Trying Something Different

[thiggins]

We're making a few changes to tune up the SNBForums experience.

News will now appear on SNBForums instead of SmallNetBuilder. To support this, the SNBForums landing page has changed to feature news stories. We'll also occasionally feature posts of particular interest here.

If you'd like to help us out by posting news, just start a thread with [News] at the start of the title. Please include an image if you can, but keep it under 600px wide and 300px tall so it doesn't take up the whole front page!

To support the new home page, the Home link in the Navigation bar now takes you to SNBForums' home page instead of SmallNetBuilder. To get to the Forum list, just click the Forums link.

We now have a new logo, to reinforce the site's branding.

Finally we've added a slider module at the top of many pages that displays some of the featured threads and news stores for easy access.

We hope you like the changes. I'm sure I'll hear about it if you don't!

Tim

 

[pete y testing]

We now have a new logo, to reinforce the site's branding.

hi

clicking on the new logo gives me this

SmallNetBuilder Forums - Error
You do not have permission to view this page or perform this action.

 

[L&LD]

If I click on the (huge) logo at the top of the page, it says 'do not have permission to view page' for me.

 

[pete y testing]

also happen if you click on the forum link in smalnetbuilder so they are landing on the same page

also on clicking link from internet search

dont mind the actual new logo though , the text im not so sure about

 

[thiggins]

Changed a permission. That any better?

 

[sfx2000]

We're making a few changes to tune up the SNBForums experience.

News will now appear on SNBForums instead of SmallNetBuilder. To support this, the SNBForums landing page has changed to feature news stories. We'll also occasionally feature posts of particular interest here.

Nice work..

Below is kind of cool - this is with Safari as a browser..

 

[pete y testing]

Changed a permission. That any better?

yup shows the announcement now , but its not intuitive as to how to go to the forum page after that apart from clicking the forum link in the tab again

 

[thiggins]

yup shows the announcement now , but its not intuitive as to how to go to the forum page after that apart from clicking the forum link in the tab again

I agree it's a little wonky. Just need to get used to the new way I think.

 

[sfx2000]

If you'd like to help us out by posting news, just start a thread with [News] at the start of the title. Please include an image if you can, but keep it under 600px wide and 300px tall so it doesn't take up the whole front page!

Just did a test [News] post here - Regarding the pfSense 2.3 going gold...

 

[pete y testing]

Just need to get used to the new way I think.

but thats the thing though , its fine for us to get used to it as far as clicking the forum link again to actually get to the forum , new users will come to the forum and land on the home page and go ? where to from here

maybe just need a button type link saysing take me to the forum or something similar

 

[thiggins]

Just did a test [News] post here - Regarding the pfSense 2.3 going gold...

Thanks, SFX. Had to upload a larger image for the slider. Otherwise worked fine.

 

[thiggins]

but thats the thing though , its fine for us to get used to it as far as clicking the forum link again to actually get to the forum , new users will come to the forum and land on the home page and go ? where to from here

maybe just need a button type link saysing take me to the forum or something similar

I hear ya. Will work on it.

 

[pete y testing]

Just need to get used to the new way I think.

other thing is with the banner add and now that big news feed window you cant actually see any of the forum without having to scroll down on my laptop at least , does the new feed window need to be so big maybe reduce the size of the news feed windows and sit it side by side with the banner adds

 

[Broken Hope]

The news feed could do with being smaller, the images look pixilated/scaled which is kinda ugly.

 

[XIII]

I'm sorry, but I don't like this. Is there a way to hide those flashy images on top in my settings?

Even if only when surfing to http://www.snbforums.com/find-new/posts? (which is how I get here)

It's even worse on my iPad (in landscape) where I have to scroll to even see the 1st/top post... Half of the screen is white space, the other half the flashy images.

(but I do like the new logo!)

 

[RMerlin]

other thing is with the banner add and now that big news feed window you cant actually see any of the forum without having to scroll down on my laptop at least , does the new feed window need to be so big maybe reduce the size of the news feed windows and sit it side by side with the banner adds

That was also my first reaction after browsing through a few pages. Between the taller logo at the top, the tall Google adserver ad, the slider picture and the second ad, it pushes the actual forum content almost two full pages down on a typical 1680x1050 display (I have my browser window height at about 80% of that screen resolution).

I'm not exactly sure what to recommend there, between reducing the height of the logo a bit, showing the slider only on the front page, or not displaying both the tall Google adserver + slider + second ad at the same time within a page's header.

(edit: corrected actual screen resolution)

 

[RMerlin]

The situation was actually worse for me as I was visiting the Asus sub-forums, as in that section there are two full-height ads that show at the top, with the addition of the "Shop related" banner ad. Other "generic" forum section only have one full-height banner at the top, so it's not as bad.

EDIT: I uploaded here what's visible as you enter the forum section. This is the entire page shown in my browser. If you scroll, you get the first glance at the forum names at the top of the second page, or somewhere near the middle of that second page if on the Asus sub-forums.

 

[thiggins]

Thanks for the input. I have made some tweaks. But I'm not removing things just yet. Crikey, it's only been an hour....

Please note the slider isn't shown in the actual threads.

 

[Broken Hope]

The slider still looks ugly, the logos are so low resolution, it could do with being at least half the height, if not even smaller.

 

[L&LD]

Just did a test [News] post here - Regarding the pfSense 2.3 going gold...

So! That was you!