So as we approach 2025 it is time for some changes to the website–paid for with the generous donations of all you folks–of course I am extremely grateful for the financial help.
Some of the changes won’t be noticeable by readers/users as they are small tweaks–some of which are more ‘behind the scenes’ or are so minor that many won’t even notice them. Others will be more noticeable—IF we can execute them.
A big one is for a rearrangement of the top menu. I haven’t been happy with the ability to select items on the top menu for years, but rearranging it means that the top part of the website will need to be rebuilt and that is technically a big deal. In the month ahead you will see some changes there.
Another big one is in the ‘search’ area. This has been discussed by many over the years–the functionality kind of sucks. The tech folks are looking into substantially improving this item. For instance adding a ‘radio button’ to indicate if you want to search just ‘comments’ made by others. Over the coming month or so you should see a big change in that area.
Another item that is less than satisfactory is the page load time on those areas with major traffic–like the Sandbox Page. Because those pages have thousands of comments the page load can be slow because the comments all have to ‘load’. Hopefully we can find a way to speed this up–it is being researched as I write.
Other items are simply to move data that is meaningful ‘above the fold’. When readers go to a page they like to see data the moment the page loads–not have to scroll down the page–so there will be some reformatting of pages.
The bottom line is that over the course of a month or two we will see some changes that will improve user functionality and satisfaction. As always if we make a change this totally misses the mark we will back out the change and try again.
Sounds like a good list of improvements. If you have one room for one more, maybe you could consider adding an entire page for the “Recent Comments”? I think you mentioned once that you have such a page already on the administrative side. Can this be made available to the public?
The small section in the right column is a great way to quickly see where the newest comments are, but it only shows the 10 most recent. Once comments scroll off they can be very hard to find. It would be great if it was possible to click on the header and be taken to a full list of all comments added that day (or week).
Tim, great stuff, great site, great host! 2 wishes from me: it’d be nice to search only new comments or by a day. What I do now is use safari find command and type 12/31, for instance, and toggle through them. I’m getting older and re-read things and think…hmmmm sounds familiar. Oh yeah, read it yesterday…
And as said above, search via handle (name, like Grid -hahah) would be great.
Great 2025 to us all. I’d like to thank all, as this forum is really a bunch of great people that are very friendly and work to keep it so! Cheers all!
One other thought. Ghosts of windows past. I hope I don’t upset any computer geeks on here, but I remember Microsoft trying to get Windows 8 to work with both a desktop computer and a phone with disastrous results.
I mostly use the laptop, but today I’m using my phone
I don’t know if it’s an issue now with different devices but I hope the changes to the site don’t cause you an arm and a leg with the redesign.
Looking forward to the site enhancements! Thank you Tim for all you do here!
Tim, all of your efforts are greatly appreciated. Happy New Year.
Sounds great Tim. We’re all on team McPartland here. Happy New Year to everybody too!
Thank you, Tim!
You’re welcome rocks!
Thank you
You’re most welcome SNewman!
Ditto the comments from the others. Thank you, Tim.
Thanks for your inpute mbg.
Tim, thanks for all your efforts.
Sorting search results by date would be very nice.
danzeb–yes the tech folks told me they were NOT currently sorting by date–which I hope we can fix.
Thank you so much for such great insight , really appreciate your efforts and comments.
You’re welcome–but of course it is really all the wise people here that make it worthwhile.
Appreciate all of your efforts– bettering the site is a cherry on top.
2025 will be even better.
Thanks Gary!!
Tim, love the site. I guess the only thing I wish for is looking by commentator. My brain can remember the comment and who made it, just not the when or where on the various areas of the site.
Lots of great people on here and thanks for hosting the site.