New Forum Software and Design - Gone Live

[Stephan Whelan]

I'll look into the account page and see if I can get that fixed.

The reason for Home being there is that the forums are part of the wider site - www.deeperblue.com is the "home"....

 

[monkeyhatfork]

Right - fixed some of the responsive design bugs so should look good at all sizes of screen


Glad to hear the search is better - it's based on full-text search so should be better than the previous platform.


Well a positive and a negative Anything specific on the layout/design you don't like?

As for TapaTalk - it's used by about 30 people daily here so a core small contingent. Now we have a fully responsive design that works on all devices it's a little redundant but I know some people have enjoyed using it so we will continue to offer it as an option.

the design seems hard on the eyes the thread text could be segregated better your eyes go everywhere like a coupon page in a newspaper and is it a brighter background or is that all in my head? may be something else going on that i cant pinpoint but i dont see myself reading a lengthy thread this way. the title page, if i wasnt allready a longtime user and knew what i needed to look for not sure i would stick around needs more art or photos cause its not visually enticing but more what u would expect from a department of motor vehicles site, anyway do appreciate the work im sure its a big effort and not disputing technical function, but dissagree with anyone saying it looks clean everything is thrown together against a more or less white background so i dont feel it focuses content well i think a big improvement would be to segregate the thread text allot more, preferably by a background color cause simply segregated by different fonts and font sizes and font colors does not seems to be cutting it here. again thanks for ur efforts on the site I'm not a web designer but i do have a masters degree in art so i do know visual

 

[monkeyhatfork]

to clarify my comment on the home page there are more visuals from ads unrelated to diving until u scroll down, there was a polaris add a jewelry ad and a refinancing add not a single visual of diving not knocking u for monitizing the site but perhaps a strong diving related visual should be the first thing u see, then the adds other wise it will look kinda cheap

 

[Stephan Whelan]

the design seems hard on the eyes the thread text could be segregated better your eyes go everywhere like a coupon page in a newspaper and is it a brighter background or is that all in my head? may be something else going on that i cant pinpoint but i dont see myself reading a lengthy thread this way. the title page, if i wasnt allready a longtime user and knew what i needed to look for not sure i would stick around needs more art or photos cause its not visually enticing but more what u would expect from a department of motor vehicles site, anyway do appreciate the work im sure its a big effort and not disputing technical function, but dissagree with anyone saying it looks clean everything is thrown together against a more or less white background so i dont feel it focuses content well i think a big improvement would be to segregate the thread text allot more, preferably by a background color cause simply segregated by different fonts and font sizes and font colors does not seems to be cutting it here. again thanks for ur efforts on the site I'm not a web designer but i do have a masters degree in art so i do know visual

Interesting the colours are the same in background to the design - the previous one was a light blue on a white text background. The only main difference is font choice on the main page and text spacing. That only applies to the main editorial site, the forums have the same font as the previous platform.

However - i'm open to suggestions on colours - if people can come up with an agreeable colour palate I can work with it to improve the design.

 

[Stephan Whelan]

to clarify my comment on the home page there are more visuals from ads unrelated to diving until u scroll down, there was a polaris add a jewelry ad and a refinancing add not a single visual of diving not knocking u for monitizing the site but perhaps a strong diving related visual should be the first thing u see, then the adds other wise it will look kinda cheap

We carry a lot of ads that are diving related - our fall-back is Google Adsense that shows non-diving related ads targetted to users visiting the site. Ads are an necessary evil as I can't keep running the site out of my own pocket. We have a tiny number of supporters on the site that doesn't even pay 5% of the annual cost of the site.

If I had an option to not display ads I would take it.

 

[Azrael3000]

Is there a possibility of changing the number of post shown per page?

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Is there a possibility of changing the number of post shown per page?

For everyone or just on an individual basis?

 

[Derekn]

Is there a restriction on creating a new gallery or to upload to a default gallery...I'd never created one before and I added a new one just a few minutes ago. I clicked save and it said it was created but when I go to view it says no albums have been created. If I choose to upload to the default gallery it says I do not have permission.

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Is there a restriction on creating a new gallery or to upload to a default gallery...I'd never created one before and I added a new one just a few minutes ago. I clicked save and it said it was created but when I go to view it says no albums have been created. If I choose to upload to the default gallery it says I do not have permission.

There are no restrictions but for the moment i've got the gallery set to require moderation - i'll be changing that soon. In the meantime i've approved your photos and gallery.

 

[Derekn]

Thanks Big Brother...lol

 

[Kars]

First of,

Stephan I'm really happy with your attitude and work ethic.
I'm noticing a lot of work and various improvements to the site, including the nice big Forums button

A few requests - big to small:
Can you create a user cp option to choose a night colour scheme for DB, or at least it's forum?

Darken the forum post background a bit, maybe in tandem with the light blue sidebars. Maybe I should just lower my screenbrightness - just for DB forum reading, but I find that leading long threads is much more demanding to my eyes up to the point I do not bother to view threads unless they really interest me. Maybe you got the statistics on forum time spend? - my guess these numbers may be down.

To improve the clean look, replace the //////////////// bar in between forum posts with a solid , gray, black, white or blue.

That's it for now, thanks for considering, testing, improving and keeping the freedive communication going

 

[Azrael3000]

For everyone or just on an individual basis?

individual

 

[Kars]

I agree with Arno on individually setting the number of post per page (I like the longer pages).

 

[Stephan Whelan]

I agree with Arno on individually setting the number of post per page (I like the longer pages).

It's not a core feature in the new platform. Am trying to find a way of getting it done - please bear with me.

 

[monkeyhatfork]

i'm with kars on darkening the the background or a user cp night option

 

[kwtony]

if i want to go back i press the button and it just refereshes the page, when i tap it twice, it brings me back to the home screen,and its really annoying...i like the old board a lot better. This is just confusing. Sorry, im sure youve put a lot of hard work into it, i dont mean to disrespect.

 

[Stephan Whelan]

i'm with kars on darkening the the background or a user cp night option

I'll look into seeing if I can purchase and provide a "night theme" for members to use.

if i want to go back i press the button and it just refereshes the page, when i tap it twice, it brings me back to the home screen,and its really annoying...i like the old board a lot better. This is just confusing. Sorry, im sure youve put a lot of hard work into it, i dont mean to disrespect.

I'm not seeing that behaviour but doesn't mean it can't happen. Can you give me the exact steps you are following along with details of your browser and operating system.

 

[kwtony]

Im using chrome and a macbook 10.68. I click back and it refreshed the page. I do it twice and 95% of the time itll go back to the home page or will eventually make its way back to the previous page. There are other things im too not fond off, but honestly Im just not a fan of the whole thing, neither am a fan of these pop ups either. But I guess in the end, my opinion really means nothing...so carry on and ill just have to deal with it..

 

[Stephan Whelan]

Im using chrome and a macbook 10.68. I click back and it refreshed the page. I do it twice and 95% of the time itll go back to the home page or will eventually make its way back to the previous page. There are other things im too not fond off, but honestly Im just not a fan of the whole thing, neither am a fan of these pop ups either. But I guess in the end, my opinion really means nothing...so carry on and ill just have to deal with it..

I'll look into it.

Can I ask what pop-ups you are referring to?

 

[apneaboy]

Maybe you could hire someone for Azrael3000 to personally switch on his computer, find the page, and type for him