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Topic: Frustration with new forum (Read 4894 times) previous topic - next topic

Frustration with new forum

Am I the only one who is feeling frustrated here? I find this forum so complicated that it is not worth the time it takes to figure it out. I am not technically inclined and my life does not revolve around computer screens. I write music! NWC is a tool used to achieve a certain end.  I understand that it is desirable to improve this tool in certain areas because the work-arounds required to attain certain results are rediculously tedeous (sp?), however I have seen requests for what seem to me to be simple and doable improvements over and over to no avail.  It does not seem reasonable to put the program out there for testing and then quibble about minutia that doesn't amount to anything while requests for real improvements go unanswered. For example, 8va... is a tool that is universally understood and used in standard notation. It is not an outlandish request. The idea that you have to download a font from an external source, incorporate it into your font file, then use hidden staves so that playback reflects what is written is crazy. It can get very complex when you edit your work later and have to deal with these hidden staves etc... Besides, that is only one work-around for one problem. When you use several work-arounds in one piece, the complexity and time consumption make you want to reach for one of those other notation programs. (Yes they are complex, but they have all the fundamentals built in. NWC is becoming too complex to work with when you have to play around with a lot of nonsense.)
Some of the work-arounds are way too techincal and involve changing things that I would not dream of touching on a computer for fear that I would do something wrong and not be able to correct it. Not everyone is a computer technician or programmer. Again, I write music.
It seems to me that adding a super and subtitle would be a cinch, but if you want to have these now, you better make them the last thing you do on a file because if you edit your  margins, point size, lyrics or any number of parameters, you will throw off the alignment of the inserted text and have to spend lots of time correcting. Same goes for importing musical fonts etc. It can be done, but there is a big price to pay in the form of time and the results are usually less than ideal.
Now in order to participate in certain discussions, you must upgrade your membership? Give me a break!  Listen, the only virtuosos I know are spending their time practicing, not playing the computer keyboard. I wanted to reply to a post today but it took so long to figure out why there was no reply button that I finally said forget it!
I would like to see less talk and more action. I am sure I am not alone.
Let's get on with it fellas! Thanks for letting me vent. I'm sure I've managed to piss off more than a few folks today. Oh well! I guess it's your turn to be aggrivated. And please, I am aware that my grammar and spelling are not up to the standards of some, (as their music is not up to the standards of others), so please keep your usage, gramatical and spelling comments to yourself.  This is a MUSICAL forum! Thank you.

Re: Frustration with new forum

Reply #1 –
Bravo!

Re: Frustration with new forum

Reply #2 –
I won't say Bravo! but I will agree the new forum is difficult to work with. 

Re: Frustration with new forum

Reply #3 –
Spot on! It's very frustrating that there have been no musicological enhancements since the Beta went public well over a year ago. There are quite a few features that it would be so easy to include, and 8va is a very obvious candidate.

Well the official response is to put the request onto the wish list. But that's where it seemingly stays; ignored.

And although I'm getting used to the new Forum format I have to say that I don't like it one little bit. It's clumsy and ponderous and user unfriendly.

Nevertheless NWC is what I use, so something must be right.

Re: Frustration with new forum

Reply #4 –
I wish I'd said that.

At the very real risk of alienating management and the powers-that-be, it does seem that the focus of the owners of the BUSINESS should be sorely needed program improvements rather than fiddling (Hmmm, a musical tie-in?) around with forum upgrades that few of their CUSTOMERS seem to want or like.

I wonder--just how much INCOME for this BUSINESS does this forum generate?

As I once heard in a movie, "Were it worth the effort, Pilgrim?"

Re: Frustration with new forum

Reply #5 –
Thanks for the feedback. Personally, I think that it is nice to be able to get a sense of what users think. However, the reality is also that positive comments don't tend to get posted as often as negative ones, so balance is not always achieved in this medium.

Quote from: Debo –
At the very real risk of alienating management and the powers-that-be, it does seem that the focus of the owners of the BUSINESS should be sorely needed program improvements rather than fiddling (Hmmm, a musical tie-in?) around with forum upgrades that few of their CUSTOMERS seem to want or like.

I wonder--just how much INCOME for this BUSINESS does this forum generate?

There is not any risk of alienating "management" on this.

As for income/revenue, we have never charged for the forum and newsgroup areas. They have never generated any revenue. They are not expected to do so.

Changes, such as switching to "off the shelf" forum software, are generally evaluated based on lots of criteria, including:

  • cost of design, deployment, and integration into our existing support regime
  • user adoption and overall experience
  • server security issues
  • legal exposure
  • cost of maintaining the code base
  • cost of maintaining the user base

Re: Frustration with new forum

Reply #6 –
...positive comments don't tend to get posted as often as negative ones...
Well, here's a positive comment: 
I didn't like the fact that the old forum changed to Verdana
because dynamics didn't look good anymore.  ( mf  pp )
Now with the choice of font left to us, I can do this:  mf  pp
Trivial, perhaps, but...

The best improvement to the forum is that we no longer have to see outrageously [where's the spellchecker?] long strings of garbage and other juvenilia [sp?] all over the forum.

That being said, I would like to see improvements in the software take precedence over fiddling with forum upgrades.

Re: Frustration with new forum

Reply #7 –
The old forum didn't have
[move]This[/move]
[glow=red,2,300]This[/glow]
This
nor
This


P.S. see attachment
joshers2005

Re: Frustration with new forum

Reply #8 –
Quote
The old forum didn't have.....


...Big deal. 

Re: Frustration with new forum

Reply #9 –
Well... I feel a bit alienated. I used to visit the old forum every day. This one, I check for 'unread posts since last visit', so I am quite sure I will not miss much.
But the old forum felt better - don't quite know why. This certainly looks better. I do not use the gadgetry, but I can appreciate others using it.
It's a bit of a pity that all this work has gone into it (as I am sure it has) and it does not reap the rewards. The new forum is a necessity, because the old one did not have the proper facilities to block out unwanted posters - and we have seen enough of that, and of them.
So there's no turning back. As Bogey said: Take it and like it!

Rob.

Re: Frustration with new forum

Reply #10 –
Well folks, I can't stand it anymore. I was annoyed with myself for posting this rant in the first place but once I pushed the button it was too late to take it back. I really must apologize. The truth is that the NWC program as inexpensive as it was, has brought me many hours of pleasure and learning experience as I know it has  to you all. On top of that I feel like I know this group of users to some degree which is a very nice extra. It's wonderful to be able to exchange ideas with all of you, even if this new format is a little trying at times. I know that the folks at NWC don't owe me anything and it is great that they would ask for my input.  I know that they work very hard on the program that we all love and I have a feeling that when the new version is finally released it will be full of surprises. So I thank them for their industry, and while I'm at it, thanks to those users who have come up with the user tools which are also pretty amazing! Sometimes things change. It aint all bad!