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6.49pm
14 April 2010
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I like the fact that the banner will rotate silhouettes. It's really gonna make the site pop when new visitors stop by. Good luck Joe!
It's been quite some time since I mentioned this and we have a lot of new members, so I'll bring it up again here. If you guys plan on ordering anything through Amazon (George Harrison doc, books, music, Holiday gifts, whatever…), do so by linking from this site. When you do, The Beatles Bible recieves a small stipend. That money goes toward server fees, costs to upgrade the site, etc…
I always link to Amazon from this site. It's just a way to say thanks to Joe and give back some of the enjoyment I get from this site.
Thanks.
To the fountain of perpetual mirth, Let it roll for all its worth.
2295 6972
7.26pm
19 September 2010
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Joe, a version more accessible to mobile devices sounds heavenly. I'm not going to give any suggestions at this point, seeing as how a) I'd be talking out my ass, and b) because you seem to have hit my one irritation with a mobile version (or whatever you want to call it). I can see this is huge – and much appreciated. My only piece of advice would be not to stress to much. It'll be fantastic, and this friend clearly knows what would work for here. And finally, I have one tiny suggestion. How about a thread on the forum where people can post videos of some of the old concerts/events (ie Paul's speech indicting John into the Rock and Roll Hall Of Fame), and other things which can be added to the main part of the site. Good luck, Mate!
11.22pm
31 March 2008
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Mith – it's just the forum that uses tables. The rest of the site (which I built) is php and css.
Zig – thanks mate, that's much appreciated.
Mr Sun King – not stressing at all. That's because I'm paying someone to redo it for me! Good idea about events etc. If anyone has videos for anything that's in the history section let me know the link and I'll add it if I can. One day I'll do all the key dates from 1970-2000, but that'll take a while longer…
3.31am
1 May 2010
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Still it's a pain to use table in HTML design. Good luck with the redesign!
And Zig, I'm ordering some stuff soon so I'm using this site thanks for reminding us!
8.30am
31 March 2008
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About the Amazon thing, you don't necessarily have to order one of the products listed on this site, but if you click on one of the ads and buy any subsequent product from Amazon (even if it's nothing to do with what you clicked on), I'll get a cut. And it's all gratefully received!
11.14am
7 November 2010
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Wow, these updates sound so good, I cant wait! And I was never aware of the Amazon link thing, I'll definitely be going via here from now on.
"When I cannot sing my heart, I can only speak my mind."
10.21pm
31 March 2008
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OK, this has been a *long* time coming, but the redesign is finally live (unless you're seeing a locally cached version).
The site now should work better on mobiles and tablets, with a slightly different banner and adverts depending on your screen size. That's the main change – the rest is largely cosmetic.
The relaunch has been… challenging. The friend I commissioned to do it last year did some work on it, then decided it was taking him too long and he needed to find a job. So he gave me the work-in-progress files to finish off. Anyone's who's ever tried to unpick someone else's computer code will know how troublesome it can be, and I didn't have time to really get it going for some time.
Anyway, I've been chipping away at it for a while, and this is the result. You may hate it. Please give it a chance, live with it for a bit. I've done enough site relaunches in my day job to know how attached some people get to old designs, and the normal reaction to change is a wish to revert back to the old one. It normally passes in a day or two.
You may notice that there's no changing banner – it's always the same four portraits. I haven't had time to redo them all. I may do at some point, or I might just stick with what I've got.
OK, over to you. If you don't like it, please suggest how I can make things better. I didn't change things just for fun – there's some reason for most things, but if you really hate something let me know.
11.37pm
16 August 2012
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Hey Joe,
It looks great! I have to admit that the old design was getting pretty dated.
I like how you added sub-categories in the main menu as well.
1.38am
5 November 2011
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It looks a little funny on my iPod; people's posts are not next to their avatars, they're down more. Looks good on the computer, though.
10.03am
31 March 2008
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OK, thanks Unknown. I haven't got an iPod or iPhone, so relied on an Android phone and iPad to do mobile testing. Will try to borrow an iOS device to see what the issue is.
I know the Simple Press people (who made the forum software) are working on a responsive theme, but I don't know when it'll be available. For those who don't know, responsive web design is where, instead of creating multiple versions of a site for desktop, tablet, phone, you make one which scales depending on which screen size the user has. That's what this redesign was all about.
