Mel
9-03-05, 5:34 PM
Sometime this fall. We'll upgrading to vBulletin 3.5. While the members won't notice a big difference (if any)... the upgrade is quite significant behind the scenes. And the moderators will see noticable differences.
When I do this, I'll probably have to rip out most of the modifications I have in place and start over, however it should be well worth it.
At any rate, I was thinking of jazzing up the home page with an extra column either on the right or left of the main forum grid. This could hold bits of info such as
User login and greeting (currently found at the top right)
top x most recent news stories, with links.
top x most active threads in the past day, with links.
top x most active posters in the past day
top x most popular links from the "Hockey Links" page
What's Going on and various statistics (currently found at the bottom of the home page.
sometimes it's easier to tell when you see examples so I dug a few up...
column on right
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/
http://www.blizzcenter.com/forum.php?
column on left
http://forum.codenet.ru/
http://forum.overhauledpc.com/
Personally I prefer the column on the left. Keep in mind this would only be on the home page.
So I was just curious what people think of this idea... if it's something you'd enjoy, or perhaps you think it would just create too much clutter on the page. So if you like, please let me know by voting, and feel free to add additional comments.
It's just an idea I'm kicking around. Even if the majority vote likes the idea, it still may not happen - there will be other things I need to consider. It would make the home page heavier than it already is and would use up more resources, requiring additional database queries every time that page loads (a lot). However there are ways to minimize the impact i.e. only refreshing the columns info only once per hour or something like that. Minimizing the extra database work.
When I do this, I'll probably have to rip out most of the modifications I have in place and start over, however it should be well worth it.
At any rate, I was thinking of jazzing up the home page with an extra column either on the right or left of the main forum grid. This could hold bits of info such as
User login and greeting (currently found at the top right)
top x most recent news stories, with links.
top x most active threads in the past day, with links.
top x most active posters in the past day
top x most popular links from the "Hockey Links" page
What's Going on and various statistics (currently found at the bottom of the home page.
sometimes it's easier to tell when you see examples so I dug a few up...
column on right
http://www.webhostingtalk.com/
http://www.blizzcenter.com/forum.php?
column on left
http://forum.codenet.ru/
http://forum.overhauledpc.com/
Personally I prefer the column on the left. Keep in mind this would only be on the home page.
So I was just curious what people think of this idea... if it's something you'd enjoy, or perhaps you think it would just create too much clutter on the page. So if you like, please let me know by voting, and feel free to add additional comments.
It's just an idea I'm kicking around. Even if the majority vote likes the idea, it still may not happen - there will be other things I need to consider. It would make the home page heavier than it already is and would use up more resources, requiring additional database queries every time that page loads (a lot). However there are ways to minimize the impact i.e. only refreshing the columns info only once per hour or something like that. Minimizing the extra database work.