Welcome back to Drobe.co.uk | Drobe.co.uk archives

Welcome back to Drobe.co.uk

Published: 9th Nov 2008, 19:06:36 | Permalink | Printable

Thanks for dropping by and visiting Drobe.co.uk, your source of RISC OS news and information. We're getting towards the end of our little refurbishment of this website, which includes the new ability to post threaded comments, and as well as ramping up the number of updates, we'll be gradually bringing back familiar services, such as the front page poll and the events calender. Email us your news and views.

Click here to send an email to news@drobe.co.uk

Previous: Amiga NetSurf port gets tabbed browsing
Next: Video of the week: Shoot'em-up classic Quark

Discussion

Viewing threaded comments | View comments unthreaded, listed by date | Skip to the end

Looking good guys. It's nice being able to comment on the links to external material but I would like to see a bigger visual distinction between summaries of external material and original content.

I take that the new design reduces maintenance workload a bit?

killermike on 9/11/08 7:51PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Well, for a start, the new style integrates the quickies into the main section of the page, so simple things can be published where people will notice them more easily.

rjek on 9/11/08 8:17PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Yay! Although the article body appears to be in bold text here, which is a little difficult to read - I imagine worse if it's a longer article.

rjek on 9/11/08 8:16PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

On longer articles, only the title is bold, afaics.

jmb on 9/11/08 8:29PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Good to see Drobe returning to form.

sa110 on 9/11/08 8:27PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

For a long time Drobe was always my first port of call for RISC OS news. It is great to see you back, and in a nice clean format.

GavinWraith on 9/11/08 8:37PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I remember when Drobe was a site for some obscure app - when news stopped appearing here I felt as though I'd lost an old (somewhat eccentric) friend.

Good to have you back Drobe!

wrankin42 on 9/11/08 9:32PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Thanks, Chris, for all the work you've put into Drobe. It's one of the sites I visit most regulary. I like the clean new look and hope that it will be much easier for you to keep it updated.

tlsa on 9/11/08 9:35PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Nice one, Chris! Keep up the good work

Andy.

andypoole on 9/11/08 10:06PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Good to see Drobe back and with a new cleaner look.

Thanks Chris

bluenose on 9/11/08 10:33PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Great stuff Chris.Welcome back I missed drobe a lot!

stevek on 10/11/08 5:13AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Thanks! And wow, the new version is fast!

hzn on 10/11/08 5:32AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I think it looks bloody awful. Most of the new content is just off site links which isn't what I'd expect from a news site at all.

druck on 10/11/08 1:22PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

New content? The only difference is that the quickies (that used to appear on the left) are now integrated into the main feed: full articles are still there.

Why didn't you make your opinion known earlier?

rjek on 10/11/08 1:35PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Earlier than when I first saw it?

druck on 11/11/08 8:56AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

There was an article some time ago giving a link to the "beta" version that was almost completely fully-functional.

Still, if you don't like it, just use the RSS feed

rjek on 11/11/08 9:26AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Perhaps you could write an article or two to address the issue of most of the new content being off site links.

sa110 on 10/11/08 3:30PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I agree that it looks less nice but: so what. I'm here to get information and not to enjoy the view.

What is important is that it is really fast opposed to the old version and merging the normal articles with the quickies is good since thus you get all in one.

Overall: Good change!

hzn on 11/11/08 6:21PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I thought the same about being off-site links at first, but on second thoughts it looks like that gives scope for both them and Drobe articles, which overall is more to comment on.

SimonC on 10/11/08 10:30PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

An another thing; the comment tree is all very well for seeing who has replied to who, but it gives no indication on which comments are new since you last looked, unless you examine each damn date stamp. Another leap backwards in usability.

druck on 11/11/08 12:51PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I'm sure Chris will offer you a full refund.

rjek on 12/11/08 12:45PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

The new design feels fast and slick. It's a bit grey, but nice. Good to see activity again.

Can the front page headlines have some sort of indicator (icon or otherwise) to indicate whether it is an on-site, off-site or email link? From a UX point of view I didn't expect clicking this headline would open my email client...

saffron on 11/11/08 1:58PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

The icon already shows the difference between off-site links (an arrow) and on-site Drobe articles (a sort of document shape). It's not obvious though, maybe different coloured icons would help.

tlsa on 11/11/08 2:26PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Let's have some colour, and where are the pictures?

druck on 12/11/08 9:30AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Personally I am just pleased Drobe is being updated again.

vshears on 12/11/08 12:12PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Me too.

