8943 New Functionality & Design

I think that we are all looking forward to see the changes. If it is not too late, and seeing the increasing number of threads asking for advice and addresses regarding furniture, equipment, interior decor, etc., perhaps it may be useful to create a new section to house those threads. At the moment, it seems as if nobody knows exactly where to place them.

[quote=Gala Placidia;84167]I think that we are all looking forward to see the changes. If it is not too late, and seeing the increasing number of threads asking for advice and addresses regarding furniture, equipment, interior decor, etc., perhaps it may be useful to create a new section to house those threads. At the moment, it seems as if nobody knows exactly where to place them.[/quote]

What also might be an idea, is if there were anyway, that members had to put there location, much easier to offer suggestions for suppliers etc if you could see what area they were from .

Both excellent suggestions - will implement that.

Also if anyone is curious to see the new design you can change the option. Scroll to the bottom of the screen, left-hand side and choose Italy Magazine V3

Should add not quite finished yet but I guess it doesn't hurt to get some feedback. The most important bit is that headers menus etc are similar to the rest of the side. Colour scheme for the forums themselves should just be something that makes reading easy - not sure the brown thing works but perhaps easier on the eye than the old design

I haven't really explored any new functionality yet, but in my opinion, the design change to a fixed-width panel down the middle of the screen is a backward step. Fixed-size [I]anything[/I] is always a bad idea in web design, since you have no control over the user's screen size or resolution.

The wide, blank margins down each side occupy roughly half of the window size in total on my display, and that looks poor and leads to more scrolling. I realise that the panel "Visit Italy" at the top right creates the blank margin down the right side, but surely a better place could be found for it.

The font size seems to be smaller too. I haven't checked, but I do hope it hasn't been specified as an absolute size too! Again, you have no control over the user's display, so you can't depend an any particular point size or pixel size being appropriate. You need to use HTML/CSS [U]relative[/U] font sizes and let the user's browser make the choice of display size.

I'll give the V3 style a go for a few days and see what I think. We probably all get a bit grumpy when something changes when we've become accustomed to it!

[quote=deborahandricky;84168]What also might be an idea, is if there were anyway, that members had to put there location, much easier to offer suggestions for suppliers etc if you could see what area they were from .[/quote]

There is the option of displaying your geographical location in the 'profile' area, and if you are asking where to buy beds etc. most sensible posters will say 'where can I buy near to Ascoli' (or wherever).

I don't like your idea of 'compelling' users to reveal this information.

I hear what you are saying Steve. Won't get into a lengthy debate about fixed vs fluid - I am not sure it is always a bad idea to have fixed width. The size has been adjusted to about 90% of screens (according to our statistics) the rest have either bigger screens (like you) and a small minority actually still have 800x600. The other point was to keep in line with the rest of the website so that when you move between sections there is consistency across.

The right-hand side banner is there to provide a point of entry into the new functionality that will be coming online over the next days - a way to integrate the new with the old.

Finally, font sizes should be bigger (may be worth hitting F5 a couple of times to make sure you are getting the latest stylesheet from the server). If you do find thing smaller then we will explore alternative solutions.

Overall we are stuck on the width because of the rest of the magazine, need the right-hand column because things are going to be placed there but colours, fonts and over-all readability are areas that we can keep changing until we get something people are happy with

if I select V3 (using IE6 @ screen resolution 1152x864) I see the attached. I can see the forum categories and the thread titles in a fixed width (narrow) section to the left, but much of the toolbar is missing - I can only see up to the "N" in new posts, the rest is not visible. Resizing the browser window has no effect on this. The column of white space between the forum listing on the LHS and the "visit italy" bit on the RHS is effectively hogging the screen space.

re. the "small minority" who use 800x600: I'm one of them. It isn't always an indicator of a myopic old git with an ancient PC ... At home, I normally use a plasma TV in a rather large room when surfing. It's a 43" screen but I sit about 12 feet away from it, using a wireless keyboard. So, in order to comfortably read text at the normal font size, I set the res to 800x600. It's therefore my pet hate that web designers are abandoning support for this as the lowest common denominator - eg. the BBC website has been my home page for donkey's years, but their revamp last week makes it unusable for low-res luddites like me, so they've lost me now to google :-(

I don't mind if things are optimised for higher resolutions and I understand the benefit of that, particularly to intricate, graphics heavy websites (I use my laptop to view those!) ... but IMO a predominantly text based resource like a forum should still be viewable comfortably at low res. via properly resizable windows, even if doing so results in a messy screen layout for that individual user.

