Announcement Slight Design Rejig on Desktop & Reduction of Ads

Status
Not open for further replies.

TractorBoys

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
3,842
Reaction score
1,147
Points
113
Location
Lincolnshire
Supports
Ipswich Town
Logging in this morning if you happen to be on a Desktop, you will have noticed a slight rejig with the sidebar (not present on mobiles) now displaying on the left hand side of the page. Furthermore, if you're not a site supporter but are kind enough to support the site by not running an Ad Blocker when you visit us, you have probably noticed a reduction in the number of ads we're serving you by way of thanks. These two changes are linked.

I happen to think the site looks much smarter when access on a desktop through this change. White space is significantly reduced, coupled with the slightly smaller logo, but I do appreciate as with anything, some of you will take a while to get to get used to the change. All I ask is that you do take the time to do exactly that, give it time; I've spent a considerable amount of it making these changes and the user experience in terms of less third party ads, not to mention page load terms, should benefit all who aren't blue.

If you happen to always access the website on mobile, like more than 50% of all our visitors now do, you'll probably be wondering what all the fuss is about. This is a constantly increasing trend and the reason behind this change; ultimately for mobile users, whom are now the majority, all that has changed is that you now have a forum experience with less advertisements.

The changes have resulted in me reworking a good proportion of the sites core code so there is a chance of some teething problems or issues I've missed, please point these out to me on this thread if you feel something isn't working quite right.

Cheers,
TB
 
Last edited:

Stagat

#stagat
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
2,308
Reaction score
2,015
Points
113
Supports
Mansfield
I got redirected to this earlier. Dunno if related. Not that arsed that it happened tbh but thought you'd wanna know.

a.png
 

TractorBoys

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
3,842
Reaction score
1,147
Points
113
Location
Lincolnshire
Supports
Ipswich Town
Cheers Stagat, will take a look and see if I can recreate. If anyone else can let me know if they get anything similar.

This will take some getting used to.

Also, epic73 has questioned & pointed out that the Well Known Members usergroup are getting a large vertical ad above the status & new threads section at the top of the left hand sidebar. This is correct for new members, but as an incentive to post this should be a much smaller ad for your usergroup, and of course completely hidden to site supporters. I've just tried to quickly fix this but the alignment is off so I'm going to handle this later today once I've slept, it's been noted.
 
Last edited:

Bobbin'

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2015
Messages
6,880
Reaction score
3,048
Points
113
Supports
Charlton
TB, my man. Since yesterday afternoon the top of my page on mobile has been like this.

IMG_1121.PNG
 

Bobbin'

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2015
Messages
6,880
Reaction score
3,048
Points
113
Supports
Charlton
Frustrating, if for example I'm reading a thread in the league one forum, I can't click back on 'league one' to take me back to the main league one forum. Have to click 'Forums' to go back to the homepage and start again.

Edit: Seems to be back to normal now.
 
Last edited:

El Guapo

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2015
Messages
1,363
Reaction score
608
Points
113
Location
Birmingham
Supports
Birmingham City
It has been like this for me since last night.

34zg27p.png


Seems to be just the home page of the Championship forum, when I open a thread it's working as normal.
 

Craig

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2015
Messages
4,917
Reaction score
3,585
Points
113
Location
Yorkshire
Supports
Danny Rose
It has been like this for me since last night.

34zg27p.png


Seems to be just the home page of the Championship forum, when I open a thread it's working as normal.

Clear cache, cookies and browsing data. Worked for me.
 
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
4,776
Reaction score
1,756
Points
113
Location
Walsall
Supports
Dr Tony's Villa Revolution
I know you said it'll take time to get used to, but I think the sidebar looked much better on the right.
 

Lamby

Active Member
Joined
Jan 29, 2015
Messages
694
Reaction score
98
Points
28
Supports
Charlton

TractorBoys

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
3,842
Reaction score
1,147
Points
113
Location
Lincolnshire
Supports
Ipswich Town
Thanks for the feedback, to pick up on the points raised so far;

Bobbin' - I'm getting the header issue intermittently on mobile too. code clearly isn't perfect, will rework it tonight.

El Guapo - That display relates to me testing SSL (https) encryption, as highlighted, if you clear your cache/cookies it will resolve. We'll be switching over to SSL for security (as demanded by Google) in the coming weeks

JaseTheVillain - Appreciate the feedback. After a few weeks, depending on feedback I may code an option for site supporters to toggle between the two depending on demand.

As expected, the thread is largely quiet because on mobile aside from the issues to iron out above the changes go largely unnoticed. I'll carry on tweaking today but further feedback is welcomed, cheers.

TB
 

The Paranoid Pineapple

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
1,797
Reaction score
1,741
Points
113
Location
Guildford, Surrey
Supports
mighty, mighty Ks
Not especially enamoured with it but maybe I'll get used to it.

Can't believe those mobile numbers. Don't people have better things to do when they're out and about
 

lordofthepies

A shit Martino
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
1,951
Reaction score
1,257
Points
113
Location
Stockport
Supports
Crewe Alexandra
Twitter
@aitchyrobinson
Not especially enamoured with it but maybe I'll get used to it.

