Solar Panel Talk gets a face lift

[solar pete]

Hi All,

As many of you know we recently switched to the latest version of the forum software and it all seems to be going well. We have also recently got some help from Glenn in CA to help us do some things we have wanted to do for sometime. It's basically a face lift, we have a slightly larger logo and a image that lets you link through to www.solarreviews.com if you want to look up an installer or write a review etc. we also have a few links to our other site sponsor www.solar-estimate.org.

I think the thing I like the best about it is that you will now be able to respond to someone's post without having to use the quote function, and your comments will appear under their post without essentially copy and pasting the whole post all throughout the thread.

We may try to get this done today, and if we do the site will be down for maybe a few hours, cheers.

[littleharbor]

I was wondering if Solar Panel Talk would ever have a feature on the forum that a certain solar forum from Northern Arizona has. Whenever you read any post their software(?) remembers where you have left off and as the thread grows and you go back to it when you click on that thread you automatically go to where you left off. It also highlights when that thread has new content making it easy to follow the threads.
I hope this description isn't too confusing.

[Logan005]

did there not used to be a link to a store? I have only been here for a few months, but I recall being informed that when recommending products, not to offer competitors links, but I have never seen the store link myself.

[solar pete]

I was wondering if Solar Panel Talk would ever have a feature on the forum that a certain solar forum from Northern Arizona has. Whenever you read any post their software(?) remembers where you have left off and as the thread grows and you go back to it when you click on that thread you automatically go to where you left off. It also highlights when that thread has new content making it easy to follow the threads.
I hope this description isn't too confusing.

Howdy littleharbor, that sounds cool, I will add this to the mods section, fix/wish list and ask Glenn if that is doable for us too, cheers.

[solar pete]

did there not used to be a link to a store? I have only been here for a few months, but I recall being informed that when recommending products, not to offer competitors links, but I have never seen the store link myself.

Yes there was once a link to the old owners online store, its no longer required we will have links to solar distributors like this one http://www.solarreviews.com/solar-di...s_sort=highest

Cheers.

[DanKegel]

I was dismayed to see that the "New Posts" results are now all fluffy and require large amounts of scrolling and paging.
Is there a way to get them to be compact again, like the "Today's Posts" section is?

As it is, I now feel lethargic when I go to "New Posts" and lose interest in clicking on anything The interface is definitely getting in the way now.

[Sunking]

Hi All,

As many of you know we recently switched to the latest version of the forum software and it all seems to be going well. :

Me thinks you might be on a very lonely island.

[Logan005]

I was dismayed to see that the "New Posts" results are now all fluffy and require large amounts of scrolling and paging.
Is there a way to get them to be compact again, like the "Today's Posts" section is?

As it is, I now feel lethargic when I go to "New Posts" and lose interest in clicking on anything The interface is definitely getting in the way now.

I agree, the "New Post" layout is totally different than the old compact design. should at least have a display option, so one can revert to the old style. when accessing threads through the "New Post" option, only gives you latest post as opposed to all post, still have not figured out how to fix that other I am missing something. Used to be you clicked on the lil bullet next to the blue subject ling to take you to the latest replys.

[DanKegel]

On the other hand, the big blue buttons on the right of the main page seem like an improvement, they really jump out without getting in the way.

On a big screen desktop, anyway. Haven't tried on a small one.

EDIT: http://www.infobyip.com/testwebsiter...rpaneltalk.com shows it looks pretty good except at 800x600, where it looks pretty funny. Also hurts on my large desktop if I make the window less than half the size of the screen.

[solar pete]

Hi All, yeah im not sure about the different layout when you press 'New Posts" I think we will give it a day or two to see if we can live with it, I will ask Glenn if we can revert back to how it was, cheers

[azdave]

"New Posts" is where I start my day each morning and not seeing a compact list that can be scanned quickly is really irritating.

[DanKegel]

Hey Pete,
is there a sticky somewhere about how to tell which sites are ok to link to?
I get that sites that do lead generation are your competitors and are not ok to link to.
What about pv magazin? That's a web site for a print publication. I don't think
it does lead generation, but it may show ads that do. Is that too close for comfort?
Thanks!

[solar pete]

Howdy Dan, to tell you plainly I dont like links going from our site to anywhere, other than solar-estimate.org and solarreviews.com, I am trying to get more traffic and better google ranking and sending people away from this site only hurts us and helps the others so if you dont mind, keep the links to an absolute minimum and dont be surprised if I delete some, in fact a lot.

[SunEagle]

This might not be an issue but it does add to the total list but I noticed that the "new post" would show multiple postings for the same thread instead of just the latest one in the old format.

[DanKegel]

This might not be an issue but it does add to the total list but I noticed that the "new post" would show multiple postings for the same thread instead of just the latest one in the old format.

yes, I just noticed that too. Makes the fluffiness even worse.

Pete, if you like the new format for some reason, just getting rid of these repeats might solve half the problem.

[solar pete]

Thanks for the feed back peeps, yeh we need to get this sorted, i preferred the old way it displayed too, will talk to Glenn about it next week