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 Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 09:31 AM |
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Joined: Feb 26, 2004
Posts: 412
Location: Norway
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Literally, it IS in the works. The new site for AVRfreaks.net
We are rebuilding AVRfreaks.net from scratch. We've had it with hacker kids and poorly documented, undeveloped open-source software (not in general, but PostNuke and PNphpBB in particular). Also, it's about time we got a grip on what you guys have turned this site into, and develop a site to enhance the functionality we think you want.
This time we'll do it all ourselves, just like in the old days. Except for the forum, where we want to get some commercial software, to ensure stability and regular security updates.
The new site will focus more on the users of the site, and the fact that you seem to want to collaborate and keep track of eachother.
And since our jobs are so much more than AVRfreaks, I am sorry that we can't attend to the forums every day and repair all the little flaws of the current site as they appear. We still feel that we earn our salaries.
I am not making this up, we started planning the site this summer. It should be ready during spring 2008, and we might need to invite beta-testers from the community.
Cheers;
Eivind |
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*** Eivind, webmaster ***
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 10:23 AM |
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Joined: Jan 23, 2004
Posts: 9825
Location: Trondheim, Norway
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This is why I love the 'Freaks community - and Atmel as a whole. I only wish our transport system (Connex, grumble grumble) was half as good at listening to and working with its customers.
I'm really excited about the thought of a new site - this one looks fine graphically, but is a little shaky underneath (see text size complaints, member list complaints, failures on large threads, etc) so a rebuild from scratch would be very welcome.
When exactly is spring 2008 (in approximate month terms)? I never got a hang on the different season shifts between us down under and every one "on top" so to speak. If you need beta testers, I'd certainly be the one beating others out of the way to be first in line.
- Dean  |
_________________
Atmel Studio 6.1 is now released, grab it here.
Report AS6/ASF bugs here.
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 10:38 AM |
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Joined: Mar 28, 2001
Posts: 20356
Location: Sydney, Australia (Gum trees, Koalas and Kangaroos, No Edelweiss)
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Quote:
we might need to invite beta-testers from the community.
You pay the airfares and accomodation, we pay for our burgers and pizza, fair enough? ...or do you want us to do it from home?  |
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John Samperi
Ampertronics Pty. Ltd.
www.ampertronics.com.au
* Electronic Design * Custom Products * Contract Assembly
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 11:01 AM |
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Joined: Dec 15, 2003
Posts: 4402
Location: Slovakia, Bratislava
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Quote:
we might need to invite beta-testers from the community.
I can recomend my friend. His mere presence has caused errors in computers that were OK a second ago. |
_________________
There are pointy haired bald people.
Time flies when you have a bad prescaler selected.
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 11:08 AM |
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Joined: Jan 23, 2004
Posts: 9825
Location: Trondheim, Norway
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Quote:
I can recomend my friend. His mere presence has caused errors in computers that were OK a second ago.
My girlfriend's mere presence a few months ago caused my laptop's XP partition to spontaneously corrupt itself. Mysteriously, it took three complete HD wipes and XP reinstalls before it would properly boot again. Spooky!
Quote:
You pay the airfares and accomodation, we pay for our burgers and pizza, fair enough? ...or do you want us to do it from home? Laughing
Sounds like a good idea to me. Always wanted to visit Norway, the Atmel HQ especially  .
- Dean |
_________________
Atmel Studio 6.1 is now released, grab it here.
Report AS6/ASF bugs here.
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 11:24 AM |
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Joined: Dec 15, 2003
Posts: 4402
Location: Slovakia, Bratislava
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Heh. There's a lot of strange people amongst us...
I'd also love a visit to Norway. 
Well, I'd like to sign up for betatesting anyways, even if from home though |
_________________
There are pointy haired bald people.
Time flies when you have a bad prescaler selected.
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 11:35 AM |
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Joined: Oct 25, 2005
Posts: 111
Location: Trondheim, Norway
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| And of course, if you guys have some thoughts on what you want, need, or generally just like to be a part of the new AVRFreaks, just let us know! We have some ideas ourselves, but we always want your input on these things! |
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/ Kim Joar
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 11:43 AM |
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Joined: Feb 26, 2004
Posts: 412
Location: Norway
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Hehe, I would prefer the in-person/on-location approach myself.
But they say this kind of testing is usually done remotely these days. Darn.
So, I guess there are many suggestions on small improvements.
But, thinking big and keeping it short: how do you picture the next AVRfreaks.net site? |
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*** Eivind, webmaster ***
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 12:24 PM |
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Joined: Jan 23, 2004
Posts: 9825
Location: Trondheim, Norway
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I'd want a better focus on tutorials. Rather than have a hacky Tutorials forum like the present solution (which not many newbies seem to see, and if they do they post in there incorrectly) I'd prefer it to be an actual section of the site. Tutorials would be submitted electronically and be able to have proper formatting. If possible, the sever could take in some sort of formatted text file and output the same tutorial in a normal formatted webpage, while still having the original for download.
Tutorials would have to be moderated, and each entry should be able to have associated downloads.
Other than that, I'd like a better projects section. No tags (that was an absolute DISASTER with 99% of them being incorrectly used and thus useless - MEGA128 != ATMEGA128 != MEGA_128 etc). And better moderated, like the new tutorials section would be, so dead/empty projects would be weeded out before being public.
It's also hard to track feedback from the projects. It would be nice if each entry could have an automatic feedback thread created where people could post bug reports, suggestions, etc. Perhaps a bug/enhancement tracker for each entry?
Tl;dr version: Better, moderated tutorials section of the site and better projects section.
Just some ideas off the top of my head.
- Dean
PS: And of course I want to be a part of the new AVRFreaks. 'Freaks unite! |
_________________
Atmel Studio 6.1 is now released, grab it here.
Report AS6/ASF bugs here.
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 01:02 PM |
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Joined: Mar 27, 2002
Posts: 18545
Location: Lund, Sweden
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Dean: Didn't we have a "Documents" section once upon a time? Which had 20 documents at most...
I actually like the semi-moderated nature of the Tutorials forum. And I am impressed with the quality of the tutorials. I think the number of good tutorials can be attributed in no little part to how easy it is to post in a forum rather than submitting. Nothing wrong with having both, maybe renaming the tutorial forum to "HowTo's"...
Still, I fail to see how the noobs would find a tutorial part of the site better if it's not a forum, and you loose the ability to add comments to a tutorial if it's not a forum. (Then you would go: Oh, we can have a forum for commenting/asking on the tutorials in the tutorial section. Answer: See how good that works for the projects section... Noobs will be noobs, and they will have to get lovingly bashed a few times to learn the manners, regardless of the technical design of the site. Let's be patient and live with it).
I'd like (yes, you all know what comes now...):
1) to choose myself when messages are marked as read. I do not brows the individual forums. I read "new posts since last visit". If I log in, find maybe 100 new posts, and don't have time to browse all the new content I know that I risk loosing some good things to eternity. So instead of logging in when I have five minutes left, I feel I have to wait until I have ample time proportionalt to my "time of absense" (gone four day, then I need two hours). Once or twice this site has demanded that you actively selected "mark all posts read". Those where the good days...
2) a projects section with a content that can be browsed (do the easiest things first: one long list with project #, name and one sentence description. THEN do the fancy search engine. DO publish the project list as a XML file, letting anyone format/filer from it with XSLT)
3) A better "mini-editor" for posts. Since I switched to Firefox some things work much better but others suck. eg. if I press the bold button, then the bold tag is inserted, the insetion caret stays where you'd expect but the edit field is scrolled up to top. This did not happend in IE. In Firefox eg. Alt-B does not work, in IE it does.
