This used to be a robust forum, lots of new questions everyday and, most impotantly, lots of responses. This new forum is clunky and time consuming to navigate. Nobody seems interested anymore. I used to check-in everyday to see what's new. Not any more.

Indeed the new forum is much harder to navigate compared to the old one. The classification of the different sections is far from optimal. Two of the current sections have less than 10 posts, which clearly shows there is not enough interest in those topics to need their own separate sections. On the other hand, the first three sections are clustered with posts from vastly different topics which make them extremely hard to navigate. I would specifically object to merging the OpenCL section from the previous forum into the FPGA Design Tools section in the new one. OpenCL and HLS could certainly use their own separate section. I am sure the first three sections can be split into more fine-grained sections to allow easier navigation. One thing I really wished had been kept from the previous forum was the section structure.There are also multiple other problems that have been mentioned before by other users but still remain:1- The forum is still too heavy and too slow.2- The general design of the forum wastes too much white space. The laderboard/ask a question column on the right is of little practical use.3- Threads in a section are sorted by last reply as they should be. However, only the author and time of opening the thread is included under the thread name in each section which makes it hard to tell whether the thread has been updated since last visit or not. In my opinion, the author and time of the last reply should also be included as it was in the previous forum.4- One thing I have noticed is that there is no way to download attachments that can be previewed. I certainly prefer to open a 100-page PDF attachment using my own PDF reader rather than the built-in preview mechanism provided by the forum.5- The boundaries of each post when viewing a thread are not very clear. There is basically just a very thin line separating replies from each other. Furthermore, the "show more" mechanism cuts replies far too early. The threshold for cutting the reply could be increased for easier navigation.Unfortunately, as it seems, many of the previous users have either left the forum or are not as active anymore and I cannot attribute this to anything other than the sudden huge change in the structure of the forum. I would urge the developers/admins of the new forum to take another look at the previous forum and I am sure they would be able to find a lot of useful features from the previous forum that are missing in the new one.

For me, the major point missing (besides the ones already mentioned and the disappointing lack of performance) is a "new since my last visit" view.A basic functionality I would expect from any half-decent social media application.

Well, lets see. You can't find this forum anywhere from the Altera/Intel web page or login. You have to have an email with the "secret" link. No one from Intel responds. It is hard to read, hard to find things, takes up a lot of space on the page. It is kind of like the whole intel web page. Clunky, hard to read cluttered, useless, links go in circles, links not correct, too much crap to sort through to find what you want if it is even there.This is my first impression after trying for weeks to find this forum, hours on the phone to see if anyone in intel even knew they had an FPGA group(they don't I have been told) then finally given the secret location to this mess.

Not being able to see the timestamp of the last post to a thread and which threads you have unread topics in unheard of in most other forums.

I agree. 💔 This feels dumbed down. Like right now I'm supposed to respond using this narrow column because it looks cool??? FWIW as a former Altera now Intel employee, I couldn't even login without escalating to several people to find out how employee get permission to this site due to bugs in the current website. I not sure this affects everyone but it could be a reason a lot of old Altera folks are not responding.

Is anybody else completely dissatisfied with this new forum?

119 Replies

Pvand1
Occasional Contributor
7 years ago
Just got a problem where links to a thread actually open another, or loading takes >20 seconds. Also got a script problem:
Saw my username got improved by Intel, so that is a bit better.
Sethuraman_K_Intel
New Contributor
7 years ago
Hello,
We need the following information in order to troubleshoot this further.
Browser type along with the version number that you are using
Have you been able to reproduce this problem multiple times?
thanks
Raman Kuppuswamy
Pvand1
Occasional Contributor
7 years ago
Sure, for me it still is:
https://forums.intel.com/s/question/0D70P000006ALx4SAG
ff63 on android8
rockstarrocks
New Contributor
7 years ago
Site looks great to be honest but there are issues too. There are so many threads here unanswered, seems like no one cares. Plus I hate the never ending scroll to get the last post in a thread. I would prefer a pages approach i.e. thread divided into several pages with each post getting their #, so it's easier to reference back.
- MaryT_Intel
  Occasional Contributor
  7 years ago
  Hi @rockstarrocks , We did fix the scroll to get to the last post in a thread. On the very first post in the thread, there is a "Go to latest reply" that should help. I agree that having each post getting a # is great, we'll keep looking at improvement options so we appreciate your input. Thank you!
  Mary T.
  Community Manager
HRZ
Frequent Contributor
7 years ago
Big step forward with addition of sub-sections for the large sections.
Though I think something should be done about the "Application Acceleration With FPGAs" section, since many of the questions posted there are OpenCL-related questions from people who just happen to be using Intel PAC.
mfro
Occasional Contributor
6 years ago
Agreed. Noticeable improvement.
Now - with the integration of all the other Intel forums - I'm missing a functionality to navigate 'upwards' from a forum.
Before, I was just clicking on 'Community' that brings you to the top level and clicked my way down again from there. Since there are a lot more forums on the way down now, this has become way more awkward than before.
Daixiwen
Occasional Contributor
6 years ago
Yes it is going better, but it is still slow in some cases. On this thread (with 95 messages), clicking on the "Go to latest reply" takes more than one minute before the end of the thread is displayed on my computer. And Firefox complained twice that a script on the page was taking too much time to process.
Another feature that is still missing imho is a read/unread status. When I come to the forum I'd like to know which thread has messages I haven't read, and in each thread to jump to the first unread message. Without this each time I come to the forum I have to guess from the approximate date and time I was on the forum last time. And even like this it isn't easy, because the thread list still shows the date and time of the first post in a thread instead of the last one.
Something rather annoying also happened to me today. I was writing a (long) answer and when clicking on the "Answer" button, I got the message "This thread/question has been closed. It has a best answer selected!". So two questions:
1) the selected "best answer" is not visible on the thread itself. In the thread list I can see that the question has been answered, but there is no indication once we are in the thread itself.
2) why is the "write an answer" box still present on the page if it is not possible to answer?
But keep up the good work, it's a step in the right direction!
- Daixiwen
  Occasional Contributor
  6 years ago
  Just a short update... posting my answer just here above took 88 seconds. And Firefox complained about the javascript taking too much time 5 times.
GLees
Contributor
6 years ago
Yes, not having "read/unread" status is still a major nuisance for me.
EGrub
Occasional Contributor
6 years ago
It is very slow and often tells me I should check my internet connection. But my connection is good, no issues with other web pages.
Editor seems to be buggy.
More than 10000 posts under Quartus, no further categories.
I couldn't find a place to report bugs.
Search is not good.
No possibility to get direct support like it was with the Altera service requests.
SSilu
New Contributor
6 years ago
For general FPGA question I recommned Xilinx forum - this one is sad joke. Typing this took about 100 seconds dut to cursor lagging...

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Is anybody else completely dissatisfied with this new forum?

119 Replies

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