Slow Forum

[iGotNoTime]

I can certainly handle days between replies and such, I am only curious though... Why is the forum so slow? Is it because this frontend is dying? Or is it because it is just a newer concept to the general public?

What can be done to revive it a bit?

[Colby]

Who says its slow?
And this concept isnt that new. Actually Xlobby has been around since 01 or o2 or so. This frontend may be dying not because of its technology, only because others are copying. The big slow in this is that, Steven Hanna is a one man show. When he programs it moves. The other thing is that once people get their setup working, they sit back and enjoy it. Why tinker with what works?

You want to "revive" Xlobby. Invent something.

[galileo2000]

Who says its slow?
And this concept isnt that new. Actually Xlobby has been around since 01 or o2 or so. This frontend may be dying not because of its technology, only because others are copying. The big slow in this is that, Steven Hanna is a one man show. When he programs it moves. The other thing is that once people get their setup working, they sit back and enjoy it. Why tinker with what works?

You want to "revive" Xlobby. Invent something.

..Invent something.. this is the key..

I first ownloaded XL pn Dec 31 2005.

I took me around 3 weeks, and now XL does everything I wanted it do do. I have Internet remote control, control of my Sony 400 DVD changers etc.

On the other hand, XL is pretty much disorganized. There are no centralized points for the information. New releses, plugins, skins etc. All depends on one man. His name is Steven.

At thispoint I would rather see it as commercial enterprise. XL is much much better than anything else I've ever seen as a software front-end.

[dalanik]

Yes, development is done only by Steven, but we get a lot of plugins form other people... XScript, XVis, XEvent, just to mention a few, without which I can't imagine XLobby anymore...

[iGotNoTime]

Please let me assure you all I meant nothing rude by it. I can certainly understand the releases being slow and such since the majority of the work is a one man show. I was only posting in reference of the forums themselves. There do not seem to be many active topics. But it could just be due to a lower membership rate than other forums I am more used to. Also I can certainly see the idea about people getting setup and not having anything more to do with the forum after they are running.

I can't invent. I don't know C or Visual Basic. But have you ghuys ever used any mobile (as in car) PC's and their frontends? For example there is a forum I hit about once a week to keep my car's pc up to date with cool plugins and so forth, but those forums usually don't any more than 30 minutes between posts.

Maybe some coders could use some ideas from them? If you are curious here. Anyway I just wanted to clarify that I didn't mean what I said in an offensive way at all. I do appreciate all everyone here does and has done. I have really tried other systems and for a one man show this is the very best of it all. My last option was installing WMC, thank god I found this before I did that!

[Vaporware]

Part of the problem is advertising and another part is installation/documentation. I think if more people knew about this software and the forum it would help. This software is geared more to the DYI geek type automation junkie. (no offense meant to anyone here). For the last couple of years I have been toying with going to Homeautomation for a new house I am building. I started with a simple package from HAL and looked at Homeseer and at a nicer front end for these packages from cinemaronline.com. The cost really add up. It was just by accident I ran across something in the Homeseer forum about Xlobby. I used google to search for Xlobby and downloaded it last week. It seems really good once you set it up. The hard part is to get it setup correctly. For instance it was not really clear that you need to download and install Xlobbypre2 so I just download Xlobby2 and it promptly crashed. At this point most people would just walk away. I looked around the forum and found I needed Xlobbypre2 and xlobby2 installed. To be honest these should be in ONE package. I then tried to add BB's great skin. It came up with a black screen. I dug around the documentation a bit more and discovered the files did not get placed in the correct location. Finally got that fixed. Showed the wife and she likes the front end. Having a good WAF is good. Next I tried to install TV as I have a TV tuner card. Discoverd the hard way that my ATI-Radeon 5700 does not work with the sytem. Now Xlobby crashed with a error report request to MS. Solution add another video card that is supported. Still have to get that or do a fresh install of xlobby. Also there does not to be any central point for downloading everything from skins to tv support. Things that would help push this great software.

1. Better installation method.
2. Slight better documentation.
3. All parts, including plugins, skins, etc, in one place instead of scatter in the forum messages.
4. Having a pay for support method. That way people that are not geeks can implement Xlobby.
5. Adding of new features like direct RS-232 control
6. More user promotion in other forums.

Just my 2c worth
Tom

[iGotNoTime]

Wow I feel for you, that really sucks to have gone through all that! Some would be pleased to know mine was a simple installation a couple clicks and it was running perfectly. Customizing it not as easy as I thought it would be but I am learning. I am happy Steve was thoughtful enough to put the internal skin editor in it.

I am all for point number 4! I would gladly pay for help, it is a great idea. I would even pay for skins! LOL

I think the more I am reading that number 6 is the biggest issue. The fact that it's free should be enough for everyone to consider it. Windows Media Center is not a pretty option. It is sooooo limited in comparison.

[Colby]

I would even pay for skins! LOL

I am game. I will skin for money!

[iGotNoTime]

Can you make your skin like the burlwood skin, for like $2 maybe?

[Colby]

Can you make your skin like the burlwood skin, for like $2 maybe?

yeah.
but it will only have a background and one button.