new look for computerhope.com

[unlovedwarrior]

wow have you guys seen the new look for the www.computerhope.com homepage?

[Raptor]

Yes, and I thought a spyware company had taken over. It's bloody horrible.

[Neil]

Nathan hath forsaken us!

[Raptor]

Howdy partnah.

[Fed]

I think it looks good.

[unlovedwarrior]

its different

[Google]

It would be better if the whole site looked like that tho!

[Raptor]

I think it looks good. [/quotele

There's too much scrolling that you have to do.

[Google]

you forgot the "]"

[Zylstra]

Yes, and I thought a spyware company had taken over. It's bloody horrible.

Thats the Ticket!

I liked the old one, but time will pass, and I shall adjust.

(I'm starting to like this newbie, now I have two people agreeing with me about Macs and their queer keyboards and single button mouses)

I know that CH has been planning on changing their site for a LONG time, but they needed to find something that fit well.

[Zylstra]

Heh,
It changes banner images when you refreash the page... (intresting)

[2k_dummy]

Yes, and I thought a spyware company had taken over. It's bloody horrible.

Sic'em, boy, sic'em!

How ya been Raptor?

[Dusty]

Was it broke or just fixed for the sake of "it" :-?

[Fed]

Raptor the newbie... I snorted my beer.

[Rob Pomeroy]

wow have you guys seen the new look for the www.computerhope.com homepage?

It looks like a link farm.  Yuck.

[Raptor]

Yes, and I thought a spyware company had taken over. It's bloody horrible.

Thats the Ticket!

I liked the old one, but time will pass, and I shall adjust.

(I'm starting to like [highlight]this newbie[/highlight], now I have two people agreeing with me about Macs and their queer keyboards and single button mouses)

I know that CH has been planning on changing their site for a LONG time, but they needed to find something that fit well.

Noooo... Nathan I want my 10.000 posts back!  

[Neil]

I told you so, Raptor

[unlovedwarrior]

im confused.. so raptor was an old member and he quick and now just rejoined?

[soybean]

im confused.. so raptor was an old member and he quick and now just rejoined?

Yeh, I'm curious about this, too.

[GX1_Man]

Heh,
It changes banner images when you refreash the page... (intresting)

Constantly changing advertisements is not a big draw for me.  

If it were, I would just google for "stuff I do not want want or need".

[unlovedwarrior]

Heh,
It changes banner images when you refreash the page... (intresting)

Constantly changing advertisements is not a big draw for me.  

If it were, I would just google for "stuff I do not want want or need".

lol

[Raptor]

im confused.. so raptor was an old member and he quick and now just rejoined?

Yeh, I'm curious about this, too.

I was here before the great end-time, when Merlin the wizard took up the fight with the great and evil moderator Nathan the slayer and Merlin was beaten back because his Windows ME software couldn't handle it. Oh, well he reincarnated a few times but he kept losing and eventually he was banned from the virtual realm forever. Now I go around spreading the one true word of Merlin. Well, actually, it were several worlds, but those are just details only good for storytelling. Oh yeah, after that it went real bad. The forum turned into something really ugly and nearly burned out everyone's eyes and now the website has suffered too. See, without Merlin the wise the balance is lost. Yup. Sure is.

[unlovedwarrior]

what where those words of wisdom and balance

[soybean]

im confused.. so raptor was an old member and he quick and now just rejoined?

Yeh, I'm curious about this, too.

I was here before the great end-time, when Merlin the wizard took up the fight with the great and evil moderator Nathan the slayer and Merlin was beaten back because his Windows ME software couldn't handle it. Oh, well he reincarnated a few times but he kept losing and eventually he was banned from the virtual realm forever. Now I go around spreading the one true word of Merlin. Well, actually, it were several worlds, but those are just details only good for storytelling. Oh yeah, after that it went real bad. The forum turned into something really ugly and nearly burned out everyone's eyes and now the website has suffered too. See, without Merlin the wise the balance is lost. Yup. Sure is.

