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New Site Worklist: Needs, Questions, Ideas

Boone

The Commissioner
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Post-Migration Work we agreed on:

ADs Configuration: It's been a long time since I've set up Ads on a site. We do have a Google Adsense account that is still accessible. We will only have ads turned on for the 'Registered Member' and 'Unregistered' groups (Premium members and all of the staff will be 'Ad free'. We would basically want a banner ad at the top portion of every screen below the header/navbar and content areas. As far as ad content, anything sports, NFL, outdoor, BBQ, that type of thing would be appropriate.We don't want it to be too obtrusive for those folks, but could definitely use the revenue however slight.

Post-Migration Additional Requests:
See 'Glitch Thread' for items not yet addressed


 

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A bit of feedback on certain things. I'll use the Letter/Number from Boone's OP.

D. Aesthetics
  1. The Pink color - honestly not a fan. I see mauve and it just makes me think of my grandmother's bathroom - not a football team fansite. Granted, making changes to things like this can be weird because of the law of unintended consequences that always seems to apply to website design. Even the darker shade used for forum titles below member icons is still to pastel for my tastes.
  2. Part of the issue with the profile pages - for me at least - is the use of the same light pink/mauve kinda color. The menu bar is hard to read as the font color and the background color are too close together. Beyond that, the overall page feels wrong with the single column as it is now. Just too wide. Having said that, I've honestly never been a huge of the profile pages on the current vB site either (although I do think its better than on here). I never said anything because I didn't have a better idea.
I. Miscellaneous
  1. This site already shows to be using https for me. I'm running it in Chrome on a Windows 10 machine. If we need it tested in other browsers, just let me know. I have nearly everything known to man installed somewhere due to work.
  2. No Answer (had to include the #2 because I used the Numbered List function)
  3. You did the @ thing at me above and I have not seen a notification. At least not that I have seen yet.
 
As far as I can tell, using the '@'+membername won't result in them getting notified (at least not that I've observed) unless it's an option that I haven't seen that we don't have turned on.

Added a 4th item under miscellaneous.
 
Okay, I found it. If you use "@username" in a thread, it shows up under Alerts at the top. Nothing about the Alert icon changes to indicate you have a new Alert. At least not yet.
 

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Yes - notifications are working when someone '@'s' you from a thread. But not from the Shoutbox. I have posted in their support thread to ask about that.
 
Going to stick with the standard forum icons after conversing with Mark
 
I have a running list but figured I'd start a discussion here (for us as well as Ken) instead of sending numerous emails. Items in Red are action items vs. questions/comments. Ken - it is understood that some of these would be part of 2nd stage and additional cost and we're good with that. I'd like to get it all done before we open up.

A. Forums Page is looking pretty good.
  1. I have a question as to why only *some* of the member avatars are being displayed? Most members have them, but only some are showing up (the rest have the letter only version). Ken - is this something we can fix?

Okay, from what I can see it might have been users who selected one of VB's default items. Can't fix that. However, I've run the Gravatar feature of Xenforo, and any users without an avatar who are registered over at Gravatar have had their avatar imported in earlier this evening.

We are going to keep the default forum icons next to forum names Ken. Originally felt we'd want to add the custom icons but we're good leaving the defaults.

B. Site Header

The header/site log space on Xenforo (at least as currently set) has a narrower height than our existing one. It's probably good to have it smaller than our existing one, but I personally would like it a little bigger. The current header space is 50% as 'tall' as our old one. I'd like to meet in the middle and make it about 75% the size of our old one (the current test banner is about 197 pixels tall - let's try 290 pixels for the height).

I've increased the size, let me know if it's good now. :)

Ken - will you be able to replicate the rotating image banner on our new header? Can we just have the logo with no rotating images on the mobile skin due to space considerations?
Yes, I can for non-mobile screen. The ad's manager has a position there. The issue is I can't find where this code is in the admincp. I found part of it in the templates, but that template also references a non-stock VB template variable

{vb:raw rotatingImages}

C. Home Page Create home page layout similar to The Hacker's Paradise home page
On my pending list.

D. Aesthetics There are some minor CSS issues where we've changed a color but need to adjust something (like the 'filter' text in the burgundy colored bar in the subforum pages). There should only be a handful of these we can't figure out.
Here's where a fundamental difference between XF and VB rears it's head.
In VB, colors for individual items are each in their own color setting. In XF there's a global color palette where a dozen or so colors are defined, and everything else is based on those either solid, with varying transparency or as gradients. Everything in XF can be overridden, but individual colors are not all on one screen like they are in VB. Plus, due to the global or semi global nature of XF palettes, often changing a color in one place changes it in another.

