Our new look... do you like it?

I just uploaded new pics on thenew format site and though it took a minute for me to scroll arond on my netbook (small screen) I really do like that the pics are larger size (cause that's what we log in to see) and if we want the story and info, it is only one click away.

The "pull down" type menus give a cleaner look to the page, I would just request that you do not make them to large because on my netbook (due to a smaller screen) I think it is clipping hte bottom.

Overall, I really like the look of a photo album, expecially when you see the new young anglers showing off the "catch of the day", it brings a smile to my face.

Willard - thanks for the feedback. Glad you like it. I need to work some more on the menus - the reports pull down in particular.

FYI... One of my goals with this redesign is to work on all size screens - even as small as mobile phones. I set the foundation last night's software, which took months to build. But still more work to be done before smooth on a phone.

In using it this morning, I found a couple of other problems:

1) the images sometime stack up - refreshing the screen usually fixes this, but I'll need to take a look at this.

2) the menu does not work well on a touch screen.

I have a good idea how to fix both and should have both problems fixed by tonight.

I was a little confused at first.

Love: 1)Larger Photos

2) The overall high Tech appearance.

3) The availability of an individual species review.

Lost: 1) Can't find the largest fish in each catagory by weight / size.

2) Cant find the points and votes of the top 6-7 fishermen on the site.

Don't Like: 1) increased adds on the side and mixed in with the photos.

2) harder to find the discussion groups and topics.

3) Don't think the world spot and red dots on an entire page is necessary.

Hope to see: 1) If I can keep the map section localized (not that interested in the Europen catches)

2) That I will become better at the navagation of the site.

Ads are covering words and don't like the partial pics (smaller pics where you only see fins or tree tops)

Now i see what you mean about refreshing the page. Its much better after that.

I'am having the same issue as Brian, I try refreshing the page but it's still the same small photo's just seeing the top of tree's and fins. 

Also in the dissucion forum, The ad's are in the way of most of the conversation on certain people. 

so far so good

Website upgrades always seem to to work better from your home or work computer until you upload to your Host.  Having a lot of larger pics/graphics usually prevents all of them from loading, which is why a lot of sites reduce the number of pics to load so they load faster. Depending on internet speed, site traffic, and differences in individual or personal pc's will always vary.

As far as your new look, I like the larger pics but my eyes seems to get lost trying to look at them, unlike before they seemed more organized - you could see everything at a glance.

As far as ads, I've never seen one since I've signed up and still don't (not complaining).

I also like the "mouse-over" menus.

looks good but how do i see what everyone is catching today?

Thanks for the feedback, guys.

FYI... I'm working on the problems with the pictures now.  Looks like it might be harder that I thought to fix. Bob is axactly right - it was workingg fine for me when testing and did not see this problem until I put it on the server last night. Ugh.

i really like how you can see multiple pictures... looks bad ass

Thanks, Ray...  I think it looks badass, too!  The home page will show the most recent catches like it did before.  I did not change what catches showed, I just changed the look with bigger preview images and the layout.

Well... I figured out the problem with the images stacking up and had to add a couple more lines of code to make sure the images loaded before the layout got calculated.  Anyway, it should be fixed now.

Please let me know if you are still having any problem with the images stacking up. 

I tested with Internet explorer and firefox on my PC and safari on my ipad.  They all seem to work now, but appreciate your help

Dennis - thanks for your great feedback.  Regarding the advertisements. I'm experimenting with 3 per page (vs. 1 before) to see how that affects the advertising revenue. I'd like to get the site running profitably while keeping in free for everyone.  I'm trying to find the right balance with a clean design vs. "annoying ads".  I plan to try a few other ideas in the coming months.

It's clear i need to do some more work on the navigation. It's still a little clumsy. You will always find the recent discussions on the home page and under the "Share" menu.

I temporarily took out the point leaders and biggest fish. I was not sure how to include in the layout and it slows the website down quite a bit. So, I commented out that code (it's still in the system and wanted to make it easy to turn back on).

Regarding the maps... stay tuned. I have some good stuff coming.  I'm hoping to bring you guys better fishing maps (with depth charts) versus the standard google maps.  The reason you find a big map on a separate page is to set the stage for this.

I hope that addresses your questions and concerns.

Thank you all for helping to make Hooked-in the best fishing site!

Not iPad friendly 1 bit. :(

I got about 20 pics but can't upload them from my phone or iPad.

Joe,

Nice work. I am particularly happy that the small icons are gone, replaced by good old fashioned words on the top menu. Whatever you do, do not bring back the icons!

As for the rest, I like it fine and will get use dto it quickly. I had no problems scrolling or uploading photos from a PC.

There may be a bit too much blank space to the right as you scroll down past the ads. How about afilling it up with a randomly chosen "angler of the week" photo?

Hank

Joe,

Another suggestion: our individual profile pages have really small pictures. Any way to fill up that blank space with a larger version of the profile picture? Since all the other pics are larger, that one might be larger, too.