4) As little of the "fancy design stuff" as possible. This site is good because of the quality of it's (text) content. |
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 02:13 PM |
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Joined: Dec 30, 2002
Posts: 1358
Location: Fairview, Texas USA
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abcminiuser wrote:
I'd want a better focus on tutorials.
I agree. And I'd also like to see the size of the tutorial uploads increased. Right now there is a 1 MByte limit which you can chew up in a hurry if you need to embed screenshots. The only other alternative is to try and submit an entry as an article but this gets little attention from administrators and probably users as well.
Dave |
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 03:50 PM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62281
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Dean,
I know the [HW]/[SW], [Asm]/[C]/[?]labellnig system in the Tutorial Forum was a "Good Idea(tm)" but sometimes I go looking for a thread there that I know exists and cannot spot the wood for the trees because of the "noise" in the thread titles. It might be better if it was divided (maybe just a thick dividing line or something) so all the [HW] threads are in a "hardware" sub-section, the [GCC] threads are in a "GCC" section and so on. (though I know that raises the problem of threads that fall into more than one category!)
Anyway, just IMHO
(I guess the point I'm making is that any "new look" maybe needs to think of a better way of dividing up the Tutorials)
Cliff |
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 04:10 PM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 6137
Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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I suggest that when a new person signs in and gets a user name that they must first read a short tutorial on how to ask intelligent questions which ends with a pointer to:
General Information about Posting in the AVR Forum
http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name ... mp;t=18856
The short tutorial would state that one should have information about the problem in the title and not things like 'PLEASE HELP!!!!' or 'THIS IS REALLY URGENT!!!'
It would also explain about how to use the
Code:
This is some code
tags to mark code.
I would personally prefer to have a way to set a flag in my profile which lets me select which forums I want to see when I click the 'View Posts Since Last Visit'.
Also, a convenience that I personally would like to have but cannot ask you to put any effort into since it is something I should be able to do myself - is have a way to check the name of a member so that I won't be shown any of that persons posts. I realize that I can simple ignore someone I think is a troll, but it would help if I didn't have to look at them.
I'm looking forward to the new AVRFreaks and I volunteer to beta-test if you need me.
Smiley |
_________________
FREE TUTORIAL: 'Quick Start Guide for Using the WinAVR C Compiler with ATMEL's AVR Butterfly' AVAILABLE AT: http://www.smileymicros.com
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 04:34 PM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62281
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Oh and the single biggest feature I'd like is for it to remember your last read position in all forums and not clear this after 30 minutes of inactivity (or whatever the limit currently). There's one board I read (about r/c model aircraft) that does this but it's the only one I've found that doesn't "lose your place" after 30 minutes or an hour or whatever.
If I start reading Freaks then SWMBO decides that there's something I must do, when I come back, it's now marked all that was unread as if it had been and I miss some of the traffic.
The board where things work the way I'd like is running v1.1.3 forum software from:
http://www.simplemachines.org/
('course it's probably got it's own "perculiarities" and for all I know it may be equally liable to the script-kiddies) |
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 05:01 PM |
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Joined: Mar 27, 2002
Posts: 18545
Location: Lund, Sweden
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Oh, yes. Smiley reminded me of the wishes I have had for stop-lists. I want
1) A possibility to say "Do not show me this thread again, even if there are new posts to it".
2) A possibility to say "Do not show new posts by this user".
3) A possibility to say "Do not show me threads started by this user". |
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Posted: Sep 18, 2007 - 05:19 PM |
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Joined: Dec 17, 2005
Posts: 1498
Location: Europe- Estonia- Tallinn
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glad to hear that
What I would like is to be able to check the forums I would like to see on the forums homepage. Like being able to minimize the AVR32 forum (as it doesn't concern me and it would make the list smaller and easier to read.
Thanks |
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 12:03 AM |
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Joined: Mar 28, 2001
Posts: 20356
Location: Sydney, Australia (Gum trees, Koalas and Kangaroos, No Edelweiss)
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Quote:
1) A possibility to say "Do not show me this thread again, even if there are new posts to it".
This already exist. In the notification email you can "unsubscribe" from the topic. |
_________________
John Samperi
Ampertronics Pty. Ltd.
www.ampertronics.com.au
* Electronic Design * Custom Products * Contract Assembly
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 04:01 AM |
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Joined: Apr 24, 2006
Posts: 283
Location: Sydney, Australia
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| Since there's not really any better place for it I'd like to thank all the people who maintain this website (and its associated costs) for their efforts. It is a fantastic resource for anyone involved in AVRs. |
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 05:05 AM |
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Joined: Jul 05, 2007
Posts: 23
Location: Saint Paul, MN USA
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Have you looked at vbulletin? It appears to be a very nice, stable, secure, and extensible forum framework.
With regard to the Tutorials, could they be rolled into the Wiki? That would allow searching and easy updates while at the same time preventing user posts.
- Jon |
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 08:08 AM |
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Joined: Mar 27, 2002
Posts: 18545
Location: Lund, Sweden
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Quote:
In the notification email you can "unsubscribe" from the topic.
So I first need to subscribe to notifications, and then whwen I get one I need to unsubscribe? And are you sure that I henceforth will not see the thread in the forum listing or in "show new posts"? I gotta try this. Subscribing now... (Hey, wait! If it works I'll never see this thread again, and thus cannot post about the success of the operation! I'll risk it). |
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 08:52 AM |
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Joined: Feb 26, 2004
Posts: 140
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 09:07 AM |
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Joined: Feb 26, 2004
Posts: 140
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Quote:
4) As little of the "fancy design stuff" as possible. This site is good because of the quality of it's (text) content.
This request is also going to be granted. The new freaks site is going to be clean and not "freaky-looking" in any way. We want it to be a good tool for you guys without any disturbance from eye-candy graphics. We hope to have a design draft ready during october. All beta-tester will be involved in this process. |
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 09:14 AM |
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Joined: Oct 17, 2003
Posts: 311
Location: Germany
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Hi,
I second the wishes for a "Don´t show me this forum" or "Don´t show me new messages for this forum" option/flag in my profile.
The current forum has the option to "watch" topics without actually posting there myself. I´ve been using this feature to bookmark threads for future reference. Maybe I´m missing something obvious, but until now I haven´t found an option/link "show all topics I am watching" (similar to the egosearch showing all my forum posts).
So my wish for the new forum would be a kind of bookmark list or search function for watched topics. |
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 09:33 AM |
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Joined: Mar 28, 2001
Posts: 20356
Location: Sydney, Australia (Gum trees, Koalas and Kangaroos, No Edelweiss)
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Quote:
And are you sure that I henceforth will not see the thread in the forum listing or in "show new posts"?
Don't know about that, but you can unsubscribe from a topic and no longer get notifications of new postings to that thread. |
_________________
John Samperi
Ampertronics Pty. Ltd.
www.ampertronics.com.au
* Electronic Design * Custom Products * Contract Assembly
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 02:35 PM |
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Joined: Jun 18, 2001
Posts: 1085
Location: Brisbane Queensland Australia
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Hi
I would like to see better guidelines or improvements to Project Area.
There has been an increasing usage of URL links for the owner’s projects.
If the link does not respond due to the person has move or close their personal sites.
Then it defeats the whole purpose for others who would like to see it.
The whole project contents should contain the files, codes, diagrams, schematics & picture.
This will suit better for all members.
Maybe when a new member joins then a quota of 100 posts or more will be allow placing their project.