If you're on a desktop machine you can see this in action. Scroll up to the top of the page, then resize your browser window so it becomes narrower. You'll see the banner changing when you get to tablet size, and again when you get to phone width. If you're on a page with a sidebar this will drop down below the rest of the content if the page becomes too narrow. There are three banner styles in all.
Part of the delay was because I couldn't get the thing working on Internet Explorer, which doesn't like media queries (the technical name for how a browser changes its style depending on the device). I had to do some head-scratching to find a workaround – I didn't want to relaunch with IE broken, as a lot of people still use that terrible browser (not necessarily through choice – plenty of workplaces are scared of Chrome, Opera, Safari or Firefox). Glad it worked out in the end, although there'll probably be a few snags here and there.
1.07pm
1 May 2011
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I think it looks far far far better than the old version, much more appealing to the eye especially when first opening the site. I also like how everything looks more square, neat and clean. One thing is that the 'make a new post in this topic' and 'start a new topic' buttons look exactly the same, its difficult to know which is which without hovering over each one and seeing what the caption says when it appears.
3.05pm
1 December 2009
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Yeah, that's annoying. (Same deal with the "log in" and "register to log in" buttons.)
Also, sorry Joe, but I really don't like the new typeface. I hate serifs! Always have. Maybe everybody else feels different or doesn't care at all, I dunno…
No offense, just giving my $0.02. I'll never like it, but I'll learn to live with it and won't complain anymore.
I do really like the main page's yellow submarine in the sea of green
4.31pm
31 March 2008
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I switched between sans and serif typefaces, and eventually went with the latter. I might change it at some other time. I got bored of Verdana TBH.
I noticed the buttons aren't always displaying text. It seems to depend which browser you're using (looks fine to me right now on PC/Chrome, but not on IE). I have no idea why it happens but when I get a bit of time I'll delve in and take a look.
2.42pm
26 March 2012
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Will the framed pictures of the band at the top of the site rotate through different eras as they used to? I always loved that feature.
7.55pm
31 March 2008
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Possibly not. It's complicated, but due to the way they're made the banner size is larger than it used to be (a transparent .png file with quite a lot of detail). It's fine if there's just one image, as it should get cached by people's browsers, but if there are loads of them they each have to be reloaded, and it'd make the site a bit slower. I'll see if I can work something out.
They used to be compressed jpegs, but now have to be transparent so they can move around in the banner area depending on people's browser sizes. So the file sizes are larger. If this means nothing to you don't worry.
11.39pm
3 March 2012
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Love this mobile version!
3.10pm
1 May 2011
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Have moved to Firefox for this site as its so much better having all the functions and buttons operating properly. Sadly IE has a few features FF hasn't so i fluctuate being the two. Its truly wonderful having this place in its full glory.
And have to agree with ontherun that the mobile version is far superior now, it was such a pain trying to hit the right button and being taken to the wrong place.
5.05pm
31 March 2008
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Good to hear. I'm sorry that the buttons don't work in IE – there must be a reason, because they looked OK in the old design. I'm trying to work out what's changed to make the text disappear on the forum buttons (it's likely that IE is detecting that it's on a mobile device and serving up those styles, but I'm not sure why).
Although IE is a pretty awful browser I don't want to abandon it altogether. Plenty of people still use it, and there's no point in making life difficult for them. They'd be doing themselves a favour if they switched to Chrome, FF or Safari though.
Having things working less well in IE is better than not having a mobile site at all. I think we can all agree on that.
6.53am
1 November 2012
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I did an Advanced search for "tabs", and it led me to this last page of "Getting Better" -- but there is no "tabs" here. There is "tables" and "tablets" -- but no "tabs".
The reason I searched for "tabs" (and "chords") was to make sure it hadn't been mentioned before (I also searched the Songs forum).
It would be neat if the Beatles Bible could provide a section for the chords/tabs to each song. I realize that may be a gargantuan project, but it would still be neat to have one place for that.
6.58pm
1 December 2009
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Hey Joe, I just realized that thanks to your changes, the toolbar is back and functioning for me (and presumably meanmm and others) again!
This is a great plus, one that more than makes up for that unsightly serif font. Thanks, Joe!
(Funny Paper, I suspect that including chords/tabs would violate copyrights.)
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