Preview of Forum vNext - "Return of JWD"

by Simon 47 Replies latest forum announcements

  • Simon
    Simon

    Meh, what the heck ... some people already noticed / discovered it anyway ...

    I put a preview of the new site up on the original .com domain if anyone wants to try it:

    http://www.jehovahs-witness.com/

    It is incomplete but should show some of the new features.

    Right now the home page shows topics for the entire site which you can sort by when they were started, last updated or the number of posts (rating will come later). You can also change the number shown per-page and turn on or off the 'snippet' display (supposed to be a representative sentance or two from the topic). The green 'welcome' box on the home page can be closed (X in top-right)

    If you click on a subject then only topics within it are shown (and so on if you drill down into further topics). So, there is an 'active topics' at all levels.

    Clicking on a poster gives their posting stats so you can see if they are new, an old-timer, if they predominantly 'advertise' (start topics) or discuss (post replies) and you can get a view of their topics in the same way as above.

    Search works but it's simple right now and will get more filtering options soon.

    And of course topic-view works and should show similar topics on the same theme on the right. There's also a link back to this (JWN / .net) site so you can use it to read and switch back to post for now. I've tried to make the view simple and focus on readbility (optimal line-length for font-size).

    All the old URLs should work too (so best-of links etc). In fact for most pages, changing the .net to .com in the address bar should take you to the corresponding page.

    Still lots to do but let me know what you think.

    Performance should be fairly decent.

  • iCeltic
    iCeltic

    Simon, many thanks for all your hard work.

    without being critical, I find the members icons at either side of the subjects too much and makes it look quite cluttered.

  • Simon
    Simon

    Do you mean the 3 latest reply ones?

  • iCeltic
    iCeltic

    Yeah those and the one on the left hand side next to the topic name and poster.

    Maybe the left one would be fine, but with all of them it just looks a little busy.

  • sooner7nc
    sooner7nc

    Looks very nice!

  • Quarterback
    Quarterback

    Good job, Simon

  • QC
    QC

    Simon,

    New site looks great!

    icons at either side of the subjects too much and makes it look quite cluttered.

    Left poster avatars are fine.

    On the right side, instead of three, how about a cycle thru icons ability, you can cycle left or right (one at a time).

  • whathappened
    whathappened

    Looks very clean and modern. It will take some getting used to, especially for us seniors. You have been working very hard on this.

  • blondie
    blondie

    I remember the last update and my poor brain took awhile to wrap around it. There have been 3 major changes to databases I work with this year...finalized without checking with us first...now they are to re-engineer things. Not that JWN will be handled that way.

  • Simon
    Simon

    So the idea of the last 3 replies is to give you a quick view of who's replied (obviously) to help decide whether there is anything to catch-up on or not (and clicking on them goes to the corresponding location in the topic). If it's just the single last reply then you can miss where someone else posts and then the other person replies (if that makes sense).

    Maybe give it a try and if people really don't like it I can add some options to show it or not. I've found it useful in that when I go back to the old site I really miss it).

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