Topic: New Portal Format (Read 22361 times)

Old Bill · « **on:** June 18, 2011, 08:01:14 PM »

Glad to see the twitter feed for the writing industry back. I like the new layout. How is the calendar going to work? Will we have the opportunity to suggest/contribute?

Good job, Bob.

Old Bill

Bob Mueller · « **Reply #1 on:** June 18, 2011, 11:43:22 PM »

Bill, I split this off since it's a good opening post for discussion about the new format.

I'm still tinkering with it, and will be for a few days at least.

At this point, everyone should be able to make calendar entries. Events will automatically post to a forum that you select at the time you make an entry. I suspect events will tend to concentrate in the Conferences, Competitions, or maybe Publicity boards. I think the Event Entry page is pretty straightforward, but if you have questions, ask in the Technology Troubles board.

I moved Lee Lofland's RSS feed to the right sidebar for now of some pages, and DP Lyle's to a section at the bottom of the portal page. I'm kicking around the idea of creating a separate page just for RSS feeds, and linking to it in the menu bar. It would have the same look and feel as a forum page, and would be there if you want to look at them, but would be easy to ignore if you want to.

This portal system is MUCH more flexible than the last version. I can pretty much put the blocks on any combination of forum pages I want. I can have some show up just on the portal front, or just on the forum front, or on every single page, including the topic posting page.

If you have questions or comments about the new layout, lemme hear them.

Bob Mueller · « **Reply #2 on:** June 19, 2011, 05:13:33 PM »

I've moved Lee's blog feed to the "Blogs We Like" page. There's a new button in the menu bar next to the Amazon Store button that'll take you to the Blogs page. I did that because there are some really useful blogs out there that don't get tweeted, but I wanted some way to let everyone know about them.

Suggestions for blog feeds are welcome.

Lynette · « **Reply #3 on:** June 19, 2011, 09:26:33 PM »

I like the new portal, Bob. It's easy to read and I always go for easy.

I do have a question which has nothing to do with this, but it seems a good place to ask it.

Why are post on these threads there forever? I'm thinking mostly of the Welcome thread. In the old format I remember that old post were deleted after 60 or 90 days. That seemed to keep the site clean and neat and you didn't have to wade through so much old info.

Lynette

Bob Mueller · « **Reply #4 on:** June 19, 2011, 11:05:35 PM »

It's actually a feature that the old posts don't roll off. It leaves everything out there to be searched by Google et al, which can bring more visitors to the site.

The software that Laurie was using was written in a time where disk storage was pretty expensive, so you only saved the really important stuff. But it's a lot cheaper now, so it's less expensive to keep lots of posts around.

If you come up on a multi-page thread, you can click the last number on the page list to go to the last page of posts. If there's a "NEW" icon on a thread link, that will take you to the newest post on that thread.

I might close out the Welcome Wagon thread since I'm doing the Welcome post for every new member. Seems like a duplication of effort, now that I think about it.

Lance Charnes · « **Reply #5 on:** July 03, 2011, 01:44:49 PM »

I can't say I'm wild about the three-column format, but I could live with it if it worked correctly with IE8's page magnification feature. I run with my windows at 150% size (getting old sucks). With that setting, the right-hand column of widgets overlays the center column -- and this on a wide-screen monitor.

Update: Even at 100% or 125%, the center column of "Blogs We Like" extends under the right-column widgets all the way to the right edge of my screen.

On another note: I don't know if the Twitter logger can also search for hashtags, but if so, you might have it look for #askagent. This tag allows Q&A tweet sessions with lit agents.

Bob Mueller · « **Reply #6 on:** July 03, 2011, 07:49:47 PM »

Lance, thanks for that feedback. I'll see if there's a way to watch for IE8 as the useragent, and respond differently. I'm also working on getting a mobile format installed, but my 'net access is very spotty at the moment. In a week or so, I should be able to put more effort into things.

Great idea about the hashtags, too. AFAIK, there's no reason I can't do that.

I might also drop #amwriting in, but that's a busy tag. I might make another Page for Twitter feeds, like I did for the blog feeds.

Old Bill · « **Reply #7 on:** July 04, 2011, 11:48:34 AM »

At least for me, I'd like to see the "recent topics" box at the bottom/side/somewhere on all post pages. It would help in the navigation without having to always jump back to the forum page. I thought that was available in the old format.

Happy 4th!

Old Bill