#1 2008-10-22 00:05:50

**_klmonline_**

Ken's Laundry List

Here's my list:

1) Allow font selection for viewing slide notes in the "Outline/Notes/Search" bar. I have presenters on laptops all the time. They can't read the tiny font of the notes in that side bar. They love the feature concept and then get totally frustrated when they can't make the text big enough to see. (Numerous clients have pushed this as a priority)

2) Keep attendees in full screen when the presenter swaps layouts. We often break presentation slides into several layouts. It makes it easier to do uploads, revisions, and to keep track of which presenter is up. The audience often puts themselves into full screen mode to view the slides. But as soon as the host switches to another layout, all attendees are thrown back to the default display and have to manually change to full screen. I get complaints from attendees about this. The software should be able to remember what mode they are in and keep them consistent between layouts.

3) Give me one more meeting customization choice for title bar text color. I can change the background color of title bars, but I can't change the color of title bar text. This prevents me from choosing a light colored title bar, since the white text disappears on it.

4) Reduce the minimum allowed width of a polling pod. I sometimes use polls as an alternate way to collect ongoing audience feedback. I don't share results or show the totals as bars, so a narrow width would suffice. But the system doesn't let me shrink the width very much.

5) Create a feedback summary pod for presenters. Even though you have implemented easy input of audience feedback through the feedback icon, there is no easy way for presenters to see a summary of results. We have to scroll through the attendee list to see the status icon next to each name. We need a summary pod that shows the number of people currently selecting each feedback. That lets me immediately tell whether there are lots of people telling me to speed up or speak up. The feedback is too cumbersome to scroll through and interpret in a medium to large event.

6) Fix the outline sidebar display so it always shows up when selected. Sometimes it displays, sometimes it doesn't based on the size of the share pod and the resolution of the computer monitor. I can't tell if my copresenters are able to see it or not.

7) Don't auto-scroll the Questions pod to show the newest question. If I'm trying to read an older question in the queue, it's maddening to have my display suddenly jump to the end of the queue as a new question comes in. Make me scroll to see the latest.

8) When the Chat window is narrower than a certain amount, change the input box at the bottom to a multi-line height. If you put the chat pod vertically alongside a slide share (for instance), participants have a very narrow, one-line entry field. It is hard to see or edit what you have typed. The single-line-height field is okay if you shape the chat window to be very wide, but below a certain width, it should alter the input box to see more of the input text with an auto-wrap feature.

9) Eliminate the starting slide jump when returning to a layout with a PowerPoint share. If you have a layout with a PowerPoint share pod on it and you switch to another layout (for instance to run a poll), coming back to the initial layout shows the first slide in the PowerPoint deck before returning to the slide you were on. It is confusing and disorienting for presenter and audience alike. (PS for interested readers: The workaround is to hide the same share pod on the second layout behind another pod. Then when you return to the initial layout, you go directly to the slide you were on.)

10) Improve management when replacing an uploaded document. If I upload a newer version of a document, file, or image used
in a meeting, I get several entries with the same name in my
organization lists. I can't tell which is the most current. Add a (1), (2) suffix to the name, or add a time/date stamp, or just truly overwrite it (with a warning of course). Continually adding the same file name with no other indicators is nonstandard functionality.

11) Add an indicator status flag for Q&A management. As a moderator working with a multiple speaker event, I often ask typed-in audience questions out loud during the Q&A session for answering by the presenters. I want them to be able to review the questions in the queue and indicate "ASK" or "IGNORE" as a flag on each one so I know which ones they are ready to take. I want to be able to set a flag of "ANSWERED IN MEETING" so when I look at the log afterwards, I know which ones were skipped and need followup and which ones we talked about.

12) Make show/hide presenter-only area be a local option, rather than shared by all presenters. The current presenter might want to hide the presenter-only area while giving her talk to avoid distractions and make the presentation area bigger. But we are all in the same boat... If any one presenter/moderator wants to see the presenter-only area, everyone has to see it.

13) Change operation of the Web Links pod when displayed in the active area. Currently, participants see a blank pod until the presenter browses to a selected link. Then participants see the address (rather than the name) of the link, which they can click to visit again. Selecting another link replaces the displayed link on the participants' screens. I think participants should see a list of all web link names (not addresses) that have been added to the pod. They can click on any of them to visit the address.

**_dyun_**

Re: Ken's Laundry List

this is a really insightful and well articulated list Ken.  I'll definitely pass this along to the product team.

thanks,
David

**_jameslloyd_**

Re: Ken's Laundry List

How about making hyperlinks active in the Notes Pod.  I have to use a chat pod with the text input hidden by another pod to put active links on the screen (links to return to a curriculum and/or take a Connect test for the webcast).

I've posted this several times to the feature request on Adobe's web site, but maybe there's actually a team paying attention to suggestions now.

maybe

Last edited by **_jameslloyd_** (2008-10-22 13:23:27)

**_dyun_**

Re: Ken's Laundry List

Hi James,

This is a good request.  I'll definitely pass it along.  In the meantime, have you ever thought about using the Web Links pod?  It might not meet your use case to use a push model, but as I'm sure you know, the Web Links pod allows you to enter in a URL, and push it to meeting attendees.  Once you push the URL, it appears as an active link in the web links pod for attendees.

