Wish-List Time! / new Brewerfan.net site discussion

[Brian the Automator]

As far as handhelds go, I plan on handling them either with a separate stylesheet or perhaps even with a completely different outer template page. Unfortunately, this is something I won't be able to carry over to yuku.

[1e Corbeau]

perhaps exclusive brewerfan blogs (I'll start a separate thread on the recruiting process for that at some point).

 

I think it's a great idea to have featured bloggers. I also think a site-hosted blogging tool that's available to everyone would be a great way to promote more member ownership in the community, create content and keep more hits on the bf.net servers.

 

I don't think there's anything wrong with segregating the "featured" from the "member" blogs, necessarily. You could also build in (or find some open source software) a voting/recommend function for "member" blogs to have a top 3-8 blogs, as voted by peers.

 

Thanks for including everyone in this discussion.

[1992casey]

I've moved a couple of posts about site rules into this thread:

 

Moderators: Can we have a venting forum? / other moderating concerns

 

That way, we can let this thread concentrate on site features, functionality, and usability.

[sgtcluels]

Very cool format, simple and clean. My only critique would be the header bars in the sections are a bit hard to read with the goldish/white. But very nice...

[1992casey]

I know a couple of mods mentioned the white/gold combo when Brian unveiled a previous prototype to us several months ago. It's typical for me to be among the first to scream bloody murder when I can't see something due to color choices... but in this case, I could see it. Of course, I only looked at it on one monitor.

 

Switching one color on a page/site is a snap, meaning it can be done at any time without being disruptive. It's no sweat making that adjustment when the site is up and running. When the board migrated to Yuku, several skin adjustments were made based on member feedback. (There was the day that I turned the whole board black and yellow for IE 6 users, but I digress....)

 

Keep in mind that it's probably better to do a final evaluation of a color combo from a "live" page rather than a screen capture.

[Brian the Automator]

Very cool format, simple and clean. My only critique would be the header bars in the sections are a bit hard to read with the goldish/white. But very nice...

I see what you mean. I wish there were a way with CSS to outline the letters in the header bar with a black border. There's technically a tag to allow it, but most browsers don't support it. The alternative would be having images for those headers, but I'd like to try to avoid that, as it would take processing power and loading time.

[Team Canada]

It's going to be really sweet if/when all browsers support css3.

[1e Corbeau]

It's going to be really sweet if/when all browsers support css3.

 

Agreed. box-shadow will rock... It's too bad everyone doesn't leave IE for chrome or safari (while I am hypocritically viewing this is FF3...)

[Brian the Automator]

Agreed. box-shadow will rock... It's too bad everyone doesn't leave IE for chrome or safari (while I am hypocritically viewing this is FF3...)

I switched to Chrome for a while, but their lack of plugin/addon support turned me back to firefox (at least for now). I do like how safari for Windows renders pages, though.

[TheCrew07]

We're looking at web scouting system which would support not only football, but all of the sports for the high school as well. It's pretty cool technology and a couple of NFL teams are using the more robust version of it. When I was discussing and researching the product at the clinic I was most interested in FF and IE support (I use FF at home and IE at work and most families will have IE on their home computers), but the developer I was talking to mentioned Safari is supported as well. I'm pretty comfortable in FF, I thought it was significant step up from IE. I wasn't a big fan of Chrome, though it had some positives, maybe I jumped ship too early. My question would be, where does Safari fit in the grand scheme? Is it easier to use? Load faster? Similar to FF? Does it auto correct for size? For example above Brian posted the pic of the website, which screwed up this entire thread for me in FF as I now have to scroll it right and left to read the text, is that something Safari would correct? Is Safari something I should look into and push the other coaches and kids towards if we sign up? My original plan was to hang my hat on FF, as the easier the browser is to use the better, any insight would be appreciated.

[1992casey]

Chrome is part of the Safari family. They use the same rendering engine.

 

For the most part, you have the IEs and everything else. The "everything else" is standards compliant and should work fairly similarly. The IEs are noted for their unpredictability.

 

Still, there are differences between the standards compliant browsers. They can be due to a slightly different interpretation of the standards, or they could be due to bugs. Rendering bugs are fairly rare in these browsers, though.

 

But as I alluded to above, differences between standards compliant browsers are nothing compared to what IE does. Even different versions of IE can vary wildly. Also, the IEs have all those "modes" to pay attention to... standards mode, quirks mode, compatibility mode, etc.

 

Note that standards compliant isn't necessarily "standards complete." CSS 3 is filtering in, for instance, but because it's not yet "official," different browsers have implemented different aspects of it.

 

I guess if I were to look at a major project like you're doing, I'd test the IE family, the Mozilla family, the Safari family, and Opera.

[Team Canada]

Opera's fit-to-width feature is sweet when you need it.

