please test out this site for me

[Betsy]

http://www.bodieslikeours.org/mambo

Consider it the beta release of BodiesV3.0 :magic-2:

Please don't link to this url as it will change when I move it to full production.

It's not quite yet ready for a full release but I am hoping the forum regulars can give it a test drive for me. There are some outstanding issues that are listed below.

What's new is the site will become a completely database driven site and dynamic. The images and top content box changes with each visit. Events, recent news, updates, etc are all now dynamically generated on the front page.

You can set the site or a particular page to your favorites automagically or even make it you home page. You can render any page as a printer friendly one, as a pdf or into an email. You can even recommend this site to anyone you think may like it using a simple form that only requires an email address to be entered.. There is really good search function built in as well that doesn't rely upon google or serve ads.

What I'm hoping for is feedback on useability and intuitiveness...does the structure make sense? Recently a friend who I asked for guidance periodically referred me to a book on web usability by Steve Krug called, "Don't Make Me Think", and it has been helpful in the structure. Let me know if I "got it" (and please don't be hesitant to say no and offer suggestions)

Another issue I am looking at is load times---does the site load quickly, particularly on dialup? The first time may be a tiny bit slow, and subsequent visits should be faster due to caches.

Very importantly, I'm hoping your visits and clicks there will help our web-hosting service evaluate the platform (not to mention my custom coding and modifications) as we move towards a full release. We have great hosting but it's on a shared community server so if usage leads to a process meltdown, it causes problems for our neighbors and thus for Bodies if we are not a good neighbor. As it turns out, we the first to implement this particular CMS platform in a production basis with our host and there are some pretty big unknowns that forces some items into cautionary mode. If pages don't load or give errors, I really need to know before I move it into full production. If problems do arise, please let me know.

Outstanding items include a full links list---I only have a few in there currently. That list is being compiled (thanks Peter!) and will get added shortly.

The research section is not there yet as I need to recompile everything into sections and catagories and do some writing for each item.

The logo currently there is a place holder until I decide on some color and background issues. Then again, the header logo is the same that has served us well for a couple years so it may stay as it. The site just comes across as pretty bland at the moment for me. Let me know what you think.

There is a link to these forums from the top menu that I am still having some rendering issues with. It's fully functional but the page gets trimmed. This is a relatively minor problem that should be taken care of this week (sorry Dana, it cuts off the smilies) The right menu link is fine as it is a full url link.

I am sure that there are some internal content links that either go nowhere, lead back to the main site currently in production use and probably some grammer and spelling errors as some of the site was compiled on the fly while I was at work or during hours when I should have been sleeping. Let me know what and where they are when you find them.

I hope you like it...

Betsy

[Peter]

Hi Betsy,

The load time is fine. On my second visit to the new site, on a slow 56K dial-up modem, the load time for the main page was approximately 5 seconds. This is much faster than the current site originally loaded. (Bodies Version 2 ?).

I am glad that you are looking forward to the future when increased traffic will become more of an issue, and hosting platform independence will be important. Thanks for all of your great work dedicated to hosting this site.

Peter

[Sofie]

When the browser-window is resized, the layout of the tables and the text in the cells gets distorted. I tried both Mozilla 1.7 and Konqueror.
The same thing happens, if the screen-fonts are too big.

The menu on the right side of the screen tries to follow when the page is scrolled. This doesn't work properly on slow systems and the text sometimes dissapears for 3-5 seconds.

May I suggest using a background color (light grey or pastels) for the menues and the top of the page to make it look a bit different from the actual information.

Sofie
the merciless beta-tester :coffee: :coffee: :coffee: :coffee:

[Betsy]

When the browser-window is resized, the layout of the tables and the text in the cells gets distorted. I tried both Mozilla 1.7 and Konqueror.

That's a known issue and only happens on the front page. I've got work to do on the tables still it seems.

The menu on the right side of the screen tries to follow when the page is scrolled. This doesn't work properly on slow systems and the text sometimes dissapears for 3-5 seconds.

I'm not sure I am following you on this. The right menu is fixed so it's hard for me to envision what is occurring.

May I suggest using a background color (light grey or pastels) for the menues and the top of the page to make it look a bit different from the actual information.

Colors and shading are still to be done once a banner is complete.

Thanks ...keep it coming.

Betsy

[Sofie]

I'm not sure I am following you on this. The right menu is fixed so it's hard for me to envision what is occurring.
It only seems to happen with KHTML (Konqueror, Safari), so it's probably not the coding that's wrong.

Sof

[Betsy]

Ok...some changes to the css have been made that seems to fix some of the text overflow. I've also added some color to the menu areas as you can tell. Almost there!

Sofie...I'm glad you are not mono-browser!

Betsy

[Az1]

Good site ,
I was able to navagate pretty easy.

Az1

[Betsy]

I'm headed towards putting the new site live and in production. Right now, I'm putting together a time line as there are some very specific steps that will need to be taken to get it done right. A huge step is moving the old static site into an archive directory. This is necessary and desired for a couple of reasons---for historical purposes and also in case the new platform causes undesired effects in a shared server enviroment which would necessitate returning to it.

The reason I am sharing this is it will also affect this forum. During the process or a bit before it is totally done, the address of this forum will change. If you have the current forum address itself (www.bodieslikeours.org/forums) bookmarked, it will cause a page not found error. The new address will be forum.bodieslikeours.org or something along that line. I'll stick a redirect into the server to point you to the right place so it may not be obvious when it happens. Expect this to happen sometime later today or late tonight depending on how the rest of the process goes.

