Would platform specific forums be a good idea?

[Falstaff]

Hello everyone, I'm curious what your thoughts are on the idea of having some new forums put up for platform specific discussions.

I know I personally have lots of things to talk about with my iOS game which may not really be relevant to people just using GLB for other platforms. I'd also like to be able to browse what other people have done specifically with iOS without having to resort to searching for specific keywords or just scan through pages. I guess I could just search for posts by ampos since he's amazing at sharing incredibly handy mobile-related stuff

I guess it would mean a lot more sub-forums, which may look too cluttered? I don't know.

What do you guys think?

[MrTAToad]

As only platform specific stuff was mentioned there, it could be a good idea (and keep this one - perhaps renaming it) for discussions that cover all platforms...

[mentalthink]

I´m wrog anfte a while thinking... I think its too much threads and will be a CAOS, it´s my personal opinion...

I think it´s good idea, make this in some specifics threads, like in Bug, for take the problems, more ordened... but I lot of can be very confusing, and more slow to search and find something..

How I sayed, it´s only a personal point of View...

[erico]

I might be wrong, but I think multiple areas is not that good.
GLbasic is multiplatform and it is ideal that it should run the same code on all devices.

So, some things for android might as well work on desktop and so on...

I just think whoever posts a thread should make it clear on its name as if such a thing is certain platform only.

I believe current form, no platform specific, benefits us all.

[bigsofty]

I think its a good idea but impracticable due to the amount of platforms GLB supports.

[ampos]

It will be fine if there is a subforum in code_snipets for snipets that are platform particular.

For example, my  Keyboard routine will be in main code_snipets, but a function to call the iOS keyboard would be in the iOS subforum.

Anything else is a no-no, since GLB is a multiplatform language, and any routine should work on any target.

[Crivens]

Yeah, a subforum in snippets would be good. There is a lot of iOS specific API code that is hard to track down in the forums (the search sucks pretty badly) so subforums would be brilliant. And I totally agree that it is already too many forums here that make it confusing, so opening the whole lot out would not be a good idea.

Cheers

[doimus]

I hate message boards with:

a) million subforums  with three posts each
b) one forum with lots of "official" threads with million posts each and mod-maniacs banning anyone who posts outside those mega-threads 

Thankfully, GLB forum sits perfectly in the middle. 

But sometimes it is very hard to find specific information for specific platform, that's true.
I think the best solution would be to have post "tags" like in VBulletin, where anyone can add a tag to a post, like "iPhone", "Android", "Desktop", "Mobile", "App Signing for iPhone", etc.

Or we should just be polite and name our posts descriptively and concisely.  That's both the easiest and the hardest solution.

[Crivens]

Sorry have to say the forum search here can really be annoying. Trying to find a specific post you remember can result in an annoying amount of time and effort.

Actually what would be nice would be an easy to use (and retrieve) favourite thread option. So you can flag a thread and get back to it at any time. I know you could use a browsers bookmarks but would be good as not everyone sets up bookmarks to share with all their devices, plus I'm massively into minimalist approaches when it comes to browsers.

Now I'm on the subject, how about changing GLBasic logo to link back to the main site (not root of forum)? As far as I know it seems impossible to get back to the main site by clicking on the forum site somewhere.

Also when you click on your own avatar (always at the top) can it nicely show all your posts instead of having to go through the menus? And with your post list can it also have a group option so that it only shows the last message in a thread (currently shows all messages posted)?

Cheers

[Wampus]

I kind of like platform specific threads being mixed in with general threads. Even if someone is iOS centric or only interested in Android the majority of people here would have relevant experience and interest to relate to what they were doing or asking. Also, since GLBasic is multiplatform the same code and techniques used for apps on almost any platform could have a use for another.

From a navigation point of view I think its easier to click on a subforum like 'GLBasic - en' and see what's happening that day than to scan through several subforums for individual platforms.

[Slydog]

GLBasic is multi-platform, but it does allows platform specific code, such as iOS iAds etc.
I think each platform deserves it's own sub-forum, under a main forum such as 'Platform Specific' or something.
But I'm not sure if the forums allow sub-forums.  If not, it would clutter up the main forum page.

You could just have a generic 'Platform Specific' forum that only discusses platform specific topics, but all grouped under one forum.
And it would be nice if the thread topic entered by the user would have the platform as the prefix, such as:
"iPad - Polyvector is very slow"

If not I like the idea of tags, as was suggested by doimus.  But without user consistency it may become unusable.

[erico]

...would be nice if the thread topic entered by the user would have the platform as the prefix, such as:
"iPad - Polyvector is very slow"

If not I like the idea of tags, as was suggested by doimus.  But without user consistency it may become unusable.

Those two seem to me as a better choice, but new people must know this nomenclature/methodology, otherwise moderators might end up having extra work.

[ampos]

This "ipad slow" should be on the global bug forum, as it is a "bug" in glbasic.

I would like a expansion just for functions especific for each target/platform. And things that only works on this platform alone.

[Ian Price]

I'm with Crivens - I just want a decent, working Search system. I spent over an hour looking for something simple that was on GLB within the last month. Could I find it? Could I heck!

[Slydog]

Ha, ya I guess "iPad - Slow ..." could be a bug in GLBasic, or it could be a coding question.  It was just an example.
But as you pointed out, maybe just a section dedicated to platform specific code snippets would be better.

And/or a posting that is platform specific (bugs, features, etc), could prefix the subject with the platform, for easy scanning.
Ideally an optional platform tag would be nice.  Could that be implemented by adding special emoticons? [ipad] for example?