Introducing Synthiam, in beta mode!

Awesome work on the new site Ez-robot team! Or is it the Synthiam team now? I'm super excited to see what this new site brings to the world of robotics, and the features which may arise in the future!

Thanks man! We're pretty stoked as well - half of us are Synthiam, and the other have is EZ-Robot focused on education with the product. Synthiam is going to focus on the DIY makers and the ARC software. We're going to expand the software to support more products soon as well :D

We're just finishing the migration and busy making sure there's no bugs. New functionality is being added to the site daily over the next few weeks - it's going to be exciting :D

This is exciting for sure.  I'm hoping to be part of it! Yay, edit is working.

Looking forward to the future, thank you.

Great work on the move to Synthiam DJ and team. There is a wealth of information in the old community forum and the links in the threads that point to other threads are extremely valuable.  Would be great if there was a redirection or a search and replace so all the links in the migrated community point to the same records in the new community forum.

Congratulations to the EZ Robot team! I look forward to everything that Synthiam will become, its opportunities and the advancements in robotics.

There’s complete redirection for backward compatible support. There’s new search functionality that we’ll be adding with a lot of new features. Just wait and see :D

to be honest,i am in a chock,my first thing i felt was ,i miss the old community allreddy. i dont like big changes.whit all updates on ARC,i feel myself going backwarts insteadt of going forwarts. i am a very slow and diff learner.i am allreddy behind.soon i will not be able to follow . but hey,you cant stop progress.congrats dj&team.

Congratulations to DJ and the new Synthiam team, it will take some time to get to know Synthiam. so hang in there.  <3

Thanks! There's a ton of stuff missing on here that was on the old site - but that's on the todo board, so we're working on it. It's fun because it feels like we're starting over but with a ton of content :D

This will separate your DIY initiatives from the education customers - so there's focus to build robots here. You asked for it, you got it :)

Wow so far looks good ,different and excited to see this happening and what you got coming in the near future!:)

that should have been: tje password *reset email links to... So we lost the ability to edit posts.  And no "clear formatting" button so copy pasting almost anything results in a HTML mess.

I know, it says "beta", so Im beta testing :)

I like the concept of a new place for us builders and the energy. Was also very excited for new software and ability to run with Arduino and Raspberry Pi

P.S.S. from above - does this editor not support paragraphs, line editing or carriage reviews? That was a perfectly formatted post I just made that got crushed into one ugly wall of text. This is painful

P.s.s.s - no ability to edit previous posts?

Well this is beta, so hopefully some ironing out is instore. The ability to edit posts is a must. I edit 10 times a post.

OK, so far so good. This is a nice start. I know it's been a lot of work to get to this point. I won't dwell on the changed things I don't like and enjoy what we have and also look forward to promised additions. This formatt will a learning curve and it will take a little while to feel like home again. Just like moving into a new house. LOL. No one likes change except a wet baby. However, an adventure, now that's an entirely different thing. :)

Looking forward for the road ahead! :)

@Perry_S Please revert back to the original message because those are coming this year - as explained they will come in 2019. A few million lines of code doesn't change and rewrite itself over night :D

Not to jump the gun as I’m sure you are working out formatting still with the website, but on my iPhone 8 this is how a thread looks: As well, the news button and other buttons on the footer tend to wander up and block content. Just in case it wasn’t noticed yet! Do you have a list of deadlines or anything of that sorts yet @DJ? No pressure just excited.

There's a long list of these things - incase we miss something, dont worry about sharing your experience.

WOW!!  I'm impressed! Great job moving the site over and it's exciting to see how this split up goes.  As I'm learning the lay of the land here....

Will someone please tell me, what was the 2nd Easter Egg now??  lol  I saw "Synthiam" on the Inmoov's chest, but what was the other egg??  It's killing me guys!!!  :blink:

Remember how i kept mentioning the easter eggs were influenced by my love for ready player one? And then i suggested that the second easter egg is a combination of the first and second?

I think DIY folks are going to find it hard to collaborate in this format.

@Zap Brannigan what do you find troubling with the new format?

As a member since 2013 (I believe), I have loved this place and check-in probably 6-8 times a day (I'm a retired old fart with nothing else to do you see). Heck, EZ Robot Community is even my home page ... lol. This post is only to give feed back to EZ Robot. I'll not write my full opinions but this web design is not working for me. It's too complicated with too much to look at. The old forums where easy to read and get around in. It's a beautiful site but not for a forums. Also, I believe new DIY's will come to the website and just click out being too congested. KISS theory!

Forgive me if I hurt anyones feelings. Just my feed back.

Herr Ball

Please

:(herr ball

i too see it not so positive eather.the old version you could see some contact adres or a youtube channel. all your own post is gone.as for now it feels like a death site.am still looking for the EZ blue color ,lol dont like the pink color.its so quite here,no sound.