Can't believe those mobile numbers. Don't people have better things to do when they're out and about

I'm surprised because trying to use the site on mobile is absolutely infuriating, in my experience. I usually give up trying after a couple of minutes.
 

Meadow

Not a lad
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
1,635
Reaction score
560
Points
113
Location
Mitcham
Supports
AFC Wimbledon
I s'pose I'll get used to it.

Not especially enamoured with it but maybe I'll get used to it.

Can't believe those mobile numbers. Don't people have better things to do when they're out and about

Not necessarily out and about. We have one working computer Chez Meadow, so if it's in use, I'm just as likely to dip in on my mobile.

I'm surprised because trying to use the site on mobile is absolutely infuriating, in my experience. I usually give up trying after a couple of minutes.

Really? I have no problem at all providing the forum's working properly.
 

claret50

Well-Known Member
Joined
May 5, 2015
Messages
1,804
Reaction score
1,053
Points
113
Location
Home
Supports
West Ham & England
The page looked much better when the side bar was on the right - that is all.
 

Renegade

Show me what you got.
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
1,932
Reaction score
1,128
Points
113
Location
Belfast
Supports
Trad Bricks
Yeah, it was much better before when it was on the right. I naturally read things from left to right, so I could easily ignore the items on the sidebar (because frankly I don't care about them) before the changes, now I can't avoid them. Might be a personal experience, but I think most people read websites in a similar manner as they read a page in a book, from left to right.

All that said, I never use the mobile version of the site, so if it helps more people maybe it's worth keeping.
 
Last edited:

Bobbin'

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2015
Messages
6,880
Reaction score
3,048
Points
113
Supports
Charlton
Still having issues with the header on mobile.

Also, back at work today and have now seen the sidebar. Horrible. Would really appreciate the option to switch it back to the right hand side as you mentioned.
 
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
4,776
Reaction score
1,756
Points
113
Location
Walsall
Supports
Dr Tony's Villa Revolution
Yeah, it was much better before when it was on the right. I naturally read things from left to right, so I could easily ignore the items on the sidebar (because frankly I don't care about them) before the changes, now I can't avoid them. Might be a personal experience, but I think most people read websites in a similar manner as they read a page in a book, from left to right..
Couldn't have said it better myself.
 
Last edited:

TractorBoys

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
3,842
Reaction score
1,147
Points
113
Location
Lincolnshire
Supports
Ipswich Town
I naturally read things from left to right, so I could easily ignore the items on the sidebar (because frankly I don't care about them) before the changes, now I can't avoid them. Might be a personal experience, but I think most people read websites in a similar manner as they read a page in a book, from left to right.

All that said, I never use the mobile version of the site, so if it helps more people maybe it's worth keeping.

You've hit the nail on the head. These things (including the adverts) are now in more prominent positions for desktop users, so we can now show less of them across the site whilst still covering the site costs; and better still this doesn't impact layout to 55+ percent (and this number is ever increasing) because the sidebar doesn't feature on mobile. This is one of the biggest factors for why the change was made; less ads (on all devices) but in slightly more prominent areas = same earnings & better user experience. The mobile version of 1FF has long since been a mess and a swathe of non responsive ads and to ignore that we have been ignoring our largest traffic source.

Edit:- (It's actually 62% this month Mobile & Tablet, compared with 38% Desktop)
1ff.PNG

I do understand for site supporters who visit us via Desktop regularly that the sidebar does not feature adverts at all so the above reasoning loses its validity, for that reason I'm happy to go ahead and code an option for this usergroup to switch the sidebar to the right hand side. It will take me a little time, but I've put it on the agenda. This will serve as a nice gesture & additional feature to site supporters for them to have this option, too.
 
Last edited:

TractorBoys

Well-Known Member
Staff member
Moderator
Joined
Jan 17, 2015
Messages
3,842
Reaction score
1,147
Points
113
Location
Lincolnshire
Supports
Ipswich Town
P.S - I still need to fix the header code; and I still haven't finished the permissions for the adverts based on usergroup, I'm doing this on the night shift tonight. Cheers for the feedback.
 

Pagnell

Pick Up The Gun
Joined
Jan 30, 2015
Messages
7,013
Reaction score
2,295
Points
113
Supports
.
It looks fine on mine running Opera, but I preferred it on the right. No biggie though. An option to swap it back would be nice but don't go out your way.
 

Bobbin'

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 18, 2015
Messages
6,880
Reaction score
3,048
Points
113
Supports
Charlton
Have you had a chance to look at the issue with the header?

I know you've probably had other things going on, like life. Just wondering as I'm still getting it intermittently.

Cheers.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.

Forum statistics

Threads
16,422
Messages
1,189,976
Members
8,392
Latest member
feby2112
Stronger Security, Faster Connections with VPN at IPVanish.com!

SITE SPONSORS

W88 W88 trang chu KUBET Thailand
Fun88 12Bet Get top UK casino bonuses for British players in casinos not on GamStop
The best ₤1 minimum deposit casinos UK not on GamStop Find the best new no deposit casino get bonus and play legendary slots Best UK online casinos list 2022
No-Verification.Casino Casinos that accept PayPal Top online casinos
sure.bet
Need help with your academic papers? Customwritings offers high-quality professionals to write essays that deserve an A!
Top