Sorry Mist, but we need to ask questions in this forum

[Bucket Mouse]

Your new rule makes no sense. "Code" is where the people who know things about code are going to check first! If you put a question about code in the "NESMaker Help" forum instead, it'll get buried in the avalanche of "what does this button do" newbie questions, and never be seen.

Yeah, this sub is under "Tips and Tricks" but only technically. You have to know how hard coding is and how much help people need with it. Please don't make it even harder.

 

[dale_coop]

If everybody put their questions here, all the code scripts , good tips, « how to » examples will be buried under all the questions « help me, my player doesn’t move », « help me, my new project doesn’t compile », ...

I 100% agree with MistSonata

 

[MistSonata]

Your new rule makes no sense. "Code" is where the people who know things about code are going to check first! If you put a question about code in the "NESMaker Help" forum instead, it'll get buried in the avalanche of "what does this button do" newbie questions, and never be seen.

Yeah, this sub is under "Tips and Tricks" but only technically. You have to know how hard coding is and how much help people need with it. Please don't make it even harder.

I seem to remember you making a thread in the Tips and Tricks Code forum asking for help with monster AI, and you had to go to the facebook group to get people to respond to it.

I'm hashing out possible solutions with the site admin right now, so hang tight.

 

[dale_coop]

Oh wow, you just moved the topic!? I did not see you was a moderator, congrats Mist.

 

[chronosv2]

I've got a good compromise, but a forum admin would have to do it, and users would have to abide by it. Along with NESMaker Help, maybe have an Coding Help subforum. I realize that's yet another split, but people that are looking for finished snippets can look in Tips and Tricks -> Code and people that need help with code they're writing can go in Version 4.x -> Coding Help or something like that.
That way we know when someone needs help as compared to posting a code snippet for others to use.

In a similar vein, I'm seeing a number of people posting 4.x help/suggestions in the Beta Help/Suggestions forums. I kinda' wish there were a way that people that have topics in there could keep responding to them, but no new topics could be created or somehow directed to their intended subforums.

Anyway, just my $0.02.
I know if a Coding Help forum were created I'd poke my head in to see if I could help, though I can't speak for anyone else.

 

[dale_coop]

You have my vote on that! A new sub section could be the solution/compromise!

 

[Mihoshi20]

I'm glad someone was made mod. Hopefully we can get the forum organized, relevant and beginner things stickied, a few more accurate thread names, and the beta threads finally actually locked. A lot of people don't think about what the forum will look like years down the road and or how much of a nightmare this place will look like, just like how NESDev is with outdated info/solved problems not marked solved and hard to find threads about specific NESmaker versions years down the road. Google doesn't care about a threads' context or if it is a solution, it just shows parser results. If we all work together we not only help each other today, but also future NESmaker users who want to find answers.

 

[chronosv2]

I do question if just one mod is enough. While we don't get flooded with topics our user count is growing every day and there's some obvious confusion on where topics should be going.
I understand wanting to continue some beta threads -- in that case maybe move them someplace else and lock the beta sub-forums so that others aren't tempted to post their problems in that sub-forum?

 

[Bucket Mouse]

I've got a good compromise, but a forum admin would have to do it, and users would have to abide by it. Along with NESMaker Help, maybe have an Coding Help subforum. I realize that's yet another split, but people that are looking for finished snippets can look in Tips and Tricks -> Code and people that need help with code they're writing can go in Version 4.x -> Coding Help or something like that.
That way we know when someone needs help as compared to posting a code snippet for others to use.

In a similar vein, I'm seeing a number of people posting 4.x help/suggestions in the Beta Help/Suggestions forums. I kinda' wish there were a way that people that have topics in there could keep responding to them, but no new topics could be created or somehow directed to their intended subforums.

Anyway, just my $0.02.
I know if a Coding Help forum were created I'd poke my head in to see if I could help, though I can't speak for anyone else.

Coding Help is the best solution here.

