Topic starter
10/07/2007 1:59 pm
It's done! After spending about 3 weeks of full-time work, steamboats.org is completely new - and if I did a good job, you almost won't recognize it.
Let me know what you think about the (slightly) new design, but especially let me know when you run into error messages or any kind of other problems that might occure. I did test-runs for days, was juggling with about 20 different web browsers, Windows, MacOS and Linux, but some mistakes and problems usually do not surface in tests but only in real life 😉
Some technical background, for the ones who are curious:
Steamboats.org did consist of many hundreds of single, static HTML pages (not counting the 28,000 pages if the old message board which I didn' touch; they're still static pages). It is a nightmare to take care of so many static pages and it's almost impossible to make even small changes as you would have to change every single page, manually.
Now steamboats.org is competely database-driven, every page comes from a professional content management system and is easy to maintain. It did cost me a lot of time to achieve this, but it'll be a timesaver in the future.
I hope you like it and sure hope it will be a benefit for all of us.
Franz
10/07/2007 4:17 pm
Works great with Safari/Mac OS 10, Firefox/Mac OS 10, and IE/Windows NT. It works sorta Ok with IE/Mac OS 9, but that is my problem, not yours.
Really like the new picture of the Belle...but then again the old one was cool, too.
The only comment I have is really from other people who have used the site and seemed to be missing older thread responses if they hadn't logged on in a day or so. It seems that unless you purposely select "Linear Mode" under the "display mode" tab, in reviewing the threads, it is difficult to follow the responses in chronological order, and older responses way be hidden in the clutter, especially if somebody posts a reply to a middle of the thread response.
Is there a way to make Linear Mode the default?
Topic starter
10/07/2007 6:20 pm
Bruno Krause;6525 wrote: Is there a way to make Linear Mode the default?
Well, it's just one click with the mouse to make this default, but I don't want to 😉 Honestly: I think the threaded mode is by far the better mode for a message board like this - i.e. sharing news and information, reading the board daily or even more then once per day. The linear mode is best for support forums where users drop by only occasionally and are not reading on a regular basis.
But if you like the linear mode better, just change your personal settings. The only disadvantage is, you have to be logged in to see the board with your personal settings. By checking the "remember me?" check box when logging in, you can stay logged in on your computer permanentely - at least as long as you don't hit the "log off" link. (by the way: the message board is running on a database for quite a while already, the changes are for the rest of the site only).
Franz
10/07/2007 11:45 pm
How do we get a bigger picture of the Picture of the Week now? I click on it and the same size picture with a narrative comes up. There is a larger picture of the ice with it, but I can't click on anything that brings the featured picture bigger. (I'm using the dummkopf1 operating system.)
Topic starter
11/07/2007 4:51 am
Well, I think dummkopf1 operating system is actually being used on my side 🙂 I simply forgot to make the image clickable. Now it works.
Franz