I gather this all took place prior to 2006, since I joined in Jan 2006 and don't recall any such activity.  So, anyway, you're back and you're just posting like crazy.  I clicked on your username and saw 101 posts since joining just, uh ..., yesterday.   At that rate, you'll have about 36,865 posts in one year.  Is that your goal?

[Raptor]

what where those words of wisdom and balance

You weren't supposed to ask that because no one could understand him. When everybody was thinking in 4D, Merlin was thinking in 5D. Either that or he was on some serious acid.

[unlovedwarrior]

oh i kinda wish i could have meet him.

what was his specitity here?

[Raptor]

im confused.. so raptor was an old member and he quick and now just rejoined?

Yeh, I'm curious about this, too.

I was here before the great end-time, when Merlin the wizard took up the fight with the great and evil moderator Nathan the slayer and Merlin was beaten back because his Windows ME software couldn't handle it. Oh, well he reincarnated a few times but he kept losing and eventually he was banned from the virtual realm forever. Now I go around spreading the one true word of Merlin. Well, actually, it were several worlds, but those are just details only good for storytelling. Oh yeah, after that it went real bad. The forum turned into something really ugly and nearly burned out everyone's eyes and now the website has suffered too. See, without Merlin the wise the balance is lost. Yup. Sure is.

I gather this all took place prior to 2006, since I joined in Jan 2006 and don't recall any such activity.  So, anyway, you're back and you're just posting like crazy.  I clicked on your username and saw 101 posts since joining just, uh ..., yesterday.   At that rate, you'll have about 36,865 posts in one year.  Is that your goal?

No, not quite. I just open everything that says "New" in a tab and if I've got an answer of some kind I will post it.

Besides, I haven't got much of a social life so Fed, Dx_1Man, Neil and the others who still know me are like family to me! I love those guys.  

[Raptor]

oh i kinda wish i could have meet him.

what was his specitity here?

With specked titties I suppose you mean speciality; well, he was good at telling people to reformat their Hard Disk Drives when they couldn't open Outlook Express.

Or take the computer and shove it out the Window if they couldn't press a certain key combination.

His rhetoric about Windows ME was quite amusing as well, you could probably still find some if you used the search function. Although that is pretty buggered up I noticed.

[unlovedwarrior]

oh. that sound like fun

[Raptor]

Somehow you can't search by user anymore. This new forum is buggy, I really liked the old one better. Well, apart from the crashes it had but I was able to live with that..

[unlovedwarrior]

im only a few months old here.

[Rob Pomeroy]

We know.

[unlovedwarrior]

lol

[unlovedwarrior]

dont trust it

[soybean]

<link removed>

It appears to have worked for me i deposited £10 into jackpotjoy, played deal or no deal then withdrew money now it says offer complete.?

Why the totally off-topic post?

[unlovedwarrior]

so far thats the only thing his posted I say spammer!!!!!! but if he really is curious the he should stick with his orginally post and not keep repeating it over and over again

[Rob Pomeroy]

This is doubtless an automated spambot.  Please ignore.

[Raptor]

This is doubtless an automated spambot.  Please ignore.

Nooooo I want my free Xbox 360!

[unlovedwarrior]

well u go ahead and sign up and tell us what you get

[Zylstra]

Yes, and I thought a spyware company had taken over. It's bloody horrible.

Thats the Ticket!

I liked the old one, but time will pass, and I shall adjust.

(I'm starting to like [highlight]this newbie[/highlight], now I have two people agreeing with me about Macs and their queer keyboards and single button mouses)

I know that CH has been planning on changing their site for a LONG time, but they needed to find something that fit well.

Noooo... Nathan I want my 10.000 posts back!  

Now your name sounds familiar. I am confusing you with Backdated too!

[Zylstra]

This is doubtless an automated spambot.  Please ignore.

Nooooo I want my free Xbox 360!

