Turbobricks site redesign 2003

[boostdemon]

Well folks, I am going to redesign the format and backend structure of the website this year, and would like to start a general symposium of input from those who would be using it.

So here's goes:

What would you add to the site as far as features or sections?

I've already got a pretty extensive list of what I would like to add/change, so im trying to find stuff I haven't thought of. If you could imagine it, say it. No need changing the site 3 years from now because we didn't fit in something to a category.

gimmie some "You know what would be cool?.... __________"

[GTJordan]

I'd really like to see a Members ride section that is upto date.

I would also like to see this same members section in a way that, you click on the name. The info comes up a few pictures (just like TPC had it set up) Then if they have thier own site, a link to it on this page. Its just a preferance, but when I'm surfing peoples cars, I like to see the car, then decide to check out the site.... know what I mean?

Jordan

[boostdemon]

Yup, totally agree... thats in the works to have a members cars only gallery, will be something to setup via the members profile (going to incorperate the board members list to the site setup.) You should be able to do a few photos kinda like you have a profile photo now. If the "shared" data isnt going to work the way i wanted, i will just setup a section to subit your photos & details and i'll put it together with thumbnails and such, each member can have their own page so to speak.

[KBFinFan]

I'd like a link section that has links to performance sites (Mvp, EuroSport, SAM, Enem, Ipd, etc) along with other Volvo only part sites (FcpGroton, volvoworld, etc). Many new users always ask where to find such and such and a comprehensive page maybe helpful and everyone could share their sites.

[boostdemon]

yes, thats already on the site so it will only be modified a bit with a few other options like submitting a site to be added and catagorized by products so it easier to find which place has what.

[boostdemon]

heres some examples of what i mean....

Wallpapers/Desktop images to d/l for your computer...

searchable article database...

extensive vehicle "stock" spec sheets for like weights, std equipment...

[GTJordan]

We could also have a accesory weight section. When ever somone removes somthing, they can document the weight and post it there. An actual page, not a post.


And, that post kenny turned into the FAQ suggestions. Some people should sit down and write them and add them to the page, I think those will be a great addition. I know I know, thats up to the people to do...

Jordan

[Hank Scorpio]

Reviews of products. Its something I've been meaning to do on CV but haven't got around to it yet.

I'm not a snob about surfing multiple sites, I think they should ALL have reviews of products.

Doug

[Volvo78GT]

hmm idea...

a popular thing to do is blah blah blah

if you could expound on the board features to change the font and make it all obvious and ****... same with other things like lol, rofl... i'm just talking out of my ass but i think there is room for even more improvement in emoticon and text editing... make it easy with those great buttons on top...

I believe that the more expression you can make than plain text the better, especially on boards like this where many people dont exactly say what they mean... or are read what they meant... plain text doesnt cut it... most people here arent expressive enough with words, you know what I mean?

[towerymt]

I'd be willing to compile and contribute my catalogs. Maybe if I get a working scanner sometime, I could scan my accessory catalogs, which generally feature a lot of pictures. And the Dutch one is all pictures as far as I'm concearned.

[bitjockey]

I'd be glad to work on some of the FAQ questions.

[DaRiceRipper]

How about a forum for all the post worth saving. Ive seen a lot of informative post here that end up getting lost in the piles.
So you could make a forum for just the worth while post that everybody is always complaining DO A SEARCH this subject has been done to death.

Also would like to see al thoughs subjects in the mod section to work.

[Volvo78GT]

whats up with the redesign dana? I like the board as it is... perhaps too much.

hey why dont you design it to be less popular, that way I can have a life!

:) :) :)

[boosted]

an actual stage modification setup by real turbo brickers

[projekt_242ti]

I like the board as it is... perhaps too much.

hey why dont you design it to be less popular, that way I can have a life!

:) :) :)

I AGREE! How much time can one spend between school, work, fiancee, working on car aaaand board? But this is just me talking! :)

Mark

[gecko]

well since the website and forum are actaully really kind of 2 different things to most people.....look at the traffic on the board everyday...and then see how many people are actually checking out the site.

would there be any way to add a forum that only mods could post in....that maybe had an FAQ or popular mods....or try these links for the parts that you want....ya know stuff like that to help noobs from all of us jumping down their throats cuz they didn't know better to check the website or search this forum and the old one.

neal

[boostdemon]

well its easy for me to visualize, but trying to explain it isnt so simple. The goal is to have the board and the site be as integrated as possible. A lot of the fuction of the board will include site features and vice versa. Im planning on making the board and site carry much of the same information, and with threads turning into articles and such we should have the equivelent to a large FAQ database where instead of asking "how" people would be more inclined to ask something specific to the article context.