Then we know that they are serious about participating.
This will weed out the homework or project requests from University, Technical College, Prep, School and other educational bodies.
Cheers
Ken |
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 05:19 PM |
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Joined: Oct 17, 2003
Posts: 311
Location: Germany
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How about a customized start page, i.e. the user can configure what he wants to see after login. This way one could directly jump to the forum section or the advanced search, for example.
While I like Ken´s idea of a posts quota for the projects section, I think it is a double-edged sword. Just think of someone who has successfully completed a project and would like to publish it only to find out he is short of 27 posts to hit the quota. Could be really annoying.
Ingo |
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 05:39 PM |
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Joined: Oct 17, 2003
Posts: 311
Location: Germany
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Another thought on the projects section: A rating system where the ratings of members with higher posting figures have more weight. The rating could even be dependent on the project category and where rating user gained its quota: AVR, GCC, general electronics, off-topic, etc.
Ingo |
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 06:35 PM |
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Joined: Mar 27, 2002
Posts: 18545
Location: Lund, Sweden
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Quote:
you can unsubscribe from a topic and no longer get notifications of new postings to that thread.
Yes, but... I wasn't wishing for notifications disappearing. I was wishing for a filter of what I see when visiting the site. |
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 06:37 PM |
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Joined: Dec 17, 2005
Posts: 1498
Location: Europe- Estonia- Tallinn
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| maybe a small quiz on forums rules when joining? One has to read the rules and after reading it he must complete a quiz of say 5-10 questions on the same topic. |
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 07:24 PM |
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Joined: Dec 15, 2003
Posts: 4402
Location: Slovakia, Bratislava
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I have to disagree with the project quota based on posts. While it would keep out the homework, it would also keep some projetcs away 
I don't have any suggestions though for an efective project system. |
_________________
There are pointy haired bald people.
Time flies when you have a bad prescaler selected.
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 08:24 PM |
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Joined: Mar 27, 2002
Posts: 18545
Location: Lund, Sweden
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The solution to a good projects section is in the answer to the question "Why is it so darned hard to navigate the projects section today?".
If it was easy any moderator could browse through the latest weeks submissions and simply toss the ones that did not adhere to the "only finished projects, with full documentation..."requirement. If a moderator could do that in five minutes per week I suspect it would be done.
An alternative would be a two-step process. You submit your project to a "prospect" list. This would be browseable so that the really impatient could find all things seconds after submitted, but it would not generate any announcements or such. Think "silent unless you actively look yourself". A moderator/scrutinizer would accept/release the project from this list into the "real" projects area. In this way the projects area would be kept clean/neat also.
Think this: "Dear 'freak. You have submitted a project to the projects area. I want to inform you that this area are for complete and finished projects only, and thus your submission has been rejected as it is only a sketch or idea. When/if you finish your idea you are most welcome back to re-submit."
Or this: ""Dear 'freak. You have submitted a project to the projects area, but you have not tagged it with any keywords (neither from the required list nor any own-invented ones). For the admission of the project into the projects area this has to be done. Please update [bla, bla...]. Thank you!"
The projects forum could have a requirement that you identified a project before starting to discuss it. This would stop "rogue" posts in the projects forum. The project per se in the projects area could have links to theese threads (or some such, eg. a button "Find all project forum threads pertaining to this project"). |
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 09:01 PM |
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Joined: Mar 01, 2001
Posts: 4953
Location: Rocky Mountains
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I already gave my suggestion to Eivind, but here is to the rest of the community. To solve all the issues with the Academy section, how about turning the Academy section into a GForge site?
http://gforge.org/
This would give the AVR Freaks community all the capabilities of SourceForge. Real project management, and real tools per project: revision control system, bug trackers, feature list trackers, mailing lists, forums, file release system, user access control, news releases, etc. This would definitely allow an open source development model for any project, as opposed to what there is now, which is just a static repository. And of course, it would allow easy categorization of projects and search. 
So what do you think? Would you like to have AVR Forge (tm)? |
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 09:11 PM |
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Joined: Dec 15, 2003
Posts: 4402
Location: Slovakia, Bratislava
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EW: Uuuuh...goood idea! Does the gforge system provide "online meetings"? You know, a bunch of guys working on a projects sits down infront of some flash app, where they get a drawing board, chat etc...
An idea: "outsource" the search function to google. Reinventing the wheel is nice and all, but with all due respect, google can most likely provide better results than the local search. They''ve been at it for quite some time now, and I hear they're good at it
OK, so the things I like most (compared to some other forums) are:
My recent posts
Nice and briliant and experienced people |
_________________
There are pointy haired bald people.
Time flies when you have a bad prescaler selected.
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 09:48 PM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 6137
Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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JohanEkdahl wrote:
An alternative would be a two-step process. You submit your project to a "prospect" list. This would be browseable so that the really impatient could find all things seconds after submitted, but it would not generate any announcements or such. Think "silent unless you actively look yourself". A moderator/scrutinizer would accept/release the project from this list into the "real" projects area. In this way the projects area would be kept clean/neat also.
I want to strongly second Johan's suggestion. This feature along with a better projects search feature, and a better hierarchical organization would go a long way to improving the project section utility.
Smiley |
_________________
FREE TUTORIAL: 'Quick Start Guide for Using the WinAVR C Compiler with ATMEL's AVR Butterfly' AVAILABLE AT: http://www.smileymicros.com
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Posted: Sep 19, 2007 - 09:56 PM |
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Joined: Sep 11, 2006
Posts: 163
Location: Kamuela, HI
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Here's my take:
Low Eye Candy - Glad to hear the new site will be low on eye-candy. I have a relatively good network connection, but I do live on an island. Some sites are slow because of graphic overload. I also have problems reading sites that are too "glitzy". Black text, white screen, decent margins, and undistracting borders. The current AVRFreaks site works well for me in this regard. (All kidding aside, this really is a big deal for me. I have a hard time visually processing cluttered sites.)
Projects Revamp! I'll second and third most of the comments on the projects area but it does mean more time and energy spent on site-management. I think the current project setup encourages what we're seeing, though: A project must be set up and posted before code or schematics can be added to it. First project I posted, the upload function was broken so I stuck in a URL to point at the Sourceforge site. Not great, and I remedied it as soon as possible, but it illustrates the problem. Flip it around: Require attached files before the project ever shows up at all. If there's no code or no schematic, it doesn't show up in the list. If the owner doesn't post code or schematics within X days, the project is deleted.
I like the idea of the project tags, but in execution it didn't work. For what it's worth, that's a bugaboo that's been hanging around the neck of every online catalog system that's ever been invented. It's the hellishly expensive ones that tended to come up with fixes first, and they didn't always work well. I'd be happy if the tags were dropped in favor of a site-only Google search tool. "Show me everything involving USB and host-mode." You get the idea. If people write their descriptions well, the tags aren't entirely necessary.
Maybe Some Tags - It might be nice to keep things like "Is it C or Assembly?" "Is it GCC, IAR, etc?" "What device is it written for?" tagged. But these should be pull-down items rather than free-form typing. That avoids a lot of the "ATMEGA128" vs "ATmega128" vs "atmega_128" vs ... As new devices or compilers hit the streets, add them to the pull-down list.
Searching - Bullet-proof searching of the forums would be great, too. I wind up doing Google "site:www.avrfreaks.net ..." searches constantly to get around this. Good to have it on-site, though.
