I hope you’re still with us. I’ve had some time to reflect on the new user forum issue, and I’m pretty much neutral on a new user forum(come to terms that improved user experience is worth a plummeting sourceforge ranking and losing our current message base). I think it could be a long-term goal, but we should consider the following issues:
1. We choose the forum software (ie. it doesn’t choose us) meaning we need to choose something that will work for the project indefinitely. I read this review article at http://www.techsupportalert.com/best-free-website-forum-software.htm and was hoping to get your thoughts on it. The “FireBoard for Joomla” got highest review and looked ideal for ensuring the messages get indexed by google; the project is now under another name here:http://www.kunena.org/ . Since you are willing to admin/monitor, the decision would be up to you. Just thought it would be good to look at all the options.
2. Need to own it. Now that sourceforge isn’t there to maintain/fix, just need assurance that the project won’t be left hanging.
3. Find a stable site for it that is as indefinite as sourceforge(also realize there is an option via a “Hosted App” on sourceforge to run phpbb described here http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/sourceforge_announces_hosted_apps.php).
4. A quick change - One day it will be on sourceforge and the next day it should be somewhere else. Should avoid having redundant forums, which will be confusing. Note that we can take advantage of the http://sourceforge.net/projects/openemr/support page (as I recall this is where OpenEMR’s support button link to) to provide a link to the forum.
Again, the above issues would likely make this a long-term goal (ie. couple months), and I would support it.
Just want to clarify that when I say ‘we’, that is inclusive to you and the rest of the community.
I’m been reading up on the phpbb “hosted app” on sourceforge, and it looks like a potentially nice option. I’m still not sure, though, if it supports a global notification feature (ie. send all the posts via email to anybody who wants to monitor it all like can be done in the original sourceforge forums).
Hi Brady.
Are we in agreement that “users forum” means “support forum” and that it would be best to have a strong relationship between that and any other (dev etc…) forums to ensure/enable convenient support participation by developers?
BTW, phpbb3 will allow you to subscribe to the forum, and can also allow you to post via e-mail. I would think that to be much preferable to someone that uses e-mail for notification, rather than needing to actually go to and log onto the site (especially for those of us who don’t keep cookies!).
Wow, so we’d be able to:
1. Login to the traditional forum (Mostly utilized by the new users)
2. Have the ability to have every post in the forum sent to our email (this is very useful for the developers/experts to answer questions by the users; for example, on sourceforge there are about 200 members that get emailed every post; this allows relatively quick answering of questions). Also, in the mobile age, getting posts by email is preferred by some over needing to visit the forum via a smart phone.
3. Have the ability to answer posts via email? This would be an awesome feature and allow answers of posts from mobile devices, basically like a mailing list.
For example, I myself never visit the sourceforge forum and unless I get an email of a post. Then I let it sit in my email until I address it or it gets addressed by somebody else. However, to answer the posts I generally need to be at a desktop/laptop computer, because using the sourceforge forum on my smartphone is difficult. Would be great if I could also answer posts from my email.
With the above features, then makes sense to have a “support forum” since it’s range of use is so broad that it will integrate new users (traditional forum use) with the more advanced developers (using more like a mailing list). I think google groups also has this same set up.
I believe that it is important that the forums and the entire OpenEMR web presence (forums, wiki, home page, oemr.org) are tightly integrated. To me this far more important than which specific domain, which interface, who designed it, who maintains it, etc. I think it makes us look so amateur to do otherwise. By tightly integrated I mean:
1) A prominent place or link on the home page of each to define the oemr.org - OpenEMR relationship (this is immediately confusing to the newbie).
2) A well defined role for each page or forum.
3) No redundant information (if it’s on oemr it shouldn’t also be on sourceforge, or the wiki, and vice versa).
4) All interfaces for oemr, OpenEMR, wiki, and forums are single-click linked (? tabbed) from all other pages.
5) For frosting on the cake, all should share a common style sheet (may not be available on sourceforge).
I would like to see the movers and shakers of this project consider how large and important it is and where it is going or could go. I believe if we could pull this off, it would do far for the project at this point than to have a high search score. It would certainly be acceptable to have different components on different domains as long as the precepts above are followed consistently.
It is obvious that oemr.org and the OpenEMR project are incredibly important to each other, “codependent” would be an unflattering way to describe it. It is time that our internet interface with the world reflects that.
Agree that we need to work towards a seamless web presence of the project web page, oemr web site, forums, and wiki. The project page at openemr.sourceforge.net (and open-emr.org) is a step in that direction. Over time, the goal is to figure out a way to convert majority of those links from appearing external (requiring a new browser window) to appearing to be in the same page (ie. sandwiched between the standard header/footer). Several hurdles to this now; 1)Somebody with the skillset with the available time 2)Stabilization between OpenEMR/oemr.
Specifically for the forums, goal right now is to pick the right tool(such as phpbb, SMP, and many others to choose from) and to create a test site of it to ensure we get the wanted functionality(having a forum that integrated traditional forum use with mailing list functionality would be a huge boon for the community). Then can pick a domain or use the sourceforge hosted app option and can then try to figure out a way to make it appear seamless within the main project page.
Started toying around with a way to make things seamless. Check out the changes at open-emr.org site. The Download, Demo, and Wiki links now embed the wiki within the page, so the theme does not change and a new browser window is not needed. There are some technical limitations to this stuff when embedding pages from another domain (for example, can not grab the height of the embedded pages, hence the nested scrollbars).
Let me know your thoughts if this change is good/bad?
