TWF inspired forum site
Hi, I think it's now time for me to post my link here. I created a forum site and TWF was my inspiration. I made it using Drupal CMS. You can see my previous queries for you to know how TWF helps me a lot: 1, 2, 3. Here is my link...
Engineering Forums - The Assembly of Engineering Frontliners
I just launched it yesterday, and already had 2 members including myself. I will consider any response as constructive, I will take it seriously, put your response in my list and implement those I can afford to do. Take note however that the site was made by one man and by non-professional developer and with a day job.
Please focus your critique to the subdomain given in the link, not to the main site.
decibel.places posted this at 03:38 — 15th February 2009.
He has: 1,494 posts
Joined: Jun 2008
hey, good luck!
took a quick look, here's my two ¢¢
The two sidebars on the right are poorly integrated and waste a lot of real estate below them
This also causes "Forum is Locked" text to break awkwardly
If I were an engineer, I could get excited about this site!
RTFVerterra posted this at 06:49 — 15th February 2009.
He has: 109 posts
Joined: Dec 2008
Thanks for the tip, I move the two to the rightmost sidebar.
Civil Engineering Review
decibel.places posted this at 15:40 — 15th February 2009.
He has: 1,494 posts
Joined: Jun 2008
great! that's a big improvement!
some of your text is a bit awkward, eg "You can register to our site and let us start build a community."
I might rewrite it as "Join our site and let's build a community."
some other places need some polishing - do you know any writers?
I think the main site is very interesting, but I am a bit of a math geek.
I think it would be helpful if you reveal your REAL NAME on the site, at least on the forum and blog (unless you have reason to conceal it) - it helps with credibility.
RTFVerterra posted this at 14:05 — 20th February 2009.
He has: 109 posts
Joined: Dec 2008
This is a great idea but as for now, I simply can't afford to hire one.
pr0gr4mm3r posted this at 20:04 — 15th February 2009.
He has: 1,502 posts
Joined: Sep 2006
Looks good - clean and simple layout. I would change the "Username or e-mail: *" on the right to either "Username: *", or put a manual break before the 'or', because it puts a sort of unnatural wrap just the the asterisk.
Other than that, I think it looks good. Clearly, the content is over my head though...like...what the heck is the "hydraulic conductivity of soil"?
RTFVerterra posted this at 14:03 — 20th February 2009.
He has: 109 posts
Joined: Dec 2008
I hope I can do that, but I don't know what file to edit.
Civil Engineering Review
stbnetblocking posted this at 18:17 — 18th February 2009.
They have: 5 posts
Joined: Feb 2009
Looks awesome, and what a great idea! I can tell you know your stuff, with all of those subforums.The colors are really soothing to look at, and create a nice atmosphere.
My only suggestion is that with the dark grey separating the main forums, they seem a little bit dark, and it's hard to read the text, for example, "Specialization" is not contrasted enough with the dark grey.
Man, you have really inspired me. How hard is it to learn how to use Drupal? Is the forum as websafe as using something like phpBB?
Brett
Internet Blocking | Website Blocking
RTFVerterra posted this at 14:06 — 20th February 2009.
He has: 109 posts
Joined: Dec 2008
Hi stbnetblocking, thanks you like it and thank you for your suggestions.
I learned Drupal by trial and error. I cannot compare phpBB and Drupal although I tried phpBB before via Fantastico. Drupal is the first CMS I learned to manually install, not by Fantastico. I stay with Drupal because of its community, they are very helpful.
Civil Engineering Review
UK Bloke posted this at 14:38 — 20th February 2009.
They have: 5 posts
Joined: Feb 2009
Hi
Looks nice, easy to navigate etc.
The text seems to render rather poorly though in my IE7, what font are you using & have you moved away from 'web safe' fonts?
RTFVerterra posted this at 00:19 — 21st February 2009.
He has: 109 posts
Joined: Dec 2008
Thanks for the info, it looks good in my own machine. I used the font family "Lucida Sans", Verdana, Arial, sans-serif. I know Verdana and Arial are websafe, not sure with "Lucida Sans" and sans-serif.
Civil Engineering Review
Vultren posted this at 06:27 — 21st February 2009.
They have: 6 posts
Joined: Feb 2009
Hey nice site. The color choices are the best. Way to go with that. I also really like the icons and how easy the is to navigate. Its not to confusing and is easily assessable.
The things I'd change is that font for the logo, it just doesn't look like a logo much with the really nice looking beta symbol. And the other would be add some more to the toolbar where it says "home" and "rules". I can understand you just made the site, but if you have time in the future, be sure to add more there so it doesn't look odd.
Overall, one of the better forums I've seen. Nice job.
QuinneticDotCom posted this at 23:07 — 23rd February 2009.
They have: 5 posts
Joined: Feb 2009
Hey,
Looks great!! I only have 2 suggestions:
1. on the gray dividers between subjects, maybe you could list the column headers again (i.e. topics, posts, etc..). This way visitors could easily refer to them w/o having to scroll back to the top again. But, maybe I'm the only dufus that can't remember what each column is.
2. Looking at the source, I don't see any keywords/description. These are big helps for SEO bots. You can see examples by pulling up the source for TWF. They are the meta tags w/ the names "keywords" and "description".
Other than that, you have a great site. I love it.
Brian Quinney
JohnnyD posted this at 00:21 — 24th February 2009.
They have: 44 posts
Joined: Jun 2008
I think it looks really nice. The colors are a great combination and it looks to be easily navigated. Nicely done.
stbnetblocking posted this at 18:22 — 4th March 2009.
They have: 5 posts
Joined: Feb 2009
I see, well that's good to know because I used Wordpress for my blog and I have to say that the reason I stick with it is that there is such a great sense of community and support. I don't feel like I'm doing it all alone. So that's something to help me think about with Drupal, thanks.
Brett
Internet Blocking | Website Blocking
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