GardenStew.com New Design !!! - Feedback

Discussion in 'The Village Square' started by Frank, Mar 4, 2006.

  1. Frank

    Frank GardenStew Founder Staff Member Administrator

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    Hi folks,

    New year, new look :D Welcome to the new look GardenStew.com! I am sooo excited to finally get it finished and put it out there for all to see!

    So what's changed:-
    - Cleaner look. Not as much clutter and the design is a lot more consistent throughout.
    - Smaller size pages that will download faster to your browser.
    - A nice big green bar at the top of each page to reach the forums and the blogs quickly. I found with the old design it was a bit hard to find the blogs, kind of tucked away behind the forums. Well now they are much more apparent and are now of equal importance to the forums.
    - Search using the search box in the green bar above. Now you can search the site directly from any page.
    - 'Most Recent Forum Topics' and 'Related Topics' links on each of the topic pages.
    - Blogs are now designed to fit into the design of the overall site. Before they were an add-on to the original site so they looked a bit out of place.
    - New version of the forum software installed to make the site very secure from naughty people.

    Sorry to bore you but I had to get all of that off my chest, pheeeewww. :smt101

    What I am really looking forward to now is feedback on the new design and changes! Please tell me what you like or don't like and it will benefit the site in the future (as well as maybe a sense of satisfaction :D).

    I sincerely hope you like the new design and stick around for a great new gardening year full of surprises. Well it now 3:36 am here so I'm heading off to bed after a long night's site updating. :smt015 See you all in the morning :smt023 !!!!
     
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  3. eileen

    eileen Resident Taxonomist Staff Member Moderator Plants Contributor

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    Frank the new design is looking smashing!! Managing to find my way around without any problems. :D I've sent you a PM. :)
     
  4. Frank

    Frank GardenStew Founder Staff Member Administrator

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    Thanks Eileen, got your PM ;)

    Just a quick note folks. Some of you may be noticing a problem with the way the top menu appears. You should see a giant green bar there. If you are not seeing the green bar just hit Ctrl+F5 on your keyboard and that should reload all images on the site, including the green bar. :smt023
     
  5. i love bugs

    i love bugs The Weatherman of Craggy Island

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    :smt023 Great job Frank , I got a surprise this morning when I logged on . It took me a while to get around and have a good look but I like what I see so far . Best of luck 8) Bugs
     



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  6. toni

    toni Mistress of Garden Junque Staff Member Moderator Plants Contributor

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    Yep, it was a surprise when I logged on sorta late last night. Sat down at the computer with the remains of a glass of wine in my hand, Gardenstew popped up on the screen and my first thought was Wow, that's strong wine....gotta get more of that. :D

    Got the green bar at the top now which makes it much better to see. It all looks really nice.

    Good job Frank. I am so computer illiterate that being able to create all of this is just amazing to me.

    Toni
     
  7. Frank

    Frank GardenStew Founder Staff Member Administrator

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    :smt043 @ Toni. Thanks for the kind words!

    BTW did anyone notice my avatar had changed?
     
  8. toni

    toni Mistress of Garden Junque Staff Member Moderator Plants Contributor

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    Yep and forgot to mention that I like the little dude. I love gnomes
     
  9. i love bugs

    i love bugs The Weatherman of Craggy Island

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    Its getting better each time I visit :) How do I get myself an Avatar folks 8) Bugs
     
  10. toni

    toni Mistress of Garden Junque Staff Member Moderator Plants Contributor

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    Bugs,
    the info is at the bottom of your "My Profile" page. It takes a .gif to make the picture small enough to be accepted, at least that's the only way we could get one on there.

    Toni
     
  11. Frank

    Frank GardenStew Founder Staff Member Administrator

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    Specifications for the avatar:

    "its width can be no greater than 120 pixels, the height no greater than 120 pixels, and the file size no more than 7 KB."

    Do a Google search for avatars and you should find something. There are many sites where you can find avatars e.g. http://www.avatarity.com/
     
  12. dooley

    dooley Super Garden Turtle

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    Someday, I may actually post a reply on the first try. I fixed it so the green bar is at the top. I even have the little black arrows for new posts which I didn't have before. It looks great! Dooley
     
  13. dooley

    dooley Super Garden Turtle

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    I like the wallpaper that comes between posts! Neat! Dooley
     
  14. Frank

    Frank GardenStew Founder Staff Member Administrator

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    Is your monitor using an 800 x 600 resolution dooley? If you switch to a higher monitor resolution like 1024 x 768 you will be able to see wallpaper / background all of the time :D

    The new design is built especially to deal with resolutions 800 x 600 and larger.
     
  15. dooley

    dooley Super Garden Turtle

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    I don't know about resolutions. I'll have my son look at it tomorrow if he has time. He's busy moving. It's whatever came with the computer when I bought it before Thanksgiving. Dooley
     
  16. dooley

    dooley Super Garden Turtle

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    I found the book that came with the computer and it says, Max. Resolution 1280 Dots x 1024 Lines. But, I don't know if that is what you mean. I'll ask Dan tomorrow. Dooley
     

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