It seems that every time there is a glitch with the 3D Warehouse or Extension Warehouse, there appear multiple reports on this forum. Usually, all but the first report has a reply saying “this has already been reported” - and I end up spending (wasting) a lot of time because I choose to look at ALL new postings.
Might there be a way for the forum to have a header on the entry page (forums.sketchup.com) that SketchUp personnel can post current status of various services including the 3DWH, EW, and perhaps apps.sketchup.com?
With this, the first SketchUp employee to see a forum post reporting a problem can put something like “Login problems reported for <service>”.
Then, when the appropriate people have been notified, they could then change it to: <Short description of problem> with is confirmed, we’re working on it" – update (when known) with estimated time of service restoration.
Finally, when service restored, remove any mention of the problem service.
I don’t know if this is possible, nor what would need to be done administratively at SketchUp/Trimble to get it working - with the proper people having authority, but I like the concept!
I don’t think that would help. The idea is to have something front and center whenever someone comes to the forum to report a problem - and (hopefully) to negate their NEED to report a problem.
It’s WAAAAY too big to embed at the top of the forum, and it doesn’t cover the Extension Warehouse, nor web based SketchUp.
I don’t know about most cases, but right now the only people who seem to post problems (except the first) are the people who can’t be bothered (or don’t know how) to search forum posts. My idea will (IMHO) deter at least some of those people (the ones who DO read) by putting the information front and center.
First off, there is actually a dedicated forum category for stuff like this …
The problem is readers don’t look there, and staff doesn’t seem to use the category much at all.
Users are posting in the Warehouse issues category …
I like the idea (of notifications) but there is plenty of room in the margins for announcements.
Main issue is that the forums are hosted by Discourse.org, so this may need a plugin.
There are sometimes warning banners on the top of SketchUp Help Center site pages.
The EWv2 is now running on the common Warehouse backend.
Since it’s web-based it can just display a “Oopsie Panda” page.
That may be so - I bow to your knowledge of it. However, users think of the EW and 3DW as separate services, so I think any alert of problems should treat them separately.
And as far as the Known Issues category goes, as you say, few people check it and the staff doesn’t use it. Asking forum users - especially NEW forum users who, perhaps, just joined in order to report the problem, to have any clue that they should go to a specific category is just wishful thinking (as is expecting new users to know to search!)
If you made a great big banner that covered the whole page and flashed red people would still somehow close it and post that their world was coming to an end because the free thing that worked with the free software wasn’t doing what they wanted instantly for free. And was therefore costing them money.