Lounge - Signed In Member Forum Layout

Our new layout really looks good for visitors who just want to read the thread.  These are typically people who are coming from a Google or Bing search intending to solve a specific problem and then leave EggHeadCafe.  Based on various logs, the new more "reading" friendly layout is starting to show the desired results.

However, way too many members were having difficulty regularly participating in the forum threads.  The eye needs to scan a page differently in each scenario.

So, I've plugged in a different layout that is a little more classic for signed in members.  Just a note, the "Subject" line of a forum post is still used "if" the member didn't just use the standard "re: some previous title".  In the event, the poster uses the classic "re:", we show a little different look to the post.  No use repeating 12 instances of the same "re:" line in a thread.

I don't mind tweaking the signed in member layout even more if enough people have concerns about the same issue(s).

I realize some of you are still having various editor issues when using IE 8.0.601 or really old versions of Chrome or FF.  Most of them are inside the new Telerik editor and there isn't much I can do about that.  Of course, there are other IE 8.0.601 issues that are more easy to solve than others.

For you IE 8 lovers (count me as one), there are more recent IE 8 builds than 8.0.601 that don't have these issues.

As always, thanks a ton for the feedback and help ironing out some of these problems.  I plan to write up an article for November's newsletter describing what I've done on the site this month and why.  For anyone who is interested :)

Hello,

This new Look and feel of the Forum Really Looks good...... Even this Look also nice and descent in IE 8 , Google Chrome and FF

And one more thing very eagerly waiting for your Articles in November News letter regarding what you have been done in this new site.....

if u share really some good technical terms then that will be a very great full.... :) 

I'm going to try to give folks some value. 

Some will be technical. 

Some will be mistakes made.

Some will be the consequences of being lazy and not putting together VM's of a wide variety of browser versions and testing them all.

Some will be goals of the new layout and why they are goals.  People that have their own sites (technical or non technical) will probably get the most out of it.

Sounds really good

Please also include few point Like

difficulty u find
Major things need to take care when u r re-designing new site when older site all ready are live
how to handle the issue different browser

This editor is better than the previous look of the site.

and from when google chrome has come i just use google chrome only because i feel its speed is faster compare to other browsers. And second choice is will give to firefox , in that also this site looks pretty good.

Though you have not added the borders between two post post, but thank for adding replication's name between two post which looks nice.

Now last thing next time when you change your site, make the top banner with the same size of footer if you want to keep it fixed on page. just like facebook's top banner

and checkout this site  http://push2check.com/eggheadcafe.com this may help you 

Hi Robbe
what you are said is absolutely right ->However, way too many members were having difficulty regularly participating in the forum threads.  The eye needs to scan a page differently in each scenario.

i my personal view old red and black layout is not creating this much problem

Hi,

        The new look of the site is very light weight, loads page very faster, people  who are not signed in when coming from other searches i found that the page loads very faster for them compared to before

I don't think there are lot many issues with the editor, they are not a concern,

One suggestion is that most of the pages in the site does not have border, I suppose this was your intention, I wish if there were borders to separate content.

Looking forward what are the major changes that you have made to the present site design. what made you do take this to.


Regards

Yes, it was done intentially.

I'm actually giving serious consideration to allowing members to create their own template that only they can see when viewing threads.  Need to think that through a bit...

That is on purpose.  Several years ago it was recommended by a .NET security expert not to show login failure messages.  Since then, we've put other things in place to make it much more difficult to bulk attack the login page.

Had completely forgotten about this still being there.  I'll change that today.