Comments and Bugs on New Design

--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url]

Brian Knight One Orange Chip Points: 27249 More actions · Answer 2

quote:
Well, Brian, you didn't kill the 'Privacy' link in the footer.
I don't know your legal requirements on this, but couldn't it be moved into the 'About Us' section?

It's under the Terms of Use section now.

Brian Knight

Brian Knight One Orange Chip Points: 27249 More actions · Answer 3

I just modified the homepage slightly to trim it down a bit and add some more functionality. Could you let me know what you think? I've added most recent 5 threads (real time) and QOD and scripts.

Brian Knight

Frank Kalis SSC Guru Points: 111183 More actions · Answer 4

Sorry, but I still see a 'privacy link' below. It links to http://counter.hitbox.com/a/hitboxfree.cgi. I've refreshed the cache several times but nothing changes.

Frank

--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url]

Frank Kalis SSC Guru Points: 111183 More actions · Answer 5

quote:
I just modified the homepage slightly to trim it down a bit and add some more functionality. Could you let me know what you think? I've added most recent 5 threads (real time) and QOD and scripts.

Nice goodie, although I still prefer the Active topics page.

What about moving the 'Logout' link one to the right. It happened now several times I didn't closely look at the menu, thought it is the usual 'Home' link that is commonly at this place and ?@<((/ am somewhere else.

Frank

--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url]

Brian Knight One Orange Chip Points: 27249 More actions · Answer 6

quote:
Sorry, but I still see a 'privacy link' below. It links to http://counter.hitbox.com/a/hitboxfree.cgi. I've refreshed the cache several times but nothing changes.

Ahh, that's the privacy link for the hit counter software. We're trying to get rid of it but we have to find a replacement first.

Brian Knight

Sachin Dedhia SSCrazy Points: 2104 More actions · Answer 7

I did not like the new design as much. 🙁

I fell the previous design was cool and that is one of the factor that made me hook onto sqlservercentral.com apart from other cool things about this site.

🙂

Don't like the horizontal scrolling. And the top black menu strip.

🙁

Sachin

🙂

Regards,
Sachin Dedhia

Sachin Dedhia SSCrazy Points: 2104 More actions · Answer 8

Thanks a lot for removing the horizontal scroll.

Sachin

:))

Regards,
Sachin Dedhia

Antares686 SSC Guru Points: 125444 More actions · Answer 9

Ahhh...

I like what you did with the ::Recent Scripts:: and other framing. Might look nice to have headlines and blasts from the past that way (the one and two year ago items).

Also, what about recent FAQs?

In the section "::Question of the Day (QOD)::" your Answer button is above the line for the "Other Questions" link which leaves some wasted space. Suggest you change your form just a bit like so



<FORM id=Form1 action=/testcenter/QOD_AnswerQuestion.asp method=post>

<INPUT id=Hidden1 type=hidden value="questionnumberhere" name=QUESTION_ID>

<INPUT id=Hidden2 type=hidden value="emailaddresshere" name=M_EMAIL>

<TABLE STYLE="width:100%">

<tr>

<TD STYLE="width:50%">

<INPUT id=Submit1 type=submit value=Answer name=Submit1>

</TD>

<TD STYLE="width:50%;text-align:right">

::<A href="/testcenter/qod.asp">Other Questions</A>::

</TD>

</tr>

</table>

</FORM>

or better, take that link and similar links in the recent sections and place them on the right side of the section title.

I am also trying to understand the need for this particular line

If QOD uses the email address then it could be faked and I am fairly sure login has some sort of session variables being used so I don't see the need here or maybe there is a need that I just don't see.

As well, under the Question of the day section thou, could you break those down by month and year. That page is getting extremely long and would be nice to be able to see it broken down a bit.

You might also consider changing the front page flow a bit.

