Sand Trap's New Look

Kalipari · December 17, 2010

All,

Am I the only one who really doesn't like the new look of our forum? I think it even takes longer for the pages to load.

**Camo** · December 17, 2010

Being new here I don't really have a preference on the old vrs new look as it is all new to me. Overall the look is pretty neutral for a webiste. Not flashy or obnoxious. Navigation is intuitive and straightforward. I do find the page loads to be slow....almost painfully. ( I run a huge site so I am sympathetic to the hardware and software demands required to keep pages loading quick ) Hopefully with some minor tweaks they can optimize the page load speeds. I am surprised at the limited advertising on the site. Seems to me like the site could be monitized in a way that benefits it's members.... i.e. More industry ads , who wouldn't want a golf galaxy discount for sand trap readers on your next purchase ? I like the scorecard integration idea but it seems underutilized, I tried to find the info on the program and couldn't . ( I ran across it a few days ago but forgot where it was ) Anyhow, site looks good but functionality could be improved.

**Yukari** · December 17, 2010

What I don't like most about the new look is that each topic line now takes up too much vertical space, so I can only see few topics on my computer. But since I don't upkeep the site, I shouldn't complain.

**Cas57** · December 17, 2010

Originally Posted by Yukari

What I don't like most about the new look is that each topic line now takes up too much vertical space, so I can only see few topics on my computer. But since I don't upkeep the site, I shouldn't complain.

ditto.

I'm also get some error code when trying to sign on and have to do it a couple of times to get here and yes, I'm finding it much slower also.

Other than that, it looks really good!

**Awsi Dooger** · December 18, 2010

When I joined this site I thought it had by far the best look of any message board on my bookmark list. That's long gone, and every update is more complicated and therefore more of a repellent. I visit significantly less often not by plan, but simply because the quick view is not conducive to sampling many thread titles at once and choosing which ones to participate in. It reminds me of a contemporary action movie, with something blowing up in every quadrant of the screen for two hours. No thank you.

The software may be improved. I don't claim to know anything about that, nor care.

**Fourputt** · December 18, 2010

Not too fond of the profile editor or the way the signature seems to work. I tried for 1/2 hour today to get my witb list to work, but no luck. It all just runs together like it's a single sentence. I finally gave up. It's not like I"m some newby either... I've been participating and moderating online DB's in many formats since the mid 90's, and this is a real pain.

**B-Con** · December 18, 2010

When I joined this site I thought it had by far the best look of any message board on my bookmark list. That's long gone, and every update is more complicated and therefore more of a repellent. I visit significantly less often not by plan, but simply because the quick view is not conducive to sampling many thread titles at once and choosing which ones to participate in. It reminds me of a contemporary action movie, with something blowing up in every quadrant of the screen for two hours. No thank you.

The software may be improved. I don't claim to know anything about that, nor care.

Most things feel like that at first. I thought the old layout was basically perfect, so improving on it was basically impossible. The new site keeps the message board and also integrates a lot more information on equipment, courses, etc, and it's hard to offer a lot of content without making the interface look a little busier. Give it a few weeks of regular visits, your brain will adapt. Will it be as clean and simple as it was before? No. Will it be easily navigational? I think so. Remember, some things will still be tweaked. I think the intention was to iron out final details with a live user base in order to get interactive feedback.

**Chas** · December 18, 2010

The advertising has become a bit more intrusive - slightly reducing the amount of space for other things. Why place "Recent Reviews" in the right column like that? It makes the thread harder to read through. Just at the bottom only would be better imo.

There are glitches when editing posts, which I often do after I make one. I usually have to exit the thread, re-enter and then make my edit rather than just editing the post I just made. Minor but annoying. Hopefully it's a glitch that will be fixed soon.

Everything seems to be slower.

Hopefully some of this will improve with tweeking. The advertising is a judgement call for the owner and the user both.

**ghalfaire** · December 18, 2010

Originally Posted by Kalipari

All,

Am I the only one who really doesn't like the new look of our forum? I think it even takes longer for the pages to load.

