PenkethBoy 2063 Posted September 5, 2020 Share Posted September 5, 2020 yes - def want the dark theme maybe wait till you have a replacement rather than just taking stuff away........... annoying Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abobader 2941 Posted September 5, 2020 Author Share Posted September 5, 2020 Good day, Well, my main consideration the issue you been reporting, clean operational important than look and feel here. I did not find any issue so far, but I know it could the dark theme as well some "php issue need some update" to keep up with this forum build, since you guys wanted that theme for the current build, then I will hold my testing for now. For that, I will simply suggestion for the problem above when you quoting a text/reply to give it time before apply it. My best Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pwhodges 1519 Posted September 8, 2020 Share Posted September 8, 2020 And again. Sorry, my habit based on many forums is not to wait automatically (especially as I don't think that helps here). Paul Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PenkethBoy 2063 Posted September 9, 2020 Share Posted September 9, 2020 In the old forum it used to show how many view a thread had had is this possible in the new forum - can be a gauge of a popular thread even if not many are posting to it 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abobader 2941 Posted September 9, 2020 Author Share Posted September 9, 2020 22 hours ago, pwhodges said: And again. Sorry, my habit based on many forums is not to wait automatically (especially as I don't think that helps here). Paul Fully understood the issue, well as my last reply, since I can not test by removing the dark theme, and soon we will upgrade to another build then we can apply new dark theme and we can test again. 7 hours ago, PenkethBoy said: In the old forum it used to show how many view a thread had had is this possible in the new forum - can be a gauge of a popular thread even if not many are posting to it The admin team decision to replace the "viewers" with reputation count to reduce some spaces, and this option is global. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abobader 2941 Posted September 9, 2020 Author Share Posted September 9, 2020 I really need to make a thread about some modifications we done so everyone know about it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PenkethBoy 2063 Posted September 11, 2020 Share Posted September 11, 2020 (edited) @Abobader A suggestion - if its possible When a user creates a new thread could a template of text/links be added - how to report a problem, questions that must be answered - server and client version numbers etc etc Reason is that a lot of users post they have an issue and provide a nice story but usually very light on facts/details - so whoever responds has to ask all the basic questions The sonarr forums as an example do this and generally people follow the request to provide basic info - and save a lot of time in most cases Maybe @cayars could craft something. Also as an extra if the message could be tailored by forum then it could be varied - but depends on forum options etc Edited September 11, 2020 by PenkethBoy 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abobader 2941 Posted September 13, 2020 Author Share Posted September 13, 2020 On 11/09/2020 at 23:11, PenkethBoy said: @Abobader A suggestion - if its possible When a user creates a new thread could a template of text/links be added - how to report a problem, questions that must be answered - server and client version numbers etc etc Reason is that a lot of users post they have an issue and provide a nice story but usually very light on facts/details - so whoever responds has to ask all the basic questions The sonarr forums as an example do this and generally people follow the request to provide basic info - and save a lot of time in most cases Maybe @cayars could craft something. Also as an extra if the message could be tailored by forum then it could be varied - but depends on forum options etc Good suggestion, but we tried similar things in the past and did not work out here. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PenkethBoy 2063 Posted September 13, 2020 Share Posted September 13, 2020 Could you expand on that why did it not work Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softworkz 3324 Posted September 13, 2020 Share Posted September 13, 2020 I agree that this might be a good idea. Doesn't IPB4 even have some built-in features in the area of support/ticket system? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gilgamesh_48 942 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 6 hours ago, PenkethBoy said: Could you expand on that why did it not work When you read threads regularly on this board you find rather frequent and huge backlash a lot of the time when users, particularly new users, are asked to follow the guidelines on how to report a problem. This is exacerbated by mods, developers and long time users excessively asking for "details" and "logs" when the post(s) are really complete and detailed. I believe this is often caused by language differences as the user pool is truly international and some (maybe many) developers have English as a second or third language and what those of us that are native English speakers perceive as "clear" may not actually be so clear. A "form" to fill in might reduce that problem but, due to the shear variety of environments and setups I doubt a reliable form that covers even half of potential problems could be developed. The problem or support sites such as this is that any added complexity or difficulty added to the posting process really does little to improve clarity while the poster (particularly new posters) have their resentment and frustration increased by the added steps just to ask what is perceived as a simple question. I really do not think much could be done to make the posting process easier. The developers and mods and power users are already responding in a timely manner to virtually all posts and "forms" or "links" or most anything else is not going to improve on that and, even though it sometimes takes a good bit of back and forth to get to the root problem or the really answer a question it is still pretty good. The only thing I see is that sometimes the responses get a bit terse