Hollywood forums

Note: This is an archived post that was originally sent to the Hollywood mailing list on Sat, 28 Nov 2009 19:13:18 +0100 (MET)

Hi there!

I believe that a hollywood-forum would be a good idea aswell. Many of the questions asked by new users have been adressed in the mailinglist at some point - a forum would eventually cover most topics and could be very helpful both to new and old users!

I also believe that a new hollywood-site/forum could have a nice commercial effect and attract new users (and even make th ecurrent users more active).

Alot of the current users are working on nice projects.. the forum would be a great place to release screenshots, discuss ideas, nag for new features etc, It would become a place to show the potential of your great software-package!

If more people read about your products it would increase the number of potential customers - it would also show potential customers how helpful and satisfied all of the current users are. This will have a nice commercial effect aswell.

I have made a few news / forum-posts on different amgiasites about our commercial projects using Hollywood + Designer, and they all seemed to gather some interest.

People are interested in your products, but at the moment the information is scattered all around the web. The mailinglist is great, but since it is not visable for everyone alot of users are missing out on alot of nice information.

I honestly believe that a Hollywood-forum should be made, and I'm ready to donate 50 Euros if it would help.

Best regards

Torgeir Ferrule Media www.ferrule-media.no

Note: This is an archived post that was originally sent to the Hollywood mailing list on Sat, 28 Nov 2009 23:39:38 -0000

I completely understand Andreas point of view, and also agree with it somewhat.

Especially since if we have forum and Mailing list, it proapbly means that some of the people wont join/stop using mailing list option and move to forum only.

And i think mailing list system is very good when you have some trouble that you send a question and everyone gets it at their emails.

I believe its the most efficient way of getting question asked.

However, i do have to point some other things out too.

First of all, I could have joined this mailing list 2-3 years ago already, if it had been as simple as giving an email address, but since it was necessary to make yahoo account first, this small tiny but annoying little thing kept me away until i finally bought Hollywood, at which point i decided it was time to take that effort to actually make that account.

It still delayed me for some days since i had old account to which i had lost all my passwords and secret questions, so i first tried if i could get that back, until came to conclusion its too much trouble and made new account to join this.

Secondly, it is so much easier to check some forum where you can read even without registering yourself to anything, i would have kept watching that forum for last 2-3 years by now, and maybe had even bought Hollywood sooner.

Thirdly, In Forums you can have this "Search" function. Unfortunately at least i didnt find such "Search" function in yahoo groups main page, as when i too made that obviously famous FONT question, i first tried to search for that answer. Since i found no "Search" option, i checked couple of emails back, and since still no answer, then i posted the question.

Now due to easiness of forum, combined with the hardness of joinig this mailing list, i believe Forum would attract lot of new users who aint in this mailing list, and this in end could also result in more sales of hollywood.

Not to mention other good things of forum like having separate sections for things like "Showing off" "Work in progress" "Tutorials" etc. stuff.

So although i agree with Andreaas concern of little traffic and only few questions here, and possibly questions even getting less due to same questions not asked anymore, i vote for Forum.

And actually. I would have server hosting at hostgator which is currently used only very lightly, so i offer to buy both .com domain for hollywood forum and also host it there.

If there starts coming too much traffic that it raises the current hosting cost, then we can look what we will do then.

So as long as someone gives Forum software that has "Search" function in it and possibility to add banners or some other method of advertising, im giving the .com domain and hosting.

And i think Andreas should be the one who is given the choice of the domain name.

I believe it should be something like "amigahollywood.com" or something similarly easy to remember.

Note: This is an archived post that was originally sent to the Hollywood mailing list on Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:26:59 +0100

Hi there!

I believe that a hollywood-forum would be a good idea aswell. Many of the questions asked by new users have been adressed in the mailinglist at some point - a forum would eventually cover most topics and could be very helpful both to new and old users!

I also believe that a new hollywood-site/forum could have a nice commercial effect and attract new users (and even make th ecurrent users more active).

Alot of the current users are working on nice projects.. the forum would be a great place to release screenshots, discuss ideas, nag for new features etc, It would become a place to show the potential of your great software-package!

If more people read about your products it would increase the number of potential customers - it would also show potential customers how helpful and satisfied all of the current users are. This will have a nice commercial effect aswell.

I have made a few news / forum-posts on different amgiasites about our commercial projects using Hollywood + Designer, and they all seemed to gather some interest.

People are interested in your products, but at the moment the information is scattered all around the web. The mailinglist is great, but since it is not visable for everyone alot of users are missing out on alot of nice information.

I honestly believe that a Hollywood-forum should be made, and I'm ready to donate 50 Euros if it would help.

Well, I'm way too busy to do set up & administrate a Hollywood forum. But of course somebody else could do it. As I said before, I don't mind a Hollywood forum.... I just don't have the time to do it myself.

Note: This is an archived post that was originally sent to the Hollywood mailing list on Sun, 29 Nov 2009 22:46:10 +0100

Thanks Andreas for you clear words! Thanks Torgeir (you will receive a peronal mail from me soon) for wanting to donate! Thanks samuli (?) for the hosting offer!

But, why do you want to have banners on that? To promote Hollywood? Do be honest, I wouldn't like to see any (or random) adverts on such a forum if possible. Maybe just managed banners from friendly (Amiga) sites or Torgeirs dentist stuff and so on.

