fyi- APUG Homepage Rebuilt

[doughowk]

Overall, I like the appearance. As far as Gallery, why not make it moderator picks of the day - that should avoid seeing nudes,etc. and would reward good images.

[David A. Goldfarb]

This is definitely an improvement over the first draft.

The "Top 5" stats, though splits the page. Maybe there's a way of having that information in a more compact format. Do we really need "Most Popular Forums" or all the extra data beyond the title of the "Latest Posts"? How about two columns (which could be stacked or placed side by side or on opposite sides of the page--however works best with the other content) with just the titles of say the 10 latest posts and the 10 most popular threads?

You could ask the sponsors about how much real estate they want on the front page, but I think it would be in the sponsors' best interest to have a clean looking page that invites new users into the site, where they'll read about their products as part of the normal conversation and see the banner ads in the process. Too much sponsor info on the front page, and I think it will turn new users away.

The major APUG partners get the footer on every page including the front page plus banners. So do they need something this large in the content space on the front page?:



Now I'm on a 1024x768 monitor, and that's 1/6 of the page in Firefox. How about instead of the regular rotating banner in the header on the front page creating a single banner just for the front page with all four partner logos, so they get some prominent extra recognition right up front, but with a neater appearance?

[roteague]

Thanks for all your hard work. The front page looks great, the portfolio system looks great ... and I feel humbled being chosen to have the first Featured Portfolio.

[Photo Engineer]

Sean;

I love the front page and the new gallery. I love the way the gallery opens photos.

Bob, I viewed a few of your photos first. Wow! Spectacular. Thanks to you as well.

Ron

[matti]

I like that the gallery pictures are given more space.
/matti

[glbeas]

Nice. I think you need a link to the portfolio pages on the homepage as well as your featured portfolio. Only place I've found so far to acess them is the personal edit portfolio page.

[Sean]

Thanks for the feedback everyone. I will do some more tweaking, maybe make the stip of gallery images a sample until i get the content control in place. I'll see what else i can do to reduce clutter and clean it up a bit more. As for the partners block i could shrink that a little bit (they don't have banner ads by the way) but they contribute a A LOT to our costs so I want the partners block where it is..

[jovo]

As for the partners block i could shrink that a little bit (they don't have banner ads by the way) but they contribute a A LOT to our costs so I want the partners block where it is..

...And so it should be. It would surprise you how often I click on sponsor's URL's and am appreciative at how available they are. I can only hope their number will grow!

I appreciate your concern for the gallery thumbnails....I simply cannot access this site in the presence of the children I teach if I have any concern at all about what may be seen. It's not an option....G rating or outa here! No choice...period!

[David A. Goldfarb]

Looks like it's starting to sort itself out!

[Sean]

Looks like it's starting to sort itself out!

Finished doing some stuff just a second ago and more cleaning up to do later, great feedback guys really appreciate it!