View Full Version : Forum Home Page Makeover
As most of you have probably noticed, the forum home page underwent a bit of a makeover today. This has been something I've wanted to do for a solid year, and started working on in mid-November. Numerous distractions and some indecision about how certain elements should come together delayed its unveiling until today.
So, a quick rundown of what's new:
This Just In
The "This Just In" box now automatically refreshes itself every 15 seconds (as well as whenever you click it). If you don't like this, or it causes any problems for you, go to the Edit Options (http://www.movieforums.com/community/profile.php?do=editoptions) page and scroll to the bottom, where you can turn it off. If you do, it will refresh only when you click on the refresh arrows.
Avatars on Who's Online List
By default, the home page now displays the avatars of any visible users online. A special tooltip has been provided to display each user's username when you place your mouse over their avatar. This tooltip will display instantly, as opposed to the normal tooltips elsewhere which take a moment. Users who have not selected an avatar will have the site's ever-prominent film reel image shown.
And, again, if you prefer the list the way it was before, you can go to the bottom of the Edit Options (http://www.movieforums.com/community/profile.php?do=editoptions) page and elect to display only text links (IE: the way it was before).
Last Post Info
Now, along with the standard information concerning the last post in a given forum, the avatar of the user who made that post will show as well. Also, special tooltips have been added for titles that are too long to display in full; they will show up instantly when you place your mouse over them.
To accomodate the new layout, and a number of other things, the side's width has been increased again, to 900 pixels (though it's slightly thinner if you're not logged in).
And for those wondering, the site's downtime this afternoon doesn't appear to have had anything to do with these changes. As far as we can make out so far, it's just a coincidence.
More changes on the way, and naturally all this is subject to further fiddling in the days and weeks to come. For example, the avatars under "Who's Online" might be made a bit smaller, if doing so doesn't make them significantly harder to identify.
Feel free to post any questions, comments here. And, while an awful lot of testing was done under a number of circumstances on a variety of browsers, I'm sure there might be some scattered compatability issues, so please post those here, as well. :)
martian leader
01-28-09, 12:25 AM
Well great Job Yoda, So let me see if I can get this straight. So the site was down today and the upgrade wasn't the cause of it. Correct?
John McClane
01-28-09, 01:09 AM
I think I speak for all of us when I say; "You kick ass!" :up:
Lusty Argonian
01-28-09, 01:22 AM
A good job, you have done.
Yep, it's great. It does seem to run faster, too. I also like the "Who's on-line" better. It looks different than before the upgrade. I'm not referring to the homepage view. Just in case anyone is lost on that.
Nice work!
Harry Lime
01-28-09, 03:10 AM
Good stuff Yoda.
Very Sweet dude, Love it!
spudracer
01-28-09, 07:51 AM
Yep, it's great. It does seem to run faster, too. I also like the "Who's on-line" better. It looks different than before the upgrade. I'm not referring to the homepage view. Just in case anyone is lost on that.
Nice work!
Yeah I had noticed that it was running slow when I got on here on Monday, but last night it was running pretty fast. Great job!
Caitlyn
01-28-09, 09:32 AM
Awesome job O' Wise One... the site has always been the coolest on the web but it should really make people stop and take a look-see now... thank you... :)
As usual, fantastic work. Glad I can continue to be a part of this growing community, especially with you at the helm.
Thanks guys. :) Particularly pleased to see that there haven't been any problems yet. I'm sure that'll change, but perhaps the rather thorough testing will end up having been quite worthwhile.
mikeython1
01-28-09, 01:34 PM
I like the changes. http://bestsmileys.com/thumbs/2.gif
Powdered Water
01-28-09, 09:56 PM
Do you have any plans to enable some sort of script that would pop up when we mouse over a member in the 'Who's online' section, that will show you what that member is doing? Like the way you had it set up before?
Very cool new layout by the way. I love it.
The changes look totally bitchen.
Do you have any plans to enable some sort of script that would pop up when we mouse over a member in the 'Who's online' section, that will show you what that member is doing? Like the way you had it set up before?
Very cool new layout by the way. I love it.
Probably. For now we're just going with the username, but the same tooltip could be used to fetch their last activity. This'll obviously take a backseat to some of the more practical things that need work, but we're definitely on the same wavelength here.
