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Website & Forum Suggestion Box

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kramttocs

Re: Hello new users!

Administrator

This post was updated on .

You're absolutely right, sorry about that.

Scott
'Camano' 1986 F250 Supercab XLT Lariat 460/C6
'Chanute' 1980 F350 C&C 400/NP 435 - Gin Pole

But there ain't nothin' wrong with the radio

ArdWrknTrk

Re: Hello new users!

Administrator

No need to apologise.

It was just a suggestion to Gary to snip and move it...

Jim,
Lil'Red is a '87 F250 HD, 4.10's, 1356 4x4, Zf-5, 3G, PMGR, Saginaw PS, desmogged with a Holley 80508 and Performer intake.
Too much other stuff to mention.

Gary Lewis

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

In reply to this post by ArdWrknTrk

Ok, it is moved.

And, by the way, I have a page (Bullnose Forum/Forum & Website Issues) where I'm trying to keep track of suggestions. I doubt I have everything from this thread as the impetus for the page was my Nabble friend Greg's suggestions just before I left on vacation. He had so many suggestions in multiple emails that I had to consolidate them.

But y'all are more than welcome to look things over and tell me what I've missed, as questions, or make further suggestions. I'm not in a position to work on it for a few days and want to get a better overview of the issues before tackling things anyway, so please contribute.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Dad's: '81 F150 Ranger XLT 4x4: Down for restomod: Full-roller "stroked 351M" w/Trick Flow heads & intake, EEC-V SEFI/E4OD/3.50 gears w/Kevlar clutches
Blue: 2015 F150 Platinum 4x4 SuperCrew wearing Blue Jeans & sporting a 3.5L EB & Max Tow
Big Blue: 1985 F250HD 4x4: 460/ZF5/3.55's, D60 w/Ox locker & 10.25 Sterling/Trutrac, Blue Top & Borgeson, & EEC-V MAF/SEFI

ArdWrknTrk

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

Thank you for sharing, Gary!

Jim,
Lil'Red is a '87 F250 HD, 4.10's, 1356 4x4, Zf-5, 3G, PMGR, Saginaw PS, desmogged with a Holley 80508 and Performer intake.
Too much other stuff to mention.

ArdWrknTrk

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

This post was updated on .

In reply to this post by kramttocs

kramttocs wrote

While I really like the lighthouse photo and ford prayer, those two things and especially the white space above the lighthouse photo take up a lot of real estate and require scrolling before getting to the actual thread. Maybe just have them on the main page and not all of them?

I'd second this motion!
Slow connections don't need to see the WHOLE thing in every thread and at every thread reply. (Not the reply window)

Jim,
Lil'Red is a '87 F250 HD, 4.10's, 1356 4x4, Zf-5, 3G, PMGR, Saginaw PS, desmogged with a Holley 80508 and Performer intake.
Too much other stuff to mention.

Gary Lewis

Re: Hello new users!

Administrator

That's the plan. As explained on the page at Bullnose Forum/Forum & Website Issues where I'm thinking through all of this we could have:

A page in front of the forum page that might contain the picture of the truck of the month/year/decade, the prayer, etc. That would free up the space on the forum main page that currently has the prayer and the truck. And, that would more closely tie those items to the whole of the site. Plus, this page could explain how to use the whole site, including the layout, what is contained w/in each category, etc.

But my concern is that then the url garysgaragemahal.com will go to the first page and not to the forum. So all of those links saved to the forum, which has heretofore been garysgaragemahal.com, will not go where the user expected.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

ArdWrknTrk

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

This really is THE BEST and most responsive SERVICE AND SUPPORT on the interwebz!

Jim,
Lil'Red is a '87 F250 HD, 4.10's, 1356 4x4, Zf-5, 3G, PMGR, Saginaw PS, desmogged with a Holley 80508 and Performer intake.
Too much other stuff to mention.

ArdWrknTrk

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

In reply to this post by Gary Lewis

I kinda miss the little red cottage... *sniff *tear

Jim,
Lil'Red is a '87 F250 HD, 4.10's, 1356 4x4, Zf-5, 3G, PMGR, Saginaw PS, desmogged with a Holley 80508 and Performer intake.
Too much other stuff to mention.

