Official Luthiers Forum!

I agree completely... A single simple banner ad or two at the top would be okay, but it's sort of maddening to scroll every time you go back to the index or click on a post. I didn't really want to say anything till all the other technical changes are worked out.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

What do you mean 2 screens of advertising. Mine is just one roll of the mouse wheel.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

My suggestion would be to redesign the advertising so it fits to the width of the screen/browser. On my screen the block takes up less than half the screen width yet more than the whole height which is a waste of space, especially considering when you get down to the forums they use the full width. Redesigning it with DIV-based html will easily accomplish this so it's tailored to the user. I think having it so tall is detrimental because most users will scroll it out of view. If it were a third or quarter the height it'd remain in view a lot longer as users read topics.

I'm also not sure the OLF Auction/Deals & Sales/OLF Tool Shed boxes are needed considering 2/3 of the links don't work or aren't relevant anymore and I'm sure the OLF store one could be a smaller link elsewhere.

While we're at it, I also see the brown "Official Luthiers Forum" box in the middle as unnecessary.

Not by any means trying to sound ungrateful considering the efforts that have been made in recent times to improve things and it's obviously not a pressing issue but one to consider once all the kinks are worked out with the transition.

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Richard
http://www.guitarmaker.com

It's a few scrolls of my mouse wheel and it's excessive and slow when you have to do that on every page. It's worse on a laptop with a touch screen and no scroll wheel. I think there's plenty of word-of-mouth advertising in the forum itself, there's no need to get it shoved in our face with every single click. I hate to admit it, but on my computer at work I actually AdBlock'd all the graphics at the top of the page.

The best design would be one where one could see the complete main forum index on one screen with no scrolling. If you need the whole screen of ads, put it at the bottom of the page, our eyeballs will still see it plenty of times. Why not just put all the ads on the welcome splash screen and then a subtle banner or two at the bottom of each page.

I should also add that I'm very appreciative of the changeover to phpBB, I love it.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

Well.... No offense, I know these are suggestions to make things better, but I really don't see anything happening in this area right now. Sorry. We just have so much on our plate that I don't see this hitting the radar any time soon.

I will tell you though, that we optimized this page for 1024 x 768. From what I have seen from browser hawk (on other sites I work with... we are not using it here) that seems to be the most common browser resolution. That might help with some of this.

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Brock Poling
Columbus, Ohio
http://www.polingguitars.com

No worries... I know you guys have a lot on your plate and this should be a lower priority compared to the technical issues. I just wanted to chime in since it was brought up, I hope you'll consider changes when everything else settles down. There's already a lot to like about this new place.

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Jonathan Kendall, Siloam Springs AR

I thought of that too. The old place had a bit less once you got into the threads.

On most browsers you can hit the space bar to scroll down a page worth if the main area of the page is active. Really speeds things up on a laptop.

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com

Can we do anything about having to see Filippo's face so often.........(JUST KIDDING!!!!!!!!!!!)

You think that was bad wait until Billy sees your avatar.............

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Hesh
Ann Arbor, MI USA
http://www.heshtone.com

Billy will put a bikini on his head!

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

I havent tried the space bar before, but it actually does work. I am one of those guys that uses a laptop to surf the forum, so anything helps.

Just for the record, I would appreciate the pictures to be smaller and wider or perhaps placed along the side of the window instead of such a large piece of real estate at the top of the page.

No biggie though, just some thoughts.

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Reguards,

Ken H

I agree with the suggestion of making the advertising banners less prominent (don't worry, we still get the message).

I don't know how common this is, but I sometimes browse the Internet on my cell phone when I'm riding the bus to town or killing time on an air port or some such. Because of all the ads the OLF is extremely difficult to read this way, so I don't. Sites with less ads and more direct info are much better if you do this, so those are the ones I read in those situations. Have you considered making the web site better suited for cell phones, when time permits?

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Rian Gitar og Mandolin

There must be some kind of agreement they have with advertisers, that would limit how much they can change the presentation of the ads, i.e. certain sizes, locations, how often they flash, etc. Things at the top could, however be spread a little, and less space to those bottom 3 items - auction, sales & tool shed. Those could be in the list as links. Also less space devoted to a title for the Forum.

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Waddy

Photobucket Build Album Library

Sound Clips of most of my guitars

Removing everything below the MGS banner and moving that one up beside the underwriters' banners would clear out a massive amount of clutter without changing service to any of the current advertisers.

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Bob Garrish
Former Canonized Purveyor of Fine CNC Luthier Services

Also, there's a lot of dead space at the side margins, about 25% of the 1024 pixels the pages are sized for. If that were put to use, the overall ad space could be wider, but shorter. And the Official Luthier's Forum 3.0 is kinda redundant, with the title space at the very top.

Oh, well, maybe someday when the bigger wrinkles are taken care of.

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now known around here as Pat Foster
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http://www.patfosterguitars.com