Sure I'm not a fan of grey...but hey - in the case of Drobe: No news is definitely NOT good news.

Drobe updated = Good

Any cosmetic or technical annoyances just don't register.

wrankin42 on 12/11/08 2:58PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

The reason I left dead drobe in a tab on my browser at work for six months, hoping one day it would come back, was I liked it's contents and it's style, and it didn't look out of place sitting next BBC News in the previous tab.

The offsite links rather than articles, the sea of grey HTML2, and the unordered comments, are a huge turn off. Even the Iconbar and riscos.org look more appealing than this.

Bring back the old, or I'll just have to let the memory of drobe fade to grey...

druck on 12/11/08 11:00PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

druck, stop it with the grumpy nonsense. The old "colourful" drobe had offsite-links as articles too, it's just they're now integrated rather than separate. If you give Chris a chance, rather than being grumpy at him, I'm sure he'll post some real articles. I simply don't understand the HTML2 comment; it looks nothing like what can be done in HTML2. And the comments aren't unordered, they're put in the more useful ordering.

rjek on 13/11/08 9:26AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Will the online StrongHelp manuals be comming back?

tlsa on 12/11/08 10:43PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Still there, afaics:

[link] [link]

Stoppers on 16/11/08 11:05PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Well, I really think that the site is nowhere near as good as it was. The appearance is quite drab, which is a bit of a step back from the previous design. As far as layout etc is concerned, I can't add anything very useful until I have used it for a while.

tduell on 13/11/08 5:03AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

OK but after 6 months of Drobe being pretty but silent - this is an improvement.

Offsite links - hey, they let us know something is happening. Better than a dead feed. If we (the fans) want more articles, then we'd better start typing.

Drobe is a free service provided as a favor to us lot and beggars can't be choosers.

Any time there is any development or change in the RISC OS scene there is a massive argument.

How many times have you seen someone, who put tons of effort into this fan-based community, leaving citing "comments" as one of their reasons?

There aren't many of us left.

Come on - Let's just thank Chris for being one of the lifelines of the platform and phrase any requests as just that.

wrankin42 on 13/11/08 6:18AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Advantages the new Drobe has over the old; 1) Threaded comments 2) Faster loading 3) None of that broken moderation nonsense 4) Less cluttered layout, and most importantly; 5) Updates.

If you don't like it, offer your time and experience, not hollow criticism. :-p

rjek on 13/11/08 9:29AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

The "rating" facility was the worst to my mind. It just seemed to encourage misuse.

AW on 13/11/08 8:12PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

I've been an occasional silent reader here for a while so maybe I should keep my mouth shut but since the page is clearly marked "BETA" I think I should give my comments:

* The article headline linking is bad, if only for the fact that news sites, blog sites and practically all sites that display stories or news follow a certain "standard", clicking on the article headline takes you to the article page on the same site. This is the behaviour people expect and when a site doesn't follow this, it surprises and quite often annoys visitors. Opening a mailto: is a big no-no!

* The useful links on the right are really cluttered as they are. It's difficult to find anything in there.

* I love the look on the other hand, clean and too the point.

I would have commented on the threaded comments but what was to be my suggestion has already been implemented.

Gulli on 14/11/08 6:01PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Hey I've been almost totally silent for what I guess is around a decade, even though Drobe's been pretty much my first port of call the moment I logged on over all that time. I suppose the lack of Drobe made me realise how much I missed it.

I totally with everything Gulli said (aside from the mouth bit ;-)

. I too appreciate the clear and simple design. Though I would put a dash of colour in the banner on my Christmas list.

wrankin42 on 14/11/08 10:28PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

That was supposed to be "totally agree".

Downside of a simple interface - no preview or editing of posts.

Still, Drobe now seems to run like a hornet on speed compared to it's former "dazed donkey" performance so things are looking up.

wrankin42 on 14/11/08 10:34PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Grey, sorta gives me that Tombstone feeling.... Has the end which the (VOCAL) minority has been calling for, finally arrived? I guess that might be how you define an optimist or a pessimist!

For me, at times my glass is half empty - but, most of the time it is half full.

Saying this, Chris is one of the many RISCOS (ACORN) heroes and hopefully we'll see success in the platform and for the people who have invested so much into it!

The site is nice and clean, lacking colour. But probably appropriate at this time.