King Canute

first off thanks for the screen shot - internet explorer 6 is a pain that i still need to sort out - and secondly I appreciate the comment on 800x600 screens.

Actually come to think of it its not complicated to support (just for the forums at this point) a template stripped of all graphics - with just text and links presented that would fit smaller screens and also make it easier to see the forums on devices like phones, etc. That should also help those who connect to the forums from their adsl-less farmhouses!

will try to incorporate that into the schedule :smile:

ps: get firefox :smile: - [url=http://www.mozilla.org]Mozilla.org - Home of the Mozilla Project[/url] - you will feel so much better!

[quote=ronald;84201]Actually come to think of it its not complicated to support (just for the forums at this point) a template stripped of all graphics - with just text and links presented that would fit smaller screens and also make it easier to see the forums on devices like phones, etc.[/quote]That also sounds like an excellent suggestion for assisting any blind users who use screen reader software.

[quote=ronald;84201]ps: get firefox :smile: - [url=http://www.mozilla.org]Mozilla.org - Home of the Mozilla Project[/url] - you will feel so much better![/quote]

Don't go there! you think I'm using IE6 by choice? Personally I wouldn't give it (or it's bloated big brother IE7) house room ... but when you work in a corporate with an outsourced IT support function, WYPayForIWYG ... the helpdesk insist on a basic desktop config so that they can minimise support requirements :-(

Check what your javascript shows you from one of my sessions outwith working hours ... I assure you that you'll find me using Firefox V2!

That screenshot doesn't work for me. What I mean is that it doesn't work as a screenshot! If I open that attachment using V2, I get V2, if I'm using V3 I get V3, and both fit well on my 1024 x whatever display, exactly as if I'm looking at my screen, rather than pigro's screen. Huh? (Same results in Firefox and in IE7)

I'm pleased with the font size (bigger for me on V3), but is the intention to eliminate the 'Today's Posts' for guests, or is it a 'work in progress' temporary removal? I think Today's Posts is a good thing, and would be sorry to see it go.

Speaking as someone with a visual impairment, I find the new version much more difficult to read.

In the poll, where people said why they used the forums, only a tiny percent were visiting Italy and looking for information, so is it really necessary for there to be such a large area devoted to this subject?

[quote=Charles Phillips;84208]That screenshot doesn't work for me. What I mean is that it doesn't work as a screenshot! If I open that attachment using V2, I get V2, if I'm using V3 I get V3, and both fit well on my 1024 x whatever display, exactly as if I'm looking at my screen, rather than pigro's screen. Huh? (Same results in Firefox and in IE7)
[/quote]

dunno what you mean Charles. The screenshot is just a static image, no different to one of my holiday snaps. It can't change dependant on what tool you use to render the image on a display device, and the version of the forum s/w likewise.

The screenshot shows a web browser window with V3 of IM forums open. It shows the content area being restricted to the LHS of the window, and the brown toolbar that runs along the top of that area being cut off before all the normal options are displayed.

Just to be clear, the overall size of the attached image when displayed in a browser window on YOUR PC is not relevant - it's the relative width of the forum thread listing WITHIN the image that I was highlighting.

Pigro - I hear your plea - and promise I will fix it for IE6

Nielo - would you mind sharing some more. Is it the colours or font-size. Also I don't think I got the second part. What is the large area - the headers or the right-hand side. Also keep in mind that a lot of people arrive at the forums looking for other things - as I am sure you know at any one time there are more unregistered users on the site than registered ones.

Charles - The Today's Post gone for non-registered members is an exercise in resource optimisation. Traffic to italymag.co.uk as a whole is rising and at times the server is slow. Registered members will always have access to that.

Again thanks for comments/suggestions and keep them coming

Hi Ron,

Just a few comments.

I particularly like the narrower text format, it makes it easier to read for me than very long lines, especially in longer posts.