Another suggestion would be that I ask the folks at Amiga Resistance (AR) to host a new Hollywood forum and not just Hollywood as a sub thread in that mixed location that it is right now. The advantage of that would be that at AR are active moderators and quite a bunch of (German speaking) Hollywood users. I will write to them and see what they say.

Nevertheless we would need someone who is the head of that project, the forum admin so to say, and some moderators. Anyone?

As for the forum software I would suggest phpbb3 (http://www.phpbb.com/). Not really suitable with the old Amiga browser but with OWB and stuff that should not be the largest problem.

Let's hope this whole thing becomes real soon.

Cheers Micha

Note: This is an archived post that was originally sent to the Hollywood mailing list on Mon, 30 Nov 2009 05:53:14 -0000

But, why do you want to have banners on that? To promote Hollywood?

Basically four reasons:

1. To maybe get some little money out of it to cover hosting costs in case the traffic becomes too much (which it easily might if people attach pictures to messages) and i need to upgrade to heftier version.

2. Actually more important than the possible little money coming is the practice on makin ads and seeing which ones interest people and to see if i guessed right about what interests and what not.

3. Whenever some forum member makes a new release done with Hollywood, it would be nice to have some sort of banner there in the Forum showing it to everyone. be it free or commercial release.

4. To get more exposure to my own releases. This might not be most targeted channel to my non amiga products (Music Cds etc.), but if ad can be had for same cost as hosting anyway is, why not use it?

And just to point out, Ads dont need to be annoyingly on top of screen taking half of it, they can be placed for example to bottom of screen where they dont bother much.

As for the forum software I would suggest phpbb3 (http://www.phpbb.com/). Not really suitable with the old Amiga browser but with OWB and stuff that should not be the largest problem.

Thanks from tip! Went to get it and set test forum to:

http://www.mailinglist4free.com/forum/

Test it out, and let me know what problems you have, if any.

I tried some different settings around, so if you post on one of the sections, dont worry if it says it needs to be confirmed by admin, just try to post it on some other section.

Basically what i want to find out with this test forum is if its good enough and if some people are not able to view it at all.

Because even if it wouldnt display properly on old Amiga Browsers (havent tested yet) then can those people anyway use it with some newer browser or some other machines Browsers?

If everyone can access this forum, or only one or two people cant access, and no one offers better solution, then i think we should use this phpbb3.0 free forum.

Okay, test out, report, and then if there are no arguments against, start suggesting domain names, and andreas shall pick it.

Or any other suqqestions?

Note: This is an archived post that was originally sent to the Hollywood mailing list on Tue, 1 Dec 2009 22:05:01 +0100 (MET)

Good job - i believe this could be the start of a very nice forum!

I would like to suggest a couple of main-topics :

1) Software made using Hollywood

2) Software made using Designer

Here the readers could get an overview of what is released, aswell to get inspired to make new programs using Hollywood/Designer.

It could also be fun to have a topic where the users could introduce themselves - I'm atleast very curioius to know more about the people using Hollywood/Designer.. computer-background, age, occupation etc.

Best regards

Torgeir Ferrule Media Norway www.ferrule-media.no

Note: This is an archived post that was originally sent to the Hollywood mailing list on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:25:57 +0100

Good job - i believe this could be the start of a very nice forum!

Oh well, I just talked to my provider and it seems that it's really easy to get a phpbb3 forum installed onto my server. I first thought I'd have to do this all manually so I was a little bit scared. But as it looks now, it's merely a few mouse clicks to get it up and running, so I might probably set up an official Hollywood forum soon.

It could also be connected to a whole new Hollywood portal but I still didn't come up with a nice domain name for it. Suggestions anyone?

Note: This is an archived post that was originally sent to the Hollywood mailing list on Wed, 02 Dec 2009 06:10:03 -0000

Oh well, I just talked to my provider and it seems that it's really easy to get a phpbb3 forum installed onto my server. I first thought I'd have to do this all manually so I was a little bit scared. But as it looks now, it's merely a few mouse clicks to get it up and running, so I might probably set up an official Hollywood forum soon.

It could also be connected to a whole new Hollywood portal but I still didn't come up with a nice domain name for it. Suggestions anyone?

Yeah, it was pretty easy. Most trouble is in actually setting up the forum, which isnt hard, just annoying since you need to gicve access to all groups manually each time for each forum category.

Heres the current quick thought draft i made from forum and domain structure, feel free to use it:

Main page gives link to forum plus it will have something like file are where there would be for ecxample hollywood/designer plugins.

What i mean is i for example am making game menu, that could be used on basis on other games too. Things like volume slider etc. So thing like that could be released there.

The actual forums structure draft would be like this:
One question is in programs section, wether thee should be own subforum for all things in hollywood. I mean, graphics-layers, graphics-windows, scrolling, input, fonts... For basically it would be quite hefty to put category for thenm all in same way as in hollywood manual they are, but on the ther hand, having issue with layers, could easily be found solution from such categories after year or two by which time someone propably already had the same problem as you did.

My nam,e suggestion for domain is something that is easy to remember and something that wouldnt confuse at later point.

I mean, amigahollywood.com would be easy to remember, but what if at some point hllywood starts using amigas or there comes hollywood (place) amiga user group or something, that could be then used by someone else too, although quite unlikely.

Since i wrote this with cellphone, i didnt read this throguh before sending, sorry from mistkes, but its too annoying to use cellphone for writing these.