I'm a bit puzzled by this.

The new design provides tabs above the search bar which allow people to go directly to the forum section they wish to visit. There's really no need any more to view a full forum index.

In addition, keep in mind that by "DaniWeb IT Community" ... I am not just referring to forums. A community of members, in our case, includes forums, blogs, and all of the other member-interactive things that we offer.

>There's really no need any more to view a full forum index.
So rather than scrolling down, you want us to go back to the top of the page, then find and click the tab that we want to go to? Repeat six times for those of us that browse the entire forum? Sorry, but that's just too much work. Sure, you can click on the "forums" link on the search bar, but and I'm more inclined to follow the browse path and find myself annoyed that I'm back at the home page instead of the forum index.

I agree with Gary. It's unintuitive and very irritating.

>I am not just referring to forums
So add another link that takes us to the forums. Using the path to this thread as an example:

DaniWeb IT Community > Forum Index > Coffee House >
DaniWeb News and Feedback > 'DaniWeb IT Community' link in navbar

The problem is that people expect the highest link in the forum chain to take them back to the forum index, not to the home page, and they get annoyed when they mistakenly go to the home page and then have to go through extra steps just to get to where they want to be. As it is, it seems like you're trying to force the other features on people (by tricking them into going to the home page) even if they don't care.

Ooooh! It's the navigation link that is missing. I misunderstood Gary and thought he was referring to our clickable logo. That link to the Forum Index I will take care of if not today, then definitely by tomorrow.

>thought he was referring to our clickable logo
Come now Dani, you know that nobody clicks that. ;) Most sites only have it as a self-referential link, so everyone just takes it on faith that clicking that particular link is a wasted effort.

So rather than scrolling down, you want us to go back to the top of the page........

The 'End' key locates the 'Forum Jump' box at bottom of page, the 'Home' key puts you at top of page with one keypress. The aggressively 'non-geek' in me tells me that 'normal people realise that clicking on the logo is the easiest way to get back to home page on just about any website.

I really don't see the problem here :D

For a long time I used the Forum Index to navigate the site. The Home page was an annoyance to me. But with the new design, the Home Page has become something much more easily used, and something which gives due prominence to other aspects of the DaniWeb website. Time will tell, of course, but I really think it deserves a bit of timefor people to get used to it. I suspect it also should be considered that, although the Software and Web Development sections have always had prominence on the forum index and now in the navigation bar, it is actually the TechTalk section which has attracted the most visitors of any particular forum section. At any particular time there are likely to be as many people viewing or active in the TechTalk section as there are in the other forum sections combined.

Also of importance when giving consideration to site navigation is the fact that at any point in time there is a large number of people viewing the 'Code Snippets' on the site, and that the reading audience of the News Blogs is a rapidly growing one.

>thought he was referring to our clickable logo Come now Dani, you know that nobody clicks that. ;) Most sites only have it as a self-referential link, so everyone just takes it on faith that clicking that particular link is a wasted effort.

Hey! I always use that clickable logo :)

As far as navigation ... I have some tricks up my sleeve in that arena ;)

Those tricks I have up my sleeve are taking longer to implement than I thought. Stay tuned.