It’s sportin’ a clean, new look with a friendlier layout and way better features that the previous forums. Searching for topics is better, viewing your activity is easier and yes, you can now develop a healthy social relationship with other people on the forum. Time to feel special all over. Here are some more details you’ll want to know about.
Yes, the Details
First, you can login here: http://forum.solidworks.com
You’ll probably want to hit the Getting Started section after you login to see how it’s different from other forums, what’s new and how to get your discussion on. The most important element, Search, is in that upper right hand area. YOu can enter a search or just hit the Search button to get more options. Here’s a screenshot. Click to enlarge.
Here’s what the main navigation entails. It’s gonna come in handy.
…And even more details
For some that like the finer details, here’s some meaty morsels for ya.
Blogs
There’s a new section called Blogs. It’s different from the regular Discussion section which contain all the Community (topic) sections. There will likely be more blogs added, but one that just went up, you’ll definitely want to keep an eye on is the User Interface blog headed up by SolidWorks’ Jim Wilkinson (Wilkie) and Tom Spine.
Similar People
This is a module over to the right of a persons profile. It’s been a great way to find people interested in the same topics you are. The new forums allow you to ‘Friend’ someone. Yes, like on Facebook. This allows you to go to the ‘People’ in ‘Your Stuff’, see what discussions they’re involved in, get an RSS feed for it and view their stuff. There’s no direct way of contacting them or sending a private message (needed) but you can downlaod a VCard that has contact info they’ve entered. Psst. You can view theire email if you mouse-over their profile image.
Backend
SolidWorks forums are running on Jive SBS. A Social Business Software for companies such as SolidWorks. It links main elements of a business together – Employee Engagement, Marketing & Sales, Innovation/R&D and Support. What you’re seein’ on the SolidWorks forums is the Support solution. A pretty good move by SolidWorks to bring in a better support environment to the customers searching for solutions to their issues. Yeah, there’s great community aspects to the new forums, but when it comes down to it, finding what you’re looking for in any forum is key.