GForge - I'm powerfully tempted. Powerfully. It'd be nice to hear some of the inside poop-scoop from Sourceforge, though, to find out what headaches this is likely to cause our administrators. (Can you imagine every single entry in the Project area showing up as an entry in the RC source tree?) FWIW I've got my stuff on Sourceforge, but I get the feeling it's not entirely set up for embedded development. Too many questions get answered with "other". Having that functionality here on Freaks would ROCK. But not if it makes for so much moderation overhead that our administrators and moderators suffer nervous breakdown.
Datasheet / App Note Repository - I know I can get all this off the Atmel site (and now that I actually signed up for updates, I find out when updates or new documents appear!) But it'd be great to be able to search the forums, the projects, and the app notes repository at the same time. Imagine someone like me, who just got his first USBKEY board, doing an innocent search and finding: the docs for the board, the datasheet for the processor, the app note (and source!) for setting it up as a host controller, two or three projects where people have already done other similar work, etc. Heaven!
"I NEEEEED HEEEEELP!" - I've already said my bit about why it's never a good idea to use a subject header like this, so I won't go on a rant here. If anyone ever truly finds a fix for this, please publish it and take your seat on the stage next to Linus Torvalds and Tim Berners-Lee. I will give you a standing ovation every time I see you.
Beta Testing - I'm in for beta-testing as well. Can't afford the air-fare, but I'd be happy to pick up a couple of rounds of pizza and beer.
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Posted: Sep 20, 2007 - 04:17 AM |
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daqq wrote:
EW: Uuuuh...goood idea! Does the gforge system provide "online meetings"? You know, a bunch of guys working on a projects sits down infront of some flash app, where they get a drawing board, chat etc...
You didn't go look at the link very deep did you? No, GForge (nor SourceForge or Savannah) offer that. You can always use instant messaging (IM) or contact Webex (commercial) for stuff like that.
daqq wrote:
An idea: "outsource" the search function to google.
Searching web pages is different from search "open source projects". Go to SourceForge (sourceforge.net) and take a look at how they organize projects. Do a search. See how it works. |
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Posted: Sep 20, 2007 - 04:25 AM |
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smileymicros wrote:
JohanEkdahl wrote:
An alternative would be a two-step process. You submit your project to a "prospect" list.
I want to strongly second Johan's suggestion.
GForge (and SourceForge and Savannah) has a system in place whereby a person wanting to start a project must submit a short form describing what the project is about. The site admins then must approve the project before anything can happen with it. With an "AVR Forge" site, this would allow us to make sure that the project was a project centered around the AVR, and not say a PIC project.  |
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Posted: Sep 20, 2007 - 04:59 AM |
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benedict wrote:
GForge - I'm powerfully tempted. Powerfully. It'd be nice to hear some of the inside poop-scoop from Sourceforge, though, to find out what headaches this is likely to cause our administrators.
SourceForge's problems are very different mainly due to sheer volume: the number of registered users, the number of projects. An AVR Forge site would not have nearly the amount of traffic of SourceForge.
The nice thing is that administration is needed to approve the projects. After that, it's up to the owner of the project whether or not to use the available tools. The GForge software automatically takes care of setting up things like the mailing lists, trackers, revision control system, etc.
benedict wrote:
(Can you imagine every single entry in the Project area showing up as an entry in the RC source tree?)
The software doesn't work like that, even at SourceForge.
benedict wrote:
FWIW I've got my stuff on Sourceforge, but I get the feeling it's not entirely set up for embedded development. Too many questions get answered with "other".
The only thing that I've noticed about SourceForge regarding embedded systems is that they just don't have the categories set up for different kinds of embedded projects. But that's because they serve a much wider audience. On AVR Forge, the categories (of projects) could be modified to suit the audience. |
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Posted: Sep 20, 2007 - 09:40 PM |
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I'd like to require that the user's location be filled in on the profile. Not that everyone would tell the truth, but most would. Even a country or continent is better than nothing.
I'd second the idea of having the option to make certain forums not show up on the main page. I'd also like an option that says to put the stickies at the bottom of the first page instead of the top. And I've never had the "already read" stuff work quite right, so anything would be an improvement along those lines.
I also think you guys do a wonderful job with this site. I'm sure whatever you come up with will be done with care, thought, and finesse. Then you'll be bombarded with crap from the malcontents.
I'd also be happy to help out with the beta testing, or in any other way I might be useful. |
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Chuck Baird
"It's better to catch the trapeze than test the safety net" -- RPi book
http://www.cbaird.org
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Posted: Sep 21, 2007 - 09:13 AM |
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| In the new AVRFreaks version we are going to change forum software, and we are wondering if anyone of you have used a forum you really thought worked fantastic. Just let us know, and we are going to check it out! |
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/ Kim Joar
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Posted: Sep 21, 2007 - 03:21 PM |
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Kim,
Did you mean as just an end user of forum software or someone who's worked as an admin for various systems? Like I said above, I'm just an end user of a www.simplemachines.org based forum and it seems to have some nice facilities compared to a lot of other forum I use.
'course there's got to be some reason why it seems like more than half the forum on the planet are running on www.vbulletin.com - presumably people wouldn't use it in such large numbers if it had major problems?
Cliff |
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Posted: Sep 22, 2007 - 11:55 PM |
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Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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There seems to be a consensus about the need to modify the tutorials and the projects section. I think we could combine the two into a single 'articles' section where some articles are more 'tutorial' oriented, that is they are basically text/picture expositions, and others are more 'project' oriented with text/pictures accompanied by schematics, parts lists and etc.
I like Erics suggestion about gforge, but this seems more intended to be for collaborative project development rather than presenting a project to the public for discussion and use.
While folks are examining alternatives, I'd like to suggest taking a look at www.codeproject.com. It has gotten a bit cluttered looking, but there are some specific aspects that I really like. If you look at an article I posted there a while back: http://www.codeproject.com/cs/media/CsTranspTutorial3.asp you can see how they format the presentation of information. Again, this is cluttered looking to me, but I like the idea of having a rating system where readers can assign 0 to 5 to an article. I rarely bother with articles that get less than 3.0 and I will study most articles of interest with a score greater than 4.0. Scroll to the bottom of the article and you'll see that a forum-like page is assigned to each article. This is a great help since you can see the problems other folks had and the solutions they came up with all on the same page as the article itself.
So here is what I really like:
Full Project/Tutorial visible on web page (don't need to open a separate pdf page or go off to a different website)
Project/Tutorial Rating System
Forum Style Threads attached to the Project/Tutorial
I haven't seen any other sites with this particular format so I don't know if there is an opensource codeproject like system available - if anyone else has seen anything similar, I'd like to hear about it.
Smiley |
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Posted: Sep 23, 2007 - 02:45 AM |
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Joined: Dec 18, 2001
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Firefox users cannot now read long threads...
If there were a user choice for "LAST" instead of "ALL", this would not be an issue.
I think I've seen other phpBBS with that option! |
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Posted: Sep 23, 2007 - 02:47 AM |
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Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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I use firefox and haven't noticed anything. Maybe it is a settings issue?
Smiley |
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FREE TUTORIAL: 'Quick Start Guide for Using the WinAVR C Compiler with ATMEL's AVR Butterfly' AVAILABLE AT: http://www.smileymicros.com
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Posted: Sep 23, 2007 - 06:14 AM |
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smileymicros wrote:
I like Erics suggestion about gforge, but this seems more intended to be for collaborative project development rather than presenting a project to the public for discussion and use.
How do you think WinAVR is presented to the public? On SourceForge. There are mailing lists for WinAVR as well (not that they get that much traffic; most of the traffic is here).