That won't be gone for long . People's profiles will be back online shortly - with a ton of additional functionality. No need to waste valuable energy on worrying

I have a suggestion. Simply put, its called the power of three. Its ancient and proven. I suggest that the page display only three columns instead of 4. I would make the same suggestion for the videos that are produced, where you have a 4 camera set up and the video shows all 4, make that only three.

The power of three:

The human mind actually enjoys thinking in patterns. In fact, we naturally look for and create patterns everyday, in everything we do. An example of this idea is within our language where adjectives are often grouped together in threes in order to emphasize an idea.

The Rule of Three is relevant because the number three is the lowest figure that can be used to form patterns in our mind. This is important, because the first instance of something occurring, always comes down to chance; the second instance is considered a coincidence; while the third instance is perceived as a pattern.

Proponents of the Rule of Three state that things are more engaging, satisfying and more effectively presented when using this rule.[b] In fact, it is said that an audience is more likely to consume and absorb any type of information presented to them when it is grouped into threes. Push that marginally up to four and the brain gets confused about where to look and what to do and sends the eye scampering like a frisky puppy on a sunny day.

Bring back <first><previous><last> Nav links to discussions. RSS feeds not working

As I continue to buzz around I am starting to generate questions that I hope you can answer about the Synthiam split, SS for short :). The intro video seemed a bit vague and I as I'm sure many more here would like a longer more detailed video, where perhaps you can explain your vision for Synthiam short medium and long term goals, who is staying with EZ Robot and who is going to Synthiam...altho I think I have a pretty good guess.

Also will the live camera feed come back from EZ Robot? Or will there be another feed from elsewhere? I cant help but notice the twitter feed for Synthiam lists the company in San Francisco. Will Sythiam be physically located in San Fran?

Inquiring minds want to know... I'm surprised many of the old timers haven't asked yet, but some seem to be in shock So, Ill see if I can get the ball rolling.

Firstly - tsk tsk for creating a new thread on this conversation. It belongs here That's why i made this thread, so let's keep things organized.

Synthiam is in beta mode - and all your feedback is necessary because this is our new home and we'll continue tweaking it for what makes us productive robot builders. The good news is that everything you've asked for in this thread is already in-development or on the todo list. You're seeing features being added a few times per day because we have someone working on it full time.

To answer your question of why - well, that's not a question i think that i need to answer because you've all been asking for it :)

EZ-Robot turned into a company that produces great revenue selling robots to education customers to learn about technology. The messaging is completely different than the DIY community, which was pushed to the back of the old website. This was explained in detail in my original "The future is" post.

Synthiam is a new company - but not a new idea. It's precisely what you think it is - and you already suspected the answers, so i don't have much to add. Instead, I can validate your perspective, though. I created Synthiam to be a flourishing place to support DIY builders and the companies who are in talks about licensing the ARC software for their hardware.

It's no secret that ARC is leaps beyond usability of any alternatives (i.e. ROS). Hiding this community to the back of an education focused website was not growing the community. It was doing the opposite, and adding to the mixed messaging.

The messaging between EZ-Robot and Synthiam have very different outcomes...

EZ-Robot sells robots to customers who wish to learn about technology using robots

Synthiam supports a community of creators who wish to build robots from their imagination without mucking about with complicated C++ code

It can't get any more clear than that :). As a CEO of a great revenue generating business, I had to make a decision...

1. Drop the DIY community and focus 100% on education sales
2. Build the DIY to a new home that's specific to the DIY needs and let EZ-Robot focus 100% on education sales

Option #2 is A LOT MORE WORK as a CEO, but option #2 is always something I enjoy. It's why we're all here - it's why we know each other - it's what holds us together. I'm not letting that go! I also have a great COO with a ton of experience managing operations of a hardware company, so that helps the EZ-Robot division and allows me to focus on Synthiam with you.

While this is a new home, and new colors, and new website - the real only challenge I predicted is adjustment to a website change. But, to overcome that challenge, I launched this in Beta Mode so you all have the opportunity to present asks of what you missed about the old website so we can continue adjusting it to fit your needs. And that is exactly what's happening.

We're making 3 rows instead of 4. We're adding tags to link things together. We're adding twitch calendar so people can schedule live build sessions so we can hang out online together. We're merging plug-ins with controls so they're in the same place. We're linking tutorials into an organized filter with better search. We're allowing comments on EVERYTHING. We will be allowing unsubscribe notifications from threads. The list is very very long...

Over the next 3-4 weeks, this place is going to amazing. And the best part about it? IT'S NOT DANGLING OFF THE BACK OF A EDUCATION COMPANY'S WEBSITE ANY MORE!

10 Celebrate 20 goto 10

Bravo. That’s what a lot of us wanted to hear! There is nothing more exciting than to start a new adventure on the foundation of another that you’ve built! And if it’s not somewhat difficult, what’s the challenge? Build it and they will come.

