New Forum Menu On-line

[radionate]

Way to go Jamie, Phil, and everyone else! Love how you incorporated an element from each of the other sections of MC.

 

[Luke]

Much appreciated Jamie - so much better now. If it wasn't for the surfing of Muppet sites i'd have nothing to do while at work so comfort is indeed a big concern. I'm feeling as snug as a blue footed eagle now !

 

[frogboy4]

No prob. It was quite easy. It's just been so long since I designed the menu.

 

[scarecroe]

Boo. It looks nice, but I hate the fact that I need to have Flash enabled to get to the CP, Search, Members and Calender.

At least on the rest of MC there are standard HTML links to the sections of the site that non-Flash users can get to. It seems to be fully catered to Flash users only now.

 

[frogboy4]

We will consider that in an upgrade. I don't get why you would disable Flash if you have it. Any user who does so knows they are limiting their web experience. Expect many sites to transfer their content to an entire Flash format in light of what MX can do these days. I recently had the privilege to go to a Macromedia demo. Geez, there really are no limits anymore. Getting around the web without Flash will almost be like renting a car without a credit card. But we still want to keep thing easy for the longtime MC user. We will see what we can do about that.

 

[scarecroe]

Jamie,

I use the Opera browser which allows the user to enable or disable various luxuries (read: annoyances) such as pop-ups, animated gifs, javascript, java, Flash, etc... at will. I keep Flash disabled 90% of the time to avoid animated and sound-driven advertisements, but I can enable it on the fly.

Most web designers don't use Flash properly -- you're one of the few I've found who uses it wisely -- and keeping it disabled makes for a much nicer web browsing experience.

As long as you're considering things for future updates, I'd like to request a "View New Posts" link on each page so I don't have to keep going back to the main page for it. That would be cool.

 

[frogboy4]

Thanx for the compliment. I thought you had that sort of reason. You are right about Flash designers. Like Dreamweaver, Flash has an easy to use interface, which can be deceiving. It makes any novice think they can just start designing without thought or education. (It also holds true for digital cameras and "filmmakers") As for sound, I just keep my PC on mute.

Many people also dislike Flash because it is new. If it were around ten years ago it would have already been the standard. There are so many fantastic things that can be done now; forms, live update charts and graphs, etc. As a designer - I make the choice to use it to help strengthen it as a web standard.

I am also annoyed by recent Flash-based pop-up ads too. They spoil it for the rest of us. There have been a lot of lengthy ads (especially by the Fox channel) that have no close button! I make it a point to not respond to the messages (as if it helps) but see it as the cost of business on the web. Can't be free forever.

Nonetheless we need to be mindful of MC users. It will likely remain this way for a while. This particular menu was a temporary fix anyway. It was rushed to be timed with my portfolio but didn't materialize until now for various reasons. I also encourage you to disable Flash when visiting Muppet Central this holiday season.

 

[Ryan]

Ohhh, wow, like it's toootally groovy fer sher!

 

[Luke]

The solution for non-flash users would be to have the 'User Cp', 'Calendar' etc as text links in the footer i guess.

Also a 'View New Posts' link on every forum page has been requested now a few times and never happened - it'd look great sitting there underneath the date or could just be inserted on the template as a text link.

 

[scarecroe]

Originally posted by Luke
The solution for non-flash users would be to have the 'User Cp', 'Calendar' etc as text links in the footer i guess.

Exactly. This is what I was suggesting. It's very easy to do really.