I know I'm the only one using Internet Explorer 6, so do you want to know about any issues pertaining to that version? I'll name it, but I can also live with it.
These disappear off of the main page.
General Movie Discussion
Movie Reviews
Upcoming Movies & Sequels . . .
Again, it doesn't bug me any. I'm too use to knowing what these sections are, to have a need in seeing them. It's just in case you still want to know.
What do you mean by "disappear"? Please be as specific as possible. IE: do you see them at all? When do they disappear? What shows up where they're supposed to be?
Anyway, though IE6 is fading from use, you're far from the only person using it. I actually use IE6 at work, intentionally, so that I can test things there from time to time, and used it quite a bit in testing the new home page.
Nothing takes their place. They just disappear. Just the titles of each section. I go to the home page, and they poof, disappear. Either on their own, or right after my cursor hits the page. Usually on their own.
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a249/nunions/Other%20Boards/MOFO.jpg
I didn't get too into the detail, because of what I said up above. I wasn't sure if this was something that you needed/wanted to know about. It's looking like I'm the only one on this version. I'm assuming this because of no one else mentioning this problem.
Wow. That's weird. I'll take a look at the code around each forum title and see if anything jumps out as being a possible cause.
Anyway, even though no one else has mentioned it, you're definitely not the only IE6 user. It's still far too common, statistically speaking, and as I mentioned use it myself regularly at work, too. So it must be something else.
I :love: it :yup: Thanks Yods :)
spudracer
01-29-09, 08:19 AM
Wow. That's weird. I'll take a look at the code around each forum title and see if anything jumps out as being a possible cause.
Anyway, even though no one else has mentioned it, you're definitely not the only IE6 user. It's still far too common, statistically speaking, and as I mentioned use it myself regularly at work, too. So it must be something else.
That actually happened when I got on the site yesterday at work. I didn't think too much of it since I'm always on a crappy government computer.
mikeython1
01-29-09, 03:44 PM
Hey Yoda is the new member feature gone for good?
Hey Yoda is the new member feature gone for good?
If you mean the one that simply lists the most recent registration, then it's hard to say. I couldn't find a good place to place it on the home page, and decided it wasn't terribly important. I might try to bring it back in one incarnation or another at some point, particularly if there's some demand for it. I just assumed no one would miss it, but I could be wrong. :)
mikeython1
01-29-09, 03:52 PM
If you mean the one that simply lists the most recent registration, Thats what I meant. I just realized it was gone. It won't bother if it does not come back, I was just curious.
So, now that we've had a couple of days to get used to things, what do you guys think about the size of the online avatars? I was thinking of making them a bit smaller, to reduce load time further, but it's a bit of a balancing act. The idea is to make them as small as possible, while still keeping them reasonably easy to identify at a glance. I think we could make them a few pixels smaller and retain the same basic level of recognition; any thoughts?
If you mean the one that simply lists the most recent registration, then it's hard to say. I couldn't find a good place to place it on the home page, and decided it wasn't terribly important. I might try to bring it back in one incarnation or another at some point, particularly if there's some demand for it. I just assumed no one would miss it, but I could be wrong. :)
The only thing I ever used it for, was late at night when I'd click on any odd new user names, to make sure it wasn't spam that I had missed while I was away. However, there are other, just as easy of ways to check for that. I think it looks better without it.
Especially when people join with the email user-names, .com user-names, etc . . . they just want to be seen. This will ruin that for them. :p
i love what i see , yoda!!! i love that it shows up faster!!!! i am not usually a fan of change..but this change is GOOD
mikeython1
01-29-09, 04:16 PM
So, now that we've had a couple of days to get used to things, what do you guys think about the size of the online avatars? I was thinking of making them a bit smaller, to reduce load time further, but it's a bit of a balancing act. The idea is to make them as small as possible, while still keeping them reasonably easy to identify at a glance. I think we could make them a few pixels smaller and retain the same basic level of recognition; any thoughts? A little bit smaller would probaly be good
Did you see that? That was very weird. My post went up twice. Once before your's, and once after. I removed the before one. I hope that was OK.
It was in the same minute. 3:12 for my post, your post, and then my post again.
