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What's Wrong With WinCustomize?

Zoomba

Join Date 11/2002

+114

What's Wrong With WinCustomize?

Yes, we want your complaints!

This March, WinCustomize turns 7. For seven years the site has grown in terms of visitors, bandwidth, quantity of skins etc. And the site itself has gone through several revisions in that period. Today, we're on the 5th iteration of WinCustomize, and on the whole it still bears a striking resemblance to that first site launched back in 2001. For good or ill, a lot of the decisions that went into that first site determine direction to this day.

While there have been a lot of improvements, there are probably a lot of places where we've failed to meet expectations. WinCustomize 2007 was focused on a solid foundation, code that was stable and expandable. Now we're in a position to focus on the UI and the presentation more, to improve the user experience dramatically. This is where you come in.

About a year ago, we sought your opinions on how Stardock had failed the community. Your comments on what you felt we could be doing better has helped us make a lot of changes and improvements to our products. Well, we want to try that again, only this time specifically with WinCustomize. We want to know what doesn't work, what sucks, what you hate, what you want fixed about WinCustomize. We are looking for very specific critiques of the site, it's functionality, layout, user interface etc.

This thread is about critiques, it's not about defending the site, it's not about telling us how much you like the site. If we are going to improve the site in the future, we need a very clear picture of what is broken and needs to be fixed.

A week from today, I will be going through the comments on this thread and compiling a master list of complaints and critiques. We will use this list when we start the requirements and design work for the next WC update later this year.

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BoXXi

Join Date 03/2001

+393

Small complaint: when I go from the "My skins" page into the forums, I can't get back to "My skins" again without going back to the home page and clicking My skins again.

I think I'm trying to say that I would like those links: My: Site, Skins, Watchlist, Settings, to be across ALL the site.
Does that make sense?

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WebGizmos

Join Date 09/2003

+735

Oh...based on some of the replies here...how about a site map? I myself have been here for some time now and even I don't know about a lot of the other features the site has to offer. Thats pretty much because I've always been busy creating dock backgrounds...but for new people coming here it might be a good idea to have something like that.

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Give dock backgrounds they're "own" library!

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2of3

Join Date 10/2006

+816

Small complaint: when I go from the "My skins" page into the forums, I can't get back to "My skins" again without going back to the home page and clicking My skins again.

Yes. From my personal site I have to either click on "home" or "my settings" to get to the "my skins" page. I don't mean the gallery page, I mean where I can see downloads, check if any new comments are written etc. This link should come up as soon as you log in and follow you everywhere on the site.

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Greater visibility of the Wiki would be nice. Adding a link button to the topbar and perhaps link in the gallery sections for their respective areas on the Wiki would be cool.

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What annoys ME is the fact that if you search something, you can't organize your search results with the default categories like total downloads, newest, rating, etc.

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More and clearer filter options

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Give dock backgrounds they're "own" library!

This is a major issue for me. When I am looking for a dock backround I grow weary having to wade through icons to find the right backround.

Better search in the skins categories. If you don't spell the word exactly right you get a Cannot Find window.

I completely agree with this.

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I'm going to agree with Webgizmos, Messiah, and Skybright:

I find it kind of irritating when I post a OD background/theme and it is almost immediately pushed off the first page by a bunch of icons (most of which are separate submissions that could easily be wrapped up into one post). I know that there is a search filter at the top of the page. But I think most people don't take advantage of it. It just seems to me that a new category would take a step out of the whole process.

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The only thing I don't like is browsing is arduous. Searching for a skin I can't remember the name of is tedious because I can't change how many skins I can view on each page and I have few options to narrow it down (I mean, viewing by most downloads, featured, etc). Although, on the whole, its a great site.

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Searching needs dramatic improvement, it should have options.

Users should be able to select their own theme for the site (and submit themes for the site as well).

Browsing needs help, the filters and navigation just don't get the job done well. You should be able to browse and filter by any combination of criteria (ie. browse within "OS" AND "Psuedo OS" with a rating of 4 or higher - BAM, just what I was looking for) In a sense you could combine the browse with the search. Make the browsing powerful with combination filters and then allow for searching within the subset.

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For those of us who enjoy browsing the galleries, how about being able to access a specific page number rather than the current "Previous/Next/First/Last"?

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The little icons bottom right in every post. Anyone know what they are? Thought not! A text 'report thread' etc makes more sense. Rate this reply? What is that for?

What does happen when you click those icons?

This is somewhat related (possibly ... I haven't clicked one of them ... don't know what will happen) but it would be convenient while browsing the forums to have the moderators/wizops/etc names in the right pane (where Channels and Recent Forum Activity are) so that you could click them to get the Email/Private Message links for each Mod.

Sure make it easier to contact a PIC to report whatever may need reporting. Put those same names/links in the right pane when browsing skins/comments also.

Would beat the hell out of browsing away from your present location to find a link to a Mod.

And speaking of those drop down lists View Profile/Email/Private Message/etc noted above; it would really be great if clicking them opened a new window so you don't lose your place in a thread just to check out someone's profile or send them a PM.

And I'll also throw my voice into the 'put the single png/dock icons/whatever you want to call them into their own category' crowd.
Either that or subject uploaders to a minimum number of pngs per upload; as in a set, rather than 10 or 20 single pngs all uploaded in a row.

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HG_Eliminator

Join Date 07/2002

+354

Theme able interface:

Move rating bar away from Download button:

A centralized bug report section and forms in the forum:

*aspx.new or the new page needs to be able to be set to show only the library's the user wishes. Maybe tie it to the Gallery menu in the side bar so only those chosen are shown.

