Layout improvements at AfterDawn.com

Well Done! Looks Great!!

I like the little icon up at the top letting me know I am signed on... Looks great! dRD: I remember you said you wrote all the software for the site/forums. Is this still the case? Just curious. Looks great regardless.

JXP2307: Yep, that is still the case, although I have now two guys helping me out. Teemu (our gfx guy) does all the layout, so if you like/hate the new layout, he'll hear your comments :-)

I like the changes, they kind of shocked me at first (I had to recheck my browser to make sure I was at the right site. ;)). Maybe its just me but, is the site 100% width now? It looks like it but I could be wrong. Peace, Pop Smith

The site looks awesome!

i dont like the layout at the top. might take some getting used to... everthing else seems good.

Yes, it takes about 10 seconds to re-orient and recognize everything and I think it is a very positive improvement. Excellent job!!!

I like it too. Only took me a minute to find how to get to my List of Forum Posts, so now everything is great! I like the green, for the tab you're in. Adds a little more color............. :o)

i prefer the way the top used to look...withjust the old blue background for the links to be against, it's nowhere near as attractive :(

sorry,
but i have to say this,for some reason the new top of the main page is now too bright and hurts my eyes when i look at it..

maybe its the contrast of the black blue and bright yellow that makes it hard to view..

i have problems seeing as it is..the brightness makes me want to turn my head away..or move the page down as fast as i can..

Those huge tabs at the top are a real annoyance, they're too bright and visible.. And i'm missing one tab, as we normally could use navigation to get to our accounts... now i can only find my account page through the main page.

ireland Ya...as blinding as a stark yellow backgouned was in my animigo(anime) chat room days thats a weee bit to bright 0_o

don't like the black

I'm also one of the many that went "WTF? Am I on the right site?" when I saw the new menu layout. @The Fiend The "My Account" tab is now just a link at the top left of the page. It's in that row of links with Mobile/PDA, About us, and Advertise Here. You've probably already noticed it by now though.

Couple of things to say about this: First of all i like it sort of. (read on) I think the tabs are WAY to big doesn't fit with links under it at all. Don't like the black bar at the top at all. Like the strech so it fill full screen. Everything else i like :) Good job all in all

Indeed, i found the account thingy, so that's solved, sort of.. It's just that the whole layout looks f*cked up now, even on 1280 X 1024 resolution.

i think it's great, not sure if i like the big tabs yet, but the top of page has a nice 'shine' to it - clearer; i have a 'brightview' laptop screen so it looks really crisp - about time, the old look is very bland.

Yeah the tabs seem to big. But It dosent really seem to bother me.

put a brill and contrast control on so the brightness can be changed..for the tabs and back ground....

when ye have poor eye sight the brightness of the new change is a blur
and smeared.......

hmm....i don't see any big tabs...anyone else having that issue with Firefox? i just see straight links at the top.

All in all it's an improvement. I like it. The blue Nicks really almost look irridescent on my CRT. It's a lot nicer on the reply page where the big red ad does not appear. Good job.

i spend very little time up top of screen, all our work/searching is done further down the pages so i don't personally see changes up top causing major problems.

for anyone that can't see the changes, here's mine using the Epiphany browser -

heres the problem,as ye go (click}into the threads the tabs are shown.......every time.........

Looks alot better, as always good job!

hmmm...i see no tabs at all...looks like i need to play with Firefox.

i'm not sure the tabs are too huge as i only use 1024x768 on all my home PC's unless i'm at work where i use 1280x1024 (where they'd surely be smaller) (am not at work this week so can't check), will however try this out on my LCD TV (resolution of 1366x768 i think) very shortly..

Auslander
i just checked using Firefox the tabs are there


The improvements:

[ quote ] will now also include an option to add a nick of the person you're quoting: [ quote=dRD ]text here[ /quote ] (the =dRD part being the improvement)

[ url ]http://linkhere.example[ /url ] works as always, but now you can also have text labels for links, using them like this:

[ url=http://linkhere.example ]An example of a link[ /url ]

And one, weird, experimental case:

You can use color red now in your posts, by using

[ color=red ]the text here you want to have in red[ /color ]

No other colors are supported as of now and trying to use other colors wont render the tag at all :-)

Some examples:

This is strikethrough.

This is bold.

This is underlined.

This is italics.