Just a thought

H

Mike - I'll work out the iPad problems. It seems viewing the listings is ok. Need to figure out how to post photos. iOS is totally different than PC so it may be some work. I do want to get hooked-in more friendly to tablets and hand-hend devices. When we started 5 years ago, these were not around. But today, they're everywhere! In fact, I'm using an iPad right now.

Henry - thanks. Yes, those icons were terrible and glad they are gone. Glad you like the larger pics. As I was doing the redesign, I asked myself "what's the best part of Hooked-in?" and obviously the pictures. So, the redesign amped up the photos (and minimized everything else). Good idea putting more photos in the right rail. I'm still not satisfied with the design and you just gave me a few more ideas.

Mike - Update on iPad... Uploading files from ipad has been a problem for every website. So we're not alone and there's been no easy fix... Until now. iOS 6 just came out last week and it finally supports photo uploads. So all you have to do is update to iOS 6 and you can post to hooked-in. I just did that and it works great.

You may want to take a quick look to see if the  catch edit page is uploading pictures to both the home page view and full catch view.

I noticed that when I used edit to update one of my catches from 9/22 that the text uploaded the edit and it reflects in the full view of the catch, but the pic only updated on the home page, not on the full view of the catch. 

Ok updated gonna try to upload all my pics from last month.

I do like it, but will take time on getting use to.

Sorry to be a nudge, but:

1)  I really like seing the largest catch of each fish type and then going to that species and see the 2nd, third, and fourth largest etc.

2) I also miss the highest catches by anglers on the individual fish type.

3) I really miss seeing other member's point and vote totals. Would like the top ten of each.

4) Lastly a Photo without a name attached is not as meaningful to me. I feel like I want to track other member's catches. I could look up Pickerel in an encyclopedia and see great set of photos, but have no personal connection to the angler. (Iknow it is available with the extra click on each photo, but that does not flow as well)

OK I'm done. Other's will speak out. I've said my piece.

Dennis - thanks for the feedback. Still trying to find the right balance.

#1 and #2 - I could not figure out how to put that into the layout

#3 - you can see member point and vote totals on their fishing report page, but I get your point that it should be more apparent.

#4 - do you mean no names on the photo caption?  It would be easy to add that back (It just makes the captions a bit longer). I was also thinking a mini-version of the member profile photo.

Jessica and Angelo - above you reported "Also in the dissucion forum, The ad's are in the way of most of the conversation on certain people."  I did not know what you meant at first because it looked fine in my tests. But I finally found the problem using the iPad... comments bled off the right of the section and went under the ads.

I think I fixed it by changing the layout of the page. It looks better on the ipad and not seeing that problem any more. Let me know if it fixed the problem for you.

Dennis - I just added names to the ends of the photo captions on the listings. Let me know if that works better for you.

Really like the larger photos. Makes it all about the fish! Thanks for all your hard work.

As a great work in progress, it is coming along very nicely. I do like the name added to the photo. Thanks a lot for all your hard work and listening to us content anglers who do a little complaining.

Joe,

Nice work adding the names to captions. It makes a difference. I just had a look at the front page, and wondered "Is there a way to get that ad away from the front and center photo line at the top? My understanding is that such ads belong in the upper right corner of a page, as that where the eye is drawn first. Regardless, it interrupts the photos on the front page. I understand you need the ads, however.

H

Scracth the previous comment - the ad moved. Do they "float?"

Okay, two more things:

a) I definitely like the "switch to map view" function.

b) I am with Dennis when he says he liked seeing the fishes listed by size on the old layout. It made me want to fish more. lol

H

Senor Navarro - glad you like the format. that's the idea with the new design - it's all about the photos!

Dennis - You're quite welcome. And thank you!

Henry - thank you, too. The ads show randomly up to 3 per page max - I'm running an experiment.  You're right that ads are often in the right rail. But there is no right rail in the new layout. So, I mixed with the photos. Glad you like the move of the map... I'm paving the way for some new map features - maybe even depth charts.

Dennis and Henry - I've got to think some more on how to integrate the leaderboard.

Thanks Joe, problem solve. 

first the page looks great with the bigger photos           

i would like the leaderboards and expert and elite rankings shown

i like the biggest catches per species list but it never did quite work because of made up sizes so no great lose

i dont mind the ads on the pages if you can make this profitable all the better for the future of the site

but the page does look cleaner and the pics look great which is what i come here the most for is to see what everyone else has been catching so thanks for the hard work joe .

Great job !

How come my pictures are blurry now? They're are clear and in focus on my camera and computer but as soon as I upload them they become very blurry. 

Nevermind. I clicked on edit and re-entered my pics and they came out better.

Site looks good,Joe!

The site seems to be very slow to load up. Is that my computer or is there so much going on that there a lag to get it all in??

thanks for the feedback, guys.  The site is probably a little slower to load up because the bigger pictures require more data to download. Also, the new layout makes your computer work a little harder. But I hope the good parts of the new design make the extra delay worthwhile.

Actually, I just noticed that the site seems to load pics more quickly now.

On a separate subject, I wanted to enter fish caught at an event, but the "Event" function on the post a photo page would not let me. Can you change that so we can enter fish caught at tournaments?

cant change my profile picture