Yeah, I saw that. Must have hiccuped right when mine was going up. I'll bet if I check the exact timestamps on them they'll be just a second or two apart. :)
I'm starting to wonder if I didn't twitch on that one. Maybe if I hit it twice, the clicks were before and after your's. My messed up finger has been bugging me today. I did this a few nights ago, where it said I already had a post there, but it didn't post twice. I wish I could get the thing fixed. It's a simple one day surgery.
OK, I'm done moaning! :D
Swedish Chef
01-29-09, 06:29 PM
I'm not sure if you've answered this already, Yoda, but why'd you do all this? Don't get me wrong; everything's awfully snazzy and you did a first-rate job. This is still my favorite corner on the internet and of course I appreciate all the love you've put into it. But is this just a case of change for change's sake? I've never been a big fan of that; I'm more of an if it ain't broke, don't fix it kinda person. I think I like how the site used to look a little better, but maybe I'm just not used to this ruckus. The home page facelift screwed up the fonts a bit on that page and the shoutbox for me, like blib, but it's not that big of a deal. And I do think some of the other changes you've made recently to coincide with the upgrade, like the profile comments were pretty superfluous. Maybe I'm just jealous because I only have three comments, though. Anyway, I feel like I'm complaining a whole lot when actually the site's more or less perfect and it's definitely more fantastic than it is stupid. Go Steelers
Well, my reasons for doing each thing in turn differ, but almost all of them have a reason beyond change for its own sake. For example, the forum is wider now, which is nice, because I think the home page (and profile pages) were fairly cramped before, and the average user screen resolution has been rising pretty steadily.
I'll quickly run through the others:
The auto-refreshing "This Just In" box isn't exactly necessary, but I think it's a nice thing to have, and I think it helps the site feel more interactive. And anything which can get people the information they want without having to reload an entire page is, apart from being kind of cool, usually a lot more efficient, too.
The avatars are probably the biggest change, and they were added because they help people see who's online (or who posted last in a given forum) with just a glance. They were also added because many members seemed to respond well to the avatars on the Who's Online page, and in The Shoutbox.
Also, the list of forums on the home page is now using much cleaner, faster-loading code than before.
All that said, I think it looks better, too. Hard to quantify the value of a site's look and feel, admittedly, but it clearly matters somewhat. I was never totally happy with the home page's last incarnation, but I feel pretty good about this one.
Regarding some of the other stuff: things like profile comments simply came standard with the latest version of the forum software. I agree that they're somewhat superfluous, though that's probably because I went ahead and rewrote the previous version to allow users to leave each other comments on posts. Without those it'd probably be a welcome addition, so I'll certainly look at eliminating one (or perhaps merging them somehow).
All that said, I've been pretty sour on other site redesigns in the past, but I almost always came around and preferred them once I'd gotten used to the change. Hopefully the same will happen with anyone who's a little reticent about the changes.
Swedish Chef
01-29-09, 06:45 PM
I do love the avatars in the online section showing up on the home page
Freakin' trick
I thought you might. :) Ironically, I think that's far and away the biggest change. Everything else feels pretty similar to me, but then again I've been looking at it for testing purposes for weeks.
Oh, and I'll look into the font thing. That has the potential to really make things look pretty bad if the font style isn't being applied properly.
Without those it'd probably be a welcome addition, so I'll certainly look at eliminating one (or perhaps merging them somehow).
Referring to the comments. You can either say something about a specific post, or go say something to a specific person. If we get to vote, I prefer that we get to keep the both of them as is.
Powdered Water
01-29-09, 10:55 PM
So, now that we've had a couple of days to get used to things, what do you guys think about the size of the online avatars? I was thinking of making them a bit smaller, to reduce load time further, but it's a bit of a balancing act. The idea is to make them as small as possible, while still keeping them reasonably easy to identify at a glance. I think we could make them a few pixels smaller and retain the same basic level of recognition; any thoughts?
I like them the way they are. And as I mentioned in the Shoutbox the other day, ever since the down time 2 days ago the site has just been smoking along. So I don't now what happened or what got tweaked but something obviously did. It wasn't a bug that was keeping the load times and the posting times at a crawl. Maybe when your server buddy gets back to you he'll have some news about what happened during the downtime.
