Site changes over the coming few weeks

[Mephistopheles]

I do love a good donation......

 

[Brogan]

After Greenlantern101's post earlier, I decided to check which account upgrades and groups were being used.

As it turns out, the Donator upgrade has never been purchased, which meant the Donator user group was empty.
So, I deleted the user group and changed the upgrade to this:

So now anyone can donate £5 easily if they wish, only once a day though.
You don't get anything for it, it's just for the hell of it

 

[Brogan]

I think based on the feedback at this point, the home page will be dropped, as will the news page.
Elements of both will be incorporated into the forum index, namely the RSS feed block and some of the Twitter feeds.

The Race Hub will stay as it seems to get some use at least.

We then have a choice of either modifying the forum index to add some additional content to make it more like the home page, or we can install a dedicated home page add-on, when and if one becomes available.

 

[Brogan]

Would people prefer to keep all non forum content in the sidebar?

Or would it be acceptable to have some content above the forum list?

For example (very poor mockup):

 

[cider_and_toast]

That would work well. Sort of half forum page / half home page which would kill two birds.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Prefer the stuff above the forum lists as per your mock-up.

 

[Brogan]

Thanks guys, I'll get started on that then.

I think cider_and_toast summed it up nicely.

You will note that the domain root already redirects to /community.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

Yep. clicked the CTA logo and got the community landing page.

 

[ExtremeNinja]

If you were able to put the forum lists into tabs with a little bit of jQuery, or the like, then that would bring all of the forums "above the fold". You could then add your signposts, currently on the homepage, below. That would be bang tidy and nice and easy to use.

 

[landogeorgelewis1]

Will be upgrading my account to primary contributor in the next 10-12 weeks. Cause my car insurance is going down by a tenner a month, I thought instead of spending the money on i'd give it to a website that I thoroughly enjoy using and it'll keep it open for me to enjoy for many years to come I hope .

 

[ExtremeNinja]

I spent ALL of my money in NYC but will be doing the same once I get paid for the work I did there. Have been meaning to renew for some time.

 

[F1Yorkshire]

Seeing as Brogan changed the premium colour from red to mclaren orange I don't have an excuse for not upgrading!

 

[Brogan]

Hah!

My cunning plan worked.

 

[Brogan]

As you have all seen, the move to the root has been completed.

The old home page is no more; it won't work with the forum in the root so had to be removed.

I am currently removing all the redundant code (templates, nodes, phrases, css, etc.) and reworking anything that is left.

Once I have a solid base to work from I will get started on bringing some of the now removed elements back to the forum index.
It's going to take a while (several weeks most likely) so please bear with me while I work through everything.

I may even have one or two surprises in store

 

[canis]

Oooohhh, Surprises? Do we all get an ice cream?!?!?

 

[Brogan]

I have just re-factored the CSS and need to update a lot of templates so a lot of things may look very broken for a while.

 

[Brogan]

Phew!

Re-factoring and updating all complete.

If anyone notices any problems at all, particularly with the Race Hub pages (2009-2013), please let me know.

Got mouse hand cramp now

 

[cider_and_toast]

Got mouse hand cramp now

Oh god, it's so difficult not to make a crude comment as a result of that post.

 

[Brogan]

Thanks to Mike's genius, the changes are actually going to be considerably better than I had planned.

I think they should actually please everyone, if that is possible...

 

[Brogan]

So is the sidebar better now with the RSS feed from the old home page or did everyone prefer the Twitter feed?