SourceForge and GForge provide both collaborative project development and the means to present a project to the public for use and discussion. |
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Posted: Sep 24, 2007 - 09:12 AM |
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clawson wrote:
Kim,
Did you mean as just an end user of forum software or someone who's worked as an admin for various systems?
It doesn't matter. Either as an admin or as an end user. I just wanted to hear if some of you have been on a forum you really liked. |
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/ Kim Joar
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Posted: Sep 24, 2007 - 09:56 AM |
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Keep in mind though,
that we are primarily interested in commercial forum software. This is to increase the chance that the software is maintained/regularily updated, and to earn the right to technical support from someone |
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*** Eivind, webmaster ***
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Posted: Sep 24, 2007 - 10:16 AM |
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Besides the forum, we are reworking the projects/academy/articles bit, yes.
What we picture, is a "workshop" area where people can present their stuff, upload files, maintain a changelog/diary and get ratings and short feedback/comments. If the user can then invite others to participate (add files, write changelog), while still "owning" the project, we have means for project collaboration.
Whether we choose tagging or hierarchical categorization is not yet decided, but using a structure such as the one mentioned, we can present different types of material just by altering the presentation. We even plan to cram the "Tools" section into the same structure, but present it separate from the "workshop". This way, everyone gets their little window on AVRfreaks.net, but the "serious" stuff that are now in the Tools section, gets elevated from the rest to get that extra promotion on the site that they have today. |
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*** Eivind, webmaster ***
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Posted: Sep 24, 2007 - 04:57 PM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
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Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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Great idea! Have you also come across a way to add a threaded comments section to each projects page? I think it would really help to have the discussion on a project placed in forum like threads at the bottom of the page.
Smiley |
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Posted: Sep 28, 2007 - 09:10 AM |
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Location: Norway
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John (AllC):
Atmel are already doing crossmarketing, within their target markets, by using different approaches and campaigns towards different markets.
Atmels end products are not toys, although the toy industry buys from Atmel also. Atmel targets the people that build the toys, among others.
Of course it is always interesting to know where to go for AVR hobby projects. We are kind of hoping avrfreaks to be that kind of place. But keep the discussion going on, perhaps something interesting comes out of it!
BTW John, you are hijacking this thread now, so I am moving your posts back to the other forum (off-topic forum). Lets discuss magazines over there, and new avrfreaks.net here.
Cheers;
Eivind
[Edited to maintain a self-sufficient post in the absense of Johns posts] |
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*** Eivind, webmaster ***
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Posted: Sep 28, 2007 - 11:24 PM |
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Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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I mentioned CodeProject above as having some features that would IMHO be nice to have in a Projects/Articles section. I would like to add this link to makezine which has a podcast on the AVR based Arduino board. http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/09/intro_to_the_arduino_week.html
If folks know of other websites with features that might be attractive for an AVRFreakzine, I hope they will post links to help visualize the AVRFreaks owners might create for us.
Smiley |
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Posted: Sep 28, 2007 - 11:55 PM |
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Location: Redmond, WA
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A quote from another thread...
Quote:
Something layered like an onion, perhaps, where the outside layer is the description of a cool gadget and simple instructions on how to make it, with "where to get" info but not a lot on how it works. Keep it short and simple and post it to places where hobbyists hang out. Link back to a second layer perhaps here, where they can find full schematics and code with a detailed explanation of how it works and how to modify it at a more advanced level.
Except for that it is not exactly where hobbyists hang out, I tried doing this with the AT90USBKEY and Dragon board adapters on my site. I provide a description, a place to purchase the item, and also a link back to AVRfreaks to the thread where each item was discussed and designed in a public forum. I enjoyed the process and appreciated the feedback at each step along the way. I even tried to add a bit of co-op action by making the boards available at a lower price to those that ordered before the PCB order went out.
The next project I'm going to try this with will be something of a superButterfly. 128x64 GLCD, QWheel, switches, micro SD card, 3-5VDC operation, commanded via I2C or SPI. I posted the previous two designs in the AVR8 forum because the project forum does (did?) not accommodate a hardware only project. For this new project, it would be nice to have a better framework available (the new AVRfreaks site?) to organize the content. A Subversion (SVN) repository for project files would be at the top of my list. Bug tracking, a way for folks to register as developers on the project, etc. Sourceforge but with support for hardware as well.
Tom |
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Posted: Sep 29, 2007 - 02:43 AM |
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zoomcityzoom wrote:
Bug tracking, a way for folks to register as developers on the project, etc. Sourceforge but with support for hardware as well.
Tom
Did you see Eric's post about GForge?
Smiley |
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Posted: Sep 29, 2007 - 08:24 PM |
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Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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I just ran across another projects website, instructables, with an article for using an ATtiny2313 to make a "Mini RGB Light Cube" http://www.instructables.com/id/Mini-RG ... /?ALLSTEPS
One of the really nice features here is that the article writer can but a flyover box on a picture so that text pops us when the cursor is over the box.
Smiley |
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Posted: Sep 29, 2007 - 08:31 PM |
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Joined: Feb 14, 2007
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Location: San Diego California
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eivind wrote:
...
What we picture, is a "workshop" area where people can present their stuff, upload files, maintain a changelog/diary and get ratings and short feedback/comments. If the user can then invite others to participate (add files, write changelog), while still "owning" the project, we have means for project collaboration.
Whether we choose tagging or hierarchical categorization is not yet decided, but using a structure such as the one mentioned, we can present different types of material just by altering the presentation. We even plan to cram the "Tools" section into the same structure, but present it separate from the "workshop". This way, everyone gets their little window on AVRfreaks.net, but the "serious" stuff that are now in the Tools section, gets elevated from the rest to get that extra promotion on the site that they have today.
Sounds really close as requested. Gforge does look good thou. One way to layer like an onion is by using tabs across the top. 1st tab (page) could be the project code or article with pictures and a small video or link to YouTube etc. 2nd tab could be for comments, 3rd tab for revision etc, etc. Tab pages take up little room per page but can be used to sort everything like index’s, contents with description, etc and impart all information that pertains to that layer.
Also here’s a recap of the request not mentioned in your excellent synopsis.
1) I suggest that when a new person signs in and gets a user name that they must first read a short tutorial on how to ask intelligent questions which ends with a pointer to:
General Information about Posting in the AVR Forum
http://www.avrfreaks.net/index.php?name ... mp;t=18856
2) The short tutorial would state that one should have information about the problem in the title and not things like 'PLEASE HELP!!!!' or 'THIS IS REALLY URGENT!!!'
3) maybe a small quiz on forums rules when joining? One has to read the rules and after reading it he must complete a quiz of say 5-10 questions on the same topic.
4) to choose myself when messages are marked as read.
5) a projects section with a content that can be browsed (do the easiest things first: one long list with project #, name and one sentence description. THEN do the fancy search engine. DO publish the project list as a XML file, letting anyone format/filer from it with XSLT)
6) I'd like is for it to remember your last read position in all forums and not clear this after 30 minutes of inactivity
7) A possibility to say "Do not show me this thread again, even if there are new posts to it".
 A possibility to say "Do not show new posts by this user".
9) A possibility to say "Do not show me threads started by this user".
10) What I would like is to be able to check the forums I would like to see on the forums homepage. Like being able to minimize the AVR32 forum (as it doesn't concern me and it would make the list smaller and easier to read.
11) How about a customized start page, i.e. the user can configure what he wants to see after login. This way one could directly jump to the forum section or the advanced search, for example.
12) I'd like to require that the user's location be filled in on the profile. Not that everyone would tell the truth, but most would. Even a country or continent is better than nothing.