And don't think I didn't notice how you tweaked the 'Quick reply' box too. It also looks more gooder than it used to.
spudracer
01-29-09, 10:58 PM
I just noticed the Who's Online page tonight that it shows the users at the top along with their Avatar. Shows how much I pay attention to things...
Oh, and by the way, it looks more gooder, too...:D
Swedish Chef
01-29-09, 11:40 PM
I'm pretty indifferent towards the updated buttons in the new reply boxes, but finally sticking that sizing dealie in the quick reply section totally absolves all past and future trespasses. Long live Yoda
I like them the way they are. And as I mentioned in the Shoutbox the other day, ever since the down time 2 days ago the site has just been smoking along. So I don't now what happened or what got tweaked but something obviously did. It wasn't a bug that was keeping the load times and the posting times at a crawl. Maybe when your server buddy gets back to you he'll have some news about what happened during the downtime.
Unfortunately it looks like we won't know unless it happens again. But it's been up all day today, so things are looking up. :) Things are in place so that, the next time there's a server issue, I'll be able to let Rob know quicker than before, as well. He's been quite helpful throughout this whole thing and I feel good about the precautions we'll be taking from here on out.
And don't think I didn't notice how you tweaked the 'Quick reply' box too. It also looks more gooder than it used to.
:laugh: Can't slip anything by you guys. Yes, a lot of the "mini" editors (quick replies, editing posts, etc) now have additional buttons on them. I don't think we need them all, but I figured a few more were worth including.
Also, as Swedish mentioned the images on the editor have been replaced with some slightly sleeker looking ones. Not a huge deal, but they look better, so hey, why not?
Iroquois
01-30-09, 08:23 AM
Another thing - I've noticed in the Movie Reviews section that the box of stickied reviews threads that's normally above all the regular topics has disappeared as well. Haven't checked if the threads themselves have disappeared, but the sticky box has. Is it me, or is anyone else noticing this?
Not just you -- I just need to re-apply the modification that displays them that way. Thanks for the reminder; I should be able to get to it today.
Updates galore. First off: you can now view user registration anniversaries on the home page. They can be found in the bottom right-hand corner; you can toggle between the day's Birthdays, and the day's Anniversaries.
More:
Do you have any plans to enable some sort of script that would pop up when we mouse over a member in the 'Who's online' section, that will show you what that member is doing? Like the way you had it set up before?
Done. :)
The new tooltip calls an external script, so every now and again it might take a moment to load, but most of the time it should come up very quickly. The upside of this is that, even if you don't reload the home page, the information in the tooltip will be up-to-date.
Another thing - I've noticed in the Movie Reviews section that the box of stickied reviews threads that's normally above all the regular topics has disappeared as well. Haven't checked if the threads themselves have disappeared, but the sticky box has. Is it me, or is anyone else noticing this?
Done (http://www.movieforums.com/community/movie-reviews.html). :) I think I re-applied this right after the upgrade, but I accidently lost some of the changes to that particular template. Should be good now, though. Thanks for catching that.
you can now view user registration anniversaries on the home page. They can be found in the bottom right-hand corner; you can toggle between the day's Birthdays, and the day's Anniversaries.
Now that's really neat! This has got to be some record amount of updates for any board I've ever been on.
Damn, we just missed mine.
Powdered Water
01-30-09, 09:35 PM
I feel its my civic duty to point out how many times you've (Yoder) said "tooltip" recently and not a single MoFo has called you on it. Is that growth? Perhaps. Perhaps I just need to grow up.
I also like that once we look at our new rep, and/or comments, the notification goes away. Yet, it does stay there until we do actually notice it.
Aye, both the Reputation Tracker and My Profile page have flags on them that turn their respective notifications (new rep, and new post comments) off as soon as you view them. :)
Iroquois
01-31-09, 01:27 AM
Also noticed that negative rep doesn't show up on my Reputation Tracker (i.e., it says I have 0 -rep points and I've given 0.00% negative rep). Then I noticed that when I moused over the lightsaber in my posts it's revealed my rep count with negative rep taken out. Not really a major problem, just a weird thing I've noticed.
Thanks for catching that -- looks like it resulted from something I was working on last night. Should be fixed now. :)
Used Future
01-31-09, 04:09 PM
Not sure if it's already been mentioned, but on the main page the 'this just in' box keeps turning into code (it slides down and disappears). If I refresh the page it comes back only for the same thing to happen again.
