Subforums moved to bottom

[PaulX]

I've just made a small change to the board so that when you're viewing a main forum's contents, the subforums are now displayed at the bottom of the page rather than the top.

Personally I've always felt that having the subforums at the top was wrong, especially when those subforums aren't particularly busy and you end up having to scroll down to get to the latest posts in the forum. They also distracted from important announcements.

So I've just done the code changes I need to move them to the bottom. I think this is the right move for the majority of subforums.

But there's always a snag, isn't there? Some subforums are very popular and would benefit from being at the top - the Bangface Weekender subforum is one such example. There is an announcement at the top of the main Bang Face forum to remind people of the BFW subforum though. And of course the links from the main index page still work.

Give it a few days and see if you can get your head round this little change. We can always give the Bangface section its own special template if need be to ensure BFW is at the top if that's what people prefer.

[baldmosher]

I think this is the most pointless layout change ever.

It was hard enough remembering to check for posts in the subforums to begin with, now I have to remember to look at the bottom of each forum for subforums, just in case there is one in the forum I'm looking at



FTR I hate subforums anyway.

[PaulX]

It was hard enough remembering to check for posts in the subforums to begin with,

Well, if the subforum's link on the index page is red, there are new posts. If it's blue, there aren't.

I've never really understood the thinking behind putting subforums at the top. If you have several subforums, it means you have to scroll down quite a way just to see what's in the main forum. It seems a bit arse-over-tit when the subforums are much quieter than the main forum.

It's a bit different with the BFW one, which is very busy and popular at the moment. James and I may create a special BF template to get round that problem if need be.

[Magma]

Finding it a bit of an annoyance today, but I expect I'll get used to it... it's not like it really makes a massive difference to things. I like having them at the top mainly because that's where every other board seems to put them and so I just naturally look up there for updates. Sure I can eventually change that in my head for this one forum though, no biggy, if that's the way people have asked for it to be?

[baldmosher]

I've never really understood the thinking behind subforums anywhere, it's just more places for n00bs to put (and lose) threads.

[Magma]

I've never really understood the thinking behind subforums anywhere, it's just more places for n00bs to put (and lose) threads.

Troo. Especially on relatively quiet boards like this one, I suppose.

Meh, it's hard to complain when someone else goes to the trouble of running the place. It's a great resource for everyone, no matter how it's laid out! (At least it doesn't look like the Drownedinsound forum!)

[fletcher]

I agree with boldmasher - would only make more sense if the forums were busier...

[PaulX]

So everybody likes having subforums that haven't changed in months being at the top of forums, so you have to scroll down to see the main forum posts all the time? O-kaaaaaay.

There are good reasons for not having all those subforums up there. One is that they reduce the impact of important announcements (i.e. they tend to be missed among all the 'noise'), another is that it's poor from an SEO point of view. Besides, do people enjoy having to scroll down all the time just to see the latest posts?

There isn't a lot of point in having the subforums showing at all on the forum pages to be honest. You can click directly to them from the index page, so there's no real point.

I'm hoping to bring back some form of scrolling "latest posts" box on the index when I have time to update the board anyway (updating the board itself is easy-peasy, it's doing all the custom bits and bobs that makes it a real ballache).

[baldmosher]

There isn't a lot of point in having the subforums showing at all on the forum pages to be honest. You can click directly to them from the index page, so there's no real point.

Indeed you can! Then this argument is folly.

[PaulX]

How are people getting on with this? I've had it like that for a few days to see how things would go. I can switch things back to how they were within a few seconds as I have the old files backed up on the server. I may revert to how they were anyway, at least until after I've done some updates.