(Free Republic is) Gettin' Better

Self | 3/31/2002 | Unkadean

[lawdude]

The latest revision is great.

[sweetliberty]

"full of empty pizza boxes, empty soda cans, red eyes, and fraying nerves."

I suspect they may be compiling a list of the most annoying FReepers by now too! Hehehe....I'm thinking probably a good percentage of us on ALL sides would qualify.

[deport]

Only 6 hours 'till April Fools!

Yep I think John and Jim should bring back the original format they put in place during Friday night and have it online about 7 a.m. EST for the work week crowd that missed all the fun. I'm sure they'll be surprised when they log on anyway but the original format for them to see would be interesting..... Yes a good "APRIL FOOL" as they begin the week.

[jimtorr]

I can imagine the office where the Robinsons are working this weekend; full of empty pizza boxes, empty soda cans, red eyes, and fraying nerves.

I can also imagine John making a flying trip to Fry's Electronics to stock up on all those essential high tech supplies. I must admit, I've done that a few times myself.

[sweetliberty]

"Would you find a box around the right-hand column too distracting?"

No, it was the left hand sidebar that was a major distraction.

[Revel]

Well it is just getting closer to be like it was. So why did it change in the first place. Oh well...One thing that still is a problem. The self search used load in about 5 seconds for me. Now it takes about 20-25 seconds due to a bunch of text that I don't even need. If I want to read the replys then I will click on them. And then I don't need to see the text(automatically) from the ones I have already read. I can only handle one or two self search's per cession now.

[RightWhale]

Looks much better. All business, no fluff.

[deport]

now it's almost back to the old look.

Well that is what a lot of the original complaints seem to voice... give us back the old FR... so they've about gotten it back or so it seems...

[sweetliberty]

"some cool new features AND they put "Find in Forum" back on the FReeper home pages!"

I really like the way the search feature is set up now.

[Clara Lou]

Sorry. In a previous post, you disparaged the look of a successful forum and I asked you a question that you didn't answer so I made the mistake of providing you the answer here. That was a mistake on my part.
I'm sorry-- perhaps we have a misunderstanding.... Exactly where did I "disparage" the look of this forum? I said it was "unnecessarily spartan," in agreement with another poster on the page. You said you "most cordially disagree" with me, but, apparently, there was nothing cordial about it.
I've checked this page 3 times, and I don't see any place where you asked me a question. I see where I asked you a question.

[pt17]

What he said: .....

That's pretty close, but with a bit more eloquence and lucidity. :-)

[Jim Robinson]

Acually, the exercise had nothing to do with finding the perfect font. We are in the process of expanding the forum software. We are going to be adding several new forums and new features over the coming weeks. We added the left side menu bar so we would have a place to list the new forums as well as the new navigational tools that will be needed for the new features we are adding. We did not want to eat too far into the right hand sidebars so we added the new area. And we introduced the blue colored background (and flag image) to act as a separater to separate the new side bar from the text area. We also added a box around the center text area for the same reason. Many people said the flag background made the page harder to read so we removed it. No big deal and no loss. They also said the font was too small, so we increased it. The blue background and the box around the center text was thought to make the page look too busy, so we went to an all white background, removed the box and left more white space as the separater. This actully would have worked very well for what we were trying to accomplish, however, we found that it would not work out for our WebTV users. Seems their browser is not very wide and our new left side menu was pushing their right sidebars off the page. Ok, so we punt and go to plan B. We remove the left side menu and move most of the navigation tools back to the top of the page. We've now gone from two lines of navigational tools to three lines, and we've moved the list of forums back to the right sidebar. So, we will now try to find places to squeeze in the new links for our additional new features as we add them, without making any additional drastic layout changes. I think the current layout is functional and not all that cluttered or "artsy fartsy" as at least one complainant claimed. Hopefully, it will work out well for most people. Sorry about the fire drill. Just keeping everyone alert. Hah!
Thanks, Jim

[pt17]

In #200 of "Bring Back The Blue Border", I posted the following to you:

What many so called "web designers" sometimes forget is that designing for a successful special interest site is not the same as designing for a company. Do you know why?

Did I miss your response?

[Clara Lou]

I don't care what you do-- boxes, fonts, backgrounds, dividers, columns-- FR is irreplaceable.

[alisasny]

Jim, I know your trying to make FR the best it can be. I am just tired of trying to find things right now and it seems almost everytime I log on their is a new change to meander through. I can deal with it but not everyone has that kind of time. Even I find myself leaving FR due to getting tired of finding things which I never felt before. Good luck working out the kinks and maybe a 2 week self-imposed vacation from FR is in order for me. I'll sleep on that tonight.

[Clara Lou]

Ah, a question from a different thread... no, I'm sure I don't know the answer you are going to give. Regardless of your answer, I'm not asking for a professionally designed site-- just some simple things for my eyes.

[CedarDave]

I'm running a Dell laptop and it's just peachy with Netscape 4.79!!

[Jim Robinson]

Well, like I said, I think we've pretty much settled on the overall page layout. Hope we're not going to be making too many more changes in that area. John may be making a few more minor changes here and there as he brings the rest of the pages into alignment with the new design, then that part of our efforts will be over for awhile. Then he has a couple more design changes in the underlying database layout and he'll be ready to tackle the next issue of adding our new features (no announcements yet, but stay tuned). By the way, the new features will not require page layout changes, only additional menu command links.

[pt17]

just some simple things for my eyes

Clara, I cannot (nor would I dare, at this point :-) disagree with you on this. Best regards, pt17

[Reborn]

Every time I log back on, and come to FR it is changed, LOL! I really APPRECIATE that Bible, and Bible quote for Easter on the opening page, WOW! I also appreciate that FR is taking the time to continue to mess around and try new stuff with the website. Thanks!!!