This is in red.

This is A new type of link

http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/386881

yeah, it was an updater extension for Adblock Plus...all taken care of, as i can now see the site properly.

Auslander: Your AdBlock is blocking our image server (i.afterdawn.com, which doesn't even serve ads..). Some "smart" person has apparently added that server to the default AdBlock block list, as couple of people on our Finnish site have reported this issue as well. In addition to the new tabs and the top thingy, the right-hand sidebar is now 40px wider and its font is 2px larger, to make it clearer. After all, our users' most common screen size is nowadays 1280x1024 -- the pages work fine under 1024x768, but the changes made should make lives of people with larger resolutions easier. Furthermore, the search box at the top bar is now wider and clearer, hopefully making it to stand out as well. And, the old tab system didn't have any additional room whatsoever, so in order to accommodate stuff like "Profiles", we had to do something anyway.. Sure, the "curvy" look on tabs doesn't exactly fit to the original "blocky" layout, but you get used to it -- I've seen and used the new layout for 3 days now and I still have to stop at times to get used to it :-) But, as stated in the news article, the whole point was to highlight the fact that yes, we do have news section and yes, we have software section as it seems to be problematic for some people to realize that AfterDawn is much, much more than just forums or news site or software site -- we're all that and bit more :-) Thus, the more prominent placement of main sections. As far as the rest of the site's layout -- we have "next gen" layout (basically not to leave any existing element on the site and to build the whole site again from the ground up layout-wise) on our to-do list, but its scheduled to happen, at earliest, early 2008. So, don't hold your breath waiting for it. Anyway, thanks for all the feedback and we will most likely continue tweaking the existing layout during the next couple of months -- meanwhile, send us all your improvement ideas via our competition form, located at http://www.afterdawn.com/general/innovate.cfm

yeah, thanks, drd...all fixed :-)

The site looks awesome guys! Keep up the good work!

I dont like this new look, it just spoils the feel of AfterDawn.
Can we please either go back to the old style or give registered users a choice of what style they want to use.

I find it's very ambitious, and change is always a positive thing. However, I think it is needs a little more touchups for it to be perfect. Good job afterdawn!!

i only have one complaint

Now i cant see who was the last poster without having to move the slider to the right.
call me lazy but i prefer to see The thread title, Posts Number, Started By, and Lastest Post all in one window without having to move the slider bar to the left. Agh!

Guess i am toooo lazy heres a pic

The only thing i can see that needs to be removed or change is the black up the top i find it doesnt flow with the rest of the page it looks like advertising.

Mayb it can be blended with the blue not the black.

I just read the article well speed read the bullet points. There are something i like and there are others I will grow to love i am sure. I can't wait for some of these things to move out of beta and become part and parcel of the main layout of the page.

I just want the old feel back. Either that or an option that lets you toggle between the old look and new look, if there was that option, I most certainly know I would have the old look on. I dont think the new look will be appealing to new would be members.

Love it, great job! Except please consider placing the login at the top right side of the page. Hate scrolling down and hunting for it, and the tabs are freakin' huge. Knock them down a couple of point sizes. This ain't Office 2007's ribbon.

I also have a few complaints with the new layout. The new tabs are a welcome change but are too big and seem out of place. The updated logo looks great but the black bar with the user info is out of place and some-what of an eye-sore. I personally prefer a login/account button along with the other ones.

many are complaining about the little black box but thats the only new thing i actualy like. I realy still think that AD should have an option to switch between the old layout and the new layout, I realy hope someone takes that idea seriously, either that or someone just changes AD back to the way it was before.

Good look guys! We all know how much hard work you put into this site keeping it up. Thanks!!!

dRD: Good to know you are getting some help. I love this new look.

dRD, glad you found some help, but I think it would look alot better with smaler tabs at the top, every thing eles looks good.

~Domreis

Websites change. People in general dislike change. IE many will dislike the changes. They will take time getting used to. Now onto my feelings... I agree to make tabs a bit smaller. I think they stand out too much. I don't mind the rounded corners, but the problem is the whole site is squared off except the tabs. It just doesn't flow. Same problem with the black bar. The flow of the page has disappeared. I know for new users you want things to stand out. I hope you will tighten things up over time.

I don't think the page is displaying correctly on my browser (Firefox v1.5.0.6), my resolution is at 1680x1050.