 

[Mihoshi20]

For the sake of future search-abililty and readability, help and suggestions should probably follow some guidelines, for instance:
<NESmaker Version the issue/suggestion relates to> <issue/suggestion category or module> <issue observed/suggestion>

example: NESmaker 4.0.10 - UI/UX Design - Pixel Editor or NESmaker 4.0.10 - Assembler - Value out of Range Error

This lets users know what version specifically the issue/suggestion is for so they don't have to click it if it's a far too out of date issue/suggestion unless they just want to. As the versions tick along it's going to be difficult to traverse the sea of threads that may no longer be relevant to future users.

It's also a good idea and good practice to mark threads with concluded issues as solved which many have already been adopting.

example: [SOLVED] NESmaker 4.0.10 - Assembler - Value out of Range Error

 

[chronosv2]

The problem is getting users to abide by that. I forget if there were forum add-ons that could give drop-down boxes for such things, but I highly doubt the mass majority of users are going to follow that, especially since forum descriptions and information are hidden as tooltips. Too much modification would need to be made to make that kind of topic formatting easily accessible.
I am trying to remind people to mark solved issues solved, though.
Unless we could somehow get a well-monitored issue tracker going so we can organize it that way, but that sorta' defeats the purpose of having a forum.

 

[Mihoshi20]

The problem is getting users to abide by that. I forget if there were forum add-ons that could give drop-down boxes for such things, but I highly doubt the mass majority of users are going to follow that, especially since forum descriptions and information are hidden as tooltips. Too much modification would need to be made to make that kind of topic formatting easily accessible.
I am trying to remind people to mark solved issues solved, though.
Unless we could somehow get a well-monitored issue tracker going so we can organize it that way, but that sorta' defeats the purpose of having a forum.

That's the thing, getting the general public to think beyond their quick fix/right here, right now issues. Using the forum as a public sourced google with no regard to the people who will indeed google their nesmaker issues in the future and have this forum come up only to then have to wade through the disorganized chaos that forums devolve into from such short sightedness. Which is why it's best for a mod or admin to nip it in the bud now and set some ground rules and expectations for everyone to adapt to and new comers to slip into comfortably, and if anything, marking at the very least what version of nesmaker the issue relates to is bare minimum. Least IMO.

 

[Convoy_Avenger]

It's really know where to go to ask for Script help. We don't seem to have a proper sub-forum for it now.

 

[jorotroid]

Wow. I just found this thread. I found it while searching for something completely unrelated.

I have also been confused on where coding questions should go. I do think that ultimately it would be better to have a separate Coding Help section from the NESmaker Help section because "NESmaker Help" feels more like it's about the program itself and its interface. That said, now that it has been declared that coding questions should go in NESmaker Help, I am perfectly fine with putting my questions there. I don't know if this is an option, but maybe if the section descriptions could be displayed under the section titles instead of being a pop-up might help clear up confusion. It took my brain a while to recognize that those popups where there (or maybe they weren't there before because not all sections have a description at this point).

On a similar note, I also wanted to start a thread asking about this stuff a long time ago, but I couldn't decide which section I should put such a thread. I definitely would not have thought to put it under Randomness.

 

[Mihoshi20]

Wow. I just found this thread. I found it while searching for something completely unrelated.

I have also been confused on where coding questions should go. I do think that ultimately it would be better to have a separate Coding Help section from the NESmaker Help section because "NESmaker Help" feels more like it's about the program itself and its interface. That said, now that it has been declared that coding questions should go in NESmaker Help, I am perfectly fine with putting my questions there. I don't know if this is an option, but maybe if the section descriptions could be displayed under the section titles instead of being a pop-up might help clear up confusion. It took my brain a while to recognize that those popups where there (or maybe they weren't there before because not all sections have a description at this point).

On a similar note, I also wanted to start a thread asking about this stuff a long time ago, but I couldn't decide which section I should put such a thread. I definitely would not have thought to put it under Randomness.

Perhaps a separate area for NESmaker Tool Help and NESmaker ASM/Engine/Coding help area.

 

[darkhog]

I'd be totally okay with more granular "NM Help" section. There should be forum where you can ask questions about the tool itself ("how do I change monster palette"), coding, art and sound/music. This way it'd be easier to find questions you want to ask and see if they were already asked (the forum search feature is terrible, by the way - had more luck finding stuff using google site: requests than forum's search engine - I don't know why phpbb team keeps it in since it's nearly useless on any forum of reasonable size and activity).