I agree it takes the pages a little longer to load, maybe because I have an old computer. But I like the format other than I miss the "whats new" part of the forum.

Kalipari · December 18, 2010

When I was first looking or a golf forum online it was the sand trap's clean look and ease of use that got me here. Later on I discovered a great community and a wealth of information here. I now think our browsing experience is much less and i'm afraid this will cause users to go elsewhere. Sand Trap administrators I am a big fan and don't mean to be critical but as you make changes keep the end user experience in mind.

P.S. as I type this reply my browser is continually refreshing and saying done with errors on page. I am getting lag when I try to type. My browser crashed my 1st attempt to type this reply.

**oneoverwrx** · December 18, 2010

I hate the new look. Took longer to load and i am completely lost

**whatwhatwhat** · December 18, 2010

I think it looks alot better, but the title page is too big so I cant see that many threads and calling people with a negative reputation a "bad seed" is just plain harsh lol

**Cas57** · December 18, 2010

here is the error message I keep getting-

System Error

We're sorry, but there's been an error in our system, and we can't complete your request. Please report this error to us, using our feedback system . Thanks!

You can also go back and try again.

it looks like the reason why could be the actual address, it's coming up like this - http://thesandtrap.com/forum/forum.php

if someone hasn't been here in a while and has the old link saved, they are probably going to get the error message

I also can't copy and paste with the mouse any longer, says Your browser security settings don't permit the editor to automatically execute copying operations. Please use the keyboard for that (Ctrl/Cmd+C).

kind of a

**plum** · December 18, 2010

im not here long enough to really care but the new look does take up a lot of landscape

***iacas*** · December 18, 2010

Originally Posted by Kalipari

Am I the only one who really doesn't like the new look of our forum? I think it even takes longer for the pages to load.

No, you're not the only one, but give it some time. As you'll see, features come much faster than they did in vBulletin, because we have a direct line to the developers, and feedback is actually heard. Also, it's been a few days... and change is hard.

I agree that the speed is not good. That needs to be improved more than anything.

Originally Posted by Camo

I do find the page loads to be slow....almost painfully.

I am surprised at the limited advertising on the site. Seems to me like the site could be monitized in a way that benefits it's members.... i.e. More industry ads , who wouldn't want a golf galaxy discount for sand trap readers on your next purchase ?

We're going to work on creating "Insiders" programs (company reps can post and are flagged as being, say, the Callaway or TaylorMade or Nike rep for the site), and we're going to create a "Supporters" program wherein members who pay an annual fee can hide advertising, may get discounts from certain retailers, etc.

Originally Posted by Camo

I like the scorecard integration idea but it seems underutilized, I tried to find the info on the program and couldn't . ( I ran across it a few days ago but forgot where it was )

Anyhow, site looks good but functionality could be improved.

http://cynicalpeak.com/scorecard/ - They haven't finished making that work appropriately. It's supposed to have the images or images like we had on the previous site.

Originally Posted by Yukari

What I don't like most about the new look is that each topic line now takes up too much vertical space, so I can only see few topics on my computer. But since I don't upkeep the site, I shouldn't complain.

They're aware of the space on the index pages... some columns have only one line and the others have three, four, five... it's a bad mix that wastes space. They're aware of it and are looking at ways to improve it.

Originally Posted by Awsi Dooger

When I joined this site I thought it had by far the best look of any message board on my bookmark list. That's long gone, and every update is more complicated and therefore more of a repellent.

Criticism is fine, but please be fair, as this is the ONLY real change we've undergone... We redesigned the forum a LONG time ago when vBulletin 4.0 was released but the site was more functional and made better use of space, and loaded faster... this is again the only real change we've had.

If you don't want to stick around, I'm not going to spend a lot of time trying to convince you except to say "give it a chance." People asked for years to be able to publish their own reviews, or find courses in their areas, and now they can...