The reasons for all the changes and behind the scenes work has to do with apache rules, particularly mod_rewrite rules. I'm pretty good at working with that stuff, but I don't consider myself an expert. By changing some physical addresses, it gives me a work around and ensures I don't crash the plane before it even gets off the tarmac. Compound the steps with the fact that I'm doing it in a live production enviroment and it becomes comparable to working on an electrical socket without turning the main power off.

Please be patient over the next few days and if you see a not found error or permission denied page during this time, dont fret...I already know about it and am working at putting it all back together again.

Betsy

[Dana Gold]

If you have the current forum address itself (www.bodieslikeours.org/forums) bookmarked, it will cause a page not found error

I have distributed some 50 of the blue BLO brochures (for IAD) that Peter provided to me. However these have the now "old" BLO URL.......will the people who try to access BLO be "dead-ended" or re-directed? :dunno: Also provided ( appx 50 ) were ISNA copies of "Information for Parents"....is it assumed the new URL will be updated (redirected?) from their webpage as well as Emi's website and others?

BTW, very good work on your part, Betsy....thank you :thumbs_up ....I like the new format, easy to navigate and peruse.

Dana :smile:

PS: Do we still get to have lots of smilies? :confused6

:wink:

[Betsy]

Functionality of the forums will not change, only the address. It's mostly a housekeeping issue. Technically, if everything works like is should and assuming I don't make any glaring errors, it should be pretty much invisible on the front end.

The website address will continue to be bodieslikeours.org. In fact, it is the desire to keep it bodieslikeours.org that is driving the changes otherwise everything would need to be accessed in a directory as it is right now with the development location of the new site.

Part of the process is consideration for google and other search engines along with those external links that come into Bodies. There are literally hundreds of sites out there that link to us and some of them include deep-links which can cause a problem if those links are not redirected. They may not get redirected to the exact location but they will end up at the main site and I'm confidant enough in the new structure that anything they are looking for will be easily located, plus the core files have a powerful search engine (and it's going to become more powerful this afternoon or evening once I am done with the custom code for the module--this part is nice because it will also generate a site map which is something I've always wanted)

I've put a lot of thought into the actual structure and over the development course it has changed a few times but because of the way the url's form, it needs to be settled before I take the site truly live. There is some content still not moved over because I haven't figured out how I want to structure that part yet. I have the framework in place but need to set up catagories for the content and that is what is holding me up. Plus it also means settling in for a long night of cutting and pasting.

Betsy

[Dana Gold]

All of these changes sounded very complex and confusing to me :confused_ ....but it also seems everything will be AOK in the long run, which is good that BLO will remain easily accessible, .....what I was concerned about....thanks again , Betsy. :biggrin:

:applaudth

[Betsy]

I think I pulled it off. Whew---I surprise even myself sometimes.

betsy

[Sofie]

Now the menues on the right seem to work with all browsers :applaudth
On some pages the text is "pushed" on top of pictures.
I had a look at other websites, to see how they do their layout, and most of them use 1pix GIFs.

Sofie

[Betsy]

I'm aware of the overflow problem. It tested fine down to 800x600 resolution for me but if you are looking at the page in a window smaller than that, it borks and runs into the overflow. The template is a variable width which is one the issues that causes that. If it were a fixed width one, you would end up in an I-frame in those situations. That was one of the tradeoffs for what I wanted with the template. On the other hand, I'm playing around with another template on a testing site so it's possible that the layout will change at some point if I can get it to do what I want it to.

I'm not sure what you mean by this:

most of them use 1pix GIFs.

<edit> or let me know which pages you saw the overflow on in case I simply missed them during my testing </edit>

Betsy

[Betsy]

Some of the items and features I've added in over the past few days and thus far seem stable are:

1. Feeds from the site. You can get desktop updates through the RSS viewer of your choice (or your browser if it has an RSS reader---use Firefox) . Syndication is available of the front page (which includes just about every single content item that gets added) , the news page, the newsletter page, and the press release page. I can add other pages if you are interested, let me which ones you would like. I know for sure the front page and the news feeds work as they should---there may be some problems with the other two which I can't work on until I add more content into them. If the page you are looking at has links to RSS feeds, it is available. If you have no idea what I am talking about but want to learn more, google RSS Readers.

1a. I may add syndication off the forums if anyone is interested in that as well. Let me know if you would use it and if so, I can drop it in.

2. There is a very rough "site map" installed that still needs some organizing. Right now it is a simple list of all content items.

3. I pulled the calendar temporarily as it wasn't working to my specifications. I'm searching for a replacement or will try and figure out why I was having display problems for items too far in the future. There is still a link to Emi's events listings.

4. I've broken out the incoming feeds so they are easier to access and read.

5. You can download firefox from the front page via the graphical link. The site was really built with Firefox in mind as it is such a superior browser to IE. It's also a safer browser than IE is.

6. Added some tracking/anti-spam mechanisms to the tell a friend script.

7. Added a little script to hopefully thwart any other spam attacks as occurred this morning here in the forums. That was purely reactionary to what occurred and hopefully will never be need to be used. Unless you are planning a spam attack, you will likely never see it in action. If you inadvertantly do, you'll know it and just drop me a line so I can fix it for you.

If there is anything you would like to see added, let me know.

Betsy