.

You're still welcome to send me an email.

Q#$^!#^@W$%YW$Y%W This forum's programming just pissed me off again!!! But that's another conversation. LOL

[snowshed]

Snowshed -

Candidly, I don't know whether to thank you for your offer of a tutorial, or to be insulted by it.

You must be aware that not all people think in the same way and process information in the same way. I have stated that I have tried threaded views and that I don't like it. That's not the way my brain processes information. I'm happy it works for you, but it doesn't work for me. Since I am on record as not liking it, why would I want to learn [more] about it? I know how it works. I hate it.

"If it ain't broke -- don't fix it."

Hi, Woody44.

I installed the 1 month free trial of Microsoft 365, formerly Office 365, to see and try out the threaded view you mentioned.

We are not talking about the same thing. You are referring to conversation threading, which amounts to little more that collapsing related messages to the same subject. AFAIK, Google Gmail was the first email system to use this idea.

And you are right, it sucks so bad! That's why I don't use it. Apple Mail is the same way, which is why I don't use it either.

But this means you've never used a threading system of the type I'm talking about. So you have no idea whether you would like the type of threading I am referring to or not.

If you want to know more, send me an email. I'd prefer that to a private message. :;)