InfoQube IM - Community

Submitted by reesd on 2010/09/16 14:36

I'm sorry to say it, but the forum/community site is just plain slow. In fact its often painfully slow. I wouldn't bring it up except that it actually sometimes keeps me from making updates to documentation, giving feedback, or helping out in forum threads. I'll go to edit a wiki entry or reply to a forum, then give up after 30 seconds and go back to doing my day job.

Is it affecting anyone else?

Comments

At times it's still very poor, sometimes not working at all here, sometimes very slow as you say

The forum and site is so slow I find myself avoiding it. At this point I think its InfoQube's biggest issue, and that's saying something because there are some other things I want as well. But IQ complexity combined with forum/docs that are painful to use means I use other things. And I'm sure many others we don't hear from give up quickly for the same reasons.

Look at these results, 4.7 sec before the first byte is returned and 9 sec before a simpel HTML page is done. That's just wrong.

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110309_HR_495F/1/details/

I have a feeling that your HTTP server or Drupal isn't configured correctly. The main page should be cached until its updated again (a Drupal issue)? And all the reused images and so forth are not given expiration dates either so the browser is reloading them (HTTP server problem):

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110309_HR_495F/1/pagespeed/

[quote=reesd]

Look at these results, 4.7 sec before the first byte is returned and 9 sec before a simpel HTML page is done. That's just wrong.

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110309_HR_495F/1/details/

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110309_HR_495F/1/pagespeed/

[/quote]

I reran the test, still 4 seconds before the first page index.php is returned.

http://www.webpagetest.org/result/110419_YC_EP04/1/details/

I know nothing about Drupal but that is way too long for a page that hasn't changed in months. I would think drupal should be doing some internal caching, then IIS should be based on the last modified date, then finally the browser. But the last modified date is wrong, it basically shows now.

Maybe you could post this on a drupal forum and see what they say about it? As I mention above, I think some basic expiration date tweaking could make a big difference for images at both the web server and browser level. I also would be quite surprised if Drupal doesn't have some of its own caching that should be being used here.

Forum is terribly slow today, so much so, that I'm considering alternatives:

Change server and/or
Change to Drupal 7 or
Change to another forum software

While #1 will incur minimal changes, #3 could be more drastic

What I'm interested in hearing from the IQCommunity is, apart from the web site response times:

Do you like Drupal ?
Do you like the ability of collaborative work on books ?
Does other forum software allow all Drupal features (forum, blogs, books) ?
Do you prefer an HTML based editor (used by Drupal) or a bbCode one (such as used by SMF -- see DonationCoder) ?
Apart from thread notifications, what other features are missing from Drupal ?
Drupal 5 is currently used... Drupal 7 is just around the corner with a vastly improved UI... any thoughts ?

>While #1 will incur minimal changes, #3 could be more drastic

Seems to me that #1 is the best option since #3 would probably slow down IQ development.

1.Do you like Drupal ?

I like Drupal but there are 2 things that I generally don't like (see... #4 and 5... :) ) :

a- No e-mail "notifying system"

b- The HTML rich text editor... I often having problems when editing. But I wouldn't change to something else because of that.

2. Do you like the ability of collaborative work on books ?

I think it's a very useful tool. The "Manual" collaboration is great.

3. Does other forum software allow all Drupal features (forum, blogs, books) ?

No idea. But I honestly think that Drupal does the job.

4. Do you prefer an HTML based editor (used by Drupal) or a bbCode one (such as used by SMF -- see DonationCoder) ?

I prefer a bbcode one. But for the manual, I'd be tempted to think that an HTML based one is better.

5. Apart from thread notifications, what other features are missing from Drupal ?

Nothing. [Edit : actually, it would be nice to have polls and stuff like that. But I don't consider that essential]

6. Drupal 5 is currently used... Drupal 7 is just around the corner with a vastly improved UI... any thoughts ?

if moving to Drupal 7 isn't too much work, go for it... Otherwise, it'd be good to evaluate how much time would the migration take, and how much would that delay IQ's development.

[quote=Pierre_Admin]

Forum is terribly slow today, so much so, that I'm considering alternatives:

Change server and/or
Change to Drupal 7 or
Change to another forum software[/quote]

If changing server will help I'd be for it - I wouldnt mind a bit slower in general but it just gets completely bogged down at times which has put people off...

Do you like Drupal ?

In general, yes
Do you like the ability of collaborative work on books ?

