(I stopped short of calling this thread the “new new TV Forum”)
If you’re not viewing this topic on the new site, visit it now!
If you are, welcome and I hope you like it. Any posts/profile changes you make here will update the main site too as they’re both running off the same database.
I won’t go into massive detail as I know you know how to browse a site but I will flag a few things.
Homepage
There’s a new one! Since the earliest days there’s been a focus on squeezing everything into a single window with no scroll. Few websites are like that these days and I think people are pretty accustom to scrolling. The main stuff – the forum links – are still near the top and now have a brief snippet of the latest post. It may entice you to delve into that long running generic thread! The calendar, brilliantly updated by members is still. There will always be a scrolling ticker in view which I think will make it much more obvious what’s coming up in the next few days than having to manually hover over the calendar (which still works).
And just for a bit of fun a feature based around overnight ratings. Predict the rating of a programme (this week, the first X Factor) and see how well you do on the leaderboard.
Topic page
Each individual topic now has a sidebar (well, if it’s good enough for Sky News HD…). This has several elements depending on the topic including pagination, popular days, voting, tags, videos and links to current and related topics. Hopefully you’ll find the sidebar useful and interesting. You can also now post from the page itself too.
Keep an eye on your Twitter? You can now be alerted (subscribe) to topic replies on Twitter with a direct message from @tvforum. Just make sure you’re following us first. Email is still available as before.
Two big things that have bugged me for ages have been around archived topics and searching. I’ve a lot of appreciation for people who go digging down the topic list to find an older topic to reply in but it shouldn’t be that hard. So now there’s a search box on the right hand side – it’s set up to look at topic titles, descriptions and intro text so hopefully you’ll get some matches. Try it out and see which long forgotten topics you see again!
Other ways to look for an old topic include using the sidebar to search by month/year it started, by related topics in the sidebar (such as previous Big Brother series or Eurovision) or by clicking on a tag. If you’ve got a quick sec, please add a tag when creating or viewing a topic – it’ll help someone find it in the future.
Forum page
Arguably the biggest design change. Gone* is the table view in favour of a preview of the latest post and related tags. It takes a bit of getting used to – I’ve been partially browsing the site with this view for a few months but I feel it’s so much nicer.
* It’s not actually gone, you can toggle it on the right hand side.
And depending on the forum the sidebar will show tweets, updated website details and most active Gallery members.
A few other bugs have been squished but whilst the old site continues to run some content may not refresh/update as quickly. Many of the secondary pages haven’t been changed or have had very basic (header/footer) changes. These aren’t a priority but will be seen to over time.
Obviously if you have any comments good, bad or ugly, please let us know.
If you’re not viewing this topic on the new site, visit it now!
If you are, welcome and I hope you like it. Any posts/profile changes you make here will update the main site too as they’re both running off the same database.
I won’t go into massive detail as I know you know how to browse a site but I will flag a few things.
Homepage
There’s a new one! Since the earliest days there’s been a focus on squeezing everything into a single window with no scroll. Few websites are like that these days and I think people are pretty accustom to scrolling. The main stuff – the forum links – are still near the top and now have a brief snippet of the latest post. It may entice you to delve into that long running generic thread! The calendar, brilliantly updated by members is still. There will always be a scrolling ticker in view which I think will make it much more obvious what’s coming up in the next few days than having to manually hover over the calendar (which still works).
And just for a bit of fun a feature based around overnight ratings. Predict the rating of a programme (this week, the first X Factor) and see how well you do on the leaderboard.
Topic page
Each individual topic now has a sidebar (well, if it’s good enough for Sky News HD…). This has several elements depending on the topic including pagination, popular days, voting, tags, videos and links to current and related topics. Hopefully you’ll find the sidebar useful and interesting. You can also now post from the page itself too.
Keep an eye on your Twitter? You can now be alerted (subscribe) to topic replies on Twitter with a direct message from @tvforum. Just make sure you’re following us first. Email is still available as before.
Two big things that have bugged me for ages have been around archived topics and searching. I’ve a lot of appreciation for people who go digging down the topic list to find an older topic to reply in but it shouldn’t be that hard. So now there’s a search box on the right hand side – it’s set up to look at topic titles, descriptions and intro text so hopefully you’ll get some matches. Try it out and see which long forgotten topics you see again!
Other ways to look for an old topic include using the sidebar to search by month/year it started, by related topics in the sidebar (such as previous Big Brother series or Eurovision) or by clicking on a tag. If you’ve got a quick sec, please add a tag when creating or viewing a topic – it’ll help someone find it in the future.
Forum page
Arguably the biggest design change. Gone* is the table view in favour of a preview of the latest post and related tags. It takes a bit of getting used to – I’ve been partially browsing the site with this view for a few months but I feel it’s so much nicer.
* It’s not actually gone, you can toggle it on the right hand side.
And depending on the forum the sidebar will show tweets, updated website details and most active Gallery members.
A few other bugs have been squished but whilst the old site continues to run some content may not refresh/update as quickly. Many of the secondary pages haven’t been changed or have had very basic (header/footer) changes. These aren’t a priority but will be seen to over time.
Obviously if you have any comments good, bad or ugly, please let us know.
Last edited by Asa on 12 October 2013 12:22pm