I generally like the layout, but find the font used on the titles ugly and hard to read. I think its the bold version of the body type used in posts etc, and it's similar to v2, but the spacing seems closer, making it less legible.

I know Arial is boring, but it's far more readable, both as normal and bold text.
There are others: I like Comic Sans, but many don't.

cheers,

Hi Neil - guess you are right. Have taken things back to Arial/Helvetica. Also increased line spacing a bit. Let me know if this is easier to read.

Hi Ronaldo,

One of the additions I would like to see on the subject/thread - is a start date. As you know subjects are sometimes revisited and it is always useful to know whether or not it is a new thread on an old subject or an old one that someone has added to .

Chris

Ciao Cristiano :wink: - that is not a bad idea at all. Will see what can be done...

I understand your reasoning for removing Today's Posts, but yet another feature which guests will notice as an unwelcome change is that clicking on a thread takes a guest to the first post, rather than to the most recent post in the thread.

I understand Mount Side's reasoning as well, but (from the point of view of a guest), putting a 'start' date on a thread might well make the thread appear unappealingly elderly.

I do think that guests should be given at least as much consideration as registered logged-on members - it is the only way the population will grow. And how about weeding the membership list down to a more manageable number, wouldn't that save a little bit of resource?

Charles - the list has already has about 1500 names removed. If people are not logging in then it would not change anything in terms of resource usage (for a server dealing with 4000 or 6000 name is not such a big issue)

As for search - there is always the Google search at the top right hand side for non-registered members to use (which actually produces consistently better results than the search engine built into the forums)

"moved to italiauncovered.co.uk"

Excuse me for being thick, but what is the new functionality? As far as I can see it is all the same stuff but moved about a bit and crammed into a different space.

It's like when the supermarket puts the baked beans in the third isle and the bread somewhere else; It is essentially the same stuff just more difficult to find.

As for the readability, it may just be the way it comes up on my screen but the posts now fill the screen, left to right, and unless I move the bar at the bottom of the page I either miss the first characters or the last characters on a line. I also note that pictures do not have a script so can not be read by software for the visually impaired.

Please tell me that there will be new benefits to this revamp and not that it is just a change of paint!. As it is we all see the forum differently so it is not so much the font size, design, colour that matters but the content, which at the moment seems to be exactly the same.

It is like advertising, where you remember a beautiful advert but can’t remember what the product was = Failure or the really annoying advert for Daz = a successful advert because you remember the product, The really successful advert is the beautiful or funny advert for Levi jeans.

What I’m trying to say is it is not the wrapping paper but what is inside that matters!

Nielo - perhaps I was not clear enough in my first post. New features will come online throughout the week. For the time being what you can see is just a new graphical design and not new features.

So yes currently it is just about wrapping paper. There are two important points about why this wrapping paper - integration with the look of the rest of the site and space to integrate some of the new features in the forums. Hopefully also improved readability and we've already changed fonts based on others suggestions to improve readability. I hope that eventually we can resolve the problems you are having as well.

I should also add that even the new functionality is in a way just more wrapping paper - it may make some tasks easier to do, allow people to connect in more ways and share information in more ways and it can also act as a *pretext* for a new start but still just wrapping paper. There is no single tool you can implement that will instantly give you a better community because overwhelmingly the community depends on the people that make it up and not the tools they have at their disposal.

I'm finding page loads a bit slow, as others have already said.

Think there are a few problems in other areas too - just took a look at the Puglia page and apart from the fact that special characters are not appearing correctly take a look at this [URL="http://www.italymag.co.uk/italy/puglia/long-title-testing-lots-text-title"]article [/URL]. Now which Joomla/Mambo template did you use Ronald?

I agree with Charle re access to 'Todays Post" it is a pain to have to log on just to see what's new. Once on Todays Post it was very unclear and not easy to read. Not sure I go for the brown, but I guess it could be worse.