That's why when putting in things like the burgandy, we end up with lighter shades of pink in some areas.

For any place you need changed, send me a screen shot, and I'll get it done.

I'll answer the other items in another post, after I get a few other items for the site done.
 
Driven2 - logo looks good from my vantage point.

On the rotating banner code, it was a custom coding job and the settings in our vB admin cp are under 'vBP BGO Tools' (does that help?). The banner images are in the vB 'Images' folder in a subfolder cleverly titled 'Rotation'.

I have been able to fix some of the CSS stuff but I'll go through the whole site and come up with a list (there may just be a couple of items).

Driven2 the vBP guys did two custom jobs for us, one a blog function where if 3 members 'voted’ for a blog entry it got promoted to a featured blog page, and the rotating image banner.

Hopefully you’ll find what you need in one of these two sections in the plugin manager...

7139CC2F-9E59-4CB1-94D2-9BB98846F17D.jpeg

0C8C338A-A350-47DA-9825-DA674CD2CC19.jpeg
 
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Driven2 Another question... related to item J 5. - moving all of the 'Imported Content/Blogs' content into the 'Articles' (Resource Manager) section - I'm assuming that I could just create a sub-category called 'Archived Articles & Blogs' and you could move those all there - is that correct?
 
Driven2 Another question... related to item J 5. - moving all of the 'Imported Content/Blogs' content into the 'Articles' (Resource Manager) section - I'm assuming that I could just create a sub-category called 'Archived Articles & Blogs' and you could move those all there - is that correct?

Yes.
 
Om and Neophyte I have set up the signature add-on. It's not the most intuitive mod ever, so I'll probably put an instruction thread up. But it works. I have the image max set to 300 x 125. I uploaded an image so you can see what that looks like. ES had signatures that were 550 x 200. I think the current size is big enough so you can see it but not so big as to be a big distraction.

Let me know if you're on board with that.
 

Driven2 ,

Is it possible when you import those blog entries into the 'Archived Articles & Blogs' category with the prefix image I created AND with the file cabinet icon image I used in the example and am including here:

filecabinet.png
 

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I’m good with the sig configuration. Went in and scouted around the admin panel last night finally. Like the way it’s set up.
 
Driven2 Added some clarification on what we want changed related to the Style Selector navigation.
 
Driven2
Here are the spots I've found so far where some color tweaking is needed.

First spot is 'Filter' button (and hover over) colors on the burgundy bar at the top of each sub-forum view (as well as a in a number of other areas - think if you fix one, you'll fix them all)

example1.png


Next spot is when you open up a full member profile page where 'Joined' and 'Last Seen' are not visible

example2.png


On this one, the text is visible, but the gray is slightly too dark and it's a little too hard to tell which item ('About') is selected

example3.png


I believe this one will probably be fixed when the profile page is fixed, but conversation dates and participants are not visible on hover over...

example4.png


These are the only ones I've spotted so far. Will update here if I find more...
 
Driven2 Here is a little mock up of what we'd like the post-bit to look like ...

postbitexample.png
 
Driven2
Here are the spots I've found so far where some color tweaking is needed.

First spot is 'Filter' button (and hover over) colors on the burgundy bar at the top of each sub-forum view (as well as a in a number of other areas - think if you fix one, you'll fix them all)

View attachment 4424

Next spot is when you open up a full member profile page where 'Joined' and 'Last Seen' are not visible

View attachment 4425

On this one, the text is visible, but the gray is slightly too dark and it's a little too hard to tell which item ('About') is selected

View attachment 4426

I believe this one will probably be fixed when the profile page is fixed, but conversation dates and participants are not visible on hover over...

View attachment 4427

These are the only ones I've spotted so far. Will update here if I find more...

These should be resolved now.
 

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