Forum tidy up on the horizon - NOW LIVE!!

Snoops

Zorg Addict
Joined
Dec 10, 2011
Points
51
Location
Red Rose Country
Model of Z
2.8
Superb ...we're just spoilt on this forum having you 2... Top job as always.

Snoops ont'apatalk
 

Warrior

Dedicated Member
Joined
Dec 7, 2011
Points
29
Model of Z
3.0i sports automatic
Looking good Gaz, barring one thing which I do not understand the reasoning behind?

The posters names on the right and not the natural left as per every other forum (barring the other one ;) I visit.

Without going into the technicalities of advertisement layout, you have the Zroadster.org logo on the left as it draws your eye in and the rest follows. The expression, 'a picture is worth a thousand words' is never truer, and on opening most pages there's now a conflict between the posters avatar on the right and quite often a picture of their car on the left.

Whilst much design is down to personal taste and getting used to change there are some things that you can't get away from. Pictures draw the eye. We don't read backwards...... ;)

Without hammering home the point too much. :p

Starboard and Port
White and Black
Blue and Black
Right and Left
Z to A
 

GazHyde

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Dec 2, 2011
Points
226
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Berkshire
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Z4 MR
Warrior, thanks for your comments and I do understand what you are getting at. Here is a some of the reasoning why we went this way - please excuse my ramblings...

There are 2 'out of the box' styles with phpBB, this one which is 'prosilver' and our previous one 'subsilver2'. In terms of developing the site, there is more community support for the default prosilver style. Some of the features released by the phpBB community don't support subsilver2 without having to make code changes in that feature. Some add on features won't even support subsilver2 at all.

Some of these features may break during a core forum software upgrade so means a greater amount of testing/recoding each time. This means the development of the site slows down and we can't push out new features as we need to. We don't want to end up with a stagnant site which can't move forward do we?

So from a development point of view, reverting to the default forum layout was a bit of a no brainer. However, from an end user point of view, it took a fair bit of agonising before deciding on this change. But hopefully now we have the best possible base for pushing this site forward.

On a separate note a lot of other sites (for reference I participate on at least 9 other forums regularly, so am basing my thoughts on these), most have reached a maturity in design and functionality so won't make major changes in their life time - just subtle tweaks. What board and I do for a living is build modern websites using the latest technology being used commercially and we want to bring this to the site.

Ramblings over. I know it doesn't answer all your points Warrior, but hopefully puts our decision making in context!
 

Titan

Moderator
British Zeds
Joined
Dec 4, 2011
Points
97
Location
North North Yorkshire
Model of Z
sDrive35i
I'm torn of this one
Although I like the look and feel of the new site, I agree with Warrior that names on the right seems "wrong".
Or as his examples go,
Right = Wrong
Even worse, it also looks like we've copied znot :(


Z3nt from m'iPhone on Tapatalk
 

Snoops

Zorg Addict
Joined
Dec 10, 2011
Points
51
Location
Red Rose Country
Model of Z
2.8
I'm definitely not trying to "teach my grandmother to suck eggs" but this left to right change is discussed a lot on dev sites with a fix being sought by many to put them back on the left. The fix seems to be fairly simple albeit changes are needed to the code. Is it these changes you are reluctant to do ?? We have a system at work that is not out of the box, we made some customisations so we have to test every time there's an upgrade but we find it worth it... I too like the look and feel of the "new" site but I really find the right avatar un-natural for reading.

Snoops ont'apatalk
 

GazHyde

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Dec 2, 2011
Points
226
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Model of Z
Z4 MR
Ok, I've found an article for changing profiles from right to left. Doesn't look like it affects the core files too widely. I'll try and implement it on our development site this afternoon, and evaluate how easy to roll it out to the live site.

Will have to rewrite my testing plan and check a few things out, but it does look feasable. Update you all later when our Brazilian agent wakes up and we have had a chat.

Gary
 

GazHyde

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Woo hoo, 7 hours of research, code changes and vigouruos testing - we are now LEFT HANDED again! :)

Let me know if you have any issues with displaying the pages!

Gary!
 

board

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Lincolnshire
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M Roadster
I prefer the user details on the right :D

I read from left to right so like to read the content first but that's just me and am the minority so will go with the flow :))
 

Snoops

Zorg Addict
Joined
Dec 10, 2011
Points
51
Location
Red Rose Country
Model of Z
2.8
board said:
I prefer the user details on the right :D

I read from left to right so like to read the content first but that's just me and am the minority so will go with the flow :))
Well you're just not wired up right are you
 

Titan

Moderator
British Zeds
Joined
Dec 4, 2011
Points
97
Location
North North Yorkshire
Model of Z
sDrive35i
GazHyde said:
Let me know if you have any issues with displaying the pages!
Well I'm still seeing names on the RHS :(
and
when I go to "View new posts" it always takes me to Page 1, not the last unread post.
 

Aceman

Moderator
British Zeds
3rd Party Trader
Joined
Dec 5, 2011
Points
156
Location
Wakefield
Model of Z
///M Roadster
That happened to me Terry earlier this evening and I thought "what are they talking about" but when I went browsing some other sites and came back it was back on the LHS.
 

SeaSurfer

Zorg Guru (I)
Joined
Dec 5, 2011
Points
95
Location
South Cumbria
Model of Z
2.2 Sport Z3 Auto
Same here. Deleted my favorites page and logged in from new, and names ect now on lhs :D
 

board

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Snoops said:
board said:
I prefer the user details on the right :D

I read from left to right so like to read the content first but that's just me and am the minority so will go with the flow :))
Well you're just not wired up right are you
No and that will become more apparent over time i'm sure :))
 

GazHyde

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SeaSurfer said:
Where has the 'Birthday Today' gone ? :-\
According to the code it's only displayed when there is an actual birthday! Obviously I can't prove that to you until it's someones birthday :D
 

Snoops

Zorg Addict
Joined
Dec 10, 2011
Points
51
Location
Red Rose Country
Model of Z
2.8
GazHyde said:
SeaSurfer said:
Where has the 'Birthday Today' gone ? :-\
According to the code it's only displayed when there is an actual birthday! Obviously I can't prove that to you until it's someones birthday :D

Yep that works :D
 

Snoops

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Dec 10, 2011
Points
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Red Rose Country
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SeaSurfer said:
Snoops, you got another birthday ????????????????????????
I was in "test" mode, just changed my birthday to today..... :D
 

GazHyde

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Snoops said:
I was in "test" mode, just changed my birthday to today..... :D
Watch out Snoops, I may just give you a job... Official Zorg Update Tester!
 
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