I’ve shouted from the highest mountains that nothing is as easy and powerful as a platform than EZ Robots products. I’ve for one have shown your products are more than child’s play. And now you are about to prove that in a big way with Synthiam.

I am reinvigorated about robotics and look forward to everything that this site will be in the future weeks months years.

...and Terry is a great guy, you are in good hands.. but you already know that.

...now I feel like we need a branded quote for Synthiam like up up and away or um to the knights of the round table or errr back to the future, or I’ll be back, get to the choppers?

Outstanding insight as usual. Thanks for sticking in there for us DIY people.

It would be nice to have direct links back to the ez website. Particularly the store.

Speaking of the Store, will there be one dedicated to this site? Maybe some additional gadgets that wouldn't be of interest to the educational EZ-Robot store?

Speaking of the Store, will there be one dedicated to this site? Maybe some additional gadgets that wouldn't be of interest to the educational EZ-Robot store?

There won’t be a store on synthiam,  but something similar. Ezrobot does make great hardware. It also makes amazing controllers like the ezb. But there’s also a ton of other great hardware companies making amazing stuff. These other hardware companies have been emailing us for years asking if we’d support their hardware (like Robotis). We couldn’t really do that at the time because ARC was directly connected to ezrobot, and that caused conflict.

With the separation of the two, ARC development is hardware agnostic - meaning we’re now focusing development on any specific hardware. Instead ARC will support everything we can get our hands on!

The hardware section of this website is going to change with a huge massive library of all hardware that we support - and you’ll be able to add to it. So if you make a skill control (plugin) for some hardware, you can define that hardware and a link where to buy it.

In the future will EZB still be a free download?

@DJ that is what I've been searching for.....that is another game changer...you will have a huge adoption by so many companies. NOW i'm getting excited. Thank you for that explanation.

@herr ball, I don’t know what the far future holds. But for now, it’s free to use - with intent to give a soul to as many robots as possible

Oh and I didn’t answer the question about cameras - we are definitely adding them back. Working out where they should be put

Great to hear!!! Seeing the fundamentals of the business workings creates a synergy..yup i said synergy...

Haha yes you sure did! I laugh but I also agree.

@DJ Thanks for the expanded explanation. That helps a lot but I am still confused a bit by the split. Will the software now split? For example, the EZR software we have been using will stay blue and support EZRobot, while the new  Synthiam pink software is what the DIY crowd will use?

Maybe pink and blue shirts on the webcam so we can tell the teams apart, jk.

Hi DJ, Just reading through the threads and I have some quick questions.

1. Is Synthiam in part owned by Microsoft or do any of the management, directors or employees of Microsoft own any shares or stake in Synthiam?

2. Will synthiam or software developed by Synthiam be a software application that will be sold for purchase either as a SaaS based licence or downloadable software in the future?

3. Will any addons or community developed  software or plugins be included in any commercially available version of Synthiam or in any other software or service developed by Synthiam in the future?

4. Do you have a future business model or plans to generate revenue for Synthiam or is this new venture purely an altureistic philanthropic organization?

The software is being skinable for all uses. Including partner companies that wish to use it for their products. What you’ll see in the upcoming releases is an initial menu that allows you to select an existing product to work with, and the colors will accommodate their theme.

Otherwise, you can also design your own theme

We’re modifying the software right now that makes it very very amazing and different. It’ll compile binary applications as well, so you can make real apple AppStore apps or google play store apps etc

A few other things as well - this upcoming year is going to rock your world

Whhooooo all of a sudden everything turned pink!!! :D

I like to see this fresh makeover for the DIY part...let's make ourselfs at home here!! ;)

Oh yeah I'm moving in... moving my big comfy couch in over there :)

:) BETA mode comment: You probably know this and have on the list. But:

The emotion insert tool isn't working well. It inserts the emoji at the top of the post and won't format it into what you see on the drop down list. When you do get this working it will be an improvement to the old method.

On the old system it would always insert the emoji at the end of the comment no matter where you have the cursor. If you wanted it somewhere besides the end of the comment you would have to cut and paste it where you wanted it. Any way you could make it so the emoji is inserted where you place the cursor?

People love emojis. I know I do.  :)

Yes i agree and this is for anything you insert including images and links. Placing the inserts where cursor is makes more since..currently have to drag it to position.

Could I also suggest reversing the Release Notes in the Software Section? It would be more convenient to see the latest release notes at the top of the feed instead of having to scroll all the way to the bottom to find it.

dave

i like moving emoticons.

