Preview the new BigBlueBall layout

This topic has 35 replies, 8 voices, and was last updated 17 years, 7 months ago by Doris Kenney.

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February 10, 2009 at 5:58 pm #29799

Fanatic
Member

You probably forgot that we have a site called http://blog.bigblueball.com

Well, I’m using this site to prototype the layout of the new site design. Currently, I haven’t done much with the design. I haven’t finalized the colors, the header, or fonts. I’m just trying to get a handle on how the content will be stored, how it will be organized, how users will navigate to it and the layout of the homepage.

Read more here: http://blog.bigblueball.com/site-news/changes-at-the-bigblueball/ and please leave your feedback on that post, too!

Feel free to share — the public can view, but I don’t want to make an official announcement until I get a chance to work on the design a bit more.

February 10, 2009 at 9:38 pm #173053

imported_Ven0m
Member

Looks good, love the selection of colors. 🙂 I’d adapt the color scheme for the forums too (not to mention the logo and maybe the menus. 🙂

February 11, 2009 at 12:17 am #173030

Fanatic
Member

Thanks Venom! If you could, please leave any comments or feedback on the “blog.” I need to run it through the ringer and make sure that’s all working right, too.

FWIW, the intent is to create a single theme that works across the entire site (forums included). I’m still sorting out the specifics of that (i.e. where do the forum-specific menus go), but that’s the general idea. Probably the top level menu (Home, Blog, Archives, Forums, About, Contact) would be the same throughout the site, and the secondary menu would “adapt” when you are within the forums.

February 12, 2009 at 1:44 am #173050

MrOats
Member

Looks very sleek –Great Job Jeff & Fanatic!

February 12, 2009 at 1:53 am #173031

Fanatic
Member

@MrOats 235373 wrote:

Looks very sleek –Great Job Jeff & Fanatic!

Thanks for leaving a comment on the site. And for the record, Fanatic=Jeff. 😉

For everyone: While I’m not quite ready to invite everyone on the site to visit and comment, the blog.bigblueball.com test site IS open to anyone who happens to stumble across it. I’d also like you to please invite your friends or contacts to take a look and leave a comment as well.

I’m not working tonight, but will be on Thursday night and all day on Friday. Hopefully I’ll get the graphics and design pretty much settled by this weekend.

If you are familiar with WordPress from the authoring side and would like to help create or migrate content (the non-forum pages), let me know and I can give you access to create posts.

February 14, 2009 at 3:45 am #173028
Jeff Hester
Keymaster
Ok, I’ve updated the logo, the header graphics, the navbar images, text colors, fonts page background and buttons.

There ARE some things that still need tweaking, so I’ll post a list here. Please add anything that you run across that looks “unfinished.”
1. Fix the width of the “contact us” form
2. Determine whether to use WordPress built-in search or google custom search
3. Add a “subscription” block to the top of the sidebar (with RSS, twitter, email subscription options)
4. Add a section for 125×125 display ads
5. Create at least two more “featured” articles and corresponding graphics
6. Create at least three articles for the “mobile” category
7. Finish migrating/updating content from http://www.bbb
8. Create a “latest IM progs” list for the sidebar
9. Tweak CSS for RSS module in sidebar so hyperlinked title doesn’t look like crap anymore
10. Figure out where the heck to put all the forum menus!
11. Figure out where to put the forum “Welcome USERNAME” stuff
12. Create “site map” style footer (like whitehouse.gov)
Add to the list if you find anything or think of anything. I KNOW there’s more! 😉

EDIT: I’ve attached a screenshot of the homepage to capture where it’s at right now. Click the thumbnail below for the full-size image.
February 14, 2009 at 4:00 am #173051

MrOats
Member

Fanatic…and…Jeff wrote:

Thanks for leaving a comment on the site. And for the record, Fanatic=Jeff.

Got it. 😉

Jeff wrote:

Fix the width of the “contact us” form

This is extremely minor…but, near the “Contact Us” form, when you scroll over the Mobile tab, is says: “Mobile Communications”…where all the other tabs near the mobile tab say: “View all posts filed under X”(X= the tab).

So…shouldn’t it say something like: “View all posts filed under Mobile” or “View all posts filed under Mobile Communications”?

Oh, and…Does anyone else see the smiley face? 🙂

February 14, 2009 at 4:47 am #173029

Jeff Hester
Keymaster

MrOats;235446 wrote:

This is extremely minor…but, near the “Contact Us” form, when you scroll over the Mobile tab, is says: “Mobile Communications”…where all the other tabs near the mobile tab say: “View all posts filed under X”(X= the tab).

