Hoosier Mamas new look & format - input please!

[Jen]

With all our new members, I think it's high time we got a better look and some more functionality for this site.

Before I go off and make any big changes, though, I want to get your feedback and your wish list for what you'd like to see on the site.

Here are some of my ideas so far:

- Better home page with links to different sections of the site. If we can swing it, a home page where you can view a list of recent topics, discussions you're following, photos, groups, etc.

- Which brings us to . . . the ability to set up public or private groups easily

- More attractive color scheme (need suggestions!)

- Privately hosted - this is a big one, because it means we can get off ProBoards and not have to follow their rules (language, advertising, etc.)

That's just off the top of my head at the moment; I'll post if I think of any others, and please add your own to the discussion! Do be aware that not everything we want may be available to us with the software out there that's in the budget, but this is what I'm shooting for.

Speaking of which, if anyone happens to know of some good discussion board software that's REASONABLY PRICED, I'd love to hear suggestions. I'll be looking into it myself, of course, but if you've been on other sites that you find particularly appealing, please feel free to post them here and I'll go and take a look and see what they're using.

Bear in mind that unless it's a change I can make easily and quickly right here on ProBoards, this will probably take at least a couple of months to develop, and I won't be able to really give it my full attention until after the holidays. Thankfully, this ISN'T a corporate venture, so we can skip all the approvals and test groups and other bureaucratic stuff that can delay things. Many of the decisions will be by consensus, though, so expect an occasional poll here and there.

Thanks, ladies!

P.S. For right now, let's keep this discussion about appearance and functionality. Any policy suggestions can be posted in the rules thread on here: hoosiermamas.net/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=3

[kst2914]

I'm not much help, other than to say all good ideas Jen

[akfirefly76]

whatever happens, I want to be able to jump to new posts like we can now.

[CFRN]

Oct 12, 2011 20:16:38 GMT -5 kst2914 said:

I'm not much help, other than to say all good ideas Jen

ditto!

[eclipchic]

Neil suggests PHP BB

[pandora]

Oct 12, 2011 20:40:07 GMT -5 @akfirefly76 said:

whatever happens, I want to be able to jump to new posts like we can now.

Ditto. I really like the new topics feature that we currently have. I'm not a fan of the way PMs work on here, so hopefully that will change. Other than that I'm pretty content with what we have.

[indybg]

PHP is the best but you really need to know how to work PHP. It is easy once everything is set and you just use it as an admin, but if anything goes wrong, or you want to change something (I am not talking about adding categories, or similar easy stuff), you need to know PHP.

I owned PHP forum for years, so I am very familiar with how it functions.

[Mama T]

I vote for not doing much of anything as I have seen what happens, time and again, when sites move. You lose people, you lose flow, sure you might gain some pretty features but it's not worth it. I'm not saying that because of my general aversion to change, I am saying that from many years of experience.

[howenowbrowncow]

Just joined. This board has a very simillar feel to another board I used to belong to so I think I should find it easy enough to navigate.

[EnlightenE]

Just a random thought here. I have a hard time finding my posts or comments from it. Maybe have something where you can go to your posts? IDK, just a thought.

[akfirefly76]

Oct 15, 2011 23:02:45 GMT -5 EnlightenE said:

Just a random thought here. I have a hard time finding my posts or comments from it. Maybe have something where you can go to your posts? IDK, just a thought.

Ifi you go to your own profile page, you can search for your last * number of posts, from there you can click on the individual posts (I open them as a new tab) and be right in the thread.

[illgetaroundtoit]

The home page sounds great.
Colors-I like light blue and dark brown together.

[EnlightenE]

Oct 16, 2011 6:49:33 GMT -5 @akfirefly76 said:

Oct 15, 2011 23:02:45 GMT -5 EnlightenE said:

Just a random thought here. I have a hard time finding my posts or comments from it. Maybe have something where you can go to your posts? IDK, just a thought.

Ifi you go to your own profile page, you can search for your last * number of posts, from there you can click on the individual posts (I open them as a new tab) and be right in the thread.

Thank you so much! That will definitely help.

[ALF]

I ditto MamaT. And, I really do find the site easy to navigate. Maybe just make the "New Topics" more bold and larger? That seems to be the complaint I see most. People miss it and wade thru the individual categories and get frustrated.

[ALF]

Oh. I would like a copy/paste option for posting pictures.

[Mama T]

Oct 17, 2011 6:36:47 GMT -5 ALF said:

Oh. I would like a copy/paste option for posting pictures.

You can, from photobucket. There is an IMG tag in photobucket. You just copy/paste that and it does the IMG tag code for you. You can alternatively copy the direct link URL from any picture and by highlighting and clicking the picture icon up there (has a picture of a mountain or something on it) it will wrap the highlighted URL in the IMG tag code for you.

[ALF]

That is a lot of work. On IM we were able to just copy/paste without having to go to another site.

[Mama T]

Oct 17, 2011 9:49:38 GMT -5 ALF said:

That is a lot of work. On IM we were able to just copy/paste without having to go to another site.

ah, yeah, I forgot about that. The format and coding for this site is different so the only way you will get that is a completely different format and site. I guess it's not that big a deal to me because I'm used to it. I"ve been doing this stuff since back in the day when you had to use HTML code and that was if you were somewhere that even supported images. ON here you can upload directly from your hard drive, so you don't have to copy/paste or leave the board to insert images.