13) I'd second the idea of having the option to make certain forums not show up on the main page. I'd also like an option that says to put the stickies at the bottom of the first page instead of the top. And I've never had the "already read" stuff work quite right, so anything would be an improvement along those lines.
Looking good thanks for all you do,
John |
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Last edited by AllN on Sep 29, 2007 - 08:42 PM; edited 1 time in total
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Posted: Sep 29, 2007 - 08:36 PM |
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A thumbnail view of hardware projects would be handy. The project originator would choose which project photo to use as the thumbnail. Someone may choose to use their avatar to represent their project.
Tom |
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Posted: Oct 10, 2007 - 04:18 AM |
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I realize that I'm a complete n00b to this site and to embedded systems as a whole. So you all can take this with a grain of salt.
If your going to go commercial... you might as well go with vbulletin, like everyone else. Its just so nice for everyone involved. There are some really cool things you can do with vbull software. For an example of a site that really uses vbulletin functionality check out BonsaiTalk.com and yotatech.com
Each member can have a personal "journal" on Bonsai talk to show pictures, discuss bonsai technique, and provide tutorials. Other members can offer feedback if you allow it. On AVRFreak the journal app could be called a "lab Notebook" or something and it would provide the same functions for a different subject (obviously), articles, tutorials, etc.
Its almost a blog for each user, pretty cool.
Something this site and any future iterations of it could use, IMHO, would be a newbie room/thread or something. Some sites have a newbie wiki which is supremely awesome, but it requires some moderation.
It seems like a lot of issues would be solved for both, experienced and n00bs, if there was a central repository for n00b preguntas(???). I'm really getting into micro controllers and I have a bunch of ideas for n00b threads, and it would be great to put them in one place.
For project management has anyone looked into subversion? Really cool a LOT of folks are switching from CVS to SVN (subversion) Read about it here: http://subversion.tigris.org/ |
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Posted: Oct 10, 2007 - 02:01 PM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
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Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Eivind,
A cracking example of thread necromancy over in AVR Forum just reminded me that a nice feature to have on any new forum software would either be that when search results are presented a dividing line be drawn at six months (say) with a note to say "results below this are very old and may no longer be relevant".
Either that or a generic thing when someone clicks reply/submit on a thread where the last post is 6 months ago or older to pop up and say "did you realise that you are replying to a very old thread and may be resurrecting a long dead old topic of no relevance?" (which is the defintion of "necromancy")
Cliff |
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Posted: Oct 10, 2007 - 05:20 PM |
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Actually, according to Merriam-Webster, "necromancy" has a definition with a far more positive sound to it:
Quote:
conjuration of the spirits of the dead for purposes of magically revealing the future or influencing the course of events
Keep posting to old threads, and next year's Atmel products will be revealed to ye OR, you get to define them
No. Just kidding. But I like your ideas, and I am
taking notes. So just keep'em coming!
Thanks |
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*** Eivind, webmaster ***
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Posted: Oct 10, 2007 - 05:33 PM |
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Joined: Aug 13, 2006
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Quote:
But I like your ideas, and I am
taking notes. So just keep 'em coming!
More free stuff. Always a crowd pleaser! |
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Chuck Baird
"It's better to catch the trapeze than test the safety net" -- RPi book
http://www.cbaird.org
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Posted: Oct 10, 2007 - 05:43 PM |
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Joined: Dec 15, 2003
Posts: 4402
Location: Slovakia, Bratislava
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| Hmmm, a button for Leon that would paste
Quote:
Off-topic for this forum (Academy projects)! Read the guidelines.
Leon
and post it into a thread ? |
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Posted: Oct 10, 2007 - 05:47 PM |
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Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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Or simply just give everyone with 1,000 or more posts limited moderator capability to move threads bewteen fora.
Then we could all have a game of thread ping-pong
(but Leon and Bob would love to have the power to move threads they believe to be misplaced!) |
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Posted: Oct 10, 2007 - 06:05 PM |
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Location: Hilversum - the Netherlands
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Daqq, very funny
I try to beat him every time, but it seems Leon has a nose for these posts
Nard |
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Posted: Oct 10, 2007 - 06:07 PM |
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Joined: Dec 15, 2003
Posts: 4402
Location: Slovakia, Bratislava
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Quote:
Daqq, very funny
I try to beat him every time, but it seems Leon has a nose for these posts
Nard
One Special Posting button for nard also, please
Quote:
Or simply just give everyone with 1,000 or more posts limited moderator capability to move threads bewteen fora.
The power....the power....Nice idea! However, it might result in:
"The Epson chip thingie is supposed to be in the electronics forum, I'm moving it"
"No, it's supposed to be in the offtopic. Moved."
"The hell it is! Moved"
"This is childish! Moved"
...
But we are all civilized people and.... wooooow! New blinking toooooy! Mussttt.... play.... |
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There are pointy haired bald people.
Time flies when you have a bad prescaler selected.
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Posted: Oct 10, 2007 - 07:48 PM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62281
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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daqq wrote:
However, it might result in:
And there's your game of Ping-Pong right there!
OK how about this, "mini mods" get to vote on the move of a thread. If any destination gets three unique vosts it happens? |
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Posted: Oct 10, 2007 - 08:46 PM |
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Joined: Feb 14, 2007
Posts: 1858
Location: San Diego California
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clawson wrote:
...
OK how about this, "mini mods" get to vote on the move of a thread. If any destination gets three unique vosts it happens?
That sounds like it could work!
John |
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Resistance is futile…… You will be compiled!
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Posted: Oct 10, 2007 - 08:55 PM |
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Joined: Mar 27, 2002
Posts: 18545
Location: Lund, Sweden
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My vote for "mini mods" and the like is: No.
We face the risk of a HWNMNBM clone gathering the necessary "points" and going postal here. Also, keeping the number of mods low lessens the risk of envy, and we can concentrate on guaranteeing that the few mods are of a really high class (respected, fair, cool in temper...).
If a post is really bad placed then you can always get in contact with a mod and ask for a move. If a post is really bad then you can always get in contact with a mod and ask for a deletion. I have done the latter on a few occasions, always with excellent response. |
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Posted: Oct 10, 2007 - 11:58 PM |
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Joined: Mar 28, 2001
Posts: 20356
Location: Sydney, Australia (Gum trees, Koalas and Kangaroos, No Edelweiss)
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| Special scanning software that detects trolls and deletes their posts, automatically moves posts to correct forums, automatically replies to most common known problems....automatically sends monthly gifts to top ten posters... |
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John Samperi
Ampertronics Pty. Ltd.
www.ampertronics.com.au
* Electronic Design * Custom Products * Contract Assembly
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Posted: Oct 11, 2007 - 09:25 AM |
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Joined: Feb 26, 2004
Posts: 412
Location: Norway
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Haha, OK...
All this noted.
But: keep in mind that the forum part will probably be bought, or at least come from somewhere else, as long as we can find one we really like. We don't intend to invent the forum all over again 
And the most important part to work on now, will be the Projects part. Please review my post about that on the previous page. I'll get out some more info on that soon. |
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*** Eivind, webmaster ***
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Posted: Oct 11, 2007 - 06:01 PM |
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Joined: Nov 17, 2004
Posts: 6137
Location: Great Smokey Mountains.
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eivind,
You might get more responses on the Projects Section if you start a new thread 'Ideal Projects Section Would Have...' or some such title with the first post being a copy of what you said on the other page. 'Hang in there' is fun, but not as focused as a specific thread might be.
It would also nice if some of the folks that got all excited about the AVR Magazine would participate in the new thread because there was a lot of good ideas generated, many of which would be useful for a Projects Section.
