New web site look and feel

This Friday (May 9th, 2008) we will be taking the web site down for some maintenance. One of the big improvements will be a new look and feel for both the forum and the main web site. We have spent the last few months coming up with the new theme and we hope that you will like it. However there are a couple of items that you need to be aware of, specifically in regards to the forum.

• The biggest change is that if you go to the forums directly by typing in "http://tech.lds.org/forum" your experience will be diminished. The reason is that we have more tightly integrated the forum into the rest of the site and so the forum site (as it stands alone) will no longer will contain any header/footer information for the rest of the site unless you get to the forums from the main site.
• We are upgrading the forum software to a new version. Although it is expected that this new version will not cause any problems, please report any issues you see to us immediately.

We hope that you enjoy the new experience. Once we launch we will provide a new forum thread for you to comment on.

Tom

The new sight look & feel is live. Please let us know if you uncover any problems or how you feel about it.

Tom

tomw wrote:

• The biggest change is that if you go to the forums directly by typing in "http://tech.lds.org/forum" your experience will be diminished. The reason is that we have more tightly integrated the forum into the rest of the site and so the forum site (as it stands alone) will no longer will contain any header/footer information for the rest of the site unless you get to the forums from the main site.

I just now realized that this also means that if you want to give somebody a link to a particular thread, the experience is also diminished.

The best way I spread word about this site is through giving links to particular threads. I'll be having a conversation with someone and then a topic will come up that is addressed on this forum. So I tell them I will email them a link to the thread. It was also a way to get them introduced to the site as a whole.

This strategy is now diminished slightly because of the missing header, footer, and navigation links. Is there a work around to somehow give them a link directly to a thread but by going through the main homepage somehow?

Thanks.

mkmurray wrote:I just now realized that this also means that if you want to give somebody a link to a particular thread, the experience is also diminished.

I agree with mkmurray that this seems to be a step backwards for links to posts, threads, or forums within the forum.

I would note that this is a problem even for articles in the site that link to the forum. For example, the article that describes the LDS Technology Site at http://tech.lds.org/index.php?option=co ... &Itemid=68 contains a link to a forum at http://tech.lds.org/forum/forumdisplay.php?f=29 where you can give your feedback. But following that link leaves you with no LDSTech headers and footers. Not helpful .

It would be great if there were a way to link to a post, thread, or forum and still maintain the context.

Can't say as I'm too thrilled about the color schema. When I arrived here I thought I was in a military forum. Links do contrast a bit better, but it seems rather "grungy" for a church site.

I've noticed a couple of things. First, I tend to agree with the above comments regarding direct links. For example, I have a shortcut on my desktop pointing to http://tech.lds.org/forum/search.php?do=getnew which (of course) catches me up on the latest posts.

Second, when I'm at the bottom of a thread and press "Post Reply", I have to manually scroll up to the top of the thread to find the box where I can enter my reply. (This happens in both IE7 and Firefox browsers.) To the less experienced, it would appear the button was ineffective.

Third, I find the message areas more difficult to read with my old eyes due to a lower contrast between the black text and tan background. A couple of shades lighter on the text background would really help. It would also better compliment the area where the poster's name and avatar are located, as (IMO) the two backgrounds are currently too similar in shades.

Finally (if I may be so critical) as pleasant as it looks, IMO, I find the header, tabs, navigation bar, etc. seem to take up a lot of room. It looks as if each could be trimmed to about 1/2 to 1/3 their current thicknesses and still be effective, but this is more of a personal preference than anything.

Wow, probably sorry you asked for my opinion now.

Edit: One last thing... After I posted the above comments, I scrolled back up to the top of this thread only to find I could only see about 1/2 of Tom's first post. For some reason the header took out most of it. A page refresh took me completely out of the thread and back to the main forum area. Drilling my way back into the thread, everything looked normal again. This was using Firefox, BTW.

I noticed that if you do enter the forum by using the link:
http://tech.lds.org/forum/
When you open a thread, you can create a shortcut to the thread and it will go directly to the thread but with no header. So that is a work around until something better can be done if you need to send a link to a thread.

I also agree it would help to lighten the text background a little to make it have more contrast with the forum message area.