As it is now you have

Welcome Message

Headlines mixed with articles

Recent Dicussions

Recent Scripts

QOD

Past Articles

Maybe a more logical flow would be

Welcome Message

QOD

Headlines

Articles (Newest, One Year Ago, Two Years Ago)

Recent Scripts

Recent FAQS

Or QOD after Articles

Like the move of the search to the left section however, can you expand the box a bit. Also might place the words "Site Search: " above it and allow the box be trigered with Enter key press, removing the Search button itself. I am pretty sure all browsers handle forms with enter button press, don't think any miss it (comment if anyone knows of one that doesn't). Or in the black bar at the top replace "A community of 112,176 registered database professionals" with the search box and button.

You use "A community of 112,176 registered database professionals" a awful lot on the site.

I'll think of more stuff later.

Frank Kalis SSC Guru Points: 111183 More actions · Answer 10

Ever though of acting as web design consultant

Btw, the QOD.asp does not seem to have a title tag

Frank

--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url]

Brian Knight One Orange Chip Points: 27249 More actions · Answer 11

quote:
Thanks a lot for removing the horizontal scroll.

Sorry about that. I got spoiled by thinking that everyone had 1024xwhatever resolution. :).

Brian Knight

Brian Knight One Orange Chip Points: 27249 More actions · Answer 12

Thanks for the suggestions again. I modified the homepage slightly and the order of display to reflect a bit of what you're saying. Can't move search to the upper bar because it makes it huge.

Brian Knight

Frank Kalis SSC Guru Points: 111183 More actions · Answer 13

quote:
Ever though of acting as web design consultant
Btw, the QOD.asp does not seem to have a title tag
Frank
http://www.insidesql.de
http://www.familienzirkus.de

Sorry, I meant the 'Overview' page where QOD's are listed, not the actual answering page.

Frank

--
Frank Kalis
Microsoft SQL Server MVP
Webmaster: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs
My blog: http://www.insidesql.org/blogs/frankkalis/[/url]

Antares686 SSC Guru Points: 125444 More actions · Answer 14

quote:
Thanks for the suggestions again. I modified the homepage slightly and the order of display to reflect a bit of what you're saying. Can't move search to the upper bar because it makes it huge.
Brian Knight
bknight@sqlservercentral.com
http://www.sqlservercentral.com/columnists/bknight

Sorry here is an example of what I was describing.



<style>

.hdlinks {color:#ffffff;font-weight:bolder}

</style>



<FORM method=GET action="http://www.google.com/search" ID="Form1">

<table id="Table3" cellSpacing="0" STYLE="width:100%;border:0;background-color:#000000;font-size:8pt">

<tr>

<td style="height:1%;color:#ffffff;font-weight:bolder">

<!--Search-->

 Site Search:

<INPUT TYPE=text name=q size=18 maxlength=255 value="" ID="Text1" style="font-size:8pt">

<INPUT type=submit name=btnG VALUE="Go" style="font-size:8pt;color:#ffffff;background-color:#000000;font-weight:bolder">

<input type=hidden name=domains value="http://www.sqlservercentral.com">

<input type=hidden name=sitesearch value="http://www.sqlservercentral.com" checked ID="Radio2">

<!--End Search-->

</td>

<td vAlign="middle" align=right>

<!--Top left links-->

<a href="/forum/signin.asp" class="hdlinks">Logout</a>

|

<a href="/forum/policy.asp" class="hdlinks">Register</a>

|

<a href="/forum/active.asp" class="hdlinks">Active Threads</a>

|

<a href="/other/advertise.asp" class="hdlinks">Advertise</a>

|

<a href="/other/contact.asp" class="hdlinks">Contact Us</a> 

<!--End Top left links-->

</td>

</tr>

</table>

</FORM>

Brian Knight One Orange Chip Points: 27249 More actions · Answer 15

Wow, good suggestions. Antares686. What the heck, I took the wholesale. Hopefully you won't send me a bill :). That's the entire reason DBAs don't do design work I guess.

Got most of it working now. Just trying to kick out the bugs from the extra white space between the black bar and blue bar and then we should be golden.

Brian Knight