Gary Lewis

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

In reply to this post by ArdWrknTrk

Just learned a new trick - I right-clicked the "Reply" link and opened that in a new tab, which got me a reply window in a new tab. Then I clicked "Reply" in the first tab and opened a reply window here. Clicked "Quote" and copied the text and pasted it here.

ArdWrknTrk wrote

This really is THE BEST and most responsive SERVICE AND SUPPORT on the interwebz!

We are small and, therefore, can be responsive - to a point. That's unlike the big forums, which are driven by code created for many, many different forums so cannot customize to suit any given one.

However, they also have the coding experts in their pockets, so when glitches appear they can more easily get them resolved. In our case we are dependent on the coders for Nabble or Weebly.

ArdWrknTrk wrote

I kinda miss the little red cottage... *sniff *tear

I'll have to go find it. Can't see it on this tablet.

But it is from our trip to Ireland a few years ago, assuming I'm thinking of the right one.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

kramttocs

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

I'll admit I haven't read through this thread much to know what has been covered.
I mean no offense here whatsoever as I've never ran a forum, know zilch about nabble, nor have really done any comparisons between the offerings but has there been any thought to migrating to something like phpBB?
Really the only reason I ask is because of the Tapatalk support.
I don't know how others do it (maybe there is a trick I don't know) but on the two truck forums I browse, I struggle with the mobile format. The search on the other site drives me crazy - why would I want to search All Open Forums by default? :)

I really think having a dedicated mobile app for the forum part would go a long ways.

Scott
'Camano' 1986 F250 Supercab XLT Lariat 460/C6
'Chanute' 1980 F350 C&C 400/NP 435 - Gin Pole

But there ain't nothin' wrong with the radio

ArdWrknTrk

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

kramttocs wrote

I don't know how others do it (maybe there is a trick I don't know) but on the two truck forums I browse, I struggle with the mobile format. The search on the other site drives me crazy - why would I want to search All Open Forums by default? :)

And child forums!

I hate it too. Did you see where I said I was on pg. 12 of 38? of Chris's starter relay posts?
(And I DO limit my search to the '80-'86 sub)

The quick answer is Google, and using a specific address as a whitelist.
I come from a time of Boolean search terms. Maybe that dates me....

I wasn't a fan of tapatalk when it came out.
Perhaps I should revisit it?

Jim,
Lil'Red is a '87 F250 HD, 4.10's, 1356 4x4, Zf-5, 3G, PMGR, Saginaw PS, desmogged with a Holley 80508 and Performer intake.
Too much other stuff to mention.

kramttocs

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

Haha yeah, I recall you saying that.

Speaking of boolean search terms I was very pleasantly surprised back when I was searching all over the country for a supercab that craigslist can handle them.

I actually haven't used Tapatalk in awhile either- again because the only two forums I semi-actively post on don't use it - but I took a look at the app store screenshots before I made the first post about it and I must say it does look pretty nice.

Scott
'Camano' 1986 F250 Supercab XLT Lariat 460/C6
'Chanute' 1980 F350 C&C 400/NP 435 - Gin Pole

But there ain't nothin' wrong with the radio

ArdWrknTrk

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

I think I said to Gary, earlier in this thread, that nabble was obviously never optimized for mobile and that due to its orphaned nature I didn't expect much.

But anything is worth exactly what you're willing to pay for it.
Nabble may be free,but hosting it and the sheer number of hours Gary spends debugging it are definitely not.

Jim,
Lil'Red is a '87 F250 HD, 4.10's, 1356 4x4, Zf-5, 3G, PMGR, Saginaw PS, desmogged with a Holley 80508 and Performer intake.
Too much other stuff to mention.

Gary Lewis

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

In reply to this post by kramttocs

I’m sitting at the airport awaiting the hotel shuttle, so can’t type much. But from what I’ve read migrating from Nabble isn’t likely to happen. That’s because there doesn’t appear to be a migration tool from Nabble to anything. But, if someone can find one please tell me!

Anyway, I’ll get back to this later.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Gary Lewis

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

He's baaaaaack!

Morning. Let's pick this topic up again. First, let's differentiate between the website and the forum:

Website: The website is everything you can see/find here. It is the shell in which both the forum and all the documentation resides. It is hosted by Weebly.