Hi Ronald

I find that the colour brown/burgandy, esp. on the front page very fuzzy/glaring. There does not appear to be enough definition and it is difficult to read.

i can understand some of the comments on the color definition being a bit fuzzy... especally at the last post in a thread... but that can often be an illusion because of how we are used to seeing things... i find the text areas and how they appear much clearer ... the colors... i like... will wait on the whole thing to be set up with the new functionality before i worry about it all too much... however regarding other comments on page loads etc... have found no difference in that respect ... could be some other cause other than the change...
... i do like change though...it keeps things interesting ... it also seems that there were a lot of comments on content being a bit tired and i think even when the color changes it sort of brings a breath of fresh air in and people start a fresh with it...

I am using V3 and I am happy with it. No problems.

New day... new colour scheme. I think we are almost there. Hopefully this is less fuzzy - it is hard when it comes to colours and busy setups like forums because every person's screen is different. For example I found the brown quite relaxing and the definition just fine but I guess on a different screen the variants of brown did not come through properly.

The forums being slow is probably more to do with how many people where on the site at that moment rather than just the new lick of paint.

TB - No Joomla/Mambo template... tutto fatto a mano :smile:

Keep the comments coming in - it is not often you get the change to have a discussion about a design with all the other people using it.

Thanks,

Ronald

[quote=ronald;84309]
TB - No Joomla/Mambo template... tutto fatto a mano :smile:
[/quote]

Well done then, don't forget to remove the ipsum lorum loads of other latin text from the Puglia page (if you haven't already done so)! :winki:

Maybe it's just my eyes or my PC or my settings, but I find it very difficult to see links in posts: the text colour seems to be either the same as ordinary text or very close to it.

Or perhaps this is deliberate because the latest style in website design is to not make links stand out? :veryconfused:

Al

FYI, IE6 now displays content OK Ronald.

Yes, Pigro, you are right, the inter-character spacing is too small and perhaps a change will help us all. Don't worry, your eyesight is fine. As it is mine.... I hope.

sorry, I've deleted my comment above - I just realised that Ronald had stated that he'd restored the original font. Hit the F5 key - you will hopefully find (as I did) that the most recent font is then used, which is indeed back to the old one.

I found the posts difficult to read last night, but today, it is much clearer. Not sure about the colour scheme though, but I suppose we'll all get used to it.

One minor point - the location of the Google Ads box - there is no definition between that and the post it follows, so it looks as though the ads are part of the post. I know the Grazie, Quote etc buttons and signature are visible, but could the ads box be moved to after the Quick Reply box?

What I find odd is that it appears that when I submit a post the type is tiny, its OK when it goes onto the thread, am I doing something wrong. I am useless at anything techie so simple answers please.
A

No Angie, the font size (how big the letters appear) seems to be smaller in the window where we compose our posts than the font size which is used to display the finished post within the thread - so nothing you're doing wrong, just how Ronald has set it up. I'd also like to see the edit window's font size increased to match.

Pigro - thanks re IE 6
Angie - I've adjusted font sizes for input - should be getting them bigger now
Janie - Yes I think this colour scheme should work better across more screens. will look into ads- perhaps make it clearer they are ads. Would be hard to put them below reply box
All - while this changes are going on its worth as Pigro said hitting F5 to make sure you have the latest version

[quote=ronald;84336]Al - while this changes are going on its worth as Pigro said hitting F5 to make sure you have the latest version[/quote]
Done that, but [URL="http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums/index.php"]links[/URL] still look to me like normal text in posts. If I squint and use my imagination, I can just about persuade myself that it's possible that they might be a very dark shade of red, but the thinness of the lines making up characters in Arial makes it difficult to be sure.

Nevermind. I guess I'll just have to get used to running the cursor over the whole message if the poster doesn't make the link obvious.

I'll toss in my tuppence worth's on fonts while at it: Isn't it generally accepted that serif fonts (e.g. Times Roman) are much easier to read than sans serif fonts (e.g. Arial)? Isn't it also accepted that unjustified text is easier to read than justified?

Of course, a degree in design means I appreciate that mere usability should never be allowed to get in the way of style! :winki:

Al

Attachments. As a guest, if I click on (eg. gardahomes kitten .jpg), I get an access denied message. Should this happen?

Allan - [URL="http://www.italymag.co.uk/forums"]links[/URL] should be clearer now (and text unjustified - I hate unjustified text but you are right it is generally considered to be easier to read...)