I think it would be helpful to add a tab all the way to the left for HOME. There is a home link below the header but not on the header.

I do like the looks of the header.

GarysTurn wrote:I think it would be helpful to add a tab all the way to the left for HOME. There is a home link below the header but not on the header.

I do like the looks of the header.

You can click on the big LDSTECH to go Home (if the header is displayed).

RussellHltn wrote:Can't say as I'm too thrilled about the color schema. When I arrived here I thought I was in a military forum. Links do contrast a bit better, but it seems rather "grungy" for a church site.

I'll second that! The backgrounds are too dark, and the blue-gray-ish text is too light. In a lot of areas, there does not seem to be a significant difference between text and background in brightness/intensity/value, leaving hue as the only difference.

Great feedback. I'll see what we can do to get the header/footer back on the forum without wrapping it in the main site.

Also I've noted all of the color issues with the site.

Tom

I liked the ability of the old site to click on new messages and just see them. Then I could look at the ones I wanted then mark all messages as read.

I can not find this ability on this site. Maybe I am missing something.

Roger

Roger wrote:I liked the ability of the old site to click on new messages and just see them. Then I could look at the ones I wanted then mark all messages as read.

I can not find this ability on this site. Maybe I am missing something.

Roger

Roger, check under the Quick Links tab near the top of the page. Is that what you were referring to?

Mike

When I had "wheeled" down to the bottom of the page I was able to do Ctrl-home to go to the top of the page on the old site and then click on New Posts. Now I have to click on the page to have it do Ctrl-home and go to the top of the page.

Yes that is what I was looking for. Just did not look in the right place.

Thanks
Roger

srweight wrote:When I had "wheeled" down to the bottom of the page I was able to do Ctrl-home to go to the top of the page on the old site and then click on New Posts. Now I have to click on the page to have it do Ctrl-home and go to the top of the page.

I have my threads sort from newest to oldest. That way I use the scroll wheel to go up the thread until I get to the most recent post, and now I'm already at the top and can hit "New Posts." The nice thing too is that when you click on a New Post, it will jump you to the last post in the thread you haven't read. So I get the auto-jump down, and then I just scroll up to the top until I'm done catching up and ready to move on to the next new thread.

It does take a little while to get used to it, but I love it now.

I notice that the forum does not yet have an audio captcha. I think that comes in the next version. Any idea when we might be seeing that feature?

Thanks.

Aaron

cannona wrote:I notice that the forum does not yet have an audio captcha. I think that comes in the next version. Any idea when we might be seeing that feature?

Thanks.

Aaron

I'm acquainted with text captcha, including incorrectly guessing whether that straight vertical line is a numeral one, a lowercase el, or an uppercase eye. What form would audio captha take, and how would it work? If it involves having to hook up a microphone to the sound card and then figure out how to get the browser to upload audio data from it, I would guess I'm NOT going to like it.

rmrichesjr wrote:I'm acquainted with text captcha, including incorrectly guessing whether that straight vertical line is a numeral one, a lowercase el, or an uppercase eye. What form would audio captha take, and how would it work? If it involves having to hook up a microphone to the sound card and then figure out how to get the browser to upload audio data from it, I would guess I'm NOT going to like it.

Let not your heart be troubled. Any form of Audio CAPTCHA would be to supplement the current text version, not replace it, for the benefit of the visually impaired. Currently, they must use email or some other means to verify they are human to gain access.

rmrichesjr wrote:What form would audio captha take, and how would it work? If it involves having to hook up a microphone to the sound card and then figure out how to get the browser to upload audio data from it, I would guess I'm NOT going to like it.

Other way around - you have to type what you hear. It's to allow the blind or visually impaired to sign up.

cannona wrote:I notice that the forum does not yet have an audio captcha. I think that comes in the next version. Any idea when we might be seeing that feature?

Thanks.

Aaron

I'm working on that tomorrow. I need to run V3.7 through QA process to ensure that it does not mess anything up. It should be soon.

Tom

tomw wrote:I'm working on that tomorrow. I need to run V3.7 through QA process to ensure that it does not mess anything up. It should be soon.

Tom

Great news! Thank you!

Aaron