Thread: Site redesign

Posts: 73
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Post by zeus June 16, 2015 (41 of 73)
Alexandre said:

I hope you reconsider this, as, for me, the ability to rename titles to define the sort order within my library is the most useful feature of SA-CD.net.

At this stage I am working hard to have "sufficient" done to do a changeover. When I do I plan to keep the current (old) interface running in parallel for some time ... at least until a database character set conversion. As I said you can still use the current interface and the changes will be reflected in the new Library module. Down the track I may look at adding the rename feature to the new Library module, and likely in a more elegant fashion. This is the best I can offer at this time.

Post by Alexandre June 16, 2015 (42 of 73)
zeus said:

At this stage I am working hard to have "sufficient" done to do a changeover. When I do I plan to keep the current (old) interface running in parallel for some time ... at least until a database character set conversion. As I said you can still use the current interface and the changes will be reflected in the new Library module. Down the track I may look at adding the rename feature to the new Library module, and likely in a more elegant fashion. This is the best I can offer at this time.

Thanks for your efforts. I understand your strategy.

As long as the rename feature is not abandoned, I don't mind if I have to use the current interface or the new module in a more elegant fashion to do that. Either way will be perfect for me.

Post by zeus June 19, 2015 (43 of 73)

Post by zeus June 20, 2015 (44 of 73)
Assuming there's interest ...

Search is now done. Here's what it looks like on an iPhone 5s (though downsampled for web viewing). I've designed the new pages so they look their best on any device from a smartphone to the desktop. So you'll be able to pull out your phone while waiting at the bus stop and look up whatever you want on the site. You may never want to do this but Google reports that over 50% of their searches are now initiated from mobile devices. Search now returns an unlimited number of hits and you're free to scroll through all of them, but it may be better refining your keywords or using other (more appropriate) pages on the site:

/search2.php

Also updated is the My Wish List page:

/wishlist2.php

Post by zeus June 25, 2015 (45 of 73)
Now (pretty well) done is the new Discussion page:

/discussion.php

This enables you to see the latest title-related posts. You can filter by format and genre so if you're just interested in classical SA-CDs with multichannel you can see just those posts. Same for Pop/Rock or whatever. You can now reply in-place, or click on the Read All button to see the post in context. Click on the thumbnail image to go to the title details page. Still to do is parsing of external links, never an exact science. I've also decided to drop images. Again, this should be fully usable on everything from smartphones to the desktop.

The current forum won't be updated but will hang around for a while. While there are some worthwhile features I feel it's become too diluted to be of interest to most. A lot of the factual information talked about here is available elsewhere on the site.

Give the new Discussion page a try and let me know what you think.

Post by windhoek June 25, 2015 (46 of 73)
Stephen, are you saying the discussion forum will soon only be available in relation to titles? I may have misunderstood the comments at the end of your post, but when you said it would hang around for a while, I assume this is what you mean.

If it is, please keep it because the organic nature of the internet is well, it's organic and having the opportunity to have dialogue with others in matters that are either too specific for a title or not specific enough is something I hope won't be curtailed as the site develops.

I had a look at the first 10 pages of the forum and at a guess, I'd say there's probably between 25-40% of non-title related threads, so to me that means there's a 25-40% organic nature that needs to be preserved.

I may have misunderstood your comments, so apologies if I have.
Derek

Post by zeus June 25, 2015 (47 of 73)
windhoek said:

I had a look at the first 10 pages of the forum and at a guess, I'd say there's probably between 25-40% of non-title related threads, so to me that means there's a 25-40% organic nature that needs to be preserved.

It may help if I explain where I'm headed. There are three main resources on this site: the title details, reviews and title-related discussion. I'm moving to tie all three together so it becomes a useful one-stop resource for anybody looking at a disc and wanting to know whether it's for them or not. Specifically, the showtitle, showreviews and showthread pages will be combined into one mega-page, probably with tabbed sections. I'm just about to start work on this.

As for this forum, I've calculated of the 60K unique visitors this site reliably gets a month only 0.2% participate. Or 1.4% of registered users. The figures will be somewhat higher if you include lurkers but the fact is that most aren't interested. It's not hard to see why when it fills up with "banter" and off-topic discussion. Part of this is a moderation issue but it's largely the nature of the beast.

There's no question that music delivery is changing for many people. Despite this SA-CD (and Blu-ray Audio) remains a compelling and cost-effective product (at least from the consumer's perspective). And any money invested in them isn't likely to be lost. Over the years SA-CD.net has become a great resource (thanks to over 10K reviews) for those interested in the format. It could be a better site though, but this is what I'm now addressing.

Post by windhoek June 25, 2015 (48 of 73)
Thanks Stephen. When you see figures that low I understand why keeping the forum seems moot.

Post by hanser June 26, 2015 (49 of 73)
May I suggest that label-specific discussion threads will be possible? I learned a lot on those threads, especially the BIS one. Thanks!

Post by fredblue June 26, 2015 (50 of 73)
(Apologies if I've missed anything on the subject already..)
What's happening to the Library and Wishlist features with the site overhaul?

I love both aspects of this site and use them a lot (much to my wallets' chagrin!)

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