Thoughts on changing the home pages...

[Chief]

I was thinking of changing the home pages to Vbadvanced pages. Here is an example of a Vbadvanced page.

 

http://www.reeffrontiers.com/

 

We would be able to add much more content that is relevant to the forums. I could make new pages for the Officers, Gallery, Minutes, etc. They would be more professional looking, and would integrate better with the forums.

 

I just don't like the look of the homepages as they are. At lower resolutions they look terrible. I am no web designer... I can admit it. I think the Vbadvanced pages would look better.

 

VbAdvanced CMPS is free. If everyone likes the idea, I will start to make the new pages soon. It will take me a while. This is another busy month in the grocery industry.

 

Jay

[dippin61]

oi chief.. i totally forgot about the pm's we sent. if you still want to talk hit me up. sorry.. i always forget to check the pm's, im kinda spoiled and am used to RC's, when it pops up and tells you :p

[andy]

Hey Jay, it might be worth deciding what exactly the club needs the front page to do before deciding on a solution. The open source CMS pckages are cool and powerful, but can require a fair bit of maintenance and attract crackers. I've been admin on two phpNuke sites, and both got cracked and had their db trashed... My fault for not staying on top of the frequent updates, but it got to be a real pain.

 

Also, you don't have to do it all yourself -- there are a bunch of people in the club with expertise in this area.

[Guest Mbeef61]

personally i hate the look of reef frontiers....very very hard to read and navigate...way too bunched up...causes me to not even go there. i like this much better...just my .02

[CCR]

Last time any changes where brought up, it hit the fan. I like the other bit it is quite cluddered. Change is good.

[Michael7979]

My $.02........keep it clean and simply.

[JManrow]

I really like the way the home page looks now. Very clean, uncluttered, and up-to-date with important Upcoming Club Events, club introduction, POTM, etc.

[Nyles]

I like the page now, as long as its up to date. Cheers.

[spayne]

I guess I'm the minority here. I like the way Reef Frontiers, as well as RC, is set up. It would give the site more continuity between the forums and the front page. At the moment they look like two very different sites, the front page and the forums. And heck, if it's good enough for RC...

 

But that's just my opinion. I have nothing to do with the front page. Keeping it simple is the best plan, as far as I'm concerned. Change is good? Change is not good? I don't care as long as the forums keep working. I never go to the front page. (laugh)

[Lowman]

POLL POLL POLL. I like it the way it is though

[JManrow]

I only occasionally go to the home page... maybe once or twice a week.

The thing is, this is the page newcomers to the site will visit, whether accessed from a search engine, clickable banner, or heard about it from a member, a sponsor, or read it on a bumper sticker.

 

I feel it should be kept as a welcome page. Whether or not the layout is changed, it should have basically the same info as it has now, not a collection of little boxes, graphs, polls, and what members are online, etc.

 

Change is good, when needed. My opinion is that a big change is not needed in this case.

[180Brandy]

I like it the way it is easy on the eyes and less cluttered. I think it looks professional. Simple is good in my opinion.

[Chief]

I think I will work with Dippin and see if we can come up with a better design that is viewable at different resolutions.

 

The mock-up he sent me was very good. I like the idea of keeping it simple.

 

Jay

[Ronjunior]

Front page? What and where is that? I never use it except to go to chat. If no change is made, I'd at least make the entire top banner of the forum clickable to take to the main page...I never even noticed until last night that the few inches on right from the "i" in society takes you there.

[dippin61]

cool chief.. ill make a better mock up with a little functionality so you can click around.. i worked a little on it last night for kicks and giggles. the big hurdle im running into is integrating the banner ads, which i see is in javascript.

[R-3]

Sounds good guys. Im always open to new ideas. Glad to see dippin is helping out. Later Ryan

[Ahbrit]

The javascript is there because one of the banners is in flash (don't even go there)

[dippin61]

The javascript is there because one of the banners is in flash (don't even go there)

 

yeh i saw that joels is.. i know some javascript, im just trying to figure out how it was originally done, and how to extract it and still use the same script and everything, so the changes are seamless, and noone has to learn anything new. to keep stress levels down

[dippin61]

btw.. this is what i showed chief the other day.

 

http://img20.imagevenue.com/img.php?..._122_322lo.jpg

[vanz]

Hmm...I can't see it.

[WAVES]

The javascript is there because one of the banners is in flash (don't even go there)

 

I thought we were over this Keith?

 

Dippin, your link is broken, it looks like the ..... in the middle is causeing it to default to the homepage.

[Chief]

I thought we were over this Keith?

 

 

I agree. No reason to drag up the past... Not when the future is sooo bright.

 

Jay

[Ahbrit]

sorry for the explanation. next time i won't help

[dippin61]

sorry guys.. here ya go

 

[DChemist]

Nice job- just a little different, uncluttered... I like it.