Folks-

I've been asking a bunch of questions, and y'all have been very helpful. So, I wanted to show you what I've been doing with your help.

I've got forum home about where I want it ( the forum status icons still need to be changed). Thought I'd put it up for your coments/critiques.

--don

looking good there :)

Very interesting design, not bad at all. :)

Glad our answers / advice/ help could guide you well =). (Even if it wasnt from me).

very nice :)

Very interesting design, not bad at all. :)I agree with you, feel free to share how you thought of it or why you went that way.

feel free to share how you thought of it or why you went that way.

good point--i'll do so in a reply to the original post.

--don

i just got the weirdest idea while looking at the first screenshot... what if you have the forums on the left side, and the content of a thread on the right side...

well, just an idea...maybe it'll look nice after all :)

Looking really great! :)

Folks-

Floris suggested that I give y'all a brief outline of the thinking behind the layout--so that is what follows.

1. One of the alpha testers of the site, asked to have the navbar repeated at the bottom of the page.

I did this easily, but the log-in/welcome/private-message box was part of that template, and it looked goofy to repeat that too. So, I moved that code segment to the header template. It helps to balance the logo graphic, but I'm not entirely hapy with the header at this point and plan to make some tweaks.

I also moved the breadcrumb to below the buttonbar--I think it looks better that way.

2. It seemed to me that the whole home page was being devoted to what was essentially a menu--way too much real estate IMHO. I wanted to give the "What's going on" more prominance--I think this helps to integrate visitors into the community.

So, I used a couple of DIVs to "skinny-up" the menu, and bring the what's going on section.

The guest message will also display at the top of the "what's going on" banner--I'm planning to add additional messages for those who have not confirmed and those who have not posted--suggestions I found here.

The "Of particular interest to..." section is javascript-controlled. It queries the browser and displays a platform-specific message in that section.

In an effort to tighten up the forums menu, I removed the name and time of the last poster--I felt that they were not particularly useful in getting a visitor to look at a forum.

However, this morning a tester has reported that since the "new posts" search works unreliably (for her, at least)--she uses the last post time to decide to enter a forum--so I'll put the time back in (maybe the poster too).

After our site opens, it will have only two forum groups--public and private for staff--so the collapse function seemed undesireable, I removed it and the associated button from the headers today. The intermediate menu that one gets to by clicking on the name in the category bar also bothered me--so I removed the links around the name in the bar. Now they are simply titles.

3. I don't know if the forum statistics are valuable to the visitor (interesting for the staff--surely). I'm thinking about removing them.

That's how I got to where the page is.

--don

--don

Hummm, that looks pretty good.

what if you have the forums on the left side, and the content of a thread on the right side...

Not such a bad idea....it'd make more sense (I think) to use it to keep the list of threads in a forum down the left, while presenting the current thread on the right.

--don

Meh, I am in the process of converting all my articles into v3articles

Not such a bad idea....it'd make more sense (I think) to use it to keep the list of threads in a forum down the left, while presenting the current thread on the right.

--don
Indeed!

When you're done with that, please write a hack for it ;)

Yeah, please do this so that we can all enjoy the fruits of your labour

When you're done with that, please write a hack for it ;)

I have to figure out how to do it first!! I'm still figuring this stuff out.

--don

That's okay, take your time *g*

Folks-

Progress continues to be made <G> I have re-arranged my forum display pages (the attachment is a screen grab).

I have one more big thing that I'd like to do, and can't figure out howri.

In the right column, under the "announcements" heading I would like to actually display the announcements--not just the link to them. Anyone have any suggestions?

--don

I have an idea, but it will take a source hack...

I have an idea, but it will take a source hack...

So far, I've resrticted myself to template modification and a couple very simple php includes.

I am a little nervous about source mods--but not absolutely opposed. What's yer idea?

--don

Altough the idea is quite original, to me it looks a bit messy. The buttons and forum rights on the right make it look unorganized. Maybe it looks better in a seperate cell on the bottom of the screen (all the way from left to right, that is)

Ray-

...it looks a bit messy.
It does look a bit messy still. I need to tweek the arrangement of all of those little elements so they align better. I also think having the text of an announcement filling the upper part od that column will help define the space better.

--don