You may have noticed that we’re tinkering with some template ideas. In particular, drop-down menus look fun and promising. However, they can’t be everywhere. (Or can they?).
We’re interested in your thoughts. As readers, do you like the drop downs? Where (if anywhere) do they need to be implemented?
We’ve followed comments and e-mails about this topic. Now, in an attempt to get some information in a simple, easy to access place, we’ve set up a poll. (Yes, it uses that awful free-poll software, and so there are advertising banners on the results page. That’s a trade off I’m okay with, since I don’t have the time to create my own poll from the ground up).
Please let us know what you think of the changes. The comments are also open. If you have any questions or suggestions, we’re listening.
For each category, please rate it on a scale from 1 (hated) to 5 (loved). If you love the change of “Who we are” to a drop down menu, rate that “5.” If you hated the change of the bloggernacle links to drop down, rate that a “1.” And so forth.
And now, here’s the poll:
What a lousy poll generator — it had bits of extraneous code all over the place. I think I’ve gotten rid of them all. I wouldn’t recommend them for future use.
Sheesh — drop-down menus, polls…. you guys are becoming BCC-lite!! What’s next, made-up names for links? Posts from Kristine??
Steve:
They also appear to have stolen my idea of posting a creative commons license. [Actually those are popping up all over the blogosphere so it probably wasn’t my influence].
Yeah, but like anybody cares about that…
/stumbles in a rush to grab the code/
Steve and William,
Taking credit for drop down menus, polls, the CC license. Next thing we’ll learn is that the two of you shared a garage with Jobs and Wozniak. ;-)
The garage is correct — but it was Hewlett and Packard.
And that uber-babe, Carly Fiorina.
Of course,for the record it should be noted that Steve and I were working on an innovative project that would give electric typewriters the ability to produce type in up to four different colors. Our prototype weighed 45 pounds and the colors were black, blue-black, midnight indigo and chartreuse.
It totally would have revolutionized memos, fund-raising letters, etc. If we could have just worked out the quadruple ribbon threading system, we would be millionaires right now.
Kaimi, you can get free PHP/MySQL or just PHP poll modules that you can just drop into your blog — no outside servers, no advertising.
I don’t understand the purpose in having drop down form fields to act as links.
Kaimi, while we’re on the subject, three small suggestions that would improve my experience at T&S, if you care at all. By the way, I’m not sure at all that some of these problems can be fixed, but I’m just throwing it out there:
1. When I click anywhere on T&S, it takes me to the linked page. When I’m done reading the linked page, I hit back on my browser and wish to be taken back to the same place on the T&S site that I had originally been. Unfortunately, it always takes me to the very top of that page, so I have to then relocate the comment, (often one comment in a very, very long thread of comments), or the sidebar link (if I’d been on the front page), where I’d started. For example, for those of us who look at a variety of blogs using the sidebar here, you have to click on the link, read the blog, hit back, and then scroll back down again to the blogroll to find the next blog you want to read. Sort of a little bit of a pain. is there anyway to make it so that when I hit the back button I’m taken directly back to the link I had clicked in the first place? (I’m using Netscape, by the way, in case the problem is unique to that browser).
2. When I click on the recent comments list, it takes me to that very comment in a thread. However, because the page often takes a few seconds to load, I am often scrolling up the thread to see previous comments in order to get the context of the conversation. By the time I’ve located a good point to start reading the conversation, the page suddenly finishes loading and then forces me back down to the end of the thread, away from where I’ve been reading. Again, a very small annoyance, but annoying nonetheless. Can’t think of any way to fix that, but thought I’d mention it.
3. In your new placement of the comments policy, you spelled comments with three ‘m’s.
All given in the spirit of improvement– thanks for caring!
Kaimi, the fact that you now have an extra step in using a link to navigate away from T&S to another bloggernacle site doesn’t bother me too much, but the real problem with the drop-down menu on the bloggernacle links is that you can no longer see at a glance which blogs you are linked to. You have to enter each drop-down menu separately to find that out.
Ryan —
Get thee a tabbed browser and use it! Free yourself from the tyranny of the back button!
Netscape is a tabbed browser.
I’m using tabs right now Bryce. Or are you suggesting that I should manipulate the settings to open a new tab when I click a link, instead of taking my current window to the new location?
You can right click on the link and open the link in a new tab.
TEST
TEST AGAIN