Hasn't been mentioned yet, no, but I do get emails when database errors occur, and I've noticed a number coming from your account, and very few other users. I'll send you a PM so we can track this down. :)
I should have mentioned this last night, but I was thinking it was my computer, again. I am not getting that code, but it refreshes funny . . .
http://i12.photobucket.com/albums/a249/nunions/Other%20Boards/ThisJustIn.jpg
It still could be my computer. I'll have my computer ready tomorrow, and will let you know what all changes.
Hmm, that screenshot looks normal -- what's funny about it? The initial page load will only show each recently posted in thread once, but once it starts refreshing in real time, it will repeat threads if they happen to be posted in.
Ah. Hm. Drop me a PM if it happens again. Probably just some time offsetting variables missing.
I was curious . . . when you're not doing anything for the board :p, do you think it would be possible to set the "New Posts" section to where it would only dis the latest posts that we haven't seen, if we actually click on them? Right now, if we come to the board, and have to walk away for 15 minutes, it deletes them.
Just curious!
There is an option similar to what you're talking about, but unfortunately it's very intensive, as it has to track a lot of extra data.
That does happen to me from time to time, though I usually leave the page open until I've had time to go through them. If I miss something, I can usually find it under "Today's Posts (http://www.movieforums.com/community/search.php?do=getdaily)" as a backup.
Today's Posts (http://www.movieforums.com/community/search.php?do=getdaily)" as a backup.
I never knew that link was there. I just came across it. I'll mention it to him. I was actually asking about this, because of something another member mentioned to me. I think his biggest problem was accidentally clicking on the board link, but not being able to check the board out for a few more days. I assume those are gone by then. Anyway, I'll make sure that he does know about that link, for whenever he can come back within the same day.
More updates...
I finally got around to adding everyone's Favorite Movies lists back into their profiles. There's a slight wrinkle regarding placement, though: the Favorite Movies tab is shown by default, unless you're viewing your own profile, in which case the Profile Comments shown by default. The idea, of course, is that while someone's list of favorites is probably the most interesting thing to everyone else, they themselves already know what they are.
Also, I prettied up the format of the profile comments a little. They should match the rest of the site a bit better now.
The top ten lists look really nice.
I was curious, have you ever thought about making it to where even though it says there are 50,000 members, they don't actually show up anywhere . . . member's list, birthdays, anniversaries . . . unless they've posted?
A truckload of people seem to join, just to look at the movie club, or to use the search function to check out certain movies' reviews. Then they split for good. I'm not really sure why they do that for the movie club, unless they have to for whatever reason/reasons. Anyway, I saw this on another board a long time ago, and thought I'd mention it. You may already know about it, but not like the idea.
Yeah, I have, and I think I did make that sort of modification before. I've just re-applied a post minimum (1) for the Birthdays. Could've sworn I'd already done it post-upgrade, but perhaps not.
It's tricky because there are some activity checks in there and the like, but I think I've weeded them out. Ideally, I'd like to have anyone with at least 1 post showing up under the display, who isn't banned or anything.
That said, if the lists are too long, or always populated by usernames nobody recognizes, then we may bump it up to 5 or 10. We'll just wing it until it seems about right. :)
There's a slight wrinkle regarding placement, though: the Favorite Movies tab is shown by default, unless you're viewing your own profile, in which case the Profile Comments shown by default.
Quick change to this: the Profile Comments now also show by default if the user in question doesn't have any favorites listed yet.
If anyone thinks it's confusing to have slightly different orders and all that, let me know, as it is something I'm (vaguely) concerned about.
I thinks it's good. It's made me start dwelling on a top ten list, again. Maybe I should just take one all-time favorite from each genre.
Just added a "Find My Posts" link to each thread. It's under the "Search" link, to the right of "Tools." It brings up a list of all your posts in that particular thread. Thought that might be handy, particularly for the longer threads; long-running games, tabs, etc.
spudracer
02-18-09, 03:00 PM
Nice!
Now that's frickin' trick! :p
At first I thought it didn't work, but then it hit me . . . I've talked a lot in this thread. Who are we kidding. I just talk a lot.
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