Go here to see what I'm talking about:
http://my.adobe.acrobat.com/weblinksexample/ (login as a guest)

Would be good to hear if we could modify the web links pod to meet your needs, add this capability to the notes pod, or both.

I'm listening,
David

**_Jorma_at_RealEyes_**

Re: Ken's Laundry List

If the web links pod showed all the web links (or selected web links) the it would be more useful. Only showing the last link you forced everyone to is not the most useful action.

**_jamesrowe_**

Re: Ken's Laundry List

1) A Health monitor of the servers would be useful. So you can see which servers in a cluster are functioning. And which conference is running on that server. Also see how many concurrent meetings are running and who owns those meetings

2) Force a conference to a particular server. If I were to have 500 people join a session I would like for them to put that whole conference on a particular server. And no one else.

3) High Quality Video Transmission. (Be able to control resolution etc of video/audio pod.

4) Subtitles to be auto-added to the video. I know Sound-Booth/premier can pull the voice and transcribe to text so it should be a simple overlay. (even using some translation services. (Yes I know the web translators are rubbish but still passable) Live would be preferable if not on the recordings. With a drop down to select subtitles on and off / languages.

5) More customisation of the frount end. Maybe using a flash file? loggin etc.

6) Federation of servers. So if one of my users needs to access a 3rd party connect session it would tunnel out through my connect severs so I can record them for compliance reasons.

7) Be able to keep audio and video running in a seminar room even when not "on screen" it works one way from outside screen to on screen but not back again.

8) Be able to share a session over multiple servers and be able to use an edge network such as Akamai.

9) Be able to back off all recordings to a single file for archeiving (Compliancy!). and mark them as unavaliable in the connect database giving the file name etc.

Last edited by **_jamesrowe_** (2008-10-29 06:04:47)

**_clmdogwebinars_**

Re: Ken's Laundry List

Hi,
When you are in a meeting and you try to share a document from your content library, it now defaults back to the beginning, not to the folder you are in. Example: Say I have a folder in my content library labeled: Class One. There are several videos, documents and presentations in that folder.
I want that folder, once accessed to remain the folder that is open when I go to share another document.

**_klmonline_**

Re: Ken's Laundry List

I probably use the cosmetic customization features more than most clients. I change the look of the site for different meetings. The customization features are not very friendly for multiple changes. Here are some "nice to have" enhancements that would make it easier to work with:

1) Save a customization scheme under a named label. Then allow swapping customization settings by selecting a label. One of them could be Adobe Default, which would take the place of the current "Reset to Default" button.

2) Explain somewhere in the Help text what the Clear button does. I think it only clears the uploaded logo, but I'm never sure and it makes me afraid to try it and lose my other work.

3) Show the current hex code setting for custom colors that have been set. Once I enter them, I have to write them down somewhere else for reference, because the system can never tell me what I set it to!

4) Include a convenience converter for RGB -> Hex values. There are free calculators on the Web, but it would be sweet to have it right there on the page. Many clients (especially those using PowerPoint) specify their colors in RGB values.

Thanks!

**_jameslloyd_**

Re: Ken's Laundry List

Some training ideas:

When posting a presenter file it would be great if there were a link in the publish complete screen to create a course for the content.

Similarly, when creating a course I sure wish that Connect would see the training folder the course is in, then automatically link to the same folder for the content - I spend more time navigating in and out of folders that have the same paths just because content and training are separated.

Admin:
How about after creating a new user account having a link to 'create another new user'?  Just a help to admins when adding a handful of users.

**_Terry_at_RefinedData_com_**

Re: Ken's Laundry List

Ken's list is excellent and I agree with all of the suggestions.

In response to item 5, you might want to check out the Hands Up pod from Refined Data which does exactly what you are looking for (in addition to a bunch of other things as well).

Not only do you get to see the count of users who have clicked a specific feedback option but you get to see the order in which they gave the feedback - It's good to know the order in which hands were raised, or requests to speak were made so you can prioritize your responses as a host.

The pod also provides audio feedback so you can tell when feedback has been provided - it's easy to be so focused on your presentation that you don't notice when the feedback is provided. In the case of the Applause button, Hands Up actually sounds like someone is clapping and as more people join in the applause rises to a crescendo - much as in a live meeting.

This can be very encouraging to guest speakers.

One of the beauties of Connect Pro is its extensibility so that features can be added without having to wait for Adobe to include them on a roadmap that different users may disagree on.

**_convergys_**

Re: Ken's Laundry List

To Ken's item number 13, the web links pod. Is there a special method that's being used by Connect to open a URL? It seems like this could easily be achieved by creating a custom pod that can display web links.

I have however uploaded swfs that I've build with web links embedded using the getURL() method. The only problem I've had is that it will sometimes kick people out of a session.