- Admin
- #1
Offline
I just want to update members on how I have been progressing with this new sites development, and to also pass on information on new features, as well as others in the works.
First, I want to say that I very much appreciate your patience with the new platform. This platform is different, and there is a bit of a learning curve, but it is feature rich compared to the old platform, and once those of you that don't care for it thus far become accustomed to it I am confident that you will become much more enthusiastic about it. At least that is how it went for me.
First thing, first... Prior to this morning inputting saintsreport .com would bring your straight to the forums. Now it takes you to the news (home) page.
Most of the necessary features that we had on the old platform are in. We still have Reputation to migrate over. So don't stress over that. It will be back, Fleur de lis and all. In the meantime, we just have this built in points system that started us all off from scratch, but I wouldn't get too attached because it will disappear when we get rep in.
The awards system is something that I will work on later (Sorry about that).
Of course we have added a lot of features here that we didn't have. During the next week or so, as time allows, I plan to put up an FAQ thread that will address the features individually as per where to find them, and how they work. The FAQ we have up now was hurried, and only addresses a few of them. I will try to put something up more simplified, inclusive, and clean.
Of late, I had gotten side tracked by complaints about look, feel, and navigation, so I have been concentrating more on those aspects. Due to it being a popular request, I created a version of the old sites button row (Links to other boards) up on the headers of two of the themes (SR_Grey and SR Black). Unlike the old site, the location is above the header in this case because it really looked cluttered when placed anywhere else. In the near future I may put the same in the footer as a breadcrumb, so-to-speak. Most everything else done was about tweaking colors, aesthetics, typography and bug fixes with the UI. It is interesting doing this stuff as you have to try to balance it all to work on both PC's and mobile devices, the latter of which is something that I had no prior experience with.
If you lost your sigpic or avatar during the migration, and it had been uploaded to the old server as an attachment, click on the "media" Media link between the "Board Jump" and "Chat" links up in the menu bar. I uploaded all 5000 or so images from the old site, including the stock avatars, custom avatars and uploaded sig pics. If you then click on the "Old Site Media" link on the left side of the page, you will see the images split up into three categories. You can link to your sig pics, or grab your avatar and upload it from there.
One of the cool features that I had already put in place in raw form but just updated, are the News feeds located in the right column of most site pages (Excluding within threads), and within all footers at the bottom of the site pages. The one in the right Column features Saints News from the Advocate (I didn't have to update that one). The reason that the Advocate's feed is standalone is two-fold. The first is that the software installed that serves the footer news feed would not accept their RSS URL. The second is that I really like Underhill and don't want to miss his articles.
On the footer feed, which scrolls through news articles, it is now primarily populated with Saints News news feeds, however, I do have a couple of NFL feeds within it also to broaden the news front a bit. Originally I only had only included three sources. Both feeds update constantly so the artlcles stay refreshed. I especially love having that feed when on my iPhone. As I find feeds of interest I will add them.
Here is a list of sites that are connected to the footer feed, in no certain order.
Also, I am going to be adding additional features during the coming weeks. Some I had already installed but found that they conflicted with other features and put them off to the side for later. All of the features will be available initially. At some point some of them TBD will be subscriber only.
I was going to write more here, but have to head to work. So I will continue on later.
First, I want to say that I very much appreciate your patience with the new platform. This platform is different, and there is a bit of a learning curve, but it is feature rich compared to the old platform, and once those of you that don't care for it thus far become accustomed to it I am confident that you will become much more enthusiastic about it. At least that is how it went for me.
First thing, first... Prior to this morning inputting saintsreport .com would bring your straight to the forums. Now it takes you to the news (home) page.
Most of the necessary features that we had on the old platform are in. We still have Reputation to migrate over. So don't stress over that. It will be back, Fleur de lis and all. In the meantime, we just have this built in points system that started us all off from scratch, but I wouldn't get too attached because it will disappear when we get rep in.
The awards system is something that I will work on later (Sorry about that).
Of course we have added a lot of features here that we didn't have. During the next week or so, as time allows, I plan to put up an FAQ thread that will address the features individually as per where to find them, and how they work. The FAQ we have up now was hurried, and only addresses a few of them. I will try to put something up more simplified, inclusive, and clean.
Of late, I had gotten side tracked by complaints about look, feel, and navigation, so I have been concentrating more on those aspects. Due to it being a popular request, I created a version of the old sites button row (Links to other boards) up on the headers of two of the themes (SR_Grey and SR Black). Unlike the old site, the location is above the header in this case because it really looked cluttered when placed anywhere else. In the near future I may put the same in the footer as a breadcrumb, so-to-speak. Most everything else done was about tweaking colors, aesthetics, typography and bug fixes with the UI. It is interesting doing this stuff as you have to try to balance it all to work on both PC's and mobile devices, the latter of which is something that I had no prior experience with.
If you lost your sigpic or avatar during the migration, and it had been uploaded to the old server as an attachment, click on the "media" Media link between the "Board Jump" and "Chat" links up in the menu bar. I uploaded all 5000 or so images from the old site, including the stock avatars, custom avatars and uploaded sig pics. If you then click on the "Old Site Media" link on the left side of the page, you will see the images split up into three categories. You can link to your sig pics, or grab your avatar and upload it from there.
One of the cool features that I had already put in place in raw form but just updated, are the News feeds located in the right column of most site pages (Excluding within threads), and within all footers at the bottom of the site pages. The one in the right Column features Saints News from the Advocate (I didn't have to update that one). The reason that the Advocate's feed is standalone is two-fold. The first is that the software installed that serves the footer news feed would not accept their RSS URL. The second is that I really like Underhill and don't want to miss his articles.
On the footer feed, which scrolls through news articles, it is now primarily populated with Saints News news feeds, however, I do have a couple of NFL feeds within it also to broaden the news front a bit. Originally I only had only included three sources. Both feeds update constantly so the artlcles stay refreshed. I especially love having that feed when on my iPhone. As I find feeds of interest I will add them.
Here is a list of sites that are connected to the footer feed, in no certain order.
- NOLA.com - Saints
- FoxSports - NFL
- CBS Sports - Saints
- ProfootballTalk - Saints
- New Orleans Saints - Official site
- ESPN - NFL
- ESPN - Saints
- Canal Street Chronicles
- Yahoo - Saints
- Who Dat Dish
- Reddit - Saints
Also, I am going to be adding additional features during the coming weeks. Some I had already installed but found that they conflicted with other features and put them off to the side for later. All of the features will be available initially. At some point some of them TBD will be subscriber only.
I was going to write more here, but have to head to work. So I will continue on later.
