Author Topic: Upgraded NASASpaceFlight.com News Site Launch (Read 88134 times)

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #140 on:** 12/29/2017 11:22 pm »

OK, quick answers!

1) Hey, I'd be totally cool with L2 members being able to custom remove ads or anything, they've totally earned it...but yeah, as you note the news site and the forum are two different software bases. Not sure if a cookie would do the trick. Only way I could see it working is if you logged in from the news site and went through to the forum *thus the news site would see you as a L2 member*. Maybe for the future, but it's a bit over my head per application.

More so for the L2 button as that - and the top bar - are literally like the paint on a wall, as opposed to pictures you can move or remove.

2) The news site is absolutely right (at least in how I envisioned it) and I'm wondering if we're all talking about the desktop version? The desktop version (and I can't see how the mobile version wouldn't be) are in two-phase chronological order. Per the Featured and the secondary blocks (all above the page fold). You'd need to be off the site for nearly a week or more, to miss a new article as you load the page, and in order. If there were more than two secondary stories, you click load more, again above the fold.

The question was for someone coming back after several weeks away (which is a small amount of people based on the stats) to which a solution may be a forum thread in General titled "January NSF News Articles" and post the URLs in the opening post as we add the articles.

HOWEVER! There's the ticker at the top of the news site "Popular" which may be working on most reads, which we could simply change to ensure it was actually that newest to oldest list of the latest 20 articles! Booom!

Overall, per the new site, the trick is the balance as we could create a site that made you a cup of coffee as you entered the site and starting reading articles, whilst giving you a bad rub and a few people would say "But I don't like coffee!"

I really expected a lot more of the "I don't like what most other people like" so this is good. We seem to be mostly "like it" and a few "refine a few things" and pretty much ONE "hate it!" That's a good result!

--

Other to do things:

"Contact" is wrong. It links to an e-mail address. Needs to link to the previous "About Us" page with more contact info.

Store. Because I want a NSF laptop bag.

Continued utilization of the extra cowbell we have in articles. Chris G hit the ground running with his Year In Review articles and found more coolness. Caution is not to go overboard and ensure it remains focused on the content and not "fancy gifs".

Other drives are more to do with me as editor getting more writers in and so on.

Next phase of server improvements is next. Something you guys won't notice other than how long time members will have noticed the days of "Bad Gateway" when someone sneezed SpaceX are long gone (Falcon Heavy is going to be a real challenge, however).

Then we work on bringing the forum software up a notch or three WITHOUT losing familiarity or ease of use. I've seen some sites completely change their forum and you're left shaking your head thinking "Why???" Yes, we have to upgrade, but man that will be a massive community crowdsource and discussion to get it right before we even think about changes.

WulfTheSaxon · « **Reply #141 on:** 12/30/2017 02:14 am »

Quote from: Chris Bergin on 12/29/2017 11:22 pm

OK, quick answers!

1) Hey, I'd be totally cool with L2 members being able to custom remove ads or anything, they've totally earned it...but yeah, as you note the news site and the forum are two different software bases. Not sure if a cookie would do the trick. Only way I could see it working is if you logged in from the news site and went through to the forum *thus the news site would see you as a L2 member*. Maybe for the future, but it's a bit over my head per application.

More so for the L2 button as that - and the top bar - are literally like the paint on a wall, as opposed to pictures you can move or remove.

[snip]

I’m surprised there isn’t already an L2 indicator in the forum cookie. Getting that in there would be 99% of the work, but I have no idea how SMF handles cookies (might need a mod). Once that’s done, though, getting rid of the L2 link shouldn’t be any harder than stopping the ads: .ltwo {display: none;}

DMeader · « **Reply #142 on:** 12/30/2017 02:51 am »

Looking forward to the "dark mode" being launched. While the new front page looks nice, there's too much bright white space for my tastes.

On the subject of layout, any possibility of a "list mode" in addition to the current "grid mode"? Go over and look at the options for the ArsTechnica front page to see what I mean.

Beyond that, good job, looks nice. The only other gripe I had was active discussions being below the fold, which you've addressed.

dansoton · « **Reply #143 on:** 12/30/2017 06:35 am »

Quote from: WulfTheSaxon on 12/30/2017 02:14 am

I’m surprised there isn’t already an L2 indicator in the forum cookie. Getting that in there would be 99% of the work, but I have no idea how SMF handles cookies (might need a mod). Once that’s done, though, getting rid of the L2 link shouldn’t be any harder than stopping the ads: .ltwo {display: none;}

Yeah I'm not a web developer (backend developer actually) but a quick Google search seems to me that it should be possible to share some cookie value between both www.nasaspaceflight.com and forum.nasaspaceflight.com:

https://stackoverflow.com/a/23086139/1161972

So perhaps that can be used to activate some JavaScript or CSS (https://stackoverflow.com/a/41528803/1161972).