EDIT: OK, I can't get it to hot link, maybe its because its a png?

http://img176.imageshack.us/my.php?image=afterdawnws5.png

Speaking of old layouts. www.archive.org Wayback Machine Old Layout http://web.archive.org/web/20050401083304/http://www.afterdawn.com/ Older Layout http://web.archive.org/web/20031202181859/www.afterdawn.com/

hey these improvmets are quite good and are growing through out afterdawn servers :)

when I first say this I said wth, but im good now, still the black bar has to go, the tabs a wee bit smaller and as klassic said

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I don't mind the rounded corners, but the problem is the whole site is squared off except the tabs. It just doesn't flow. Same problem with the black bar. The flow of the page has disappeared.

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@klassic
them links are amaysing they have all the links aswell :O is the whole website on there server then ? (of when it was taken)

ogm afterdawn used o have popups :S

i think that the tabs being big is a good thing especially for noobs and first timers that come to AD, as the Tabs really standout more then the old layout(well of course becuz there bigger now, i know that)

not sure if it's the opacity or the actual color used to highlight whichever tab is selected ie.. forum, news, etc... but it looks a greenish color which doesn't quite fit. Should be more blue in my humble opinion. But yeah... do like the new tabs.

Hmmm, seems like a lot has changed since I have came back (a weeks absence), tabs are huge :-p The [color=red]colour[/color] tag support is great though :-)

i made afterdawn bleed :)

I still think that we should have the idea where the user gets to swith between the layouts they want, a bit like the colour scheme thing on the profiles page. I realy want to see the old AfterDawn back.

Same, I MUCH prefere the old aD layout, wheres the my account tab gone???!!! :-(

it's here Rav - http://i5.photobucket.com/albums/y178/creaky/wow-new-look.png

Well, i think it looks pretty cool. i think i prefer the old afterdawn lookout, but its still pretty cool.

The old style will always be remembered in my signature pic :D

So will we get the old AD back? or can we get the toggle between old and new look option?

probably no and no....odds are, this is what we have until drd does the total redesign on '08. so let's try to get used to it, eh?

BluRay: People generally dislike change -- and you and bunch of others are a living proof of that :-) But if we'd listened only the people complaining about the changes, we'd still have a frame-based thingy we had back in 1999 with WinAMP skins, no discussion forums and lovely pink menus here and there. People who have been visiting our site ever since 1999 or so, probably do remember the "v1" (the ultra-graphics rich website that was a huge overkill back in an era when 56k modem was the FAST connection to the net) and "v2" (that existed until late 2003, a completely different from v1, with virtually no graphics and no color whatsoever). And every time we've changed the layout, 99% of the feedback has been negative -- until we suggest 6 months later "hey guys, maybe we should go back to the previous layout" and people start telling us how they prefer the new look instead ;-) That is not saying that we don't listen our user feedback -- actually the new layout was sparked by the user feedback we've been receiving for the last 3 years, people telling us how they like the site but can't find navigational elements of the site and thus, getting lost trying to figure out where to find stuff they are looking for. So, the new layout stays. We'll evaluate stuff that is important for developing our site -- that includes feedback from our Finnish users, you guys and from the log statistics we see. As I've worked almost 9 years in web development business, been working for companies such as BBC, etc and dealt with web development issues, customer feedback, etc I know from the experience that there are certain calculational rules you can apply to positive vs negative feedback. Usually you multiply the positive feedback by 10 and compare that figure to the complaints and you get an actual satisfaction ratio, as the thumb of rule is that only people who are unhappy, bother commenting :-) But again, thanks for the feedback and I'm sure that the changes now launched wont be the "final" for this version and we will most likely make minor improvements to the layout during the next couple of weeks/months. The tabs will stay bigger, but will they be as big as they are now? Don't know. Tabs are "rounded" and the site is "square", so that might change as well. And gree doesn't fit to the rest of the layout, but it sticks out and makes the navigation more obvious to new users. Will it stay that way? We'll see.

