Website Re-Design

[Admin 1]

If you have any ideas for the layout, look and/or feel of our site's non-forum pages, please post you suggestion, be specific, and please include a .JPG representation of your re-design idea in your post.

Suggestion: Use DeltaCad to design your proposed layout, limiting it to an approximate wide-screen dimension width of about 18-inches, of course. (height doesn't really matter as long as it won't require mega-downward scrolling)

Individual link/button graphics are also welcome.

I will send a personal email to request a full-quality graphic from anyone that posts any forum-limited-low-quality JPEG proposed graphics that I, or our site's staff, may approve of being used on our site. Credits will be given to all creators of any designs/artwork used on our site.

Reminder: This site exists for ALL USERS OF DELTACAD! Your participation, feed-back & user knowledge really does matter here!
-- And...there's nothing wrong with becoming 'friends' with your fellow registered DCUG forum members in our Break Room Talk forum, publicly, or a through a PM to a specific member.

Anyway, the idea here is to make our website, as a whole, a better and more inviting 'viewing' experience for ALL visitors whether they choose to register on our forums or not. And, to be honest, my monitor is an old worn-out 14" CRT. Soo... what I see, is likely not what most others see both in color and screen size. That's why I'm requesting ideas/help/feed-back..from everyone!! -- What is seen by most others is not what I actually see on my end.



--John, I have not forgotten your suggestion regarding our 'site banner' text. (i.e. The use of, or the non-use of, an apostrophe-"S". )

[Admin 1]

No need to be an 'artist' by any means.

Conceptual drawings/layouts using DeltaCad, a Crayon drawing pic, or even a detailed verbal description of your layout idea would be appreciated.

I am open to all ideas. But mostly regarding the basic layout and the 'user feel' (ease of navigation) of our site's pages.

Granted new and improved graphics would be nice, but I'm more interested in wording changes, content links, and the positioning of all that in a wide screen format. (Please keep in mind that I DO NOT yet have a wide-screen monitor so dimensions WILL matter.) [Be they in pixels, inches or MMs]

My ultimate goal is to minimize both side-to-side scrolling and up-down scrolling on our site's non-forum (HTML based) pages that I create AND to minimize "blank-side-space" on wide screen monitors.

[The forums adjust to a user's monitor width automatically -- hence my issue with "i44troll"'s very long dash lines in his text tutorials. It was good for him and all other wide screen users - But it looked 'wonky' to me.]

(I'll let that fly, without complaint or post modification, in future, btw.)

SO....now that I've rambled 'too much'...I'm open to suggestions, any suggestions, to improve our site visitors experience.

[jw48]

(06-28-2011, 02:13 PM)The Boss Wrote: No need to be an 'artist' by any means.

Sounds like a challenge to me! Don't expect any fireworks, don't await with bated breath but as I've just treated myself to a new monitor I'll see how well I can get DCUG to fit on it.

Regards
John

[jw48]

(06-29-2011, 09:15 AM)The Boss Wrote: jw48,

If you can give me your pixel (W x H) resolution setting of your monitor (not the max it is capable of, but what you actually have it set to in your OS configuration settings) that would be a great starting point for me.

Control Panel|Display|Settings|Screen Resolution:

1920 x 1200 pixels

John

[jw48]

In Settings|Screen Resolution I am actually offered a variety of resolutions/width-height ratios as follows:

1920 x 1200 (this is the one I'm using)
1920 x 1080
1680 x 1050
1600 x 1200
1600 x 1024
1600 x 900
1360 x 768
1280 x 1024
1280 x 960
1280 x 800
1280 x 768
1280 x 720
1152 x 864
1088 x 612
1024 x 768
960 x 600
800 x 600

Is there one of these that is in common use, that the page should be designed for? The W/H ratios above vary widely. I suspect my monitor is not representative.

John

[Admin 1]

What you're 'using' is all I wanted to know. If it works for you, (i.e. it's readable), then it's probably good for a hundred-thousand other people too.

1600 x 1024 was probably more common 5 years ago, so maybe that would be better. But I really don't know....-/

FYI...I don't expect to be changing any text sizes, just the colors and positioning of the offered content... (the 'data cards', as it were) ...on our download pages.... and the overall general layout on our home page.

[Admin 1]

jw48 Wrote:Is there one of these that is in common use, that the page should be designed for? The W/H ratios above vary widely. I suspect my monitor is not representative.

After further research... it seem that, based on our site's hit stats logged for the past 6-weeks, about 45% of our site's hits are in the 1280x - 1366x resolution width range (with 1280x800 being only about 9% of that 45%) with 1024x768 coming in second at 28% over-all. There are fewer than 7% of site hits in the listed ranges above and below those. So it seems that 1366x768 is the 'big winner'.

I'll create a 1360 wide sample page based on "jw48's" proposal. You may notice width changes on our non-forum pages - with lots of empty space. That's the proposed width that all pages may eventually be adjusted to.

A "Proposed New Home Page" preview link will be posted in this thread for further member feed-back & discussion after it's been created, uploaded and made basically functional.

-- Additional proposals/ideas/suggestions can still be offered at any time. --

[i44troll]

John, you should be our editor! I am not good with grammar either, but I don't remember studying grammar during high school and that may have contributed to my problem.

[jw48]

I had grammar drummed into me over several years at school by Mr Morris, the English teacher you didn't argue with. He had a withering wit and a highly-developed style of sarcasm that could reduce any classroom exhibitionist to a quivering jelly. Funny how you never forget this stuff.

It's a mixed blessing sometimes - useful to know what's right and what's wrong but now that I've finished up with half a shelf of books on the subject and a nit-picking obsession with things like apostrophes and spelling I think perhaps I should be doing better things with my time (such as learning to write DeltaCad macros).

Regards
John