Would like some feedback...

[jimsflies]

I finally took the plunge and updated from vb3.8 to vb4. I don't have as many customizations as I did before, but I wanted to return back to a more "stock" look.

I'm looking for some comments. Let me know what you think.

http://www.captivereefs.com

[Max Taxable]

It's a pretty fishy site. :D

[ForceHSS]

Kind of a finding nemo look to it

[Max Taxable]

Seriously though - it is very clean and well organized, everything is easy to find and it is intuitive, and easy on the eyes.

You did a hell of a good job optimizing it too. You should be proud.

WebPageTest (http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140209_7K_QPX/)

[webmastersun]

Look good but may be you set background-position:fixed; will be better view.

[ForceHSS]

As guests can't see articles or what's new you should set the permissions so only members see them tabs

[jimsflies]

Seriously though - it is very clean and well organized, everything is easy to find and it is intuitive, and easy on the eyes.

You did a hell of a good job optimizing it too. You should be proud.

WebPageTest (http://www.webpagetest.org/result/140209_7K_QPX/)

Thanks for all your help on http://ozzmodz.com and giving me the intial kick in the pants to make it better. I still see some ways to shave some requests so I haven't stopped yet.

Look good but may be you set background-position:fixed; will be better view.

You don't like the parallax background? I thought the way it scrolls up with the content is neat. Although subtle, the background under the breadcrumbs allows you to see the water of the background image behind it which moves away as you scroll down the page...the hope was to make it look like you are looking up through the water surface and as the background comes into view, the hope was it would encourage checking out the entire page rather than just the top.

While I think its cool though, if the popular opinion is to ditch it, I'd consider it for sure. I don't want to fix the position though as I think having the reef scene at the top makes page look too busy. (I could make a new background that was shorter to hug the bottom and ditch the current one.)

As guests can't see articles or what's new you should set the permissions so only members see them tabs

Good point...I'm working on a home page using the CMS system, so the article tab would eventually go somewhere, but in the mean time it makes sense to disable it.

I also wonder about keeping the Blog tab. My site didn't have blogs before so there are no blogs to display. None of my members have gone in there and created a blog and the site has been upgrade for a few weeks now. Not sure its worthwhile to have blogs or not? Does anyone with a forum site get a lot of bloggers?


I appreciate you guys taking a minute to look and give me feedback.

[ForceHSS]

No one on my site used blogs until I started to post. If you start using them others might follow

[CharlieDelta]

You don't like the parallax background? I thought the way it scrolls up with the content is neat. Although subtle, the background under the breadcrumbs allows you to see the water of the background image behind it which moves away as you scroll down the page...the hope was to make it look like you are looking up through the water surface and as the background comes into view, the hope was it would encourage checking out the entire page rather than just the top.

How do you achieve this? Some CSS tricks? I would be interested to know. :)

[jimsflies]

@CharlieDelta Its funny you are asking... I'm on your site thinking about how you've done your background right now. I'm also looking at your webpage tests as I type this wondering how you load 2MB in 6 seconds. Are you attributing that speed to cloudflare?

Regarding my background, I think my background may be easier than yours... grab the script here: http://jonraasch.com/blog/scrolling-parallax-jquery-plugin

If you need any help implementing let me know.

I'm considering something like you have done to avoid having as big of a background image to load. I'm thinking I may be able to get away with a couple smaller files with a fixed background at the top and another background that sits at the bottom of the page.

[CharlieDelta]

Thanks for the link.
Now that I know it is plugin I am a little reluctant to do it as I don't want to increase the load time too much.
I do a lot of caching, optimizing and yes cloudflare. With my ads not running and no gallery images loading in the forum page it is a LOT lower but I am willing to live with the performance hit for those two.

That is how I have it set up now with one image for the top and one for the bottom and then those two images are fully optimized. :)

[TheLastSuperman]

@CharlieDelta Its funny you are asking... I'm on your site thinking about how you've done your background right now.

No it's funny how I was just thinking about slanted ads, I view your site there it is then BAM I mouseover and it correts itself and enlarges - I like that what script/code are you using to accomplish that if I may ask?

Also I liked the old version of the site and the new version... the newer version is not *quite* as clean-cut and crisp as the old one but you're getting there, nice work all-around I say ;).

[jimsflies]

Thanks for the link.
Now that I know it is plugin I am a little reluctant to do it as I don't want to increase the load time too much.
I do a lot of caching, optimizing and yes cloudflare. With my ads not running and no gallery images loading in the forum page it is a LOT lower but I am willing to live with the performance hit for those two.

That is how I have it set up now with one image for the top and one for the bottom and then those two images are fully optimized. :)

Its a small script. You can run a webpage test on my site and see what it adds.


No it's funny how I was just thinking about slanted ads, I view your site there it is then BAM I mouseover and it correts itself and enlarges - I like that what script/code are you using to accomplish that if I may ask?

Also I liked the old version of the site and the new version... the newer version is not *quite* as clean-cut and crisp as the old one but you're getting there, nice work all-around I say ;).

I'm doing that banner ad with css...no script on those. I think it would be easy to overdo it with the slants. I decided not to do it in the header area because of the controls in the upper right corner of the page. But I think it works well down there at the bottom. Its also on my showthread page under the first post.

I still have a long way to go to get the site back to where I was on vb3 in terms of custom forums. But its coming along. Thanks for your feedback. If you need any help with the ads, let me know. :)

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My biggest problem I have with the site is how it loads the main content in the body wrapper...I think that sidebar is really slowing it down. I hate how it pauses to build that area of the site without putting the white background color in there right away. If anyone has a suggestion to improved the "perceived loading time" of that area of the site, I'm all ears.

[Drake M]

I love those minimalist websites.

Great use of white color , a lot..lot of white spaces.

The black font is definitely take a big role here, and I love how you use <strong> bbcode to make it looks even more interesting.

The number 365 like total dates of years is also a bold element of your site.

Great site!

site captured

https://vborg.vbsupport.ru/external/2014/02/22.png

[jimsflies]

lol... Thanks! It took a team of web designers to come up with that minimalist look. The css work alone is awe striking. ;)

[Max Taxable]

Well... I think it's anything EXCEPT "minimalist." It strikes the right balance between form and function, unlike lots of other boards we see - all garish and lurid, overdone, and load 3MB on people's browsers.

You can tell when some work and thought goes into a board, versus just slapping it up there and slapping decorations and fluff crap up on it like a drunk unemployed mop swinger would on a Christmas tree.

[jimsflies]

Max based on the small screen shot he posted, he must have visited during the few minutes when I was trying to clean out some old vb3 files and got a little overzealous this afternoon. The site was kicking some errors until I got the file re-uploaded. I'm just hoping I've got them all back in place now. So far so good.

[Max Taxable]

Max based on the small screen shot he posted, he must have visited during the few minutes when I was trying to clean out some old vb3 files and got a little overzealous this afternoon. The site was kicking some errors until I got the file re-uploaded. I'm just hoping I've got them all back in place now. So far so good.Ahh okay. I missed the sarcasm and didn't see a screen shot. For some reason it isn't displaying for me.