because of frustration or the repetitive nature of many questions, but that will not change because the respondents are human, at least I am pretty sure most of them are. I think what we have now is pretty good and nothing should change unless it is a "real" improvement and does not take much time from any real development work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softworkz 3324 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 44 minutes ago, Gilgamesh_48 said: The problem or support sites such as this is that any added complexity or difficulty added to the posting process really does little to improve clarity while the poster (particularly new posters) have their resentment and frustration increased by the added steps just to ask what is perceived as a simple question. Yes, support request forms often ask a for too many things where some do not apply to the problem at all. But I disagree that a set of basic questions wouldn't help to improve clarity. Just think about the most elementary things: Which OS is the server running on? Which hardware? Which server version? (beta or release?) Which client and which client version? Of course, there are very different kinds of problems, and beyond such basics like above, there is surely no on-fits-all solution without ending up with something like you are talking about. But I think that in specific cases it would really make sense to require a few questions to be answered - that are specific to that case. One such case that I'm very familiar with are "Transcoding/Playback Problems". I've always thought about creating a checklist/questionnaire which includes the questions that are most frequently asked and most important. This would help to reduce the amount of interactions and I think that both sides would benefit: less frustration on the user side, because he would not get asked those questions one after another and the case might get to the point much faster, and on our side: less time to work and increased response quality, because it happens quite sometimes that one of us misses to ask a question which would have solved the case in less time. I'm not talking about something like text templates, though, where a user would need to answer all questions by hand. It would have to be real forms offering choices via dropdowns and radio buttons (e.g.: yes, no, other: _____, N/A), where a user could go over quite easily. Though, I don't know whether this would be possible at all.. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PenkethBoy 2063 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 I agree with @softworkz - if you try and help people on the forums with questions/issues there are a few things you need to know first - to eliminate some of the options that could be at play - to narrow down the issue(s) to get to the root of the problem. The questions have to be asked at some point and answers given to the best of the users ability to answer @Gilgamesh_48 the frustration comes to both sides when the user is less than forthcoming with info, or the "helper" asks questions in a terse or flippant manner (we know who does this a lot) - i dont see you answering questions that often - and if its not something you are comfortable doing - thats fine. But i do try and do this most days i am here - and I can waste a lot of time asking basic questions - waiting for answers - for basic stuff - similar to Softworkz list - that could be part of a simple template to try and get users to post this upfront - as usually it helps narrow down the issue. If its possible to do different templates for diff forums then the questions could be tailored to them. Extreme example but the API forum is going to need different questions than say the livetv forum or say Apple vs Synology vs Android - there will be a few questions that are common but there will be specific questions that will need answering. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softworkz 3324 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 (edited) An alternative would be to provide the ability for starting a support request right from the server dashboard. This way, the questionnaire could be reduced by adding certain information (and possibly logs) automatically and the support request "form" could be implemented in the server. There are just two show-stopping issues, for which I had refrained from suggesting it so far: Having a feature where Emby server would create a forum post on the user's behalf, would require the user to enter his forum login credentials in the server. This is a security and privacy issue and not everybody would want to do this (like me for example). Meanwhile, this is obsolete as IPS4 supports OAuth (it could be done without the need to enter password inside Emby Server UI) . Currently, Emby logs still contain lots of sensitive information When a user posts a log to the public forums, it could at least be expected that he should know what he's doing. But a feature that collects and posts a users logs automatically - that's not a great thing, to say the least (even when there's a warning) There's a conceptual solution for this, but it requires some work to completion.. Even when a support-request feature from the server dashboards wouldn't find much love, it would still be great to have a feature that automatically bundles and zips all the latest log files together. By 'latest', I mean the latest server run (since the latest start), supporting the procedure: Restart Server >> Reproduce Problem >> Bundle the logs. Currently, we have: 1 server log, 1 hw detection log, 0..n ffmpeg logs In the future, there will be some additional logs in certain cases and requesting them one-by-one would be an additional complication. One way or another - but I think there's really some room for optimization in the future... Edited September 14, 2020 by softworkz 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abobader 2941 Posted September 14, 2020 Author Share Posted September 14, 2020 Good day, This reply here now to let you know I am giving high consideration for these suggestions (matters of fact we did similar on some of them) but again when I said "it did not work for us here" that as always we want it simple for new user to just post. I will talk with (Luke and Ebr) and give my thought and how to do it and if we agree of them or some of them I will apply it on the test