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #144 on:** 12/30/2017 10:14 pm »

Quote from: Chris Bergin on 12/29/2017 11:22 pm

Other to do things:

"Contact" is wrong. It links to an e-mail address. Needs to link to the previous "About Us" page with more contact info.

That's now good, per the bottom of the page. Was previously just "e-mail" and now it's proper about us and contacts.

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #145 on:** 12/30/2017 10:21 pm »

One issue I've noticed after more investigating this chronological order reference and asking around...

Well I've mainly searched used "Tags". We probably could use that tag box back if it doesn't add much load. If it does, it might not be worth it and we can use direct tag links in articles and the forum.

However, while they still work per working URLs, there's the Search Function, which is far more standard for news sites. That works, but I've noticed new articles I've added since the new site went live going are displaying in full, not in brief (like you see in the front of site). I bet that's literally a line of code Mark needs to refine. Not relevant to the front of site, so it can wait until Mark is back. At the same time, those "groups" of articles displayed after entering from a search are *not* in chronological order! That obviously needs to be changed and I bet that's again just a line of code for Mark.

Just posting to say I'm aware and it'll be sorted out. Both are minor.

From an editorial standpoint, I've got to say it's a lot easier to create the articles now. Before I would be running around spending a lot of time trying to find images that would fit the article. Now pretty much any large size image will work. Also allows far better breaking of paras, without actually breaking the paras with a line break. Now large images, twitter embeds and so on do it. Really is a big improvement.

ulm_atms · « **Reply #146 on:** 01/02/2018 01:10 am »

Quote from: Chris Bergin on 12/29/2017 11:22 pm

Then we work on bringing the forum software up a notch or three WITHOUT losing familiarity or ease of use. I've seen some sites completely change their forum and you're left shaking your head thinking "Why???" Yes, we have to upgrade, but man that will be a massive community crowdsource and discussion to get it right before we even think about changes.

Serious question Chris and not a joke from what you wrote above but it is the question I have..........Why?

The forums are the absolute best forums I have used anywhere and are using currently.

Just curious as to the driving reasons for the bold part above.

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #147 on:** 01/02/2018 01:44 pm »

Quote from: Chris Bergin on 12/30/2017 10:21 pm

However, while they still work per working URLs, there's the Search Function, which is far more standard for news sites. That works, but I've noticed new articles I've added since the new site went live going are displaying in full, not in brief (like you see in the front of site). I bet that's literally a line of code Mark needs to refine. Not relevant to the front of site, so it can wait until Mark is back.

Silly me. I've fixed that as the new site was reading the ported articles over with the "abstract" link we put in, which I didn't think we needed for the new articles. Putting that back in (you don't see anything different in the article) fixes that issue. Boom! Call me a web genius. Ok, perhaps not

But that's that one fixed. Time order for searched blocks, will check if that also fixed it, but if not, will let Mark know.

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #148 on:** 01/02/2018 01:54 pm »

Quote from: ulm_atms on 01/02/2018 01:10 am

Quote from: Chris Bergin on 12/29/2017 11:22 pm
Then we work on bringing the forum software up a notch or three WITHOUT losing familiarity or ease of use. I've seen some sites completely change their forum and you're left shaking your head thinking "Why???" Yes, we have to upgrade, but man that will be a massive community crowdsource and discussion to get it right before we even think about changes.

Serious question Chris and not a joke from what you wrote above but it is the question I have..........Why?

The forums are the absolute best forums I have used anywhere and are using currently.

Just curious as to the driving reasons for the bold part above.

Have to move on with the technology. But as previously noted, I've seen some sites die by making massive changes. Trick is to keep things familiar. Will be the biggest effort, but one where we really get the community involved with both technically and via discussion of how to do it.

A bit like the news site....how it still feels NSF, but it's now totally tech updated, so it works well on mobile and desktop. This forum....I literally refuse to use tapatalk as it's a pile of nonsense and go on the forum on my phone in desktop mode, which could be better if the place worked better in that version on a small screen. Then there's things like copying with big events...this is data heavy. Needs to be better at that (has improved a lot of course). And so on....

joncz · « **Reply #149 on:** 01/02/2018 03:36 pm »

Chris, your caution and forethought are appreciated. I'm on several partner forum sites for software and services I use professionally, and I've held out NSF as forum-done-right in those venues.

