Suggestions. In general..

[buggy]

I am a web designer/developer by proffession, and a TCL user for a while. I don't know if this is the right place to put this, but always being pretty bugged about how much *better* the presentation of everything on the website in general could be, I really really have to post it somewhere. Or it will eat me up. Alrighty then, here goes:

You have a brilliant piece of software here, but the way you present it to the rest of the world can obviously be improved:

1. Can't the tutorials and help notes all be shifted to the Wiki and links on the main site just link to articles on the Wiki itself? Gives a more cleaned out and ordered look to the whole place.

2. Why can't we shift to a better forum system? SMF just breaks down most of the time when I am on W3M or Elinks on one of my old boxes, and makes it too damn hard to do anything at all on it. PunBB works fabulously with text based browsers, and given the fact that the two distros are both supposed to be run on bare minimum hardware requirements, people like me using them can't normally install actual bowsers. And anyways, GUIs are for idiots. But meh, I don't think people will react too well to this one.

3. There should be ONE logo. To be honest, it doesn't look too good when wikipedia has one logo, a review site has another, distrowatch has a different one, and the main site has a completely different one. And when you boot in the product itself, theres another one. Just put up a design a logo thread or something, if there are problems picking a good logo. We have a good community here. People will help for sure!

4. Something needs to be done to the main site really. Like wrap it up a little bit? Pimp up the menu's with a little bit of CSS. It won't hurt, Aesthetics really really do add to the appeal of a product. And they just look good meh.

5. Embed the freenode IRC app into the site somewhere, or just link to it, so that people who do not know how to use IRC clients, newbies generally can come on and ask for help.

Thats about all I can think of at the moment. I will post more as I think of something else. But according to me, this should be very simple and very productive work really.

[curaga]

Don't I see a contradiction there, you use text browsers but would like css pimping-up?

Anyway, please post any CSS tweaks you think would improve things and we'll take a look.

[bmarkus]

2. Why can't we shift to a better forum system? SMF just breaks down most of the time when I am on W3M or Elinks on one of my old boxes, and makes it too damn hard to do anything at all on it. PunBB works fabulously with text based browsers, and given the fact that the two distros are both supposed to be run on bare minimum hardware requirements, people like me using them can't normally install actual bowsers. And anyways, GUIs are for idiots. But meh, I don't think people will react too well to this one.

I'm running a forum since a long time with cca. 1,000 members. When it started 6 years ago it was Invision Power Board, but when they changed licensing I moved to SMF and Tiny Portal. Migration of data was a pain, but I could do it with my own scripts. It happened 4 years ago and we all are happy with SMF. It serves well for users and also what is important offers all necessary tools for administrators to maintain the system. I do not receive any claims for my members, it is just working fine.

SMF was selected after spending many time testing and evaluating other free forum engines and SMF was found the best for our porposes.

Anyhow, migration is always a pain and it would cause many issues with users too. There must be a really serious reason to change engine. BTW, SMF 2.0 is coming. Anyhow, I'm not related to TC forum, it is just my private note.

Unfortunately you are not telling us which forum engine you are preferring  

[OldAdamUser2]

Welcome to the forum, buggy. As a web designer/developer I hope you will use your skills to add content to our wiki pages. At this stage I think the most important thing is to develop the content instead of worrying about design. I'd especially like to see others contribute to developing the "applications" pages. Hopefully those pages will provide useful tips to beginners who are developing their own TC installations.

Personally, I have been very satisfied with the way the forum works. Anytime I have had a question, I have received prompt, pertinent help. How could you ask for more from a group of volunteers with their own problems to resolve and their own lives to live?

I firmly believe that Tiny Core is the best OS available for use on many (perhaps most) personal computers. It is very compact, blazingly fast, and easy to customize.

[aus9]

hi

I lack all above skills.

I would comment that ....anyone coming from distrowatch.com  etc .....without logging in.....may not see the attachments that logged in members see?

one forum I visit uses

http://www.phpbb.com/