Site Update: The Snag List

[Stephan Whelan]

Hi everyone,

Now that we are well into our upgrade of the site it's time to let you help us identify any potential issues with the new design.

Drop a note in here describing the issue (post a screen shot as well if possible) and i'll add it to the list to fix.

[sea-wolf]

Hi Stephan,

Is there a place where I can see the forum threads in which the last posts were submitted. Such area existed on the main page in the old interface.

Thanks,
Peter

[Stephan Whelan]

Bottom right hand corner of the main site. Under "join the discussion"

[sea-wolf]

Thanks a lot.

[azapa]

the small links to the forums don't work:

clicking: DeeperBlue.net - Fanatical About FreeDiving, Scuba Diving, Spearfishing & Technical Diving
gives:
Warning: main(/home/swhelan/www.deeperblue.net/htdocs//includes/leaderboard.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/swhelan/www.deeperblue.net/htdocs/news.php on line 22

Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required '/home/swhelan/www.deeperblue.net/htdocs//includes/leaderboard.php' (include_path='.:/home/swhelan/www.deeperblue.net/htdocs/inc') in /home/swhelan/www.deeperblue.net/htdocs/news.php on line 22

[Cliff Etzel]

Nice redesign mate - See you in Orlando next week...

[sciencemike]

Maybe its just mine but "Gallery" across the top bar is always "rolled over" aka larger. Its the blue line across the top of the forum.

Home - News - Forums - GALLERY - Courses - Shopping

If thats intentional then im sorry.

Mike

[rbsub]

Ok we all didn't get cool Deeperblue t-shirts. But for the case that I want to buy one - where is the link to the Deeperblue fan articles (coffeepress-shop?) now?

Or do we get automatically a t-shirt for every 1000 posts?

[trux]

Well, I know the new layout for forum that we can now select at the bottom is just a beta version, and not finished yet, but guess some feedback is welcome anyway, so here you go:

I already mentioned the huge blank header with nothing else than an unnecessarily big and tall logo and then just a white blank space (I am a supporter so I do not see the ad banner that normally takes a smaller part of the huge blank space). I much more appreciated the older header that was only half that size. Personally, I'd rather expect an improvement from a new design - and the old design could indeed bear some improvements - the header + the site menu + invitation to join the supporter program + the forum menu take almost full screen, if you are on a notebook or do not have your browser in full screen mode. You have to scroll down at every single page just to see the real content. Why not merging the website menu with the one of the forum and reorganizing them into a single stripe? Why not making the logo less tall, and not above the menu, but rather left of it? Instead of the current 13cm, the header could be just 1.5-2cm high, letting so much more room for the real content.

Well, that is my personal opinion, and a friendly advice, not a complaint, so please take it easy. Then, there are some real problems with the beta version that you may want to know about:

1. The invitation to join the supporter program appears at the top even for paying subscribers. That's not the case when one switches to the old design.
   .
2. The forum table width is fixed which is very unpleasant both with big and small resolutions (or windows). On a big screen, most of the available space is wasted, and on smaller screens or windows, you have to permanently scroll left and right at every single line while reading the text.

Otherwise the layout is pleasant to the eye, and does not collide with the vBulletin look

[Stephan Whelan]

Trux,

Thanks for your feedback!

The forum design isn't even alpha stage yet and is being worked on both from a design perspective and technology perspective so can't even be commented on from my side. It "may" be ready for the weekend but depends on how the coding goes.

I'll let you know once we're in a position to get some feedback on that design. Other than that any problems with the main site, news site, gallery or shop should be reported in here. Forums and Courses are being worked on.

Cheers!

[trux]

I see the forum layout was changed now, and unfortunately the old one was not kept as an alternative. Since I have really troubles viewing the forum on my sub-notebook because the huge header forces me to scroll down at each page, so I fixed the layout myself - fortunately with MS Internet Explorer it is very easy to remove or modify unwanted content on web pages through the Usability menu, where one can easily redefine any styles. With this very simple and short fix, I removed the entire top header, so each forum page now starts with the forum menu, and I am avoiding the necessity to scroll down to see the real content.

From respect to Stephan, I do not want to post the exact details of the fix here, but those who suffer from the huge blank header too and prefer removing it, can contact me by PM, and I send them the instructions. I am not sure if there is a similar possibility in Firefox or in other browsers - a quick check of the settings did not reveal it, but Firefox often hides diverse advanced settings, so I do not exclude it is possible anyway.

BTW, in similar way you can suppress unwanted content, or modify the look of the page layout on most websites.

EDIT: I just realized that the layout fix also removes the advertisement banner. I did not think about it because I am a DB supporter, and hence have just a blank space instead of it in the header. However, because I do not want to mess up with DB's advertising revenues, I won't give the instructions for the header removal to anyone who is not a supporter too. Sorry for that. If you want to get rid of the header and want that I advise you how to do it, please subscribe with DB before contacting me - it is very inexpensive.

[kelp princess]

Stephan i don't know IF you can fix this but it would be nice IF on the homepage when you scroll down to the forums box,
instead of having to click on one of the threads IF you can make the
"Join the Discussions" tab itself a hot link to the main forum page.

otherwise you have to go back up to the top nav to get to the main forums menu.

thanks!



fk

[laminar]

Great web revision!

My only comment so far is that I did enjoy seeing ten new forum threads on the front page, rather than only five. I do use the new posts feature in the forums, but I did also appreciate seeing more newest threads at a glance.

Cheers,
Pete

[Alexx]

Not that I mind, but you might want to know

Some (not all) of your sponsored links do not show up.

[Morg]

Hey Stephan,

This may not be a bug from the new update and I am not even sure if it is a bug to begin with.

I've sent you a few PMs pre and after the new update and I haven't recieved anything back at all. I am not sure if your getting my PMs at all.

Thanks,
Morg