Site improvements

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Webmaster
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Site improvements

I would like to point at some recent improvements to the site, and request feedback which will guide further improvements.

To aid with the size of the right-hand sidebar, I've introduced a feature to make the individual sections collapsible. You'll see a little triangle. Simply click on it, and it collapses, click again and it expands. The state is remembered in a browser cookie. The feature requires having javascript enabled.

The blocks in the righthand sidebar have been changed somewhat as well. For most of them you can choose whether to display the blocks, or not. There are a few new blocks which are hidden by default, which you can enable. Simply click on 'My Account' in the navigation, then edit your account, and partway down is a section labeled 'Block Configuration'. Click on the blocks you'd like to see (or not see) and away you go. Almost all the blocks are collapsible.

To test a couple more ideas I've created a second theme to the site. It is named 'vmarine2' and you can switch to this theme by, again, going into 'My Account' and editing your account. The main new thing in the vmarine2 theme is a nifty popup menu in the top

Something I haven't (yet) done is reorganizing the navigation menu. It's a little jumbled. What I'd like to do is move many of those entries into this nifty popup menu that's currently in vmarine2.

mr_exon
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Re: Site improvements

have not gotten to play with them all yet, but looks good and is running very smooth

Keep up the great work

I just Re-laced my first spoked wheel! and it was trued by spinning it in my hand

ArcticFox
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Re: Site improvements

I like the drop-down menu above. A lot more organized - now maybe I can check out other parts of the site instead of just depending on what's in the "Active forum topics" box.

I would get rid of the words, "V is for Voltage" in nearly every single one of the Community Center links. Keyword stuffing is frowned upon by google. ;) The font-size adjuster, I think, is a waste of space (could put an AdSense ad there) - I've FF that does the same adjustment with the scroll wheel.

<table border="0" style="border:1px solid #999999; padding:10px;"><tr><td>
<a href="http://www.BaseStationZero.com">[img]http://visforvoltage.org/files/u419...
[size=1][color=black]www.[/color][color=#337799]BaseStationZero[/color][co

reikiman
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Re: Site improvements

I would get rid of the words, "V is for Voltage" in nearly every single one of the Community Center links. Keyword stuffing is frowned upon by google. Yeah, I got rid of some of it while organizing that menu. But there's more to do.

The font-size adjuster, I think, is a waste of space You'll see it's gone.. not because of what you said (specifically) but because it has bug and some people were getting blank pages rather than the V site. Sooo...

mr_exon
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Re: Site improvements

because it has bug and some people were getting blank pages rather than the V site. Sooo...

I ran into that once or twice thinking Vis was down again fo a whole day, LoL
I open the forum with one link in my bookmarks...

I just Re-laced my first spoked wheel! and it was trued by spinning it in my hand

Efried
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Re: Site improvements

Hello,

you are doing a great job.
I wonder if the functionality will be taken up by other extisting fora like phpbb.
My only concern is that I get a lot of emails and they start allways with the first posting not the actual one. So it would be nice to get one mail per day with all the new postings.
thanks

cheers

Efried

ArcticFox
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Re: Site improvements

Same here - notifications come several hours after the postings even though I have them set as ASAP, and only show the first post. I can't remember what it showed before, but notifications were a lot quicker.

<table border="0" style="border:1px solid #999999; padding:10px;"><tr><td>
<a href="http://www.BaseStationZero.com">[img]http://visforvoltage.org/files/u419...
[size=1][color=black]www.[/color][color=#337799]BaseStationZero[/color][co

reikiman
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Re: Site improvements

The subscriptions module always was variable about whether it sent the new comment or the head message. I never figured that out why it didn't consistently send the comment rather than the head message. There isn't any setting in the subscriptions module to control this. So.. I'll file a bug with the maintainers of the module.

reikiman
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Re: Site improvements

I've noticed one thing about that menu ... the grey color kinda blends with the grey color of the 'Recent' page as well as some others. So one item to take care of is styling it so it stands out better.

PJD
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Re: Site improvements

David,

One enduring gripe about this forum system is the inability to look through the entire thread when typing a comment. Only the last post shows. Can this be fixed?

Paul Donahue

reikiman
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Re: Site improvements

the inability to look through the entire thread when typing a comment

Nobody told me this enduring gripe... In any case I noticed that was one of the features they discussed in the advanced forum work. So, probably, in time, this will be fixed, assuming that this 'advanced forum' work goes in the direction they're discussing right now.

davew
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Re: Site improvements

One enduring gripe about this forum system is the inability to look through the entire thread when typing a comment. Only the last post shows. Can this be fixed?

I noticed this too a long time ago. I just got in the habit of instead of clicking on "reply" I right-click on reply and use the "open in new tab" Firefox option. This gives me a tab to reply in right along side the tab with the original thread. I've been doing this so long I had forgotten it was a work around.

"we must be the change we wish to see in the world"

DanCar
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Re: Site improvements

Would be nice when clicking on a article that the default behavior is to take you to the last message. Perhaps it could be a profile option. Dislike having to scroll to the bottom for each article.

reikiman
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Re: Site improvements

Would be nice when clicking on a article that the default behavior is to take you to the last message.

Hi Dan, there is already some related functionality ... if you click on the word 'new', then you will be brought to the new content in the message thread.

DanCar
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Re: Site improvements

if you click on the word 'new', then you will be brought to the new content in the message thread.

What about those of us who click on the right pane "active forum topics"?
Perhaps at the top of the message list there could be a bottom to jump to the bottom.

http://www.fun-ev.com

reikiman
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Re: Site improvements

What about those of us who click on the right pane "active forum topics"?
Perhaps at the top of the message list there could be a bottom to jump to the bottom.

Ooooohhh.... That gives me a couple ideas. The links for each of the 'Active Forum Topics' etc could include the #new tag which is the magic required to get to the new content.

andrew
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Re: Site improvements

DanCar, I was thinking the same thing until I just subscribed to the RSS feed for the site. You can get all the most recent updates and going way back without having to load a page. Firefox supports RSS feeds, and so dies IE 7, but I don't care for the IE 7 feed reader.

[url=/forum-topic/motorcycles-and-large-scooters/587-my-kz750-electric-motorcycle-project]KZ750 Motorcycle Conversion[/url]
[url=/forum-topic/motorcycles-and-large-scooters/588-fixing-my-chinese-scooter]900 watt scooter[/url]
Pic from http://www.electri

Aady
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Re: Site improvements

Same here - presentments come several hours after the postings even though I have them set as ASAP, and only express the first post.
____________
Aady

Aady Pitt

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