Great title eh?

I am making some upgrades (finally) to the site layout. We will be gaining the same site selection pulldown/browse option that AeroScale and other sites have in the top header. I know for some of you the changes will be unwelcome, but I will try to iron out any issues that I can if you post your concerns here. I haven't fully finalized the functionality of the new header in terms of mail. One thing I was considering was trying to add the audible PM alert sound back if it's doable. It went away after IE 7 made things tough on playing wav files without user consent. I might be able to get around it by putting in a flash sound file.

Thanks,
Jim

The changes look good so far Jim.

Is 'wonky' a technical term? Just kidding.....

Mmmmmmmm........

URL links in posts are no longer clickable ....

eg: I've used the normal format for this and it comes up as normal text.....


http://armorama.kitmaker.net/

The links are clickable, just don't show up a different color as before. (I prefer the different color myself though, as it makes them easier to see, good for my old eyes at least.

Here a test on the hopefullly clickable link with title :
Redfrog Hobbies

Yep, it works, except no color!!! I'm afraid they will simply get overlooked on each post, as they simply blend in with the normal text.

Jim,

The header is ok. My only fumble was that it no longer tells me I'm logged in in the green Armorama banner, and to find my user account I eventually found I need to click my user name in the top right corner of the new header. (I hadn't even noticed my user name up there at first!)

Tom

I find the changes alright, but I believe that there is too much grey, unused space to the left of the screen. It makes the website feel off center. Just make the page a bit thinner, and that would greatly improve the look of it, mostly because I really don't like having to scroll over to read what's on the right side of the screen.

I hope that my grammar is readable enough, (it's still early...)

zaltar

Thanks for the heads-up Jim, I thought the site was hacked or something. I'd have to second the Zaltar's comment. For now, my screen's is zoomed-down to about 80% to accommodate the page width and avoid moving left and right -- but this makes text close to unreadable. Cheers -- Tat.

Jim,

Looks nice on a PC but doesn't work well on a Blackberry which is how I normally access the big A.

Darryl

the new layout looks terrific!

Looks great but yeah I have to echo the page is way too wide! I can only see 75% at a time and I have to keep scrolling left and right to read stuff!

Funny thing is for the pass few years I've had to enlarge my setting to 125% to fill the screen, and still do. Could care less about loosing the side ads.

The only negative I have to comment on is that the adverts being on the left rather than the right push the posts in the threads off of the edge of the screen with my settings. I also feel that having read Dave's comment it is a very valid point.

My screen at 100%



My screen at 125%

I do like the different type in the respond message window, as it seems to give me a much easier to see opening between the brackets for links, and photos. Although that screen appears much bigger, cutting off the ads to the right, which I could careless about. But everything goes back to normal after posting. (normal for me is the 125% screenshot, which is also my normal setting for all the other sites I visit.)
Screenshot are from this thread.

Thanks for the feedback guys. It looks like the screen width is at about 1072 pixels (to the right edge of the forums/pages). I will try to make that at least fit within the 1024 setting which is what a majority of our visitors are using. That said if you can bump your resolution up to 1280 wide I think you'll be much happier.

1. 1024x768 97,386 24.04%
2. 1280x1024 67,914 16.77%
3. 1280x800 55,840 13.79%
4. 1680x1050 38,160 9.42%
5. 1440x900 35,426 8.75%
6. 1920x1200 15,025 3.71%
7. 1366x768 12,285 3.03%
8. 1920x1080 11,053 2.73%
9. 1152x864 11,018 2.72%
10. 800x600 7,056 1.74%


For the 2% of you or so that are using 800 x 600 or lower resolutions, sorry but you need to come into the 20th century.

Darryl - thanks for the tip on the wireless problem. I was able to bring up the site okay on my Google Android, but one of my goals is to improve our WAP version of the site. It's more slimline than the regular version and thus will load a lot easier for wireless devices. http://wap.armorama.com

Dave - Nice screens! You look to have a 24" like me. 1920 x 1200 for me folks.

Cheers,
Jim

The new layout looks great! Congrats! I for one don't have any difficulties with the resolution. What I do have is ads on the right side getting mixed up with other ads or with pictures of features:




EDIT: It seems to happen only in Firefox and Safari, not Internet Explorer.

And I also agree that links should be highlited somehow, especially links that are in the flow of the text with the url= function.

Cheers and continue the great work!
Stefan

Mine is a mere 20 incher, with 1680x1050 factory settings.

I don't mind the changes except that the links should be highlighted and the inbox for your PM's could flash or indicate you have a message.
Cheers

jjumbo

I do not have a very large monitor and you are correct it should be changed, and at some point in the future it will be. What the current set up of the page means is I need to block the adverts in order for the page to fit on my screen, this is not an ideal situation as it is the advertisers who keep the site up via their payments.

I just may have to go pick up a new monitor now, just to keep up with the boss.

My boss has a 26"!

SWMBO that is.

Jim

Don't know bout the rest of the Guys, But I LIKE it. Nice work Jim!!


Jeremy

My only two issues. Other than that it looks great.
Evan

If you do a force refresh of your browser (CTRL + F5 on IE) than the links will be blue and underlined again.

The PM indicator will be fixed as I mentioned in the initial post at some point in the future.

Thanks,
Jim

Thanks Jim !

That's much better