Member Avatar for Dani

Hi,

You may have noticed some changes over the past few days. I've been working on tweaking the style a bit to make the site more user friendly.

One of the main issues I've always had was that the site homepage is pretty much useless. After all, it's impossible to fill it with stuff that would cater to what everyone comes to DaniWeb for.

Therefore, I have put a bunch of work into creating a custom-tailored homepage for everyone. Go ahead. Visit it. Tell me whether it presents you with things you're interested in. Also note that you should see a customized forum index in the sidebar to act as quick links to your favorite forums.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by John A
Nick Evan commented: Good job, works great! +14

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Member Avatar for darkagn

Nice Dani :)

I especially like the fact that the quick forum index contains links to the three forums I reply to the most.

I notice that the main section of the screen lists the latest forum posts and blog posts, but I don't usually visit the blogs. How was this list generated? Is it standard across the board or should it represent what I like?

Certainly this page is an improvement on the old home page, nice work :)

Member Avatar for Dani

The main section should represent what you like. Let me get some more feedback from more people and then I'll see whether or not it needs a significant amount of tweaking.

Member Avatar for Dani

I just ran a test on what you see. The first half of the page should be custom tailored to you, but it simply hasn't picked up on enough yet, and therefore you have some default blog entries that happen to be farther down for filler.

However, you'll notice that it includes quite a few Java and PHP threads (which you visit quite often). Additionally, it knew to include both this thread as well as the one you started about the member info in the posts changing.

Basically it's not going to be perfect, but the idea is that it will be more likely than not that there are going to be at least a few things on the homepage that you'll find interesting ... and perhaps that you might consider checking out the homepage on a regular basis from now on as part of your regular DaniWeb browsing habits.

Member Avatar for darkagn

I just ran a test on what you see. The first half of the page should be custom tailored to you, but it simply hasn't picked up on enough yet, and therefore you have some default blog entries that happen to be farther down for filler.

However, you'll notice that it includes quite a few Java and PHP threads (which you visit quite often). Additionally, it knew to include both this thread as well as the one you started about the member info in the posts changing.

Basically it's not going to be perfect, but the idea is that it will be more likely than not that there are going to be at least a few things on the homepage that you'll find interesting ... and perhaps that you might consider checking out the homepage on a regular basis from now on as part of your regular DaniWeb browsing habits.

All good points. It certainly is an improvement and I like the fact that it picks up forum posts that I may be interested in. Truth be told I don't really remember the old home page, but I think it just had the most recent blog posts? And that wasn't very interesting to me so I tended to just jump straight to the forums once the menu system loaded up. Now I might take the time to read the first entries to see where to go to first and that is a huge plus.

Nice work :)

Member Avatar for jbennet

Yep same i hate blogs so i always went straight to CP to check things, then to posts since last visit.

Member Avatar for Dani

You're right in that before it just had the most recent blog posts ... the idea being that was the only thing that was really generic enough to at least be understandable by the majority of our audience (some of whom are programmers and some who aren't).

The goal of the new homepage was just what you said ... to present users with a first place to hit to skim through during their regular routine on the site ... and actually have it more likely than not that at least one thing will catch their interest.

Member Avatar for Ancient Dragon

In addition to the list of recent posts it would be helpful to also include the forum that the post was made in, there is plenty of room below the time for that.

Member Avatar for Ezzaral

One thing I noticed missing on the forum listing pages is the "Mark as read" function. Have I missed its new location or is that still "in progress" or is it gone for good?

Member Avatar for Dani

It's in the control panel dropdown on all pages.

Member Avatar for Ezzaral

That one marks all forums as read, not just the current one.

I can still go up a level and double-click the folder to mark a single forum read, so it's not really a big deal. I was just curious about it. I didn't see any other way to mark a single forum as read.

Member Avatar for Dani

You can double-click a folder in the forum index in the sidebar at any level as well ... but yes, the link was removed. Maybe I'll put it back if there really is a need.

Member Avatar for John A

I second Ezzaral for the forum tools menu. It's more convenient than navigating back to the forum index.

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