Throughout the remainder of this month I will be experimenting with site design. To what extent I'm not yet sure... but my objectives include doing a better job of highlighting site announcments and article content, while not compromising the current accessibility of the forums (and if I can improve that, I'll do that too). I hope to minimize impact on you, but I want to say thanks in advance for your patience as the placement of some page elements will likely be changing as I seek to optimize navigation, keeping both new users and regular visitors in mind.

So thanks for your patience as things move around. By the time the new year comes, I hope we'll be settled once again.

I welcome any questions or input in this thread.

:santa: Thanks,

Tony

Some changes have already been made!

One thing to note (because it's impossible for you to know if I don't tell you) is that Guests and Registered Members now see an ad after the first post in a thread. Supporters and Staff do not. Attached are screenshots to illustrate. (Ignore the admin functions on the "ad-no" version -- that's just cause I was logged in as me! -- most of you don't see that stuff (checkboxes, edit buttons next to all posts, etc.). Just trying to highlight the new ad treatment).

Yet another reason to become a TONMO.com Supporter! :wink:

As you can see, text-link ads still appear at the top of the page, and there are other ads throughout the site (e.g., in articles, on the homepage, on forum pages that list all threads, on the forum home, etc.). Suppressed ad treatment applies only when you're actually reading a thread, if you're a Supporter or on Staff.

My favorite change would have to be "hey there" :)

Dan

My favorite change would have to be "hey there" :)

Dan
:smile: a bit of whimsy!

...Also FYI, have made this adjustment to show the footer ad after the last post in a thread view. Supporters and Staff will not see such ads.

That ad at a footer is much better!! :grin: wait - are there supposed to be two sets of ads?

But I seem to have a bit of a weird problem - I use firefox, and when make a post the screen goes white and making the "loading page" kinda signals, but stays there. My posts still get posted, but I have to go back to the main page.

Testing a quick reply here...

and testing account without an ad...

Hey, you're onto something. I'll check it out. Thanks for the heads up.

It says down the bottom..... - wait ill post this message and write it down....

"readpagead2.googlesyndication.com"

Edit: when I was posting the above it said "reading scripts chickita.net" or something. Is this a problem caused by firefox blocking the ads?

testing the fix

OK -- this has been fixed.

The functionality has changed. Aside from the text links across the top of the page, there is now only ONE ad that shows up within the thread (no longer two). That ad now shows up some post randomly within the thread. It's still only visible to non-supporters and non-staff.

Also, there are now only 8 posts displayed per page (it used to be 10). You may have noticed that I try to do things in units of 8 on this site :wink:.

So Tony, you are octocentric?

No wonder there's 20+ more pages in the "A Pointless Thread" than before...and I thought you guys were on a spamming spree!

You can set the number of posts per page under User CP->edit options, too, so I still see 40 per page, which I like a lot! (and it's a multiple of both 8 and 10, so I'm not showing octopod/decapod preferential treatment :smile: )

Right! One of many useful hidden features on the forums...

Looking good Tony! I noticed I don't have to log out twice anymore!!!!:thumbsup:

I've gone back to 10 posts per page as a default setting. I use default settings so I can experience the site the way most others use it... and found 8 per page too annoying... 10 seems to be the right number -- not too long to load, and not too short that you have to keep paginating... just an FYI!