(100,000,000 Surveys Later... )

[Computer Hope Admin]

The site has changed and I've finally managed to change all sub pages not simply the main page. This change was done because I needed to do a lot of fixes and updates on every page and thought since the page has been the same since January 2000 it was time for an update. As I mentioned in this weeks newsletter some of the major changes  to the main page include:

In the news:
An up-to-date live post of our news section featuring recently posted news articles that link directly to the news page.

Visitor favorites:
Listing of visitor favorite pages on Computer Hope based off how many visits the pages receive. These results are based off the previous days hits so will be automatically updated daily and give visitors a direct link to the most popular sections of Computer Hope.

Recent forum posts:
Listing of the five most recent posts from each of the main sections of the forum. This section will be updated frequently and allow forum members and non-forum members a quick easy way to see what’s going on.

What’s hip:
List of the 15 most recent what’s hip posts made each week on the Computer Hope newsletter.

In addition to these main updates all sub pages were changed to include the company name "Computer Hope.com" and not just the Computer Hope logo that they all sorely needed.

Yes, and I thought a spyware company had taken over. It's bloody horrible.

No a spyware company has not taken over. You were always hard to please Raptor so I'll just reply to this with any suggestions on how to make it not so bloody horrible?

Quote2: There's too much scrolling that you have to do.

Agreed. The site is formatted how it is to accommodate the 800x600 users if everyone ran a default resolution of 1024x768 I wouldn't have a problem with stretching it out and moving some of the bottom content boxes to the sides.

Quote3: Noooo... Nathan I want my 10.000 posts back!

Sorry you're the one that deleted your account originally.

Nathan hath forsaken us!

Sure hope not. None of the content has changed just the template.

I think it looks good.

Thanks.

It would be better if the whole site looked like that tho!

Done.

Was it broke or just fixed for the sake of "it" :-?

Changed because several changes needed to be done throughout the whole site that I've been putting off for a long time.

It looks like a link farm.  Yuck.

An interesting remark that I can't dispute and that after looking at I agree with. My only alternative solution to this would be to add some more nice images/buttons or other elements to help break up the site. Of course doing this will increase load time.

Somehow you can't search by user anymore. This new forum is buggy, I really liked the old one better. Well, apart from the crashes it had but I was able to live with that..

You can always click the users name and see their last posts.

<link removed>

It appears to have worked for me i deposited £10 into jackpotjoy, played deal or no deal then withdrew money now it says offer complete.?

Why the totally off-topic post?

Spamming user, post removed, user banned.

[Raptor]

No a spyware company has not taken over. You were always hard to please Raptor so I'll just reply to this with any suggestions on how to make it not so bloody horrible?

I'm not hard to please!

Well, ehm, I really liked the old look because it was soothing to the eye and it looked very friendly. Rob said it looked like a link farm now and I agree.  

Although I do think the rotating pictures are neat, you should keep that.

 

Quote2: There's too much scrolling that you have to do.
 
Agreed. The site is formatted how it is to accommodate the 800x600 users if everyone ran a default resolution of 1024x768 I wouldn't have a problem with stretching it out and moving some of the bottom content boxes to the sides.

What was wrong with the old set up? It seemed to work fine on any resolution I'd use.
 

Quote3: Noooo... Nathan I want my 10.000 posts back!
 
Sorry you're the one that deleted your account originally. Sad
 

I know. But I'm no longer a newbie now. Ok, to some, anyway.  

Recent forum posts:
Listing of the five most recent posts from each of the main sections of the forum. This section will be updated frequently and allow forum members and non-forum members a quick easy way to see what’s going on.
 

Perhaps you could build on that and show the time and poster as well.

[Computer Hope Admin]

I'm not hard to please!

Well, ehm, I really liked the old look because it was soothing to the eye and it looked very friendly. Rob said it looked like a link farm now and I agree.  

Although I do think the rotating pictures are neat, you should keep that.

I agree with the link farm comment and maybe I can fix that. Just not sure yet what would be the best solution. Your main page should point to most of the main sections of your site. However, having a lot of links like the page currently does can overwelm the users.
 