Drobe has been a great read - thank you

Hopefully, the WINTEL market has enjoyed the competition and will learn someday from how ACORN saw things. E.g...?

However, something that currently makes me smile is when I see the current GREEN movement in the world of the x86. I wonder if they've considered removing a few cooling fans, AIRCON units...

Finally, when AMD mentioned that the processor hertz isn't the whole picture in terms of performance... it made me think those roses smell good... GRIN.

Flame retardent suit on!

Mac9 on 15/11/08 3:49PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

In reply to Mac9 "Finally, when AMD mentioned that the processor hertz isn't the whole picture in terms of performance... it made me think those roses smell good... "

I hear Microsoft are looking at Windows versions 1-3 for inspiration for the user interface for Windows 7!

sa110 on 15/11/08 8:56PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

The Windows interface is a pile of pants and I've been forced to use it since version 3.1 and never seen anything to make me think otherwise. That said the new icon...err...taskbar looks a tad familiar, though still not good enough.

People do seem to have realised that having high stats in your computer isn't the whole picture - interface is also important. More and more people now know that there is an alternative to Windows - Mac and even Linux are at least "heard of".

The rise of netbooks is broadening peoples minds. Thanks to the EeePC my mother and girlfriend are both now using Linux - You don't know how stunned I am. These are people who panic if you change the theme on Windows from blue to silver.

I showed my girlfriend a photo of RISC OS emulated on the EeePC. She thought it looked cool and would like to try it out. Miracles happen. (Got to get those ROMs!)

With the reduction in price of computers that just a few years ago would have been considered powerhouses we have more flexibility. Combmine that with colaborative projects over the net and high speed internet....

Hey...that glass is looking fuller by the minute!

wrankin42 on 15/11/08 9:34PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

To Drobe

The bits of colour look nice. Takes away the "toombstone look", someone mentioned earlier. Makes the site look much more current.

sa110 on 16/11/08 9:42PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Your site is much faster than before. It really was getting overloaded and tired. If you've got any PHP-MySQL site optimisation techniques you can suggest, throw them my way. A lot of my sites are on shared hosting plans at Fasthosts, and some of them break down when they have too much to do :-(

sascott on 17/11/08 9:52AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Do as little in PHP as possible, and as much in the database. Get it to work for you. Make sure you have sensible indexes. Profile your queries and your PHP.

rjek on 17/11/08 10:39AM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

the clear new Drobe interface now extended with some rare colour looks very good. And thanx again to the Drobe Team for the revitalisation of this site

tinopeners on 17/11/08 12:05PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Oh yeah!

Now Drobe's really back in town!

:-)

wrankin42 on 17/11/08 9:26PM
[ Reply | Permalink | Report ]

Please login before posting a comment. Use the form on the right to do so or create a free account.

+++ Message board +++

Read messages or start a new thread

Search the archives

Today's featured article

It's the Music, Man
It comes from not-so-far away

14 comments, latest by cynic on 3/2/05 7:59PM. Published: 18 Aug 2004

Random article

Porting free for all as UPP releases tools
Development kit roundup

6 comments, latest by jmb on 30/9/03 6:18PM. Published: 28 Sep 2003

Create a new account
Forgot your password?

Useful links

News and media:
Iconbar • MyRISCOS • ArcSite • RISCOScode • ANS • C.S.A.Announce • Archive • Qercus • RiscWorld • Drag'n'Drop • GAG-News

Top developers:
RISCOS Ltd • RISC OS Open • MW Software • R-Comp • Advantage Six • VirtualAcorn

Dealers:
CJE Micros • APDL • Castle • a4 • X-Ample • Liquid Silicon • Webmonster

Usergroups:
WROCC • RONE • NKACC • IRUG • SASAUG • ROUGOL • RONWUG • MUG • WAUG • GAG • RISCOS.be

Useful:
RISCOS.org.uk • RISCOS.org • RISCOS.info • Filebase • Chris Why's Acorn/RISC OS collection • NetSurf

Non-RISC OS:
The Register • The Inquirer • Apple Insider • BBC News • Sky News • Google News • xkcd • diodesign

© 1999-2009 The Drobe Team. Some rights reserved, click here for more information
Powered by MiniDrobeCMS, based on J4U | Statistics
"Every once in a while I get the impression that sometimes the things published on Drobe are not 100% accurate"
Page generated in 0.1242 seconds.