@fxrtst

"Oh yeah I'm moving in... moving my big comfy couch in over there :)" Me thinks, even if I move my big comfy couch in here it would still not make me feel comfortable :(

Maybe its just because change scares me, who knows? Its like going to get ice cream and my wife talks me into getting something new and I hate it. Why didn't I just stick with chocolate, its perfect, why change ... lol. Sorry but I get this sense of doom here. Loved EZ Robot just the way it was but DJ says this is a good thing for us DIY'ers. We can only have faith in DJ that this is better for us and that he will not forget the ones who were there at the start.

Don't really like to be proven wrong but in this case ... Please DJ prove me wrong in the future. I will be the first in line to say, you were right, we needed that change.

Thanks for letting me rant. My thoughts on the matter have been said and I await (and hope) to be proven wrong ... lol.

@herr ball. I hear you. I used to hate change. Then i got into the film industry were you had to roll with the changes that happened minute to minute, if you didn't adapt to change you would be left behind.

But here, I think the change happened abruptly, without a transition time, and a few are left feeling unsure and unsettled. There is not only a visual change but a business direction change as well.

I will say this. I haven't seen DJ this excited in awhile. And if he is excited, he is motivated. If he is motivated, then only great, amazing, fantastical things will appear. We can all reflect on the past track record to gauge the potential for the future endeavors he has in store.

I believe this change will usher in another foundation for robotics. That kinda change, even if it feels uncomfortable for awhile, will definitely bring great benefits for the DIY community in the long run.

is it not posile to change your icon?

Not yet, nomad - but it's coming!

the waiting part is ggggrrrr,lol

Are you all ready for another web update tonight?

My brain thanks you! Each box is easier to read as well, images bigger and clearer text.

I did just have a first here tho. I got an error "cannot post not long enough". Is there a word limit imposed? Sometimes I just say "Yay!"

I think the word limit is the same as the old website. Which is like 50 characters or something?

@DJ, I would love to see the 3D printing community evolve to something more the level of Thingiverse, where we can post and share 3d robot parts(in .sld, .stl, other formats) and also download, modify, or request a print, maybe with integrated payment options? The 3d printing community really didn't offer much in its old form, so I'd love to see it become useful in Synthiam!

Interesting - what if there was an integration with thingiverse. Where the files are stored on thingiverse but accessible through synthiam.com? Or, are you thinking it would be useful to charge for your files? Is there another service out there that allows people to charge for their files?

Or lastly, what if it was service based. And you could charge other users for your service?

3D hub was excellent for this. It connected 3d printing folks with customers based on location all over the world. This year they discontinued it to average Joe and only companies/corp can provide the service. Not sure why.

I'm not familiar with many other services than Thingiverse, but I believe their layout is very intuitive and could be adjusted for the Synthiam focus. I would like to see users be able to:

1. Upload designs
2. Comment on said designs
3. Download/modify and give credit
4. Charge for the printing of the part if requested. Perhaps you could have it tiered, where you could opt for your design to be free use, or pay for use. Pay for use would require a fee to download the file, free use would add it to the cloud for anyone to access, much like Thingiverse does now. Designs could also be updated, not reposted, allowing those who are learning to get comments and revise their design.

I have a suggestion for the website having read the 3D printing idea which I thought was awesome. I feel if the intent is to cater to the DIY crowd there should be a full robot DIY scheme to it. Not just the controller. For example, nice DIY sites I have seen would have sections broken down into categories like this

Controllers sub group or discussions Software sub group or discussions Actuators  sub groups or discussions Power Supplies  Sensors

and on and on.

In the current format there is no way to look for specific question in specific fields. I would like to click on a group for sensors and only see discussions about sensors.

Perry

Hey Perry - we've designed the database for something similar. I'm avoiding having a traditional messy category style forum and instead there will be something like tags that are assigned to relate all content together. You'll see what i mean as it slowly develops over the next while. You may not have noticed but there's new features to this website added every two days in the evening between 5-6 pm. Some are minor tweaks but others are larger.

Soon all hardware will be related through a new interface as well. Plus a bunch of new hardware we're adding to the software, and some other goodies :)

Thanks DJ. I am noticing changes here and there. Lots of plugin work as well.  Anxious for the 'bunch of new hardware' part.

To be clear, if I’ll be quoted, it should be as stated a bunch of new hardware added to the software

Synthiam will never make hardware. Instead, as I mentioned before, we’ll add support for as much hardware as we come across. For EZ-Robot specific hardware questions, you can contact them through the website at www.ez-robot.com

To whom it may concern.

I am having a little problem with the "Search" section here.

Go to the search box (top left of page) and type something in, lets say "Speakers". Click on go. It will then take you to a page with all the search results for Speakers. Click on any box to see one result. The next step is where I am having trouble. If you click on the "go back one page button, on the browser", it takes you to the main Synthiam page. How do I go back to the search page with all the search blocks?

@Herr Ball  Until this is fixed (or in case it isn't), if you hit control (or command on a mac) when you click a link, it will open the results in a separate browser tab, so your results will still be open in the initial tab.