YES ! Would very much miss it
Does other forum software allow all Drupal features (forum, blogs, books) ?

no idea, but I dont think they do 'out of the box' though -
Do you prefer an HTML based editor (used by Drupal) or a bbCode one (such as used by SMF -- see DonationCoder) ?

I used to prefer BBCode but neutral now - this has it's limitations but so does BBC
Apart from thread notifications, what other features are missing from Drupal ?

nothing important I think
Drupal 5 is currently used... Drupal 7 is just around the corner with a vastly improved UI... any thoughts ?

Well hopefully they fix some of the problems with version 5 - I'd definitely go for it - early uptake could mean dealing with new bugs - dont know how that would work but I'd personally still go for it early

I like Drupal well enough, and especially the book collaboration aspect. I'm used to it, but 90% of the time, the forum speed is okay, but I agree the 10% of the time can be really annoying.

I like the html especially for the semi-automatic generation of the chm manual.

By the way http://www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php?q=xtracker/type/forum was what I had bookmarked, and that isn't working at all; I thought that the entire forum was down.

[quote=KeithB]

By the way http://www.sqlnotes.net/drupal5/index.php?q=xtracker/type/forum was what I had bookmarked, and that isn't working at all; I thought that the entire forum was down.

[/quote]

In an effort to speed things up, I deactivated features which I thought were not used:

Collapse Text
Comment info
Xtracker
Fuzzy search
Image Picker

If some of these are really used, I can certainly reactivate any of these...

Seems like a good move. Not sure if it changed anything though.

e.g. : took 20s to load this "reply" HTML editor

[quote=Pierre_Admin]

Forum is terribly slow today, so much so, that I'm considering alternatives:

Change server and/or
Change to Drupal 7 or
Change to another forum software

While #1 will incur minimal changes, #3 could be more drastic

What I'm interested in hearing from the IQCommunity is, apart from the web site response times:

Do you like Drupal ?
Do you like the ability of collaborative work on books ?
Does other forum software allow all Drupal features (forum, blogs, books) ?
Do you prefer an HTML based editor (used by Drupal) or a bbCode one (such as used by SMF -- see DonationCoder) ?
Apart from thread notifications, what other features are missing from Drupal ?
Drupal 5 is currently used... Drupal 7 is just around the corner with a vastly improved UI... any thoughts ?

[/quote]

I find the site pretty cumbersome and confusing compared to most forum and wiki software I see elsewhere.

Yes, I think having the wiki is key. It doesn't need to be integrated with the forum though, that is just a bonus.

I prefer bbcode for forum entries, 99% of what I want to type is text and it makes that easy. Then I cna just put [code] blocks around the few pieces of code I have in my post.

The user control panel is hard to find and confusing.

And you said not to mention it, but lack of email notification drives me up the wall. Especially since the site is so slow.

Thanks!

I'm trying a new notification module. Hopefully, this one will work on this Drupal installation...

A new tab is added to your Contact page, to specify your settings

Thanks, I will try it out! Maybe you will see me replying a little faster :)

The notifications are working great for me! Such an improvement. Armando and I have actually had a back and forth conversation and figured out things in a day that would have taken weeks before (because I wasn't checking).

I would suggest making an announcement on the main thread about the notification functionality, I think it will help a lot of people.

[quote=reesd]

I would suggest making an announcement on the main thread about the notification functionality, I think it will help a lot of people.

[/quote]

Completely agree. We need a sticky.

Actually, it seems I spoke too soon . It seems its notifying me about every change on the site, rather than just changes that I have bookmarked or favorited. Getting updates on everything is just too much and I will have to turn it off if there isn't a way to filter it based on just the items in my track/Track list.

Thanks,

Did you try turning off "New Content" ? And leave the other two ON. Haven't tried though.

It should be fairly easy to modify the module to link to your preference...

Currently, there are 2 systems in place:

Bookmarked items
Favorite items

It should be possible to link to either of these, though Favorites may be easier

Neither system is used very much (total of 33 favorites and 104 bookmarks)

Any preferences ?

No idea... Maybe bookmarks then ? :)

Whichever is listed under the track and Track tabs. I think that is bookmarks?

Pierre,

Do you think will have a chance to filter email notifications by bookmarks?

Without it the notifications just are not useful, and without notifications I go weeks before I get around to checking back in the forums. Which really slows down some of our threads :).

