Ugh, clumsy title aside, I’ve done some work reformatting how the breaking news headlines appear on the frontpage, to make it a bit more useable.

You can see it here:
http://www.anglicanmedia.com.au/index_main_dev.php

Thoughts? :)

If there’s no probs I’ll replace the current one with this format on Monday.

BTW I’ve also updated what was the “Current Discussions” on the front page which displayed the most recent threads, but now its “Active Discussions” which displays threads with the most recent replies. Previously a popular thread started 3 days ago say would appear *below* a 2 day old unimportant thread, but now the popular one will appear first… if that makes sense.

Luke

Any chance of a few boxes or different backgrounds for different parts of the page (last 10, top stories, ++peter)? Just that all the blue links tend to run into each other a little. I think they could do with being broken up a wee bit.

Also - all the fonts seem quite large and overpowering. The “The day after Ivan Lee was announced” etc seems almost like headline size rather than body copy size. That means that there is an awful lot of scrolling to get through for an “introductory page”.

Just my 2 cent worth.
Minorbob

The “The day after Ivan Lee was announced” etc seems almost like headline size rather than body copy size. That means that there is an awful lot of scrolling to get through for an “introductory page”.

Luke, Minor Bob has hit the nail on the head RE: intro to SC stories. (Actually it would be good to duplicate that style throughout rest of site. At some points the stories seem to ‘run’ into each other.)

But I like all your other modifications to the front page, especially the ‘mix’ of breaking news/top stories/archbishop news

cheers
Jeremy

I’d say it’s better, although I tend to just browse the main list rather than using the anchors.  but the new design gets more links into the same area, which has got to be a good thing.  Weighting of the LHS/RHS columns is good. wink

Re: Need feedback on new frontpage news format

Would it be possible to have a direct link to the articles under the last 10 headlines like the other sections?

Glenn

The new page looks good from the point of view of information. There’s a bit of sameness with the blue colour. Adding coloured thumbnail pics could brighten up the top section. What happened to the old page of links? It was very useful. Perhaps I’ve missed something, or has it really gone?

Thanks for the comments and suggestions guys! Very helpful. I might hold off changing the news page over today (sorry), and try and make the whole thing a bit more consistent, tighten it up a bit etc and put it online later in the week.

Just to reply on a few points:

fonts - Currently I’ve left them at the browsers default size (which is larger than norm) so people can change them (ctrl/cmd-+ or -) , and so our older visitors can still read them, but I’ll think about dropping them a size. I agree they’re big, I’ll try and find a compromise.

blue links - I agree these tend to look very samey, I’ll see what I can do.

links page - Tony the links page is now here: http://www.anglicanmedia.com.au/index.php/links (theres a small link to it in the top bar)

spell check - not built into the forum, but I use the free ieSpell which integrates nicely with PC Internet Explorer.

PS. http://www.anglicanmediasydney.asn.au/ should now point to the new web site, if you have any probs with this let me know.

Thanks,
Luke

Actually I lie… I’ve changed the front page, will tidy some things up a bit more tomorrow :)

gotta run…

Luke

Something appears to have gone seriously wrong with the news page , paragraphs are not wrapping and I have to scroll horizontally to read anything. I’ve checked in both Safari and Camino, and it wasn’t doing this earlier in the day.

Wow, thanks for pointing that out Enkidu. I’ve fixed it now, but I have no idea why the text of a certain entry (the “Age of consent” one) didn’t wrap - wasn’t a markup prob. Weird…

Hey Luke, I think it’s great that Sydney Anglcans are so open to changes so quickly :-)

By the way my computer tells me it’s 11:23pm - daylight saving time still in

craig

I should really be in bed ;)

It is about 11.25 here though, right? Craig you haven’t been living an hour behind for the last month or two have you… ? :D

Luke, I’ve had some feedback from some punters (face to face) that they find our frontpage dull compared to other news sites they read (abc, smh, etc etc). Because of this they never/rarely scroll down to the really interesting stuff (like these discussions!)

any thoughts any one?

cheers
jeremy

Luke i’m not living an hour behind, its just that the time the posting says I posted is about a hour later.

craig

Jeremy: I’ve got my thinking cap on.

Craig: Just joking. If you click the “Profile” link up underneath the big “Community Forums” header, you should be able to change your timezone setting from GMT +11 to GMT +10, which I think should correct your problem. If not let me know!