What was wrong with the old set up? It seemed to work fine on any resolution I'd use.

Nothing was wrong with the original main page layout of the old one. In fact it was actually the same size, I guess it just makes it more apparent when it's centered.

Here is a copy of the older version:
http://www.computerhope.com/index2.htm

Recent forum posts:
Listing of the five most recent posts from each of the main sections of the forum. This section will be updated frequently and allow forum members and non-forum members a quick easy way to see what’s going on.

Perhaps you could build on that and show the time and poster as well.

I definitely could add that, because this feature was not available in YaBB as of yet, I had to write the script to parse this information. Unfortunately however this could potentially cause more scrolling unless of course I was to shrink the message subject. Most of the scrolling on the page is actually caused by this feature. However, because a lot of users wanted this and it will help bridge the gap between the forums and the page some more I thought it would be best to have it.

Thanks for the effective feedback.  

[unlovedwarrior]

its nice you have you back here..

[Neil]

Is it not possible to find out the user's resolution, and alter the page accordingly? I know some types of table can have their size set relative to the screen size.

[Neil]

Don't forget to update this.

http://www.computerhope.com/more.htm

[soybean]

Is it not possible to find out the user's resolution, and alter the page accordingly? I know some types of table can have their size set relative to the screen size.

Yes, the way that is done is to specify percentages for width instead of pixels.  It has the advantage of allowing the page to adjust to the viewers screen but can be more difficult to develop so that it displays well across a range of resolutions, especially if you have images in some table cells, since images have fixed dimensions.

[soybean]

I think the amount of scrolling is not bad at all.  Many other sites have as much or more.  For example, see http://www.pcmag.com/ and http://www.extremetech.com/.  

I would get rid of the borderlines around the table cells.  As you know, tables are commonly used to create columns in page layout but many sites make the table cell borderlines invisible.  In my opinion, it gives a more sophisticated look.  The two sites mentioned above are examples.  I could cite many others.

Along with this, the use of different colors for table cells could be elmininated or decreased, with a white background being used more often.  Again, the two sites mentioned above are examples and I could cite many others.

The font size could also be smaller.  This might create the opportunity to add a fourth column, perhaps with some banner ads in the right column.

And, regarding ads, I would not begrudge a little more commercial look.  The development of all the content in ComputerHope.com must have been a huge undertaking.  You're entitled to make some money with this site.

Regarding page width, you could perhaps set it wider, somewhere between 800 and 1024.  I believe a the percentage of users now using 800x600 resolution is rather small.  

[Raptor]

I think the amount of scrolling is not bad at all.  Many other sites have as much or more.  For example, see http://www.pcmag.com/ and http://www.extremetech.com/.  
 

We used to have no scrolling at all, which looked a lot better.

The two sites mentioned above are examples.  [highlight]I could cite many others.[/highlight]

Like the previous computerhope.com layout...

[soybean]

The former layout, http://www.computerhope.com/index2.htm, definitely requires some scrolling to see all of the page.  Creating a page which requires no scrolling provides very little real estate with which to work.  Look at any major site; none of them attempt to create a home page which requires no scrolling.

Raptor, if you want to see a real scrolling mess, here's an example: http://www.freewarerocks.com/

[Raptor]

The former layout, http://www.computerhope.com/index2.htm, definitely requires some scrolling to see all of the page.  Creating a page which requires no scrolling provides very little real estate with which to work.  Look at any major site; none of them attempt to create a home page which requires no scrolling.

Ok, so I was overreacting to get my point across.

But the only reason you have to scroll is because the page is vertical rather than horizontal. If the tip of the week was placed next to all the other tables it wouldn't need scrolling. I am using a resolution of 1280x1024, though.

[soybean]

Well, what you're saying is to use wider tables and add one or more columns so that more of the content could be horizontally displayed.  I would agree the page width could be extended, but most web developers would probably not want to go higher than 1024 for a fixed width page to avoid horizontal scrolling for at least all users using 1024 x 768 resolution, which I believe includes a great number of users.  Still, that would reduce horizontal scrolling.

