Gary Lewis Posted August 28, 2019 Author Share Posted August 28, 2019 969 years? Yep! I have problems when I go into another room remembering why I went there. Sometimes back out of the room to figure it out. Or sit down for a mo to think about it. So by 969 I'm not sure I'll recognize me in the mirror! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
81f100custom Posted August 28, 2019 Share Posted August 28, 2019 Yep! I have problems when I go into another room remembering why I went there. Sometimes back out of the room to figure it out. Or sit down for a mo to think about it. So by 969 I'm not sure I'll recognize me in the mirror! Not sure if this would be of any help but just another site/forum I am a member on. Just maybe some ideas or thoughts on how someone else out there is doing it. When there home page loads it list the 20 most recent post no matter what they are. You can go under the forums tab where it is broken down into the individual subjects or topics. Anyway just thought it may be worth a look. https://www.elcaminocentral.com/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Lewis Posted August 29, 2019 Author Share Posted August 29, 2019 Not sure if this would be of any help but just another site/forum I am a member on. Just maybe some ideas or thoughts on how someone else out there is doing it. When there home page loads it list the 20 most recent post no matter what they are. You can go under the forums tab where it is broken down into the individual subjects or topics. Anyway just thought it may be worth a look. https://www.elcaminocentral.com/ Thanks. It is always interesting to see how others do it. But our forum provider, Nabble, doesn't provide the ability to do what they are doing on that site. At least not when you first go to our forum. However, you can then click one link, Topics View, and that will take you to a chronological list of all posts, starting with the latest one. Anyway, thanks again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve83 Posted August 29, 2019 Share Posted August 29, 2019 ...can you imagine what problems Methuselah had?He died young, compared to Noah. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grumpin Posted August 29, 2019 Share Posted August 29, 2019 ...can you imagine what problems Methuselah had?He died young, compared to Noah. Noah was 950. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ford F834 Posted August 29, 2019 Share Posted August 29, 2019 Hello Gary, sorry I am quite late for the party on this one. It seems you have achieved your goals regarding bit transfer and page loading speed but I thought I’d weigh in anyway... I agree that things work fine the way they are, but I will go against the grain and say that I like the idea of a homepage and here is why... there is only a passing mention of the website in the bolded site description above the forum topics. Even if people realize it’s there, I think it is understated. Maybe it is a hold over from the caveman days where the larger something was drawn on the cave wall the more important it was. I know it is only an optical illusion, but the website now seems more like a hidden feature or a background reference and in my opinion it deserves more than that. Making the forum the homepage was a good way to get the word out, but the website seems under-represented. I concur with the comments that the sample home page has too much text. It is good text, but I know from my teaching years that overloaded presentation slides can cause readers to shut down. If you do consider a homepage I would keep it very simple. More or less a door #1 and door #2 approach. I know it’s not very “useful” but is analogous to the title page of a book or foyer of a building. You don’t spend a lot of time there, but it is aesthetically pleasing and psychologically significant to feel “there” when you get there. If you had a side by side “documentation” entrance and “discussion” entrance I think it would better represent what the site has to offer. I appear to be the odd one out as far liking the homepage idea, but such is the nature of asking opinions 😉 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Lewis Posted August 29, 2019 Author Share Posted August 29, 2019 Hello Gary, sorry I am quite late for the party on this one. It seems you have achieved your goals regarding bit transfer and page loading speed but I thought I’d weigh in anyway... I agree that things work fine the way they are, but I will go against the grain and say that I like the idea of a homepage and here is why... there is only a passing mention of the website in the bolded site description above the forum topics. Even if people realize it’s there, I think it is understated. Maybe it is a hold over from the caveman days where the larger something was drawn on the cave wall the more important it was. I know it is only an optical illusion, but the website now seems more like a hidden feature or a background reference and in my opinion it deserves more than that. Making the forum the homepage was a good way to get the word out, but the website seems under-represented. I concur with the comments that the sample home page has too much text. It is good text, but I know from my teaching years that overloaded presentation slides can cause readers to shut down. If you do consider a homepage I would keep it very simple. More or less a door #1 and door #2 approach. I know it’s not very “useful” but is analogous to the title page of a book or foyer of a building. You don’t spend a lot of time there, but it is aesthetically pleasing and psychologically significant to feel “there” when you get there. If you had a side by side “documentation” entrance and “discussion” entrance I think it would better represent what the site has to offer. I appear to be the odd one out as far liking the homepage idea, but such is the nature of asking opinions 😉 Jonathan - You aren't alone as Steve/FoxFord33 suggested something that's similar to your suggestion. I, too, think the "documentation" (let's call the pieces "forum" and "documentation") gets short shrift. And I'd love to make it more obvious to the casual observer. So, we need to think about how to do that. But, I'm not sure a new homepage does that. I say that because I'm not sure how many people would come in that way. However, let's kick that around a bit. As I see it there are these ways of coming to the website: Searches: We get traffic due to searches for a specific term. As of right now we are getting about 200 - 250 clicks from Google searches to the documentation