Alan

Snapfish had a sale on photo mugs and I love coffee so I present my "Synthiam Coffee mug" to help get my robot creativity going!

justin

cant open the link.

Me either.  It's not a link.  I added a picture from the "Insert File" option and I see the picture if I edit my post...but it does not display after that.  I can't control that.

aha okay same here.

What do you mean it doesn’t appear? Are you pressing the save button? What’s the file name? That’s really weird hmm

DJ - I did hit submit for my post.   The file name of the picture displays funny in my post and does not display the picture I uploaded.  But if I click on "Edit Comment" I can see my picture just fine.

Here is what I noticed about the picture..., it displays an error icon and the link to directory /uploads/user/42BFE370BCF96F7B1FE7BD9C6679505D/ijcdnfhz.jpg but that is not a complete hyperlink.

If I manually go to https://synthiam.com/uploads/user/42BFE370BCF96F7B1FE7BD9C6679505D/ijcdnfhz.jpg I can see the picture I uploaded.  Not sure DJ.

Hmmm that's really crazy. Let me try with your photo...

Crazy - it seems to work for me but not you. I am at a loss to why. But before i continue to diagnose the problem, i have to say that is the coolest mug i've ever seen!!! Where did you get that? How did you do that? That looks so good!

Thanks DJ!!  I snagged the art work from here and made a custom photo 15oz mug from https://www.snapfish.com At the time they had a sale on custom photo mugs for $1.99 and my first thought was, "I need a Synthiam coffee cup!!" :-)   That logo and artwork really POPs on a mug!

it sure does! I might have to get one for myself as well :D

Big-Hands-Robot.gif your coffee will taste very good.

Justin, I am not above stealing a good idea. You wanna share those graphic files?

I miss the country ID of members. Why didn't they come across to this new forum? Any way to get them back? I's great fun knowing what country people are from that your working with.

Dave - they came across, they're only displayed in the user's profile at the moment by clicking the user's username. There is an updated design from our creative team that will be implemented in the next 2 weeks. There's also a home page and getting started design coming as well. Following that will be the ability to tag posts to controls and hardware.

You may not notice but every day at around 5:00 PM Mountain time there's a website update with changes. There's someone working full time on updates to get this fine tuned.

Sweet. Thanks for the info.

Actually I have noticed a lot of changes over the weeks. Some subtle, some dazzling.

Thanks for all the hard work.

Just adding this as a note, on iPhone the comment box takes up the entire screen, and triggers when you touch anywhere in it, even while scrolling on the page. It’s just a little irritating to get trapped unable to scroll up the page because the comment box is triggered.

What iphone do you have? We'll have to adjust for various screen sizes

Yes I can confirm this on my iPhone 6 Plus.

iPhone 8 ios 12. Simply changing the code so the comment section doesn't go to type mode until you intentionally click on it would help. But the section is rather large, and the iPhone zooms in awkwardly when you start to type making matters worse. Just constructive criticism!

Yeah - i noticed that as well. It does seem to zoom awkward and not quite centered. Amin will see this and look into it i'm sure

It's better now. No zooming and a full screen button to use all the space on your screen.

Hi Dj,

How about adding, to the Shortcut list, a link to an Index of all The Robot Program episodes? It would be nice to be able to easily find certain programs quickly, rather than scrolling thru. If the title is unknown, scrolling thru all of them is the only way to find the one wanted. If listed by episode, it would be easy to update.

I work with 2 students doing STEM projects who would benefit from such a list.

Let me know if there is an easy way already in place, and I just missed it.

Ron

The ezrobot robot program episodes are for ezrobot products and not related with DIY. To Access the robot program episode for your ezrovot product, visit www.ez-robot.com and select the learn section and your product.

Think of it this way... you don’t visit Microsoft’s forum to ask how to use adobe photoshop. Instead, you visit adobe’s website to learn their product. Think of ARC as being windows and ezrobot as being adobe.

There’s a number of other hardware products being supported and you will use the manual of their website.

Ron and DJ bring up good points on this.  So the primary communication method with EZ-Robot we all had was this community which got ported over to Synthiam (which is awesome) but back at the sister (or mother) company EZ-Robot how would a customer like Ron offer that feedback on the Robot Program?  Because I just went to the community link there and my options are to either come here to Synthiam or engage for technical assistance with an EZ-Robot product, from that stand point...I would conclude here at Synthiam is still a good place to communicate "community" and "general" EZ-Robot chat.

I do understand what you are saying and promoting with the separation DJ and I probably can't under many of the nuance related to that, but I understand you'd be pointing out my conclusion is wrong - I just wanted to share my own confusion on it too.

It's simple - the previous forum was never a way to communicate to the education arm of ez-robot, so i'm not sure why anyone would ask about education questions on here now. Use the ez-robot Contact Us page if you wish to contact EZ-Robot regarding their product or education content. Otherwise, use synthiam for your DIY and robot programming software. Never has the previous forum had anything to do with The Robot Program episodes or education or teaching. The previous forum was entirely DIY but buried in the back of an education company website.

