Discuss Cooking v2.0 - Details and Feedback

[Andy R]

Dear Members,

It's with great honor that I present to you the new masterpiece from the Discuss Cooking coding kitchen. As you can see I have just rolled out a new look/feel for our community. This is still a work in progress and I am going to need your feedback to really dial things in.

One of the biggest improvements is the drop down menus at the top of the page that allow you to get to all the forums from any page. Hopefully this will reduce the amount of clicks you need to get around.

Another new feature introduced in this version is the addition of the right column. I am planning to develop a way so that you can customize the content you see in that column and also a way for contributing members to turn it off completely. I will be working on this stuff in the next week, so please be patient, I will post updates as items are completed.

Please post your thoughts, feedback and ideas and I will collect them all and work to get them implemented ASAP.

[Barbara L]

Wow, I clicked on the back arrow after posting something, and the site was totally different! I like the looks of it. It will take a little figuring out, but I'm up for it!

Barbara

[Barbara L]

Well, it is doing some very strange things right now (drop down menus behind ads, etc.), but when all the bugs are worked out, I think I'll like it.

Barbara

[Andy R]

Barbara,

Thanks for pointing that out. I have reverted back to the old skin as the site was not looking proper at all in Internet Explorer. I hope to get the issues resolved soon and then DC will be back to normal. It's a bit awkward now because many settings are in place for the new skin and it's running on the old one.

[Toots]

The new version sounds good! Thanks Andy, I am looking forward to it!

[miniman]

I like the side bar quick links when you are reading a thread.

[GB]

I LOVE the idea of the new Recent Recipe Discussions sidebar section. I think that is an excellent idea!!!

[JMediger]

Originally Posted by miniman

I like the side bar quick links when you are reading a thread.

That's the first thing I noticed too - really cool!
Thanks for all your work Andy!

[MexicoKaren]

The right side bars are great...very useful. Thanks for working so hard to make DC even better, Andy.

[Scotch]

One problem I've noticed with the current version is that when I have a private message, I get repeated notifications of it even after opening and responding to it. That continues until I exit the site and return to it. Very minor annoyance, but I hope it's fixed in the new version.

BTW, I'm using Firefox 3 on a Windows Vista Home Premium 64-Bit machine.

[jabbur]

So far all the changes sound great. One thing I would like added is the date the thread was started on the portal page. Whether this comes up when you get the preview or is posted along with the user name doesn't matter. There have been times when a thread gets bumped and the question is years old and people are responding like it just happened. Not a real biggie but would be nice.

[Callisto in NC]

Okay, I went from the Power User Page that was given to me and clicked the logo at the top and was not taken to the main forum. I was taken to a different landing page and had to click a link to get to the forums. That's a full extra step.

Here's the links as I followed them: http://discusscooking.com/?page=power
Clicked on the top logo and arrived here: http://discusscooking.com/index.php
Had to click on Click here to go to the forum listing page to get to the listing page so it is taking more steps, not less. Just thought I'd point that out.

[kitchenelf]

Callisto - I guess it is an extra step from your perspective. My suggestion would be to not use the Power User's Page like I do. Go back to the way you were doing it. It is one less step if you enter through the Index Page. I use the Power User's Page for different things. I like the info I get on that page from MY perspective.

[Callisto in NC]

Originally Posted by kitchenelf

Callisto - I guess it is an extra step from your perspective. My suggestion would be to not use the Power User's Page like I do. Go back to the way you were doing it. It is one less step if you enter through the Index Page. I use the Power User's Page for different things. I like the info I get on that page from MY perspective.

No, that's not the solution. The way I was doing it is now totally corrupted. The power user page is how the landing page USED to look now it (the landing page) looks like carp. I was trying to give Andy info on what his changes have done. I thought that was the point of this thread.

[Russellkhan]

From the Power User's page, you can get to the forum listings page by clicking on the "Forums" link in the upper left instead of the logo.

[LPBeier]

Andy, I didn't see the skin last night but I do love the sidebar! Thanks for all your work!

[DaveSoMD]

Originally Posted by Andy R

Barbara,

Thanks for pointing that out. I have reverted back to the old skin as the site was not looking proper at all in Internet Explorer. I hope to get the issues resolved soon and then DC will be back to normal. It's a bit awkward now because many settings are in place for the new skin and it's running on the old one.

Andy,

In regards to the new site not looking right in IE 7. Not sure if you heard but MS is now saying that IE 8 will adhere to the W3C HTML/browser standards more closely than previous version did. They are also saying the sites that were developed to take use / take advantage of IE specific things may not wokr properly in IE 8.

Just wanted to pass that along.

[Constance]

Mine looks just the same as always...what's wrong here?

[Callisto in NC]

Mine looks the same too, definitely no drop downs and no cute little logo. I'm using Firefox 3.0.6

Russ, Thanks for the tip about the forum listing from the power user page. That is what I needed.

[Constance]

I'm using Firefox also...whatever the newest version is.