Thanks,

dave

[quote=Pierre_Admin]

Forum is terribly slow today, so much so, that I'm considering alternatives:

Change server and/or
Change to Drupal 7 or
Change to another forum software

[/quote]

Mantis also seems slow, so I suspect its the server. Perhaps you could find somewhere to just host drupal and mantis virtually?

[quote=reesd]

Mantis also seems slow, so I suspect its the server. Perhaps you could find somewhere to just host drupal and mantis virtually?

[/quote]

Mantis was very slow yesterday at the same time as the forum - both timed out too for a short while (other sites were okay)

>Mantis was very slow yesterday at the same time as the forum

Both are on the same server.

As soon as I get a bit of time off from the dev., I'm switching hosting company. IX is really, really bad.

FYI, I shared a Firefox extension I have started using that makes it easier to deal with the forum' s slowness. It basically checks the pages (threads/docs) I care about every few days and let's me know if they have changed. The nice thing is that it caches them so I don't actually have to wait for the page to download from the forum. More here:

Good news ! Email Notifications for new content and comments

Hi IQ Users,

Without doing any changes, I'd say that this community web site is kind of faster lately... Seems like IX Webhosting is finally getting their act together.

If anyone is keen on learning web site hosting, Drupal, etc and wants to work on migrating this web site to another hosting service, Please, Please contact me. I would of course offer all I can offer now, namely a few professional licenses for anyone that wants to tackle that task...

Pierre

Pierre,

I don't understand why you want to move your hosting service since it is working well. Personally, I have absolutely no problem with speed, access, and uptime. You may have other reason for moving to a new host that I am unaware of.

My experience with your website says what you really need is an information architect and someone with some Drupal knowledge and sys admin experience to clean up your website structure, labeling, consistency, and to insure all the links work.

This would be someone that understands terms like taxonomy, folksonomy, facets, synonym rings, controlled vocabulary, ontology, etc. And someone who understands how to implement this all in Drupal. It may be pretty damn difficult to find someone with all that knowledge. So, you may consider two people...an info architect and a Drupal sys admin to work together.

Also, if you are not on Drupal 7, I would definitely recommend moving to it because the information architecture tools, UI, and ease of use have been immensely improved in Drupal 7. You may be be well aware of this. Additionally, if you are still using FCKEditor and not the latest CKEditor you may consider moving to CKEditor. It is suppose to be much better. You may be well aware of this too.

Just food for thought. No need to reply.

BTW...I don't mean to be critical. You have done one hell of a job building this website, building a community of users, architecting IQ, writing the code, etc. while trying to make a living at the same time. I kinda see you as being sort of super human to juggle all these balls at once and to accomplished what you have.

Dave

[quote=davet]

[/quote]

Hi Dave,

The web site + hosting service have a history... of being super slow and unresponsive (a quick search will bring threads about the subject). That said, if they "put their act together", who knows.

Maybe nobody noticed, but they had hiccups 2 weeks ago and Mantis was down for about 1h... I happened to be awake and using it at that moment.

A nice website on a bad server won't do much...

Your suggestions on how to improve the actual form and content are good though. But I'm not Pierre so I'll leave that to him. :)

One thing : I believe in simplicity when it comes to websites. Everything should be easily accessible, all the most important links should be in your face : Manual, Download, Forum, User Account-Login. That's it, with other stuff appearing only when you're in a specific context.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows XP Home Edition, Service pack 2

Dell Vostro 1500, Ram:3gb, CPU:Core2Duo T7500 2.2ghz

Armando,

Sounds like the hosting service needs to go.

I agree with everything you say about website design...even FAQ should be at your finger tips, and it should answer frequently asked questions. I've never seen FAQ at the bottom of a user manual. Also, seven is the magic number in most lists. Lists longer than that cause info overload...this has to with how our short-term memory works. Of course more than seven is okay in an index and other alphabetical lists.

Dave

[quote=davet]

Sounds like the hosting service needs to go.

[/quote]

I'm not saying that it is priority #1 though... I was just stating the facts.

[quote=davet]

[...] Also, seven is the magic number in most lists. Lists longer than that cause info overload [...]

[/quote]

Yes, the magic #7. And that's why MS went with the ribbon, eventually... :)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Windows XP Home Edition, Service pack 2

Dell Vostro 1500, Ram:3gb, CPU:Core2Duo T7500 2.2ghz

The forum is very zippy today - didnt notice earlier cause I only looked at "What's New" page.

That's a real treat Pierre