EZ-Robot is an education company that sells robots to schools to teach students. If you wish to contact EZ-Robot, use the Contact Us on www.ez-robot.com. The old forum was all of you DIY makers buried in the back of an education product company website.

Synthiam is for us, the hackers and makers of the DIY community with ARC. Synthiam Inc. is actually the parent company.

8-)Great points DJ...."So say we all!"  I always wanted to say that, one of the cool phrases Adama used in Battlestar Galactica 2004

We were talking about battle star galactica at the office this past week - and i was surprised to hear no one else had seen it! it as such an iconic series that i assumed everyone had seen it. funny enough, when it was on tv, everyone i knew was watching it but i refused to because i didn't like tv. a few years later (circa 2011) i started watching it - that's when i lost my life to it! lol i would binge watch episodes

Ya I still have much respect for the actor that played Commander Adama Edward James Olmos, he had to step in to the shoes of Lorne Green the original Commander but did an amazing job. Funny thing as ,earlier today I was chatting with the guy who built the Original Cylon suit for the museum scene in the 2004 pilot episode. He is building me the Chrome head so I can build an EZ-B original Cylon centurian to keep the Terminator company,Yes I am spending money like crazy to have my 2 favorite robots come to reality.Call me crazy but I am a huge Fan of both.

Hey guys, just one thing I realized that would make this better... Whenever I am receiving mail that there is content that I subscribed to over at Synthiam, I get to read the latest few comments. Which is very nice, but mostly there are quiet a bit that i miss, so I will have to load all the old comments and scroll all the way down just to see the two ones I missed! Its no great deal, but adding an option for previous five comments or something could be nice?

I am excited about all the changes and future additions to Synthiam.

I have one improvement I would like to see. Is there a back button?  I can’t go back unless I select the category again. This sends me back to the top of the page. I then have to scroll back down the page to were I was. Surly I am missing something.

Thanks fou all the work and improvements.

Ellis

Ellis - the web dev has actually been working on that now. Stay tuned :)

DJ, Can we get back the feature to view the list of community members?  I am trying to find some posts by a user, but I don't remember how he spells his name other than it starts with an E.  (trying to answer Ellis question about auto-charging.  Another user developed something that worked rather than discussing theoretical, but I can't find the discussion).

Sorry, we never had presented a public list of community members usernames

Was pretty sure you did, but maybe it was just the lists of top contributors and other stats pages I am thinking of.   I know I used that to find some users to look at their posts.

Oh - that statistic page? Yeah, we can have that re-created. I'll add it to the list for the MORE section. It'll take a while but it'll be on the list :)

alan it was a page with excample most askers questions. and most made apps  and this kind of stuf

....more of a feature request return. I miss the threads having numbered posts. Its nice to be able to refer people to a post #.

...not sure if this is a known issue..but while posting a long post today with pictures. If i maximize the post window while writing....when I fill up that space with pics and writing...once i reach the bottom of that box, the data doesn't scroll up for me to continue adding to it. The cursor disappears below the frame.

I also think that the "other robots you might be interested" in should go at the bottom under the post comment window. Its nice to have for folks just looking around, but i think it detracts from the actual project being show cased. It feels advertizy, I fully expect to see ads for redbull and twix and motor oil in the coming months xD.

Well Synthiam has to pay off somehow...if there would be something decent, I don't think anyone here would mind!! :)

......all my robots are built with RedBull and music by AudioMachine...and maybe a a few candy bars here and there.....I'd click on those links xD;)

I'll build a link clicking bot for support... :D

Hey Will we made changes to the editor. It expands as you type now so it should be easier to work with.

Thank you Amin!

@fxrtst - The purpose of the Other Synthiam Robots on a robot page is to bring awareness to awesome robots you guys have built. Amin's got rid of the description preview to make it much less intrusive. How do you like the change?

Alan, Thanks for asking feedback although the question is directed to @fxrtst :)

to be honest... is really annoying and your question provides the answer "...much less intrusive", so is intrusive less or more is a personal opinion.

I understand the behavior (similar to cross-selling) if you are selling a product not a in a forum post thread.

Sorry if you wanted a different opinion.

I thought you guys would be happy about that feature - because it gives your robots exposure through other robot views. I'm the one who thought of it to help get new visitors seeing more of your robots. You guys made awesome stuff and i want people to see it. But, this is your forum so i'll have it removed if you prefer. Let me know :). Just want you guys to be happy

Thanks for the feedback ptp! As you know from being around for a long time, we value feedback and take it to heart. Your opinions are what shape this business. From the forum features to software updates, we're always listening!