Much as I hate to say it.. with adblock+ and Filterset.G enabled, I'm stuck with a big, ugly, almost 6-inch space at the top, with nothing but the AfterDawn logo and a couple links just floating there. I know the site is run by ads, as all other sites are, but I'm sure some of the issues might be able to be easily resolved by not using things like "ad" in a file/directory or stylesheet/script name.

a simpler fix would be for the guys that update the filterset to simply remove the AD image server from their default filtered listings...i mean, ads aren't even served from there. it's BS and incredibly stupid on the filter updaters' part.

hey, i was just curious, what language is ad written in, (for noobs I mean computer language) Java or what

SWEET! HUGE tabs though. And the black bar could be another color! I think the main site is cold fusion (.cfm), thats macromedia's (i dont like saying Adobe) soloution for dynamic pages.

It took a day or 2 to get used to it, but I think it looks great. I can tell many hours went into it, simply for the fact that there are so many different languages or computer codes that its hard to get things bug free. Those hours are appreciated.

it's impossible to bug free, when one bug is fixed it causes another problem, and so on an so forth, until some can creat a machine language that si different from now, bug will always be in our lives.

"Much as I hate to say it.. with adblock+ and Filterset.G enabled, I'm stuck with a big, ugly, almost 6-inch space at the top, with nothing but the AfterDawn logo and a couple links just floating there. I know the site is run by ads, as all other sites are, but I'm sure some of the issues might be able to be easily resolved by not using things like "ad" in a file/directory or stylesheet/script name." Has anybody found a fix to this, I used IE to see the new page, and it looks awesome, but AD just ain't the same on Firefox.

you have to either uninstall the filterset or deal with the castrated top.

speaking of AD blocking,I ahd a Ad blocker that could block and remove all ads from msot sites made AD and gamespot seem CLEAN but I forgot what ti was cant recall if it was zone alrm or a Firefox exstention ><

21Q: The site is programmed using a language called CFML (aka ColdFusion Markup Language), pretty much equivalent to PHP is many aspects, although the code looks quite different. We used to use Adobe's Coldfusion as our application server, but switched to an another CFML-compatible server product, called BlueDragon about 2 years ago. BlueDragon is also used by sites such as MySpace. The reasoning why we use CFML and not, say PHP or JSP, is that I've worked as a CF developer ever since 1998, so I'm quite familiar with the language..

Adjusting to the new layout isn't working for me. It feels incomplete...

- Guess I should have read this first but, it took me about 10 minutes to find the "My Account" link.

The tabs stick out worse than any other graphical change. For example:

- Why, when I am on a page, is tab is green? There isn't any other graphics on the page of the color green.

- The tabs are round(and green) but, the page is square and the colors do not match.

I hope there are plans to finish the rest of the page. Are there?

- I like the wider page.

- Like the experimenting with colored text. Also, I'm glad for this. :D Both, the link and the parsing improvement.

- Guess you could say I like all the BBML/UBB parsing improvements.

Edit: corrections.

I think the new style looks good, keep up the great work!

dRD
mod and site dev...ggaa they are working you to death 0_o
*L*
I tried to send ya a PM,can you PM any mod? jsut if you have a qaetion you would rather not have noobs swarm around and such.

Quote:

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Sorry to psot it here but I thought better here than a a topic in the game thread and have noobs swarming and pooping around it *L*

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Creaky
*jepardy music plays for 2 min then a large echoing hommer DOH can be heard*

oops LOL
I tried going to the news comment forum and to remove half the post and well its not there 0-o the Layout improvements at AfterDawn.com thread so i can reword my post 0_o

Creaky
thanks givieng me the link ^^
if you dont mind I thought I might post it here,so anyone can edit there psots to,least untill the link on the news commnet thread is fixed.
http://forums.afterdawn.com/thread_view.cfm/3/387825

Originally posted by "Creaky":

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- so you thought you'd be better off posting in the bosses' thread ?

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thanks drd, just wondering, I'm learning programing (finally), it's about the only thing I don't know about computers

Most of time these days change is bad because changes are made to mask problems or what not but Imust say GOOD JOB! AD obviouly some people will be upset at first but once they get used to it they will hopefully like it. Cudooos....

the changes are god I ahve seen far worse soem sites go from nice simple layouts to over the top crap where you cant find your way. in all it needs tweaking but keep on it ^^

wow!!! :) they really do listen to me!

Ok yeah it looks good, but if I wanted google search I'd go to google. I'm here to search and interact in the forums. My advanced forum search on backing up the latest movie gave me over 100 results about cell phones. This is not the same place that hooked me and kept me coming back for years.

