JavaScript-heavy forums

[Dani]

What do you guys think of JavaScript-heavy forums such as DaniWeb? Would you rather spend time on a forum with a very unique skin and all the bells and whistles, or something very simplistic and standard that's quick loading and far less confusing?

[Njegos]

My personal opinion is that I don't mind loads of functions and one major reason why Daniweb is confusing is advertising. First time I stumbled across Dani it was years ago and I never really registered because of confusing ads. When you get to Dani through Google you have scroll down a lot to see the actual post. I understand that this was because of adwords impressions and higher CPM and I understand that you have premium accounts...hmmm...I am not complaining but since you asked ;)

Who ever wants to be in IT business needs to understand complicated forums and loads of options. So it has to have certain internet skills first. That is why I don't mind forums like vbulleting because VB is the best.

[tamar]

I'm not an incredibly big fan of JavaScript, but when looking at DaniWeb, it really doesn't seem to detract from the user experience at all. In fact, I think the customizations have worked for the best here. There's a lot of cool feature sets built on top of the platform which I thought would have previously been impossible.

I'm not confused, and you know why ;) The little bells and whistles don't detract from the experience. It is only if you would add a bunch of other features that don't fit with the rest of the design/site goals that would bug me. I wrote about this once when Digg rolled out new features like shouts -- that has nothing to do with social news and I totally hate it.

[Dani]

Tamar, thank you for the feedback :) Much appreciated.

Njegos, what about the banner advertising is confusing? I can appreciate how it might make the pages slower loading or such, but how does it actually make browsing sites confusing?

[Njegos]

It is not big deal at all I just mentioned it. When you encounter DaniWeb as guest on top of the page instead of topic there is Google ads and introduction to DaniWeb. When I search internet for answers I surf very quick and I want answers quick so I would never read about DaniWeb first. I don't have extremely large monitor (plus I like big letters) so the "What is DaniWeb IT Discussion Community" occupies my whole screen. Plus I don't like ads in between topics, but that is completely understandable since I advertise on Dani too :)

[Dani]

I'm not sure if you realized this, but if you're browsing DaniWeb as a guest, you can click the little arrow button in the top right of the About DaniWeb area and it will collapse that entire section for your entire session through the site. This way once you've seen it once, you can collapse it as you browse around the site.

[Njegos]

That is nice but I didn't see it. Just forget I said anything. You have great site and I am glad to be part of it.

[DavidB]

What do you guys think of JavaScript-heavy forums such as DaniWeb? Would you rather spend time on a forum with a very unique skin and all the bells and whistles, or something very simplistic and standard that's quick loading and far less confusing?

I wouldn't call Daniweb's layout confusing. Although I would prefer if ads were confined to one of the sides of the pages instead of being listed at the top. Every time I click into a forum, instead of seeing the first thread in the forum, I see an ad.

What I find to be the bigger annoyance is when I move my mouse around the page and trigger several pop-up menus along the way, which block my view of whatever I was aiming for in the first place.

For example, let's say I have just made a post. Instead of backing all the way into the main forums menu and then going back into the "Growing an Online Community" forums, I'd like to go directly back to the "Growing an Online Community" forums. So I move my mouse toward the "Growing an Online Community" forums link. However, on the way to click the link, my mouse goes over the "TECH TALK" button, which triggers a pop-up menu, which blocks my access to the "Growing an Online Community" forums link. Now I have to move my mouse around, trying to avoid triggering other pop-ups so I can get back into the sub-forums I was aiming for.

[The Dude]

I wouldnt consider Daniweb to be a JAVASCRIPT HEAVY site,it runs very well most of the time :))

[ithelp]

Daniweb forum loads pretty fast, so it might not make a big difference

[tamar]

I wouldnt consider Daniweb to be a JAVASCRIPT HEAVY site,it runs very well most of the time :))

So true. :) I really didn't know it was Javascript-powered for the most part until Dani suggested it.

[The Dude]

There are some scripts in use here but not nearly as much as some other sites i am on! (Thank goodness)

[Dani]

The most prevalent JavaScript here is used to power the navigation dropdown menu, the tooltips that hover over forum thread listings, the mini-screenshots that popup when you hover over outgoing links, IntelliTXT ads, the posting editor (of course), the rounded corners (IE only) around certain graphical elements to get around IE not being as CSS-friendly as FireFox, Opera, and Safari, various dropdown menus throughout the site, and ... umm ... I think that's most of it.