[gecko]

well then you're definitely heading in the direction that i was suggesting. i think most of the "how do i this" questions could be headed off if the board and forum were closely integrated and if we actually took productive thread and turned them into articles. the old board had some great stuff on it....but a lot of it got "lost" with no one transferring info to a place that it could be stored. i'd be willing to volunteer time to help...but i only have limited html knowledge.

neal

oh and could we maybe talk mike into having his links page integrated into the site?

[boostdemon]

well its still there... and there are plans this summer to convert all of the stuff worth keeping into articles to submit to the new database... this all being done for "points" later to be redeemed for cool stuff as well as a competition for prize packs.

[Volvo78GT]

may i make a suggestion... or two, heh

know how a person edits his post it shows that "username edited this post at this time" on the bottom? welll.... u dont see that when you edit your own posts do you? I dont see it on the posts that I edit... I just see post editing notations quite that often... so is that "feature" not quite in use all the time? Just wondering. I'd like to see this either more uniform or removed entirely.

Also could you somehow make that icon that goes to the bottom of the post (or where you last left off or something...) a little bigger/easier to click on? That'd be sweet, not having to scroll down a bunch.

Also, if it is possible, on the subject line of a post, swap the date and the subject title or make the title easier/bigger/bolder to read? people dont read titles and i think its sometimes a good idea to have a title on your post... it can sometimes be ironic and/or silly... or clarifying. All i know is that i barely can see that title and dont usually read it as i zoom through. If theres any reason not to do this, I totally get it... not having to look is good... why not remove it entirely? etc... totally up to you!

Thanks, Ta Ta.

~Matt

[boostdemon]

know how a person edits his post it shows that "username edited this post at this time" on the bottom? welll.... u dont see that when you edit your own posts do you? I dont see it on the posts that I edit... I just see post editing notations quite that often... so is that "feature" not quite in use all the time? Just wondering. I'd like to see this either more uniform or removed entirely.

Yes, its either that you dont see your own "edited by yourself" or that if you edit it just after you post it the note doesnt show up. It doesnt pick and choose, so its not singling you out by any means. You say you DO see them, or DONT see them often... ?

Also could you somehow make that icon that goes to the bottom of the post (or where you last left off or something...) a little bigger/easier to click on? That'd be sweet, not having to scroll down a bunch.

hmm... well i can make it bigger, move it, make it text tacted onto the end of the subject... ? I've never had a problem with it, but you guys are the boss so speak up if you think it should be adjusted.

Also, if it is possible, on the subject line of a post, swap the date and the subject title or make the title easier/bigger/bolder to read? people dont read titles and i think its sometimes a good idea to have a title on your post... it can sometimes be ironic and/or silly... or clarifying. All i know is that i barely can see that title and dont usually read it as i zoom through. If theres any reason not to do this, I totally get it... not having to look is good... why not remove it entirely? etc... totally up to you!

Yes, i agree... in fact it was one of the first things i noticed that i wanted to change, however i havent messed with it yet. I will look at the code and see if theres an easy way to insert it as bold text in the actual post box just above your typing.

[Volvo78GT]

Thanks
Thanks and
Thanks.

:)

Yeah, i dont see the line that says that i edited my own post, i'm pretty sure i did ... and i'm pretty sure people edit their posts more than once a month (rare occurance for me to see that line and almost always is in a newbie, less than 10 posts to his/he (yeah right) name.

The arrow's just a tiny bit small, i want to click on it but more often than not i hit the other two link areas... whatever

Thanks for reading
~Matt

[boostdemon]

oh yeah, the "yellow" one takes you to the first unread post (so it will start where you left off) and the "white" one over in the "last comment" will take you straight to the last post.

I wonder if theres a way to link the "new messages" icon on the left to take you to the first unread post... i will try next week once i get everything on the new server.

[Volvorules]

Dana, I think there should be an option to turn off all signatures. It's great to see Doug's and Matt's and everyone elses cars every 3rd post, but it gets to be a pain in the ass when you have to scroll 3X as much because of so many damn pictures...it's gotten to be the hip thing to do I guess, but it's getting annoying I think...

Maybe just turn off pics in the signatures?

[boostdemon]

yeah i can do that... or i could make it so your first post in the thread is the only one with a signature, or i could give everyone (registered of course) the option to not show any signatures, or i could politely ask folks to follow a set of guidelines for signature images, or i could make a signature uploader where it has to be a certain size/height/width and thats the only place to upload a signature... i dunno.
As always i will write up a post and politely suggest some guidelines and go from there. my biggest thing is seeing the same giant ass crappy picture 10 times on the same page

[Hank Scorpio]

Sig gone... happy?

[Volvo78GT]

so u dont like my sig?

I blame Kevin, he's the one who made it ROFL!