Charles - yes attachments are not available to unregistered users

Like the new layout Ronald, but could the sticky threads be separated from the postings, as would be easier visually to see in the post where you are looking.

if the third & final phase of the upgrade will provide wiki's (which I personally think should be far and away the most useful part of the new functionality) then can we assume that we will no longer need to re-register at some point (as was previously suggested) and that the changes to moderation that were discussed in "looking forward to 2008" will not now be introduced either?

On the subject of Wiki's: I think it may be useful for Ronald to give a quick overview of the key points in advance of their introduction both to explain the concept and sort out the practicalities:

In particular:

1) will all current sticky's be replaced by wiki's (a "sticky-wiki" scenario would leave us on a sticky wicket!)
2) what wil be the validation process for new wiki's and edits (i.e. can anyone create/edit a wiki, do edits get peer-reviewed before publication etc.)
3) will there be "ownership" of individual wiki's or categories? I.e. wiki-moderator(s)
4) will they be searchable just as per the rest of the site, or will they exist in a separate "area" so that those searching for definitive answers would only get results form the wiki's

As I said, I think wiki's could be the making of the forum - finally, a collection of concise, accurate, and up to date info provided in a logical, easy to find location. This will encourage us all to create & maintain a repository of info that will be useful to both ourselves and to others; it should nail the "problem" of newbies posting the same old ICI/Enel/Compromesso questions again and again ... On the other hand, if we are all left to squabble over content in an "edit death match" it could be a real flop.

Erum , excuse me whats a wiki?, is it like a sticky, I have to keep phoning a friend to sort this new stuff out,
A

I rest my case ... over to Ronald! meantime Ange, think [B]Wiki[/B]pedia ... a compendium of information that's provided and maintained by its users. Upside is volume; downside is accuracy.

[quote=Angie and Robert;84454]Erum , excuse me whats a wiki?, is it like a sticky, I have to keep phoning a friend to sort this new stuff out,
A[/quote]It's basically a page that can be edited by anyone.

Different sites implement various levels of control over who is allowed to do what, and whether pages need to be reviewed after changes.

The 'big' one is Wikipedia: [URL="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page"]Main Page - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia[/URL]

The idea behind the Wiki is to create a place where we can pool all the knowledge on this forums on easy to read pages rather than have it spread across threads. That means that the next time someone asks - how do I get Sky in Italy we will be able to point them to a simple page with all the details there :smile:

In the end, I disliked the excess white space so much that I wrote a short [URL="http://www.greasespot.net/"]Greasemonkey[/URL] script to remove the fixed-width attribute from [I]everything[/I]. I also bumped the font size up to 16pt (someone used the phrase "myopic old git" recently...) Screen DPI vs point size vs pixel size is a very complicated area.

The main thing I learned was that my programming skills are alarmingly rusty. However, I now have the forum pages all filling the full window, and it all looks pretty good. Everything is still working! The only downside is that Firefox renders the page normally first and [I]then[/I] Greasemonkey kicks in to re-format it.

I don't mean to appear ungrateful or anti-social about this forum. There's a lot of functionality that is much better and cleverer than other forums I've used. And I know that Ronald has said that he is constrained by a house style imposed by the overall magazine site. I'm just an inveterate computer twiddler who likes to tweak things his own way.

Graham - :notworthy:

[quote=ronald;84461]The idea behind the Wiki is to create a place where we can pool all the knowledge on this forums on easy to read pages rather than have it spread across threads. That means that the next time someone asks - how do I get Sky in Italy we will be able to point them to a simple page with all the details there :smile:[/quote]

the intent behind my enquiry was who will create the wiki for Sky initially (anyone who wants? a moderator?) and once it's there, what happens if I disagree with the dish size that's been quoted as sufficient for receiving the signal in my location and edit the Wiki to reflect what I believe to be true? Can I make such unsolicited edits; who reviews them and arbitrates in case of dispute?

Sky may be a simple example without too much scope for disagreement, but on things like Capital Gains Tax, IRPEF et al, there may be much more wriggle room between fact and heresay/heresy. Would be useful to have some open debate on ownership/verification before you launch the feature on us - as we'll be the contributers and editors, we should be involved in defining the control structure?