So…shouldn’t it say something like: “View all posts filed under Mobile” or “View all posts filed under Mobile Communications”?

Wow, good eye! I didn’t even catch that, though I’m not sure why it’s doing that. The sidebar is built entirely using WordPress widgets, and that’s one of the default ones that comes with WP. It’s dynamic — it simply returns a list of all categorys (and subcategories, where applicable) along with a count of items in that category. I don’t want to go poking around the WP code, just yet, so I’m going to pretend I don’t know about the problem for now and hope it goes away. 🙂

MrOats;235446 wrote:

Oh, and…Does anyone else see the smiley face? 🙂

FWIW, that’s part of the WordPress stats engine. Weird, I know. I might be able to hide it, but for now, it’s kinda fun, no? 🙂

February 14, 2009 at 4:56 am #173052

MrOats
Member

Jeff wrote:

so I’m going to pretend I don’t know about the problem for now and hope it goes away.

Everything will work out fine either way, I’m sure.

Jeff wrote:

it’s kinda fun, no?

Definitely fun! 😉

February 14, 2009 at 3:45 pm #173033

Fanatic
Member

Just a few words about a few additional tweaks to test. I’ve added a block for 125×125 sponsorships. The blocks that are in there are just placeholders for testing. These could also be used to promote internal stuff (“What are you listening to?”, IRC, arcade, etc.).

I’ve also modified the subscription options to use Feedburner to track subscriber count and added email and twitter options. I still have to modify the twitter feed to use the new RSS, but the basic mechanics should be working. Please give them a try.

That’s all I’m planning to do today — I’m heading down to my Grandma’s in Carlsbad, so I’ll see you all tomorrow!

February 22, 2009 at 9:24 pm #173043

detn8r
Participant

I’m not sure if I know where the actual news is going to be displayed on the home page.

Is there a way you (or I, whomever) can try posting something to see how it looks?

[edit]

OK, I see how it looks on the blog page, but, is that the way you are planning on keeping it?

February 22, 2009 at 10:30 pm #173034

Fanatic
Member

@detn8r 235681 wrote:

I’m not sure if I know where the actual news is going to be displayed on the home page.

Is there a way you (or I, whomever) can try posting something to see how it looks?

[edit]

OK, I see how it looks on the blog page, but, is that the way you are planning on keeping it?

Almost all articles, whether they be news articles (“Yammer Adds RSS Feeds to Your Company Stream“) or reference pages (“Latest IM Versions“) appear on the homepage in one of four locations.

Instant Messaging news and articles appears in the green block. Social Networking news and articles appear in the light blue block. Mobile Technology news and articles appears in the purple block. And we can specifically highlight articles from any category in the yellow block (featured content).

Each of these sections can be configured to show as many articles as we want, and with the exception of the Featured Content block, automatically shows the most recent articles. I’ve currently got those three blocks setup to show the four most recent.

You can see ALL of the posts for a given category, in reverse chronological order, by clicking the category itself (i.e. instant messaging or AIM).

The blog is a special category that’s really devoted to site news — information about BigBlueBall.

For now, I’ve been posting all news to the new site, as I’m planning to move things over next weekend. Please add comments!

February 23, 2009 at 1:12 am #173035

Fanatic
Member

I’ve been working on translating the new theme to vBulletin 3.8. You can see it in action here: https://bigblueball.com/forums-3.8/

That URL and the forums are functional, but they are using a copy of the “live” database. Any posts made in that forum will be lost when we migrate (hopefully next weekend!).

February 23, 2009 at 1:47 am #173054

imported_Ven0m
Member

The fonts seem a little BIG for my liking. Using Firefox v3.1 beta 2.

February 23, 2009 at 4:35 am #173044

detn8r
Participant

I don’t know, maybe it’s because I’m used to sites displaying one main page with articles co-mingled together (sort of like how it is right now).

OK, so I was trying to make arguments against how it’s being displayed, and it’s looking like there is an exact if not more articles being shown on the home page.

I think it’s just right now, there isn’t really any “real” stories being shown, which is kinda distracting.

I’m thinking it’ll be fine once the real stories are published.

The forums are nicely integrated with the new site and the BBBv09 skin.

I REALLY like the default colours being used right now. With a little bit of tweaking of the purples.. it would look nice. Are you planning on keeping it like that?

So far, really the only design flaw is the user profile.

And also, are you going to center the page, or leave it docked to the left? If your not going to use a side bar with info (like currently on BBB) I think design wise, it would maximize unused space.
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