More Forums ?

[treitmey]

This is simular in thought, to my file pile idea. Place open source WORKING code in an area. Then you can lookover it and download it if it fits your need. I'm sure that many of us are "reinventing the wheel" many times over.

[treitmey]

The previous msg is in reply to kaspers msg.

[andyfraser]

I have to agree with Peter Willis that we should split the forum sooner rather than later. I don't think adding forums will split the userbase and I can't see why a user would regularly read one forum over another if it is split by topic ( unless the user is a closet timer freak ). At the end of the day, most forums of similar nature are split by topic and it seems to work for them. Perhaps we should use the poll feature of this forum to get a feel for everone's opinion ?

Andy

[Darren Rook]

I don't like the idea of having a forum just for Timers, A/D, Interrupts, etc.... That would be hard to keep up every day when I have to look at a lot of forums. If you're looking for posts about Timers, why can't you use the search function and search for timers? Also, you just know that there will be people who post Timer problems in the A/D forum, etc.

On the otherhand, splitting up the forums into 12bit, 14bit, PIC18, dsPIC, etc seems more appropiate.

Code forum is interesting.

[Darren Rook]

There is now a Hardware (ICD) and a Code Library forum. The matter of splitting up this forum more is still up to debate.

[Humberto]

It would be very useful that we -the users- when posting a new threads,
take the responsibility to provide the right 'key word' in the subject field.
Ex: Timer / ADC / Interrupt / IDC / Code help / I2C / and so on.

These small action will afford to get more selective and compact the search
results and put in focus to the readers at a glance.

Just my last 2 cents.


Humberto

[languer]

FWIW, I agree with Humberto.

Kudos to Darren, nice split of topics. I for one do not care for a wealth of topics, but a few OBVIOUS ones as Darren has done are good.

[SteveS]

I second the idea of a thread/repository for code examples. A lot of questions deal with needing a driver for this or that chip or how to set up an accurate clock, etc. At first I was thinking more in lines of a library type area, but a threaded discussion like this is probably better, so follow- ons and improvements can be tracked. Just need to do a really good job on the original subject line so stuff is easy to find.

- SteveS

[prwatCCS]

I could live with the alternate approach of split by processor style, although I would suggest

PIC12xxxx

PIC16xxxx

PIC17xxxx

PIC18xxxx

dsPPICS (or whatever they are generically)

rather than 12bit 14bit 16bit etc

To answer some of the questions raised by others :

One of the problems with searching on (say) Timers in the general forum is that I get matches from posts relating to (say) Interrupts just becasue the word TIMERS exists in someones code post or example.

If there was a TIMERS forum at least I could restrict my search to that forum.

No matter how hard you try, from time to time mis-posts will occur - that is inevitable but on its own not (IMHO) a good enough reason to stick with only one forum.

Monitoring more than one forum to me seems easier than monitoring one - since I would be able to read messages relevant ot my current interest and not get sidetracked by all the other (recent) posts!

I still prefer the TOPICS split, because I share code between projects and processor families and am interested to read of other features/problems withing the topic even when it pertains to differenent target devices.


regards
_________________
Peter Willis
Development Director
Howard Eaton Lighting Ltd UK

[Haplo]

I still think having more than one forum makes it difficult (and more time-consuming) to find the new posts and answer to them. For example I have bookmarked the 'General CCS Discussion' forum and can check the new posts in it very fast, but if we have too many forums it will be too much of a hassle to open each one in a new page and check them. It may seem I'm being lazy, but it is just inconvenient. The faster I can find the posts (and answer to the ones that I can) the better, especially since I check the forum at work too.

[prwatCCS]

Haplo

On the Index page for the forums, the icons against each forum show which has new posts

... and ...

There is a function top right to "view posts since last visit" which would appear to work across all current forums, so I think it would be easier to track than you imagine.

Unfortunately what you appear to find convenient I find inconvenient, so we must look for a compromise.

regards
_________________
Peter Willis
Development Director
Howard Eaton Lighting Ltd UK

[Pete Smith]

[Darren Rook]

I agree with Haplo. The traffic in these forums is not so heavy that the forums need to be narrowed down to that narrow of a scope.

Is there something wrong with the search function? If there is something wrong with the search function let us know so me or the authors (open source) of the forum can fix it.

[andyfraser]

Darren,

I think we can all agree that daily traffic is not all that heavy but it sure mounts up over time. To me, the issue is the quantity of topics in this forum which is currently sitting at just under 7000. With a good search facility it is still going to be difficult to find pertinent information. As Peter points out, in describing a problem, words that are not relevant to the actual topic may be used making searching a bit hit and miss.
I think this discussion is going to run and run

Andy

[prwatCCS]

Darren

In my post of Friday May 7 I gave an example of a problem with the search as currently implemented. This was not theorectical, but the result of an actual search.

Of course, another approach is to circulate a list of "useful keywords", along the lines of the topics I and others have suggested, and invite ALL posters to use these in the first line of their posts ......

regards
_________________
Peter Willis
Development Director
Howard Eaton Lighting Ltd UK