Forum: This currently resides on the first of ~500 pages of the website. It is hosted by Nabble and is embedded on the Weebly page such that it appears to be part of the whole website. And last I looked the forum itself had 295 pages.

I've spent FAR more time developing the website and its documentation than I have the forum. But it is the forum, and its lack of being mobile-friendly, that is the issue here. Right?

But, we have a gold mine in the forum as we have a LOT problem solutions, tips, tricks, etc. And those are growing rapidly.

Plus, we are starting to get "found". I've included a screen grab of the Google searches for the last year that have found information on the forum, and you can see that we've gone from ~1 click/day to ~40/day, with that growing rapidly. Basically this is a synergistic thing, meaning the more we are found the more often we'll get clicked, and the more we get clicked the higher on the list we'll be so the more we'll get clicked, ......

Given that, we don't want to lose it. Which means we either need to figure out how to tweak what we have to work better on mobile devices, or find a way to migrate from Nabble to something better. Trust me, I'm not wedded to Nabble, so if we find a way to migrate then let's consider it. Meanwhile I'll try to tweak what we have to be less obnoxious.

However, some of obnoxious behavior may be with Nabble and some with Weebly, so I need y'all to see if you can tell the difference. Yes, I know there's no reply window on the documentation part of the website, but the Gary's Garagemahal (the Bullnose bible) that appears at the top of the page is actually Weebly rather than Nabble. So if that is a big issue then maybe I can fix that via Weebly.

So, please point out what the issues are and let me try to document them and figure out from whence they come.

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

kramttocs

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

Hey Gary!

Website - I think the documentation format works very well for the content when viewing it on mobile. To me (randomly went to the 300 Six page) the grey bar at the top could be significantly reduced and maybe merge the search box into it. Where the search box is now looks a little out of place.

Yes, it's the forum mobile aspect that is the issue (or inconvenience).
I am not saying Tapatalk is the end-all-be-all answer - it just seems like the most common forum app. I installed it last night and the first thing it does is ask what you like: Automotive > Trucks/SUVs. Then it shows a bunch of related forums.
I think getting this forum on there would be huge.
I also added a couple forums and the display of threads looks great. There are others on here that may use it on a daily basis for another forum and will have better opinions for or against.

I'd mentioned phpBB earlier only because it looks like one of the more popular boards. I played around a little with a forum using that software on my phone and it works pretty well. It's not quite as nice as the mobile format of some other forums but I figure the cost of the forum software plays a part in some of that.

Scott
'Camano' 1986 F250 Supercab XLT Lariat 460/C6
'Chanute' 1980 F350 C&C 400/NP 435 - Gin Pole

But there ain't nothin' wrong with the radio

ArdWrknTrk

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

In reply to this post by Gary Lewis

Gary,

Did you do something to lock screen orientation while in the edit window?

We spoke about the headline banner coming down and blocking 99% of the screen in landscape, but today I can't get landscape.
And if the end of my line to edit is beyond my view in portrait, and Android doesn't wrap text, I can't even do what I'm trying to do.

Yes, my phone changes orientation on the forum and with every other webpage.

Jim,
Lil'Red is a '87 F250 HD, 4.10's, 1356 4x4, Zf-5, 3G, PMGR, Saginaw PS, desmogged with a Holley 80508 and Performer intake.
Too much other stuff to mention.

ArdWrknTrk

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

NVM,

I must have just busted my accelerometer when I dropped my phone 5 minutes ago.

Crap!......

Jim,
Lil'Red is a '87 F250 HD, 4.10's, 1356 4x4, Zf-5, 3G, PMGR, Saginaw PS, desmogged with a Holley 80508 and Performer intake.
Too much other stuff to mention.

Gary Lewis

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Administrator

Oh no! Sorry!

Gary, AKA "Gary fellow": Profile

Rembrant

Re: Website & Forum Suggestion Box

Hey Gary,

You should put up a picture of one of your Bulls on the main forum page!

1994 F150 4x2 Flareside. 5.0 w/MAF, 4R70W, stock.
1984 F150 4X2 Flareside. Mild 302 w/ 5spd. Sold.
1980 F150 4X4 Flareside. 300i6 w/ 5spd. Sold in 2021.
1980 F100 4X2 Flareside. 351w/2bbl w/NP435. Sold in 1995

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