At DA sorting through their new section is a night mare IMO because of all the "extra stuff". As WC grows and adds new library's we should allow the users to choose specifically what they want to see. Not to mention streamline the section and cut bandwidth usage. ***example: I remove Sins stuff from my side bar gallery settings. From then on all sins stuff would be filtered from the New page as I look through it.*

All skins should have a "report a rip" button. This would allow users to easily report a rip, and possibly keep the Rip threads down.

The help section needs to be organized and easier to navigate. It also needs a FAQ that members as well as admins can update to add current fixes to common issues.

Personal Awards need an explanation of what they are,whether it be a page in the FAQ or what have you. Many of the awards are confusing as to what they are for. If a member once won an award like "#1 winamp downloads" when they are removed from that spot as the #1. The award should reflect it in a past tense, such as "past #1 Winamp download winner" and not just disappear.

I will add more as I think of them..

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1. guestbook dates on personal pages are wacky.

I second that...it drives me crazy. It has the wrong dates and the most recent poster rarely shows at the top...Thanks guys

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2of3

Join Date 10/2006

+816

And speaking of those drop down lists View Profile/Email/Private Message/etc noted above; it would really be great if clicking them opened a new window so you don't lose your place in a thread just to check out someone's profile or send them a PM.

In Firefox one can click on the name then right-click on the dropdown to select open in new tab/window. Doesn't work with IE

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For those of us who enjoy browsing the galleries, how about being able to access a specific page number rather than the current "Previous/Next/First/Last"?

That can be done now by going to the address bar and changing the number at the end to whichever page you wish. It would be more convenient if there was a numbering system for pages to click on though.

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BigDogBigFeet

Join Date 12/2005

+457

Tabbed instances I find I am having too often to connect with both SDC and FF to get something done. When I want to PM someone is one example. If I want to give a link to something onsite is another example. I like having a photo gallery. I use it for when I want to post an image in the forums. However, I have to use FF and its copy location command to get the right link to post the image, SDC won't do this, another example of the need to have 2 browsers open to this site so I can make full use of it.

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ALMonty

Join Date 01/2002

+242

***example: I remove Sins stuff from my side bar gallery settings. From then on all sins stuff would be filtered from the New page as I look through it.*

I very much agree with this.

In Firefox one can click on the name then right-click on the dropdown to select open in new tab/window. Doesn't work with IE

You can do this with IE7. I do it all the time.

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2of3

Join Date 10/2006

+816

You can do this with IE7. I do it all the time.

Ok, I never "upgraded" to 7 as I rarely use IE

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Oh, and whenever I try to remove a comment from my personal page, it doesn't remove. Pesky.

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Lantec

Join Date 07/2003

+346

1. Forum thread jumps to the last post you read EVEN if a new page has started.

2. Back button goes back and NOT to top of page.

3. Other than to cycle thru galleries and see what recent posts have been made I don't utilize the sidebar much. Don't use "Channels"

4. BEST thing added was the "Most Recent posts" section. Fix the "More recent Posts" button. Half the time I use it I see no posts or no additional posts.

5.

Move rating bar away from Download button

All skins should have a "report a rip" button. This would allow users to easily report a rip, and possibly keep the Rip threads down

7. Ability to make multiple quotes. Right now if I push quote everything I've typed up to this point disappears. Means I have to manually quote.

8. Ability to PM someone from their WC site. Can be a pain to track down a post they made in the forums in order to do this.

9. Identify by some means the originating forum of posts (WC JU SD) to avoid any confusion or misunderstandings.

Those issues come to mind.......

These are kinda wish lists fixes...

If it can be added, an adjustable, automatic refresh timer for "Most Recent Posts"

An auto "bump" for posts with 0 replies after say 2 or 3 hours covering a 24 hour period.

A forum BETA testing section......based on Brad's post I think it would help. Could be restricted to registered users or registered testers.

A sticky post with suggested self help steps for those having issues. One for each software section.

A forum FAQ....ie (If you need help post "this" information)(All caps is considered yelling) etc.

MORE SMILIES!

Should probably mention I use XP SP2 & Firefox, latest updates

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Well, Lantec just about summed it up for me.

Fixes/add features (yeah I know it's not what this thread is for, but that's what you're going to get with a topic like this):

1. Checking when a tag isn't closed: ie, someone does a quote/font change/font size etc and forgets to close it, so ALL posts onward are formatted the same way. In the case with the quotes, the entire layout of the page gets FUBAR'ed. Should be quite simple, if an open tag doesn't have a corresponding tag...don't parse it! I've posted replies to threads I had no reason to reply to just so I could close the open tags, annoying.

2. More active moderation: if someone starts posting the same question over and over in different sections (cross-posting) because they think they'll get a better response if they plaster it all over the place, close all subsequent cross-posts and refer them to their original post. Or if someone accidentally posts in the wrong category, moving it to the proper one.

3. YES, add a WIKI button to the nav! Also, link the corresponding software page and "how to" articles from the Wiki into the library descriptions, purchase emails, products pages, etc. "Congratulations on your purchase of "Product X," please see the following links for information on the product and how to use it" etc.

4. Ability to instead get a PM notification instead of email notifications for our watchlist, and email notification when we have a new PM. PM/email notification for new guestbook comments.

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YES, add a WIKI button to the nav!

Good one Bebi.

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Something that keeps happening (and just happened now) that seriously irritates the hell out of me: there's a topic I'm keeping along with, and the last reply I've read was #42 on the first page (50 per page), and there's a new page of replies I haven't read. I go to the next page and it goes to the BOTTOM (the latest reply) when I haven't read all the ones before that. How does that make sense??? (Not sure if that's what Lantec was getting at with his #1). Rawr!

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