 

Casey's on the money, as usual. I have IE, FF, Opera, Chrome, and Safari all open right now for some site testing, and I've found as he states that Chrome and Safari act the same. Opera and Firefox are fairly similar in rendering, although they have their differences. And then IE's is it's own little world of terribleness. If I were a full time web developer I think I would kill myself.

[1992casey]

There are some other things that make sense to pay attention to.

 

Firefox 3 uses a newer rendering engine than the other Mozilla browsers. There are differences in those engines. I'd assume that the other Mozilla browsers will "catch up" and behave like Firefox 3 at some point.

 

We see one of those differences right here on the board. Firefox 3 handles wide material in posts differently than Firefox 2 (and the other Mozilla browsers). The Firefox 3 behavior is now similar to the Safari and IE families. Wide material forces the whole thread page to be wider. Firefox 2, the other Mozilla browsers, and Opera will automatically place a scroll bar within the post. Mozilla must have decided that Microsoft and Safari had the correct interpretation of the standard.

 

Other Mozilla browsers that should be given an special look are Camino and K-Meleon. Camino is set up to interact specifically with OS X. K-Meleon is Windows-specific. The rest of the Mozilla family is essentially platform-independent.

 

Page rendering in Camino and K-Meleon should be similar to the other Mozilla browsers, but programming aspects of a site might be affected. There's a toy in Yuku's admin controls that works in all Mozilla browsers tested except Camino. I don't know if anyone's checked K-Meleon.

[BCZF]

Isint ie8 supposed to be standards compliant?

[1992casey]

I guess it's supposed to be compliant when it's running in the right mode. Each of the last two IEs have made improvements in the compliance area.

 

However, when IE 8 is running in compatibility mode, compliance goes out the window. Compatibility mode is necessary to view the Yuku boards, for instance. It appears that fixes and workarounds to make earlier IEs work properly are also affecting IE 8.

 

I couldn't tell you if this situation is Yuku's fault or if it's Microsoft's fault. There are times when Yuku "sniffs" browsers when it should be "sniffing" for feature support. That would be Yuku's fault; the Safari/Chrome mess is an example. However, the fact that Yuku has to "sniff" anything at all would be Microsoft's fault.

[ttsather]

One feature I've always wished we had was just a simple, quick-glance "Upcoming Games" box on the top or side of the page to confirm times and such for the next couple games.

[PeaveyFury]

One feature I've always wished we had was just a simple, quick-glance "Upcoming Games" box on the top or side of the page to confirm times and such for the next couple games.

 

That's really a great idea. I'd use that constantly.

[Brian the Automator]

One feature I've always wished we had was just a simple, quick-glance "Upcoming Games" box on the top or side of the page to confirm times and such for the next couple games.

This is something I'm hoping to implement, and expand upon with upcoming pitchers as well.

[sbrylski]

I haven't expressed it before, so I just wanted to add that I fully support an adopt-a-prospect feature separate from the forums. The Daily Link Reports are amazing for coverage of everything that happens in a day, but player pages for each prospect updated frequently would be awesome.

 

The three components on each page I would like to see are periodically updated scouting reports on the top of the page (with the most recent visible and the others archived), followed up career stats as current as possible, and then news reports by the players sponsor in a RotoWire/Rotoworld type format, all displayed and listed most recent to least recent.

 

Also, It would be great to have our own organizational statistics page like the one on Baseball Reference, but I suppose if that is already available we don't really need to copy it.

 

EDIT: And I also vote for an honorary Russell Branyan player page on the site.

[hawing]

EDIT: And I also vote for an honorary Russell Branyan player page on the site.

If ever there were a Brewerfan.net Legend, it would be Russell. It's hard to imagine you not agreeing, Brian.

[Brian the Automator]

If ever there were a Brewerfan.net Legend, it would be Russell. It's hard to imagine you not agreeing, Brian.

I think a separate "man crush" section (or "crush" section, if you're female) would be a nice feature. Branyan, Ginter, Mark Bellhorn, Brian Lesher, and others come to mind.

[hawing]

I think a separate "man crush" section (or "crush" section, if you're female) would be a nice feature. Branyan, Ginter, Mark Bellhorn, Brian Lesher, and others come to mind.

Call it a "fan crush" section and it accommodates everyone.

[TooLiveBrew]

"Fan crush"... brilliant http://forum.brewerfan.net/images/smilies/smile.gif

[sbrylski]

A counter for each forum posting, like youtube comments. Can cut down on the number of one line responses to agree.

 

(Apologies if already suggested. It feels like it had been, but I couldn't find it reading through quick.)

[sbrylski]

A counter for each forum posting, like youtube comments. Can cut down on the number of one line responses to agree.

 

(Apologies if already suggested. It feels like it had been, but I couldn't find it reading through quick.)

To clarify this very vague request, I mean the things circled in red below:

 

http://i35.photobucket.com/albums/d175/sbrylski06/thumbs.jpg