Jet Black · « **Reply #150 on:** 01/04/2018 08:55 am »

Absolutely lovely on all the browsers on all the devices I have (I checked, because there is nothing worse than non-standard rendering of HTML to destroy all your hard work!)

WulfTheSaxon · « **Reply #151 on:** 01/04/2018 06:52 pm »

Quote from: Jet Black on 01/04/2018 08:55 am

Absolutely lovely on all the browsers on all the devices I have (I checked, because there is nothing worse than non-standard rendering of HTML to destroy all your hard work!)

This made me think to check it on my slowest device. One thing that I noticed is that the images actually load long before the headlines, which is less than ideal.

Also the back-to-top button is a bit glitchy – is it really needed?

NSF Webmaster · « **Reply #152 on:** 01/05/2018 04:30 pm »

Quote from: WulfTheSaxon on 01/04/2018 06:52 pm

Quote from: Jet Black on 01/04/2018 08:55 am
Absolutely lovely on all the browsers on all the devices I have (I checked, because there is nothing worse than non-standard rendering of HTML to destroy all your hard work!)

This made me think to check it on my slowest device. One thing that I noticed is that the images actually load long before the headlines, which is less than ideal.

Also the back-to-top button is a bit glitchy – is it really needed?

And what system/browser did you have this experience?

WulfTheSaxon · « **Reply #153 on:** 01/05/2018 06:18 pm »

Quote from: NSF Webmaster on 01/05/2018 04:30 pm

Quote from: WulfTheSaxon on 01/04/2018 06:52 pm
Quote from: Jet Black on 01/04/2018 08:55 am
Absolutely lovely on all the browsers on all the devices I have (I checked, because there is nothing worse than non-standard rendering of HTML to destroy all your hard work!)

This made me think to check it on my slowest device. One thing that I noticed is that the images actually load long before the headlines, which is less than ideal.

Also the back-to-top button is a bit glitchy – is it really needed?

And what system/browser did you have this experience?

Actually, both problems seem to have resolved themselves – I’m unable to replicate them. I’m now guessing the images-before-text was probably just something to do with the horrible packet jitter I’ve been getting lately.

I’d still prefer getting rid of the back-to-top button, though. Even when it’s working, it’s just annoying.

deruch · « **Reply #154 on:** 01/10/2018 04:32 am »

A minor problem I've encountered is that for some reason the image captions don't work/show-up for the first picture of an article. They work in all the subsequent ones but never in that headline or lead picture.

I'm browsing in Firefox 57.0.3 on Windows 7.

Chris Bergin · « **Reply #155 on:** 01/10/2018 10:59 am »

Quote from: deruch on 01/10/2018 04:32 am

A minor problem I've encountered is that for some reason the image captions don't work/show-up for the first picture of an article. They work in all the subsequent ones but never in that headline or lead picture.

I'm browsing in Firefox 57.0.3 on Windows 7.

Yeah, that's been like that from the start. Captions only work for images in the body, not feature section. Really not a big deal per the main function of a caption, which is to describe the picture. The lead image will always be obvious and the headline will likely be its caption.

deruch · « **Reply #156 on:** 01/11/2018 07:53 am »

I guess I wasn't thinking so much about the "what" in the picture but more the photo's attribution/credit.

intrepidpursuit · « **Reply #157 on:** 05/28/2018 04:09 pm »

The changes are great! Love the new iconography and logo. I would love to see the favicon for the forums updated to match the website; right now it still uses the old logo.

Great job Chris and team!

intrepidpursuit · « **Reply #158 on:** 07/11/2018 02:25 pm »

I personally find GIFs inline with articles extremely distracting. So much so that I have a hard time reading the article when the GIF is in frame. This may be unique to my own less than perfectly functioning brain and if it is uncommon then I certainly don't expect anything to change on my account. Does this bother anyone else?

The most recent Cygnus article has such a GIF and there doesn't appear to be a dedicated discussion page, and this certainly isn't related to the vehicle so I hope this is the best place to put it. Please ignore me and/or delete this if it is not appropriate or it just comes off as whining, but I thought it was worth mentioning if others feel the same.

Quote from: Chris Bergin on 07/10/2018 09:27 pm

50 second reboost test burn confirmed for the OA-9E Cygnus! First time a US vehicle has conducted a reboost since the Shuttle era!

Article:
https://www.nasaspaceflight.com/2018/07/cygnus-reboost-conducted-iss/

gongora · « **Reply #159 on:** 07/11/2018 02:49 pm »

If they bother you that much you might want to look for a good gif blocker browser extension. I used to have one that would just play the gif once unless you clicked on it to play again. Much less distracting.