Tell you what, you start a new thread and I'll go back and weed through some of the old posts and copy out ideas that might be relevant to get the ball rolling.
Smiley |
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FREE TUTORIAL: 'Quick Start Guide for Using the WinAVR C Compiler with ATMEL's AVR Butterfly' AVAILABLE AT: http://www.smileymicros.com
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Posted: Oct 11, 2007 - 07:53 PM |
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Joined: Feb 14, 2007
Posts: 1858
Location: San Diego California
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The magazine discussions were based on using the existing Freaks site including the project section so there isn’t a lot of useful new info regarding the projects. I already looked and did a recap in the last post. We were just going to re-write the projects here and make kits out of them and include articles that weren’t published here but are using AVR’s so we could increase the number of projects and AVR’s market share.
But Smiley suggested that the new project section could be a zine type of format with video links. This would be great.
The way I would write it using dynamic tabbed page format:
1) 1st page is a category page sorted table of contents with search engine. The categories need real thought, as to be of any real use, they should be designed so a lay person could find and use them. Functionality, purpose, or the end result should be the main descriptive consideration. The lay description is the most important add using SPI, TWI, etc for the pros at the end of the description.
2) Select a project:
a. 1st tab (page) displays the project article as a zine with pictures and or a video YouTube link.
b. 2nd tab would show the actual code or hardware again like a zine.
c. 3rd tab would be for discussion like the Academy forum now.
d. 4th Revision and different version links or downloads
Cheers
John
PS:
I'll start writing up the description search engine fields. Lets see what we come up with. |
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Resistance is futile…… You will be compiled!
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Posted: Oct 11, 2007 - 08:22 PM |
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Joined: Sep 04, 2002
Posts: 21257
Location: Orlando Florida
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| What I need is modules for a particular chip for a particular compiler. Like I2C serial eeprom type 24C515 for iccavr, or read an LT1290 12 bit a/d on the spi, or d/a, or a particular model or size of text or graphic lcd.... if you have to edit the ports, the pins, the processor, the interrupt syntax, and all the initializations just to use a subroutine from some project, thats a lot of work and highly error prone. |
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Imagecraft compiler user
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Posted: Oct 11, 2007 - 09:47 PM |
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Joined: Feb 14, 2007
Posts: 1858
Location: San Diego California
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@:-Bob exactly what I was looking for. I'm making a check box list that will become the description generator and search engine. Check all the boxes that apply language, compiler, peripherals, etc and it will search or build a description or search list based on the criteria selected.
This is the best way I know to eliminate or reduce the human subjectivity. |
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Resistance is futile…… You will be compiled!
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Posted: Oct 11, 2007 - 10:57 PM |
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Joined: Feb 14, 2007
Posts: 1858
Location: San Diego California
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OK a picture is worth a thousands words especially if they are mine.
Here’s a test program that works by selecting any Combobox field and it will fill the others boxes with valid information if a project has been written with such a Peripherals, Components, Language, Compiler, or function. There is also an ‘All’ field not shown. Only select a component and you will see the Languages that have been posted for that component, if any.
I don’t have the experience needed to creates all the fields.
If this is the right track then I request we start listing the other fields we might use.
Of course to make this backwards compatible we will have to run the current projects through the description generator too.
Cheers,
John
PS: It’s easier for me to write the program than describe it too. |
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Resistance is futile…… You will be compiled!
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Posted: Oct 15, 2007 - 09:41 AM |
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Joined: Mar 27, 2002
Posts: 18545
Location: Lund, Sweden
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| One thing that just resurfaced in my memory: Get/make forum software that generates true, proven XHTML! |
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Posted: Oct 15, 2007 - 10:48 AM |
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Joined: Feb 26, 2004
Posts: 412
Location: Norway
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Posted: Oct 30, 2007 - 10:40 AM |
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Joined: Feb 26, 2004
Posts: 412
Location: Norway
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smileymicros wrote:
eivind,
You might get more responses on the Projects Section if you start a new thread 'Ideal Projects Section Would Have...' or some such title with the first post being a copy of what you said on the other page.
Smiley
This turned out wrong, it seems |
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*** Eivind, webmaster ***
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Posted: Oct 30, 2007 - 10:48 AM |
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Joined: Jan 23, 2004
Posts: 9825
Location: Trondheim, Norway
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I think most of us would settle for a working system first, and then a working well system next .
Did you see the posts about the 2313.avrfreaks links dotted around the site causing login problems for some users?
- Dean |
_________________
Atmel Studio 6.1 is now released, grab it here.
Report AS6/ASF bugs here.
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Posted: Nov 01, 2007 - 12:48 PM |
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Joined: Feb 26, 2004
Posts: 412
Location: Norway
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I understand your post, Dean.
This is your chance to get both |
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*** Eivind, webmaster ***
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Posted: Nov 01, 2007 - 12:58 PM |
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Joined: Jan 23, 2004
Posts: 9825
Location: Trondheim, Norway
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Well I'm crabby due to the upcomming exams, so I'll put in a vote for a "smug elitist jerk filter" for the new site. The psudocode would be something along the lines of:
Code:
IF username EQUALS brberie THEN
DROP post
ELSE
DISPLAY post
END IF
But seriously, I'd like the above suggestions for the projects area - especially the forum thread for each project entry for discussions. I'd also like for the ability to put in a subversion repository with editable permissions, so that several users could collaborate together on one codebase, or (in my case) I could make the bleeding-edge revisions available with no extra effort.
Oh, and an IFRAMES filter deep in the code, to prevent any of the hacks like we've been experiencing from being able to occur. I'm aware you want to switch forum software, but really iframes wouldn't have any legitimate purpose on the site.
EDIT: And if possible I'd also like to see the Wiki be more integrated into the site, and given more prominence. Making a collaborative effort to create a knowledge-base might invalidate Cliff's signature and prevent him from ever reaching 20,000+ posts, but it'd help a lot of the newbies. Right now I don't think many people (myself included) are really working on the Wiki, since getting to it is rather difficult and it's hidden away where those who need it won't find it.
- Dean |
_________________
Atmel Studio 6.1 is now released, grab it here.
Report AS6/ASF bugs here.
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Posted: Nov 01, 2007 - 09:54 PM |
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Joined: Mar 28, 2001
Posts: 20356
Location: Sydney, Australia (Gum trees, Koalas and Kangaroos, No Edelweiss)
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Quote:
Well I'm crabby due to the upcomming exams,
...and the change to daylight saving  |
_________________
John Samperi
Ampertronics Pty. Ltd.
www.ampertronics.com.au
* Electronic Design * Custom Products * Contract Assembly
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Posted: Nov 02, 2007 - 09:54 AM |
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Joined: Oct 25, 2005
Posts: 111
Location: Trondheim, Norway
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abcminiuser wrote:
Well I'm crabby due to the upcomming exams, so I'll put in a vote for a "smug elitist jerk filter" for the new site.
Some of the forum software alternatives we have checked out actually have this functionality. But we'll see, we are not choosing a forum because of functionality like this, but rather on a holistic evaluation.
abcminiuser wrote:
I'd also like for the ability to put in a subversion repository with editable permissions, so that several users could collaborate together on one codebase, or (in my case) I could make the bleeding-edge revisions available with no extra effort.
I think this is a good idea, and it is on my list, but I don't think you can expect this in the first version. First of all we are working hard to create something that works really well (that doesn't take to long time to program, since there is a lot of things to fix, and we are actually not that many programmers here), then we can add functionality like this.
abcminiuser wrote:
Oh, and an IFRAMES filter deep in the code, to prevent any of the hacks like we've been experiencing from being able to occur.