When making changes we consider two groups: Existing users and new users. In this example. existing users may find links to other robots in a forum post thread as distracting or intrusive; meanwhile, new users looking for inspiration and ideas to spur their creativity may find it very helpful. It's a challenging balancing act. For the robot links in a forum post, we are analyzing click info from new and existing users to determine whether the feature is being utilized or not. We also track overall community metrics whenever a change is made to see how engagement changes. If something is added that we thought would be great ends up reducing engagement, we remove it or change it, analyze results and repeat.

Long story short - keep the feedback coming, we value your opinions!

Sorry I caused an irritating rash....I was "suggesting" to move the robot highlights to another location as marked up here in this image. My first reaction is that both the contents are fighting one another... actual posted robot project with images and video vs the  "other robots from....."

I don't think it should be removed.....just relocated towards the bottom of the post. I agree with Alan that there are two groups and I think the "Other robots" is a good idea for the other group who might be visiting and looking at projects, just not smack dab in the middle of a thread. I might even go as far as saying that a new viewer may be distracted by "Other robots..." from reading the actual project posts in the thread.

Again just my opinion. I'd like to hear from others about how they feel about this.

I agree with Will on this.  I would like to see the related robots moved down, either of the locations he suggests would work.  I think under the comments would be best, but if it remains just one row, then between the last and new comment would be OK.

....yeah i lean towards the very bottom too, as it kinda like a footer menu with links to other projects.....

I would like to see it at the bottom too.  I like seeing see the related robots links,  but not in the middle of the post .

okie! Stay tuned - thanks for your feedback everyone

You guys are super fast!!! Much better this way... :)

@Synthiam: Much better, thanks for listening.

Thank you for listening. Much much better.

Thanks.  That is much better.  Particularly on mobile browser.

Anytime This is our place to hang out so i want to make sure we're all on the same page

Indeed, Much better.

Another feature I would like to see is a "Load 10 more previous comments" button.   For instance  I'd have to hit the load 126 more comments button to see the previous 6th or 7th post.  That's a lot of scrolling.

I’d be onboard with that change as well!

The "other robot" pics wasn't an issue with me but I really like the change. Looks neat and easy to figure out now what's what.

I also like the idea of the option of loading only 10 previous posts. Sometimes I cringe when I hit the "Load more Comments" button knowing I'll get an avalanche of posts to look through. It would be nice to just load 10 at a time and move back from there.

You mean you don't want to open and sift through 1920 more comments on @jstarne1 Omnibot-2000-Rad-2-0-Vacuum-Bot-421 thread? :p

I don't think I've ever used the sorted by most discussed drop down. It's amazing how active some of the threads are!

Old comments now load in batches and there's an option to load them all at once for extra convenience! :)

Nice work on the comment loading.  I also really like that we can now "thumb up" posts.  I sometimes want to show appreciation without necessarily writing a response.  That is just what we needed (although I would check if Facebook as trademarked that.  Might want to change it to a star or smile or something). I am going to go out on a limb here and ask for a few more enhancements that are common in other tech support forums and other communities.

I would like to have the site use cookies to know what comments and threads I have read, so I can click on Show New and start up where I left off in a thread and see new topics.  The way it is now, I need to remember where I was, and in active threads, scroll back many pages to catch up (although the batch scrolling helps a lot with that).

I would like to have private messaging, and/or notification if a user name is tagged in a thread.  There are some users who only occasionally participate, but  sometimes I have questions on one of their old discussions and want to make sure they see the question.  I understand reluctance to do private messaging, although many many other boards have managed to offer it, but some way to notify a user that you want them to respond would be helpful.  I personally put my email address in my user profile so that users can reach me, and so far it has not been abused, but not many users do that.

I think I have a few more, but they are escaping my mind right now, so I'll just leave these ones out there.

Alan

So much better now!!! :)

And I would also go thumbs up on @thethechguru if it is a possible option!!

Is anyone else interested in bringing back numbered posts, so you can refer someone to a particular post within a thread?

"Is anyone else interested in bringing back numbered posts, so you can refer someone to a particular post within a thread?"

Yes please.

Alan

I believe Michael Bolton speaks for us all on the subject of numbered posted, "how am I supposed to live without you" :p

Happy comment #141. on this thread cool

It is really sweet to see how you guys are making everyone feel comfortable over here!!! :)

A big thank you!!! So much easier to guide folks to the correct post!

I tried two different computers and my post with a Portuguese expression (in bold) is being translated to Spanish can someone check what is going on: https://synthiam.com/Question/Speech-Recognition-Greeks-17882 post #7 and post #8 (Edit mode snip)

Tips:

1. When applying a filter or a correction please alert the user otherwise is a huge frustration trying to fix the issue.
2. Don't assume PT-BR (Portuguese from Brasil) and PT-PT (Portuguese from Portugal) are the same.
3. Romance/Romanic Languages (French, Italian, Portuguese, Romanian, Spanish) share common words, automatic guess will fail.