What happened I was gone for a week. What retard came up with this idea?? Don't fix what aint Brokin!! I really dont care about the looks but this search engine is Trash its got to go I cant find anything, Your killing me. It's hard anuf finding everything cause there is so many Posts and so much info. Do you no How many more of the same questions are going to be asked because people cant find what there looking for. Who ever came up with this idea needs to be fired. PLEASE change the search back before you Kill AFTERDAWN.

NINVIN21 I am a idoit and can find my way around,and to fire the boss of the site is a bit harsh :3 some thigns can be tweaked.

@NINVIN21 -

Quote:

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What retard came up with this idea??

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Quote:

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this search engine is Trash its got to go I cant find anything, Your killing me.

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It's hard anuf finding everything cause there is so many Posts and so much info.

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Quote:

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Who ever came up with this idea needs to be fired. PLEASE change the search back before you Kill AFTERDAWN.

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creaky it took me 5min to find the big orange forum buton on gamepolitics.com after he had to switch back to the LJ format untill he can overhaul stuff. I can stand change altho strange overhauls are to much.

i dont mind the change too much. the only thing that i didnt like too much was that everything all bubbly like myspace.

they still need to put a quote button on the forums. other than that it looks basically the same, other than the tabs at the top are a lot bigger now. it still looks good tho.

The top bar where it has "My Account, Mobile/PDA, About Us, Advertise here" looks like it's an ad. It's the right font size to be an AdSense ad and the last item says advert as well.

Also, the user info being joing to the top bar makes it look unpleasant.

Again about the top bar, I think that the "AfterDawn.com | AfterDawn.com Forums | Filepedia.com | MP3Lizard.com | DVD X Copy Forums | Blasteroids.com | Advertise on our sites" links would fit there perfectly.

I should mention that the search has become better. I, before the change, was actualy thinking of a google powered search engine on AD, you guys did a great job on the search, and I take back what I said in previouse posts and agree that the new look is good, but could be worked on and the tabs should be downsized a little, either that or we can try the idea where you can toggle between the old layout and new layout, like you do with the profile page colour schemes, only it will be layout schemes, if that makes sense at all.

I dislike the new search very much, the only thing i'm thankful for about the search is that you can use the old version, THANK GOD

Truth be told i very rarely used the AD search since i joined here as i live on google and always find/found what i needed quickly; i've contributed to a fair few threads around the place and that involves a large amount of searching and cross-referencing; have also found the AD search to be very good to, though i've never had to use it very much. (i guess i use AD's search only really for seeking out multiposts and/or finding very easily most or all of the posts by a given poster).

To have both searches easily accessible helps matters. As someone who searches very heavily in every PC sitting (ie probably more than most people, whether it's for contributing to threads and/or moderating), i can vouch for the search function being very good indeed.

What I like about the search is having the option. I like the fact that I still use the old one to search through different threads. and i just use normal google page to search for the different software or guides that are not posted in aD.

i liked th old design, looked very smart & more orginized . I dont like the idea of AD site taking 100% of my screen.

Is it me or do the tabs look smaller now? If so that's a good improvement.

the tabs are actually a lot bigger. maybe you held down ctrl while scrolling.

No I dont me the old desighn were there wasent really tabs at all. Before when they had the new desighn the tabs looked bigger but now today the look smaller then the new old desighn. Hopefully you know what I mean...

honestly the only thing i would change is i would put the "my account" bar below the search bar.

Nah it's fine there in the corner. Maby the little bit of black up high should be changed to the backround say blue? Just my thoughts.

I second face123's recommendation about the black at the top.

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silver95: "Much as I hate to say it.. with adblock+ and Filterset.G enabled, I'm stuck with a big, ugly, almost 6-inch space at the top, with nothing but the AfterDawn logo and a couple links just floating there. I know the site is run by ads, as all other sites are, but I'm sure some of the issues might be able to be easily resolved by not using things like "ad" in a file/directory or stylesheet/script name."

Ankoku: Has anybody found a fix to this, I used IE to see the new page, and it looks awesome, but AD just ain't the same on Firefox.

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Yo boss and mods the November launch for Toshiba HD-DVD news post is messed up he post link goes to BBC.com,and its not in the news comment thread 0-o I cant find that other thread where you report oddiests sorry ><