forum (you have to know this give a lots of work to apply it correctly), then we apply it when we update the forum. Just keep posting your idea and suggestions regarding these matters. My best 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softworkz 3324 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 Thanks Abo, I know that it's not really a small thing and requires a lot of considerations. Surely, it shouldn't prevent users from asking simple questions, though it should indicate that a non-general question would require to provide some more details anyway and they might get a faster and better response by doing that in the first place. But let's step back a moment from complex modifications. I wonder how many times in the recent years, @Luke has posted the "Please see how to report a problem" response. Could be close to a thousand... I'm sure that adding a "Note Box" to the "Create New Topic" page, hinting at the "How to report a problem" post, would help to eliminate that part in many conversations. Not quite what we talked about, but it would be a small (and cheap) step at least... softworkz Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softworkz 3324 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 @Abobader - BTW - what happened to the post number display? (right top of each post) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CBers 6766 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 25 minutes ago, softworkz said: @Abobader - BTW - what happened to the post number display? (right top of each post) https://emby.media/community/index.php?/topic/87220-regarding-the-forum-upgrade/&do=findComment&comment=913705 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14897 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 5 hours ago, softworkz said: I'm sure that adding a "Note Box" to the "Create New Topic" page, hinting at the "How to report a problem" post, would help to eliminate that part in many conversations. You mean like the huge red letters in the feature request forum telling people to search for their suggestion before posting it? Or maybe the note right under the main server forum that says "Search here first"? Nobody reads anything - especially things that are fixed and always there. Not against trying maybe some things but, in the end, we just need it to be very simple and inviting to ask questions here. Being presented with a form you must fill out with technical information will deter some people from asking for help. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PenkethBoy 2063 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 Sounds like the dumbass user wins again - expect some level of understanding/competence is not a big ask asking people to provide basic info on their "setup" and that puts them off - they have bigger issues to solve Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carlo 4329 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 Well, we can always ask for additional information once they post the initial issue/problem. But as ebr mentioned if you scare them off you never get the chance to help them. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softworkz 3324 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 35 minutes ago, ebr said: Not against trying maybe some things but, in the end, we just need it to be very simple and inviting to ask questions here. Being presented with a form you must fill out with technical information will deter some people from asking for help. That's what I said above - it should rather be something to "click-through" than "filling out". Just a single text field for describing the problem and not even a second one. In summary, it needs to make things easier and more convenient for users (not just for us). One such convenience could be the ability to have all log files packed and uploaded automatically. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ebr 14897 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 If we forced users to have to "click through" something to create a new thread, not only would people stop reading whatever they are clicking on but regular users would hate it. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
softworkz 3324 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 6 hours ago, softworkz said: Surely, it shouldn't prevent users from asking simple questions, I don't mean to make it mandatory but optional, while explaining that going through the form would accelerate the issue getting responded 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
speechles 1917 Posted September 14, 2020 Share Posted September 14, 2020 (edited) 1 hour ago, softworkz said: I don't mean to make it mandatory but optional, while explaining that going through the form would accelerate the issue getting responded I agree with this. All users must go through "the hassle" of creating an account in itself is a burden to getting help. But they must complete that so we know who they are. Anything to speed up the process of getting information to solve a problem is awesome. Users who feel threatened by private information becoming public are likely not even going to make an account. They will to get help. Then later ask please delete my account. They are privacy zealots and that is okay. They want nothing of their personal existence online. They fear everyone else. And that is okay Emby can be used by those users without much intervention required on our behalf. But users who actually desire help and aren't afraid to throw logs at us. They just want the issue solved. They beg. They plead. Having a form for these types can help speed up remediation and get the forum to move faster. Threads would evolve faster. It would speed up issue solving resolution. This would improve customer relations and allow developers more time to develop as it gives moderators/support more time to help/support users. It is a win/win situation having the optional questionnaire when making an issue report. It can make solutions take minutes/hours rather than days/weeks. It would improve relations for everyone while speeding up the process at the same time. Saving time is always awesome. Improving customer relations by speed of resolution is super awesome. Edited September 14, 2020 by speechles Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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