We are working a lot on our security measures, and probably we will get help from security experts during the development on the new site, so that we can release a new Freaks that is a lot safer than today's solution.
abcminiuser wrote:
And if possible I'd also like to see the Wiki be more integrated into the site, and given more prominence.
Do you guys have any ideas on how to accomplish this? I have given a lot of thought to it the last couple of days, but I'm having a hard time coming up with good ideas. |
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/ Kim Joar
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Posted: Nov 02, 2007 - 10:49 AM |
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Joined: Jan 23, 2004
Posts: 9825
Location: Trondheim, Norway
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Quote:
Some of the forum software alternatives we have checked out actually have this functionality. But we'll see, we are not choosing a forum because of functionality like this, but rather on a holistic evaluation.
Really? Other forum software makers really found brberie *that* annoying?
Quote:
I think this is a good idea, and it is on my list, but I don't think you can expect this in the first version. First of all we are working hard to create something that works really well (that doesn't take to long time to program, since there is a lot of things to fix, and we are actually not that many programmers here), then we can add functionality like this.
See my "first works, then works well" post. I'd be happy with just the main features first, and after that the little nice ones.
Incidentally, have you given some thought on how to convert over the existing forum database to the new software, once it is chosen?
Quote:
Do you guys have any ideas on how to accomplish this? I have given a lot of thought to it the last couple of days, but I'm having a hard time coming up with good ideas.
No ideas right now, but the button to link to it like the one that was just added is a good start. I'm sure the others will have some neat integration ideas.
- Dean |
_________________
Atmel Studio 6.1 is now released, grab it here.
Report AS6/ASF bugs here.
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Posted: Nov 02, 2007 - 12:28 PM |
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Joined: Oct 25, 2005
Posts: 111
Location: Trondheim, Norway
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abcminiuser wrote:
Incidentally, have you given some thought on how to convert over the existing forum database to the new software, once it is chosen?
That is of course one of the factors that we have to think about when choosing forum software. We are still in the process of writing requirements, but we have found a couple of possible forums. Once we have a list of the ones we find best, we might take it up for discussion here in the forum. |
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/ Kim Joar
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Posted: Nov 03, 2007 - 11:26 PM |
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Joined: Jan 17, 2007
Posts: 91
Location: Bellevue, NE
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Features I would shoot for if I were Admin-for-a-Day:
1) Tagging of threads. An example that I like is at http://slashdot.org (the FAQ is at http://slashdot.org/faq/tags.shtml). This will give the forum the ability to adapt to new situations without having to rely on "Those With Power". The next time someone creates a "Homework due tomorrow, NEED HELP" thread, it can be tagged as "so_what", "n00b", and/or "homework". Supply a list of common tags like "avr32", "avr", "electronics", "atmega168", "tutorial", etc. and let the community create the others.
2) Filters. I don't want to read anything about avr32 chips. Not that I have anything against them but I am having enough trouble getting my head around 8-bits. I also don't want to hear anything about how stupid actors are or what to do after losing a job but I do want to read every electronics related thread. These filters would/could tie in nicely with tags.
3) I like the idea of the mandatory location tag. Keep the required tags to state/provinces/(what every they are called in Australia) so members are not required to give out too much info but it would help build a local community and give people an idea of what side of the disk people live on.
4) I don't like the idea of granting powers based on how chatty you are. It can be abused and enforces the wrong side of the quantity vs. quality see-saw.
5) An AVRForge site. This would include a place to collaborate on working projects and a place to browse completed projects. Again, tags could be the key that you search on. If I only wanted "completed" "beginner" "atmega168" projects, I would just search on those tags. If I was looking for a project to help on, I could search for a "helpwanted" tag.
6) I would give everyone who offered a suggestion for making this forum better a free stk600! |
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You can have my mac when you pry my cold dead fingers off of it.
Kevin McEnhill -- mcenhillk@gmail.com
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Posted: Nov 03, 2007 - 11:42 PM |
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Joined: Jan 23, 2004
Posts: 9825
Location: Trondheim, Norway
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Quote:
1) Tagging of threads.
No no no! We've tried the tagging system in the projects section, and look what a disaster THAT was. Unless the tags are from a drop-down list, we're going to end up with 9,000 variations of the same thing which will defeat the purpose of the searching by tags in the first place.
- Dean |
_________________
Atmel Studio 6.1 is now released, grab it here.
Report AS6/ASF bugs here.
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Posted: Nov 04, 2007 - 12:09 AM |
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Joined: Jan 17, 2007
Posts: 91
Location: Bellevue, NE
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| Well, that seems to be what is working over at slashdot. A couple of tags are presented as options but free form tags are allowed. If everyone tagged the article and the top 4 were presented as possibilities, the number of "atmega168", "mega168", and "m168" tags would be greatly reduced. |
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You can have my mac when you pry my cold dead fingers off of it.
Kevin McEnhill -- mcenhillk@gmail.com
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Posted: Nov 04, 2007 - 02:26 AM |
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Joined: Jan 17, 2007
Posts: 91
Location: Bellevue, NE
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I just thought of a reason why tagging works on slashdot and wouldn't here. A site like slashdot has thousands of active users that participate in the tagging. With that many users, noise gets lost in the signal. AVRFreaks seems to have less than 50 active users. We wouldn't have enough users to drown out the noise.
RATS! I spent a couple of hours working on this idea. |
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You can have my mac when you pry my cold dead fingers off of it.
Kevin McEnhill -- mcenhillk@gmail.com
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Posted: Nov 04, 2007 - 11:51 AM |
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Joined: Jul 18, 2005
Posts: 62281
Location: (using avr-gcc in) Finchingfield, Essex, England
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mcenhillk wrote:
AVRFreaks seems to have less than 50 active users.
That doesn't sound right - while the memberlist function on here is a bit crap at least you can sort it into descending order of number of posts and see the top 50 and even the 50th person on that lists has 868 posts - I'd have said there were hundreds of "active users' |
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Posted: Nov 13, 2007 - 11:20 AM |
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Joined: Aug 22, 2004
Posts: 1624
Location: Germany
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I'm a bit late and maybe someone else already made this suggestion.
I think a forum link "View posts since last XX hours"
would give more flexibility and avoid missing any post.
Regards
Sebastian |
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Posted: Nov 16, 2007 - 11:46 AM |
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Joined: Aug 22, 2004
Posts: 1624
Location: Germany
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A Link "View your watched posts" would be helpful, too.
Regards
Sebastian |
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Posted: Nov 19, 2007 - 10:58 AM |
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Joined: Jan 23, 2004
Posts: 9825
Location: Trondheim, Norway
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Micro-ego search in user profiles. The profiles would show the last 5 or so previous posts of a given user.
Useful for weeding out the trolls, spambots, viral marketers, etc.
- Dean |
_________________
Atmel Studio 6.1 is now released, grab it here.
Report AS6/ASF bugs here.
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Posted: Jun 08, 2008 - 03:43 AM |
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Joined: Dec 30, 2002
Posts: 1358
Location: Fairview, Texas USA
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eivind wrote:
I am not making this up, we started planning the site this summer. It should be ready during spring 2008
Any update on this? I see that there's an AVRfreaks satisfaction survey on the main page - is that a prelude to an update?
Dave |
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Posted: Sep 02, 2008 - 12:30 AM |
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Joined: Dec 17, 2005
Posts: 1498
Location: Europe- Estonia- Tallinn
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| Any updates on the new forum yet? |
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