@Synthiam, Regarding my last post #144

I was in a rush to a quick post and i end up spending more time... and I forgot something important: Please and Thank You!

@ptp at first I was surprised a little because we don't do any sort of translation. But then I realized what happened: We remove all non-English characters from the input for better formatting / usability.

@Amin, Thanks for the quick feedback ! I imagined a lot of things except obliterating chars.  I guess is more a technology choice and not a formatting / usability issue, unicode is highly availabl although handling Hebrew or Arabic right-to-left can be an usability issue    I rarely write stuff with acute accents (US keyboard), so is not an issue for me.... maybe an issue for your Quebec (French) neighbors. :)

@ptp The website language is English only hence the limitation. But we increased the range to include accent characters for occasions like this. Your post reads fine now :)

@amin Thanks for the support. So no more AI translating Portuguese to Spanish ;)

I think all would agree there is a ton of info on these forums. But I find myself going back to say the same 25 threads that may apply to a project I'm working on.

Instead of creating bookmarks in my browser...how about a "Favorites" button that will save those under our account? It could be anything we would like to save there like threads or most used controls in the manual etc.

Anyone else think this would be a good idea or of value?

Quote:

Instead of creating bookmarks in my browser...how about a "Favorites" button that will save those under our account? It could be anything we would like to save there like threads or most used controls in the manual etc. 

I can totally see the value of that feature. How about a page in user account that lists all the previously "Thumbed Up" content for the user?

That too would work equally as well.

I would like to suggest that we have one more shortcut category for starting a new post.  Something like "Discussion".

Sometimes users post links to interesting robot articles or deals on mini-PCs or other useful robot parts or just post about ideas that are not yet robot projects, but are not really questions either, just topics of discussion. There doesn't seem to be a good category to start these in.  They aren't questions, new robot projects, controls, live events or tutorials.   Closest I would use now I guess is question, and I would just add "What do you all think" to the end of the post, but that feels like cheating :)

Alan

Agree @thetechguru sometimes you are just looking for input or have a discussion on something interesting.  Question is really HOW DO I? Versus working on this or saw this and looking for input and ideas.

We optimized the community section based on most popular features of the old. There were less than .1% of general discussion and the 99+% questions on the previous forum.

Now you can review the contents you have liked in the profile section under "Liked Content"

Thanks very much...will help so much in organizing.

I think I'm going to ask the question, what others might be wondering. Hopefully there is continued transparency, which I love about this community. I'm going to simply use the quote...

Quote:

In the meantime, you can find the hardware and firmware open source here: https://github.com/synthiam/E-39_Indoor_Positioning_System

We always hope for the continued success of everyone we have supported and rallied for at both EZ Robot and Synthiam.

*Note: your question was moved to an appropriate thread topic.

EZ-Robot is a separate company, and no one from Synthiam is part of EZ-Robot. Synthiam supports many hardware platforms, including Raspberry Pi, Robotis, Arduino, and EZ-Robot. You can contact EZ-Robot for hardware related questions on their website at www.ez-robot.com. EZ-Robot is not owned by Synthiam and has no ties other than they use Synthiam's software. EZ-Robot was acquired by National Robotics and runs as an education company to prepare students for careers in STEM related fields.

Synthiam is a robot software platform company. Our software (EZ-Builder) works across multiple hardware platforms. Think of it as Microsoft Windows. And think of the hardware as the computer Windows runs on. Microsoft is not responsible for making DELL laptops; just as Synthiam isn't responsible for EZ-Robot's product. Synthiam is the software that robot companies can use to control their robots. And, specifically technology products in form of skill controls. You can see skill controls in the product page of this website. Those are partners of Synthiam who we help make their technologies available to be used by robot builders, like yourself.

As for open source GitHub repo with hardware and software by Synthiam, it's all open sourced. Anyone can manufacturer it, including EZ-Robot. Before, the hardware that EZ-Robot created was limited to just their manufacturing ability. However, due to EZ-Robot having a strong focus on education, many products didn't get manufactured. That led Synthiam to open source the hardware for you and others to build. The partner team is having discussions with some well known DIY suppliers that will be manufacturing the hardware. The open source products on Synthiam's GitHub are reference designs for companies to build from - or for you to make at home.

Very cool! So many exciting updates!

....That is seriously Amazing, no really like jaw dropping.....thank you for always being clear with your path.

Thank you, DJ,  for the answers to many questions.

Anytime guys You know i like to answer questions

You know we (I) like asking them.....thanks for helping us through the transition. Now that the fog has cleared I can see clearly the path ahead and its VERY exciting!

Thank you for answering questions that many of us have been pondering. Follow up question, and I understand if you can't answer it, but how are you going to monitize Synthiam?  If everything is open source, how will you stay in business?

Alan