I can make it smaller and more purty and ****...

does this mean the end of sigs??? :please:

[Alphanumeric 244Tic]

I like the sigs.. they arnt to big and they never have bothered me.. but having a small one like Dana wouldnt be to bad..but im not a good computer artist at all.. so that would be pretty hard. enless we all send pics to dana himself and he can make members signatures that look like his.

File Post -maybe every the 2month old post or sooner..or whatever is good.. u can go thru them once a week and File them in catagorys like..



Exhaust
Intake
cyl heads
-160
-398
-530 etc..
rims
suspension
mix
turbos etc. etc. etc....


its sort of like FAQ but in real time with everyones POST.. I dont know how hard it will be to file HTML post and to be accessed but its an Idea.
and maybe with DUMB post like b23f N\A mods.. or Making ur DL\GL fast ..J.K. but things that arnt really worth saving just delete.

I have noticed on other sides.. u can change skins to the layout. like dif. colors and stuff.. kind of like Pbase once u pay for it..it gives u the option. dif font and colors.. the layout of Tbricks is nice and ez tho.. I have had no probs figuring it out at all.. maybe a new headline banner or something with some GIf's of volvos? I duno.. is yellow and blue your fav color or something? iv noticed the whole Tbrick are them colors hehe..

[boostdemon]

I like the sigs.. they arnt to big and they never have bothered me.. but having a small one like Dana wouldnt be to bad..but im not a good computer artist at all.. so that would be pretty hard. unless we all send pics to dana himself and he can make members signatures that look like his.

They dont really "bother" me directly per se, since i've got broadband and i scroll through stuff like a mad man.

Yes, its been done before... tuff240's, FLT760's, Wendy's team, Rob's sig (although that was so he'd stop attaching 400kb images from my cable modem ;-) ) I dont mind whipping out sigs for folks... just dont expect anything intense since im only going to invest about 5 minutes or so on it.

File Post -maybe every the 2month old post or sooner or whatever is good.. u can go thru them once a week and File them in catagorys like..



Exhaust
Intake
cyl heads
-160
-398
-530 etc..
rims
suspension
mix
turbos etc. etc. etc....


its sort of like FAQ but in real time with everyones POST.. I dont know how hard it will be to file HTML post and to be accessed but its an Idea.
and maybe with DUMB post like b23f N\A mods.. or Making ur DL\GL fast ..J.K. but things that arnt really worth saving just delete.

With a fully functional search feature, im not planning on filing jack. Eventually what i might do is start an archive (we can add a "rank" feature like we had on chEZboard) and toss in the threads that I would like to see turned into articles one day. That _IS_ my ultimate goal... and it will be much easier pretty soon here to do that.

I have noticed on other sides.. u can change skins to the layout. like dif. colors and stuff.. kind of like Pbase once u pay for it..it gives u the option. dif font and colors.. the layout of Tbricks is nice and ez tho.. I have had no probs figuring it out at all.. maybe a new headline banner or something with some GIf's of volvos? I duno.. is yellow and blue your fav color or something? iv noticed the whole Tbrick are them colors hehe..

yellow... blue.... hmmmm... i dunno SWEDISH?! :pow: Not my favorite color combo but it works and as far as im concerned its here to stay as a general palette. However, in its current state... probably not. Im the type of person that will get bored and redesign stuff just to stir it up a bit. This layout was simple and quick and allowed me to structure the site itself in a way that it would be easy to change things later on.

As for the board "themes" yes you can do that with phpbb as well... you'll notice that in your profile theres an option to change the theme (but theres only 1 theme right now) Once i get everything else done... i might, yes.. MIGHT make another 2 themes... one called 56ksucks and one called ihaveaOC3 or something along those lines. but its waaaay down on the list of things to do.

"I have had no probs figuring it out at all.."

and that was the idea. remember, only 50% of our members are computer savvy... the other 50% just come here to read posts and reply and arent interested in any "mumbo jumbo"

- Dana

[boostdemon]

About the sigs:

As you were for now, i will write up a good "how to" for sigs, specs, ideas, designs, and some basic photoshop/paintshop tips and tricks. believe me, i will always leave an option open for a sig image... i like them too much.

[isaac]

I definitely like the TPC style pic gallery idea. They'd have a representative thumbnail image in the main gallery, and you'd click on it and it'd take you to 10 pics and all the info you needed to know on how the car got to where it was. That's what made TPC badass, it was a dreamcar gallery.

I like the FAQ and articles ideas. I'd definitely be interested in writing some. Unlike a lot of people, I'm actually a professional writer. Yeah I know even I revert to slang and ebonics for the sake of quickness.

Another thing I'd really like to see is the 'stories' section to be expanded. I'm not talking your average ricer kill thread, I'm talking well written, engrossing volvo tales about someone's first trip to the strip, experience at a volvo show, street racing story, etc. That 'one lap in the volvo 240 Group A car' is an awesome article!

Keep up the good work, Dana. This board does kick ass.