Hey, there! Log in / Register

Some page tweaking here

As you may notice, the top of the page looks a bit different. The main thing I wanted to do was to see if I could move the content up a bit higher on the page - which I did mainly by getting rid of the gigantic "Universal Hub" (also, you Courier haters will notice the change in the font). In practical terms, the main change is for you logged-in users who post new items here - the POST link is now in a different location, at the very top of the page (if that drives you nuts, let me know; it's easy enough to move back down).

I'll probably be making some addition modifications to the rest of the page at some point - the blueish tags section sort of doesn't work on index pages because it's hard to tell at first glance if it goes with the post it's immediately below or the post it's immediately above.

Oh, as long as I'm talking about changes, here's the deal with anon comments on posts:

I still don't like the idea of anonymous comments on UH postings. But they're turned on because of the way I smushed a couple of other resources (the Wicked Good Guide to Boston English and Boston Crime into Universal Hub. Both had anonymous comments enabled and both worked OK that way.

Unfortunately, the software that runs UH doesn't make it easy to allow anonymous comments in some areas and not others. I actually installed a plug-in that lets you do that and it works - except that anonymous users would still see a "Reply" link on UH posts, even though it wouldn't work for them. So I need to dig into the comment logic a bit here to add a rule that basically says "If the user is anonymous, don't show him the Reply link") - and, er, well, I haven't done that yet. So far, the anon commenting seems to have not gotten out of hand here, but that could be because all anonymous comments now go into a queue where I decide whether to let them through, which lets me screen out the purely ad-hominem attacks (oh, you anon users, so brave behind your masks) and the stupid spam stuff.

Free tagging: 


Ad:


Like the job UHub is doing? Consider a contribution. Thanks!

Comments

The wee logo overpowered by the big ol' banner ad is awful. I don't mind you having banner ads at all, but that placement is kind of overpowering your content.

up
Voting closed 0

I have some room to play with on the width of the page; I could make it a bit wider and make the logo bigger (I'm also seeing the buttons underneath aren't always displaying quite right now).

up
Voting closed 0

The name and logo of your website is now heavily de-emphasized in favor of the banner ad - not good.

up
Voting closed 0

I'm not sure where I am anymore. That banner ad is absolutely obstrusive! (Lurking back to the RSS feed now...)

up
Voting closed 0

May not be enough, though, so I'll keep tinkering (worst case: For a change, I actually saved the old template, so I could put that back).

up
Voting closed 0

The spacing helps, but it does not change the fact that the title of the blog is now but a minor factor on the page. The eye is drawn to the banner. Maybe this is a good thing, from a revenue standpoint, but there is just so much adspace on the page now, how will any visitors know what site they are on?

If money were no object, I would say reduce the number of ads in the banner from 3 to 2, and make the words of the logo bigger. Or perhaps increase the blackspace to double the height, putting U Hub across the top, so the banner is a component of a big header. But then you were trying to decrease vertical space used up by the logo, weren't you?

I'm coming here from the RSS feed anyway, so I won't stop visiting no matter what heinous things you do to the layout ;-).

up
Voting closed 0

On Firefox on the PC and Mac, the ad and black banner region extend longer on the right than the blue bar. Also, on only the PC, the ad box seems to be chopped a bit on the right, but on the Mac the entire box appears along with a little sliver of black to the right of it.

up
Voting closed 0

And gray pages! Oh, and tables! :-).

Thanks for the report; what's frustrating is that it looks OK here in Firefox and IE on the PC. Will play with it a bit more, then maybe go back to the old design anyway until I get it straight (along with the whole ad-dominating-the-banner thing).

up
Voting closed 0

The graphics all end on the same on the right side again...and I'd probably be more comfortable reverting back to NCSA Mosaic.

up
Voting closed 0

I think the logo looks fine. The ads are not overpowering. Most people who come to the site have been here many times, and ignore the ads, anyway.

Having said that, thank you for the ads. I need a good "criminal lawyer".

up
Voting closed 0

FWIW, I liked the pic of the snowed-in hydrant.

up
Voting closed 0

I, for one, welcome our newly logoed overlords. Although I did like the previous logo better.

What banner ads? (Sorry, running AdBlockPlus, I must not be seeing them! 8-)

Top of the site looks good; it is closer to the content, which is nice.

In terms of anonymous comments (not to be confused with Anonymous), why not just setup as second Drupal install? It should be pretty simple to do a second install for the different domain name(s), perhaps with a few manual tweaks to get any cross-site links working again. Hosting is cheap these days (or, if it's not, then you're not using the right webhost).

- Not to be confused with "Anonymous"

up
Voting closed 0

Thanks for the comments. Yeah, there should be an ad right next to the logo :-).

Setting up new Drupal installs is no problem (since I'm leasing the whole server), but I wanted to get everything under the same domain for SEO purposes and, ultimately, to try to reduce confusion between Universal Hub and Boston Online. My basic plan (well, as close as I ever get to an actual plan) is to make Universal Hub a place for locals and Boston Online a place for visitors and newcomers. So crime reports obviously fit under the former. A Boston English dictionary could go in either place. In any case, figuring out how to block anonymous comments from "classic UH" probably won't take much more work than installing Drupal again, now that I have rad PHP skillz (well, OK, I know how to do an if/then statement that looks at a Drupal visitor's logged-in status); I just have to finally do it.

up
Voting closed 0