Organize The Pano2vr Forum?

Q&A about the latest versions
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TheRealMojoJojo
Posts: 341
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:18 pm

Hi All,

I think that these forums should be better organized. As it is, the only way to get the answer to what you are looking for is to do a search and hope that the same terminology was used somewhere within the thousands of questions and answers, otherwise you will never find the answer unless you accidentally stumble upon it or if you ask yet ANOTHER question that has already been answered.....20 times.

This is a waste of time for those that have to keep re-answering the same questions, a waste of time for those looking for specific answers to their questions but have to browse through hundreds of off the topic results trying to find a solution to their specific problem which may or may not happen and is also a waste of available problem solving resources that are readily available here on the forums....they are just buried, sometimes insanely deep. It's very frustrating.

The reason everything is so convoluted is because most people do not know how to properly title their questions or they simply do not know the proper terminology to describe what there problem is. Using the correct terminology for an issue is a must if the answer to that question is going to benefit anyone else in a search result because many users (myself included) do not always follow proper title and descriptive protocol.

There should be a more descriptive title that follows a certain set of rules and I have seen other forums solve this issue by implementing a couple of strategies....for example I have seen in other forums where the forum moderators will themselves edit the title of the question so that the title is relevant to the question and answer. The question is also immediately categorized. This way when someone does a search while following their search term guideline, they have a much easier time finding the information that correlates to their question. A title like "Node doesn't open when clicked" is a terrible title and most of the time the question's content is just as ambiguous.

Things would be much easier if the forums had a repository that categorized all the questions that have been solved. A page that you can go to, click the drop down and select a topic such as Animation. This would open up the Animation topic and would have different categories all pertaining to Animation. If someone wants to dig in and learn how to add multiple nodes to an animation....they click on a drop down and select Multi Node Animation and that opens all the solved answers on how to add multi nodes to an animation. If the answer isn't there....THEN they can ask the question.

I think it would also be beneficial if there was a video repository that listed all the Pano2vr videos by topic. Everything in ONE place. As it is now, you have to search the forums, Google, YouTube, Vimeo and again, you have to hope that the terminology used to describe the video is the same terminology you used to search. Categories and sub categories would do absolute WONDERS for those of us that are hungry to learn more of what we can do with Pano2vr but the fact that we have such a difficult time finding the right information is depressing.

It just seems that there are a lot of wasted resources here on the forums and all over the interent in regard to Pano2vr because they are difficult if not impossible to find.

This would also help new users to not get overly frustrated which can lead to searching for a different development platform.

Just my 2 cents. I do love Pano2vr :-)
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panox
Posts: 305
Joined: Mon Mar 12, 2007 11:03 pm
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Well said. I do agree with all of your points. A repository of all useful project-resources like ggsk from Hopki would be nice, too.
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thomas
Chief Gnome
Posts: 2611
Joined: Fri Sep 01, 2006 3:56 pm
Location: Vienna, Austria
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Thank you for this honest and very useful comment. I totally agree that there are hidden treasures in this forum, but they are hard to find. Even I have sometimes problems finding my own posts that I wrote 2 years ago. Karyn is constantly expanding the documentation with tips and tricks from here, but also the documentation is hard to search if you don't know the right terms. We will have some internal discussions on how we can improve this resource.

btw: You can find a video list here: https://ggnome.com/doc/pano2vr/6/p2vr-tutorials/

and there is even a link in the welcome screen for this page:
Screenshot 2019-07-31 12.06.50.png
Screenshot 2019-07-31 12.06.50.png (256.91 KiB) Viewed 1940 times
MfG, Thomas
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TheRealMojoJojo
Posts: 341
Joined: Thu Sep 20, 2018 10:18 pm

Hi Thomas (aka P2vrGod) ;-),
but also the documentation is hard to search if you don't know the right terms.
Aaaand therein lies the rub. Our Pano2vr knowledge is limited by our search term prowess.....and whether or not we actually take the time to read and comprehend what is readily available in the forums or help files.

It's just very frustrating and time consuming searching the forums and Google without any luck..... so you post your questions, wait a day, two, three or even longer, only to have someone point you to a post that answers that exact same question that was worded differently which is why you couldn't find it in the first place.
We will have some internal discussions on how we can improve this resource.
I think coming up with a more comprehensive solution would not only make life easier for your regular users; and poor Hopki whom is an absolute asset to the Pano2vr community (if you are our P2vGod, then Hopki is our Angel :-)), but would also help the bounce rate of individuals that decide to embark on the Pano2vr creation process journey.
You can find a video list here
Thanks for pointing out the resource :-)

And finally, Thank you Thomas and everyone at Pano2vr for all your hard work and dedication to the development of what many of us use to survive. You guys have done an amazing job and we are all lucky to have the privilege of using your software because as many of us old schoolers know, over the last decade there have been dozens of VT software companies that have come and gone........ never to be heard from again. Flashifi-who?

and yet, here you are, still moving forward, innovating and setting the industry standard.


I may be a bit of a critic, but I'm also a huge fan.
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