For the embedded scrollbars, nice example here to solve it: http://benalman.com/code/projects/jquery-postmessage/examples/iframe/
(note it’s rather extensive and requires placing code on the parent and child)
If somebody figures out how to do this stuff, then a really nice seamless site should be obtainable.
-brady
Ok,
Last update tonight. Went a little crazy with the embedding on the project page at http://open-emr.org . Pretty cool. Also added a Souceforge and Github tab and all the links on the right now go to embedded pages. So, no everything’s in one page for new users and for experienced users it’s crazy fast to go to all the different pertinent web pages.
As an aside, remember to refresh the pages in your browser, because since these are static pages the browser caches them (may even need to remove the cache within the browser properties).
-brady
-brady
By George, she’s got it! (My Fair Lady). Much better interface and a good solution for now. I would suggest a specific tab to embed oemr.org rather than just a hypertext link from the home page. That should direct to a page that explains the relationship between the two entities and would allow seamless travel back to the project page. Potential donors might then understand where their money goes. Since the open-emr site was born without much community involvement, and has duplicated a lot of work, it would be a good way IMHO to show some love. There is still a lot of stuff that is on both sites.
Seems we can always count on you to run with the ball. Thanks. Get some sleep.
Jack
Please don’t think I am dropping off the world if I tend to quiet down until the dust settles a bit.
I have been through this a couple of times before. The result in the end has been that the primary protesters (the original ad-hoc “official site” creators) went into a flurry of changes. In response, the people that initiated the new effort decided that stirring the pot wasn’t getting the project anywhere, and lost their enthusiasm when they found their efforts were not appreciated. After the “challengers” left, the improvements stopped to the original site, and in both cases ended up worse than they started. There has been one exception: My current hobby site and it’s partners.
My three sister sites (with four different admins) are all in the process of renovation so that we are using the same includes. We always used the same primary forums, the same code repository, the same chat functions, the same ftp, the same download locations etc… but each site spreads the load to handle each separately and each of us has a copy of the code and content of the others so that redirects can happen instantly. We each run our own home server. This is friendship, trust, and cooperation. For some reason it has not been difficult for four very different people to come to the understanding that we need the best we can provide for our community, that no-one can have complete control, and that we can trust each other implicitly. Each of us has access to the other servers, and admin privileges throughout. Wen we decided to combine, we based the “ownership” of each element on the basis of who had the best quality feature, and who had the most interest in maintaining that feature for the long term.
Lesson learned: Don’t take ownership (i.e. control or becoming a determiner of policy) on anything that you do not swear that you will serve and protect. If you don’t intend to maintain something religiously, let someone else do it. If someone pledges to serve the community in some way, you allow them to put forth their best effort. That person, in turn, must respond to, and even predict the needs of the community it serves, and find ways to integrate new ideas elegantly rather than simply mediate to unsatisfactory compromises. Sometimes, that means branching and delegating when the whole becomes too large for one overachiever to effectively handle.
Let’s all take a good look at ways we can find elegant solutions.
I’ll be back when/if the climate seems appropriate for me to contribute, and I get a specific request from someone with the power to delegate.
-Thanks for listening guys.
Art
Sailor/Engineer/Adventurer
Agree that time is needed for some stabilization before implementing a forum, (why I considered this a more long-term project) especially regarding the decision of what site/domain it goes on. Just in the planning stages. Honestly, when you made the point that we can combine mailing list functionality with a traditional forum via phpbb3, I became very excited because we have some hard-core developers whom have a difficult time participating in the sourceforge forums because they can’t email in posts.
Allow me to reply as emphatically as possible to brady’s assertation.
I am a long time developer on this project, and have made somewhat of a specialty of it. I had to recover my bloody password just to reply to this MESS.
consider me a very definate ‘no’ vote for anything resembling a forum, if you cannot make it work via email. Sourceforge has been a source of constant frustration and annoyance, when dealing with this project.
Its such a source of frustration with me and this project, that it is hard to put into words, without sounding like a screaming moron. i’m that frustrated with it.
I have purchased email service, so that i can reply to my mailing lists instantly. those are LESS important in my life than openemr’s developer forum, yet i can barely log into this forum without seething hatred for it.
I’ve been right here, but this forum presents such a communication barrier as to make my input to this project next to useless.
in short: WEB FORUMS MUST DIE. I simply cannot reply successfully in them, and the only reply to the person who last posted model is nonsense.
I’m seriously regretting not having made a stink about this years ago. in hindsight, I should have just administrated a mailing list for openemr my damned self, and told the forum to take a flying leap. my life would have been better, and communication would have been easier.
By the way I also like the way you handled the OEMR tab. Clicking on it retains the framework, users can then click to open the oemr.org site, ZH gets their ad on oemr.org, OEMR can do whatever they want, everyone should be happy I hope!
(I’d hate to have you log in again to reply to this post )
The thing I was excited about is that the phpBB forum could function basically as both a traditional forum and a mailing list at the same time . For example:
1. A new user comes into the forum, logs in and leaves a question
2. This new user post is then sent via email to everybody monitoring the forum
3. A developer/expert can than answer the post via email (or they can go to the forum to make the post if they want)
Just want to clarify if you’d support this type of an integrated forum/mailing list?
Brady, regarding the Demo tab, how about also a link to the development demo? That’s relevant for normal users to be able to see what’s coming, and also to see if a problem in the current release has been fixed in more recent code.
I guess that’s really a request that the 4.0 demo page include a link to the development demo page. Seems reasonable?
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