Originally Posted by Fourputt

Not too fond of the profile editor or the way the signature seems to work. I tried for 1/2 hour today to get my witb list to work, but no luck. It all just runs together like it's a single sentence. I finally gave up. It's not like I"m some newby either... I've been participating and moderating online DB's in many formats since the mid 90's, and this is a real pain.

Fourputt, your signature on this forum is not the same as your signature on the old forum. You're encouraged to use the lists, like you'll see in my signature, and to use your signature to list something other than what's in your bag. It's far more elegant. Or, if you're stubborn, make your signature a textual list separated by commas and a few carriage returns.

They're making improvements to signatures, too. Right now there's a limit on the number of lines and the number of non-HTML characters.

Originally Posted by B-Con

Most things feel like that at first. I thought the old layout was basically perfect, so improving on it was basically impossible. The new site keeps the message board and also integrates a lot more information on equipment, courses, etc, and it's hard to offer a lot of content without making the interface look a little busier. Give it a few weeks of regular visits, your brain will adapt. Will it be as clean and simple as it was before? No. Will it be easily navigational? I think so.

Remember, some things will still be tweaked. I think the intention was to iron out final details with a live user base in order to get interactive feedback.

Yes, and again, the Huddler team is far more responsive to feature requests than vBulletin could ever be. They succeed when we succeed, after all, so their motivations align...

Originally Posted by Chas

The advertising has become a bit more intrusive - slightly reducing the amount of space for other things. Why place "Recent Reviews" in the right column like that? It makes the thread harder to read through. Just at the bottom only would be better imo.

At the bottom nobody would see it. That's why "recent reviews" are in the right column.

We'll have to agree to disagree on the advertising. The old forum had two ads at the top that pushed the content down. This site has one in the header and then one on the side that does not push content down.

Originally Posted by Chas

There are glitches when editing posts, which I often do after I make one. I usually have to exit the thread, re-enter and then make my edit rather than just editing the post I just made. Minor but annoying. Hopefully it's a glitch that will be fixed soon.

If you can reproduce it, we can report and fix it. That's the key to anything - being able to reproduce it.

Originally Posted by Kalipari

When I was first looking or a golf forum online it was the sand trap's clean look and ease of use that got me here. Later on I discovered a great community and a wealth of information here. I now think our browsing experience is much less and i'm afraid this will cause users to go elsewhere. Sand Trap administrators I am a big fan and don't mean to be critical but as you make changes keep the end user experience in mind.

We made this change largely because of user requests... user reviews of equipment and courses being perhaps the largest feature and the most often requested. The Marketplace is another upgrade - with user feedback and ratings.

Originally Posted by whatwhatwhat

I think it looks alot better, but the title page is too big so I cant see that many threads and calling people with a negative reputation a "bad seed" is just plain harsh lol

You were called a "bad seed" on the old forum too, buddy.

Originally Posted by Cas57

it looks like the reason why could be the actual address, it's coming up like this - http://thesandtrap.com/forum/forum.php

if someone hasn't been here in a while and has the old link saved, they are probably going to get the error message

Yes, we should redirect that URL. Good point. I'll send an email about that right now.

Originally Posted by Cas57

I also can't copy and paste with the mouse any longer, says Your browser security settings don't permit the editor to automatically execute copying operations. Please use the keyboard for that (Ctrl/Cmd+C).

kind of a

I can do everything like that, and I can also use keyboard controls like ctrl-i to make text italic or ctrl-b to bold text or some other things.

Copy and paste work as expected and copy the style for me.

I do think using a more recent browser helps... if there are browser specific bugs please report the browser version and OS. For example, spell-checking works via my native browser on Mac OS X, but I think for Firefox users it may not?

**keb** · December 18, 2010

Thanks for the update. Lots of new features which one just needs to become accustomed to.

**keb** · December 18, 2010

My profile includes photo of My Course, but it does not show up on signature. What did I likely do wrong?

***iacas*** · December 18, 2010

Originally Posted by keb

My profile includes photo of My Course, but it does not show up on signature. What did I likely do wrong?

If you go to your profile and click "Edit Signature Text" then you can add up to three lists to your signature.

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Sand Trap's New Look

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