The other thing which would help some, as I mentioned in a previous post, would be to use a smaller font.

[Neil]

Even though the old site required scrolling, most of the important information was at the top.

Here's an idea. What about some kind of tab system. A default main tab holding computer help quick links and what's new. Then other tabs to switch to news etc on the same site. That way you could get more into smaller space, and not overload the user with information.

The search box and those buttons are too hard to spot... putting it on a side bar made it easier to see. Possibly put it on a side bar with the tabs.

Some pictures, even if just to break up the boxes, would be nice. The monitor on the old one was sleek.

I agree with Soybean invisible borders on the tables looks better, and a bit more space between them.

[Dilbert]

I have to admit, it could use some more horizontal to it. It's not much of a change, but since it's not all that much change I have to say that it's not an improvement. Maybe it's because it's a lot of links. I'm looking at the original and comparing. I'm not sure what the big difference is... yeah, it's the lack of a PC image like in index2.htm. There needs to be a break in it.

Thanks for the work, Nathan!

[Computer Hope Admin]

Ok after close to a dozen other attempts at redesigning the main page i've come up with one favorite. Which I believe should address most of the concerns mentioned earlier. I'm trying to keep true to the KISS (Keep It Simple Stupid) principle, but had a difficult time with so much information.

Before posting this completely new look to the main page I'll see what everyone thinks first.

Example page can be found at: http://www.computerhope.com/index6.htm

Don't forget to update this.

http://www.computerhope.com/more.htm

Will be changed as soon as all other updates are complete and main page is something I'm satisfied with and other Computer Hope users can agree on.

We used to have no scrolling at all, which looked a lot better.

Scrolling has been reduced now and with the large resolution that you're running at should be a lot less. Unfortunately, getting rid of all scrolling is impossible without removing the new features added ie: visitor favorites, latest computer news, and recent forum posts.

[Dilbert]

[smiley=thumbup.gif] [smiley=thumbup.gif]

Whoa, you disallowed smiley only posts? Cool!

[patio]

With all the time i spend here at the Forums scrolling has never been a challenge for me....

[Dilbert]

I think the new proposed home page looks more like a site than our current home page does.

[unlovedwarrior]

it will work

[Raptor]

This is better, but somehow it doesn't look as slick as the design everyone liked.

[panboy]

What The Funk is going on

mmmm so this is waht happens when i dont post for a few days!
We Get a new Web site , a new old Regular!

And spamers!...

I geuss i need to post more.

I noticed there seems to be a lot of withe space on the new front page, also i dont like the button links at the top, they dont quite seem to fit in.

[Rob Pomeroy]

Much better, IMHO Nathan.  

[Neil]

Much better, IMHO Nathan.  

Suck up hee hee

[soybean]

Much better, IMHO Nathan.  

I agree.  

[Computer Hope Admin]

This is better, but somehow it doesn't look as slick as the design everyone liked.

Tried to keep to the KISS principle as much as possible with this latest one. Making new users and returning users not so overwhelmed and have the ability to get to where they want to go quickly. Another reason I changed the main page during this update is because the main page is the high bounce exit rate it has. Any suggestions on making it more slick without sacrificing ease don't hesitate to make suggestions.

...I noticed there seems to be a lot of withe space on the new front page, also i dont like the button links at the top, they dont quite seem to fit in.

White space is often considered a good thing. Too much information, pictures, ads, etc. often overloads the visitor, statistics show users don't spend more than 2sec on a page, so if overloaded often will just move on. I almost agree however with the button links at the top of the page not fitting in. I've redesigned them 5 different times, primarily to make them more easier to read. I'll try to think up something new and/or redesign again.

Much better, IMHO Nathan.  

Thanks.

Any other suggestions, comments, and/or problems about layout welcome.

[Zylstra]

Since your last change with resizing many of the tables and rearranging, I like it much more now. Its very pleasent to look at and easy to navagate.

You've prefected it!