some suggestions for the forum

[Hosam]

I like the forum topics and the way it organized but I don't like to have one style and so white " I use my PC for very long time sitting studying in front of my screen "
and for general we need some chat box or something like it people could have chat time to time may be then share good ideas and know each other better.

[Efil]

This is a nice suggestion, I'll be having some free time starting next month. If we have a chat room here, then maybe we can chat with each other.

Anyone who has an idea of a good chat software to install?

[Svinat]

I'll look and see what I can find. If we can't find anything, perhaps an IRC channel could be a solution. Although an integrated chat into our website would be much easier.

[F4E]

X7Chat is a nice PHP program.. i have used it.. and it has good interface (compared to others). However, these kind of chat programs are not very good.. instead a shoutbox integrated with our forum may be good.

[Svinat]

Yeah, an integrated shoutbox might be exactly what we need. I doubt that a whole new chat would be used much.

[Efil]

I have just installed a fedzilla RSS news feed at the bottom of our page. If we can have a shoutbox that can be installed side by side, then it would be better.

[Duke Nukem]

A shoutbox could be used. I've seen boards with that installed but seldom used because of differences in time zones.

[peter524]

I would like to suggest another sub topics for the forum.
So, we can discuss a lot more topics in this forum to make it alive again.

Like about:

- Hardwares (for PCs like Video Cards, Rigs, Optical Drives)
   >reviews, updates, just discussion about PC hardwares
- Softwares (not just about free softwares)
   >reviews, updates, just discussion about PC softwares
- Technicians Lab
   >about troubleshooting PCs ( whether hardware or software problem)
- Games
- Gadgets (like ipod, psp, smartphones, etc.)
  > updates, what's new, problems, reviews, etc. [discussion about gadgets stuffs]

[Efil]

I would like to suggest another sub topics for the forum.
So, we can discuss a lot more topics in this forum to make it alive again.

Like about:

- Hardwares (for PCs like Video Cards, Rigs, Optical Drives)
   >reviews, updates, just discussion about PC hardwares
- Softwares (not just about free softwares)
   >reviews, updates, just discussion about PC softwares
- Technicians Lab
   >about troubleshooting PCs ( whether hardware or software problem)
- Games
- Gadgets (like ipod, psp, smartphones, etc.)
  > updates, what's new, problems, reviews, etc. [discussion about gadgets stuffs]

In the meantime, let us use the General Discussion and/or Best of the Web to discuss the topics you mentioned above. Later on when we have collected enough number of threads about a certain subject, then we can just assign a new board for it.

X7Chat is a nice PHP program.. i have used it.. and it has good interface (compared to others). However, these kind of chat programs are not very good.. instead a shoutbox integrated with our forum may be good.

Now we have both. A ShoutBox and Chat Room, so no one should get envious. 

[F4E]

Is it possible to set the width of this site (mainly forum) to 1024px? Nowadays most of the people use 1024px screen width or more. Infact very few users use 800px screen width, viewing this page with higher width screens the blank spaces on either side doesn't look good.

[Efil]

Regarding the screen width, maybe we will need to poll the members decision on that. We'll have to vote and if we gain more votes from people who wants more screen width then we can do so.

About me, I often get easily tired of reading sentences that spans too long on my screen. That's why I designed it to be 800px. If we have any sidebars that will limit the length of displayed readable contents, there will be no problem extending the forum's width to 1024px. But since we don't have one, I prefer 800px.

[Svinat]

...I often get easily tired of reading sentences that spans too long on my screen.

I must agree with this. Text that is too wide is hard to read. But on the other hand, I think the website is kind of narrow. It's hard to find the balance.

[Efil]

Or maybe we could make it between 850 - 950, somewhere out there. Perhaps we'll be needing some experiments about this.

[Svinat]

Yup, a poll and experimenting to see. Or perhaps have different themes, all the same, just different width, so people can choose the one they prefer.

[Efil]

That's a good idea, I can clone this theme in different widths, and members can just select from the cloned themes in their profiles what is best for them.