and 25 - 30 clicks to the forum per day. But those go directly to the specific page on which the search topic resides. (And, by the way, the # of clicks/day is increasing nicely.) So they'd never go to the home page. Shared Links: I frequently provide links directly to a specific post or page of documentation to people on Facebook. And I know that others do as well - in fact I've had nice surprises lately when I thought "Oh, I have that info" and see that someone else has already provided the link. But, again, those go directly to the page or post and would't go to the home page. Emailed Links: I don't know 'bout y'all, but I'm subscribed at the top level of the forum and get an email for each and every post. (The forum is odd compared to others and you have to overtly subscribe to get an email for posts.) And the way I come to the forum 99.999999% of the time is via one of those links. But if we had a home page the links would still take me directly to the post, not the home page. Saved Links: Some of you have saved links directly to the forum, and even if we had a home page there'd still be the ability to save a link to the forum, thereby bypassing the home page. So the only people that would ever see the home page would be few and far between that Googled something that was on the home page. But we are saying there should be very little on the home page, so there'd be nothing to find. Don't know 'bout you, but I've just myself out of wanting a home page. But, that does not mean we shouldn't have a way to tell people about the documentation if they find the forum, or vice versa. Toward that end I've had some thoughts, but want yours as well. One of mine is a popup for first time visitors. (I don't know if that's possible, but humor me.) If the visit is to the forum it could tell them how to register. And/or it could tell them about the documentation. If to the documentation it could tell them about the forum and the menu to other documentation. Thoughts? HELP! I'm going crazy thinking about this! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Steve83 Posted August 29, 2019 Share Posted August 29, 2019 Jonathan - You aren't alone as Steve/FoxFord33 suggested something that's similar to your suggestion. I, too, think the "documentation" (let's call the pieces "forum" and "documentation") gets short shrift. And I'd love to make it more obvious to the casual observer. So, we need to think about how to do that. But, I'm not sure a new homepage does that. I say that because I'm not sure how many people would come in that way. However, let's kick that around a bit. As I see it there are these ways of coming to the website: Searches: We get traffic due to searches for a specific term. As of right now we are getting about 200 - 250 clicks from Google searches to the documentation and 25 - 30 clicks to the forum per day. But those go directly to the specific page on which the search topic resides. (And, by the way, the # of clicks/day is increasing nicely.) So they'd never go to the home page. Shared Links: I frequently provide links directly to a specific post or page of documentation to people on Facebook. And I know that others do as well - in fact I've had nice surprises lately when I thought "Oh, I have that info" and see that someone else has already provided the link. But, again, those go directly to the page or post and would't go to the home page. Emailed Links: I don't know 'bout y'all, but I'm subscribed at the top level of the forum and get an email for each and every post. (The forum is odd compared to others and you have to overtly subscribe to get an email for posts.) And the way I come to the forum 99.999999% of the time is via one of those links. But if we had a home page the links would still take me directly to the post, not the home page. Saved Links: Some of you have saved links directly to the forum, and even if we had a home page there'd still be the ability to save a link to the forum, thereby bypassing the home page. So the only people that would ever see the home page would be few and far between that Googled something that was on the home page. But we are saying there should be very little on the home page, so there'd be nothing to find. Don't know 'bout you, but I've just myself out of wanting a home page. But, that does not mean we shouldn't have a way to tell people about the documentation if they find the forum, or vice versa. Toward that end I've had some thoughts, but want yours as well. One of mine is a popup for first time visitors. (I don't know if that's possible, but humor me.) If the visit is to the forum it could tell them how to register. And/or it could tell them about the documentation. If to the documentation it could tell them about the forum and the menu to other documentation. Thoughts? HELP! I'm going crazy thinking about this! Lighten up, Francis. The only link I use or share is http://www.garysgaragemahal.com/ . From there, I find what I want. I assume most other users can, too. The only change that has occurred to me is the naming of the Resources folder. To this day, I couldn't tell you what's in it because it's not intuitive to remember (although I'm pretty sure I've browsed it at least once). I assume it wouldn't be apparent to new visitors, either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Gary Lewis Posted August 30, 2019 Author Share Posted August 30, 2019 Lighten up, Francis. LOL! I had to look that one up! I didn't mean to come across so ....... adamant. But, unless there are lots of people going to garysgaragemahal.com then a home page won't help us much. However, I have found a way to create a pop up for the first visit to the site. It isn't cheap but at least I know it can be done. So, if we decide that a pop up to explain what we are about and how to use the site is needed then that is a possibility. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
grumpin Posted August 30, 2019 Share Posted August 30, 2019 Lighten up, Francis. LOL! I had to look that one up! I didn't mean to come across so ....... adamant. But, unless there are lots of people going to garysgaragemahal.com then a home page won't help us much. However, I have found a way to create a pop up for the first visit to the site. It isn't cheap but at least I know it can be done. So, if we decide that a pop up to explain what we are about and how to use the site is needed then that is a possibility. He also said “I’m getting too old for this ”! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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