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New site design

[Update: As you can see I have updated MLR to the new theme. I’m pretty happy with it but welcome continuing feedback. Thanks to all that have done so!]

I’ve been fooling around with a new site design for MLR. I’m kind of bored with the old one and it has some problems with functionality. I’m looking for better readability, less reliance on plugins but more importantly, faster loading times. Studies show that users leave a site if it hasn’t loaded in 4 seconds. Load time should be at least 90% as measured by Google Page Speed and Yahoo YSlow.

So please check out http://mlrtest.com and let me know what you think! You can also leave test comments but they will be erased. Load time is slow there as I haven’t optimized that site.

Please leave any feedback here and thanks!

Art

79 thoughts on “New site design”

    • The theme that drove the old layout was problematic in that it’s coding was slowing the site down and conflicting with plugins. This theme is faster and coded better with a ton of options to easily change the formatting.

      The layout now is very close the old one, just the colors are different (and they can be changed). Can you be more specific?

      Thanks

    • The big problem is converting all the existing WordPress posts and comments into a forum format. That coupled with finding how to handle the subscriptions sounds daunting, to say the least.

      • Hi Art, I like the idea for the new site. My only problem with the current site is the login situation I’m having from my work PC. Apparently your system reads each of my logins as if it were coming from different IP address. SO if I log in today and try to login tomorrow it says I’ve used up the allowable amount of times I can login (or something like that). So I usually have to wait about 2 days before I can log-in again.

        It’s probably an issue from my job’s system, but maybe the new site can fix this problem.

        • Hi guscave,

          I just checked your IP addresses and it looks like your work IPs are being assigned dynamically so every time you log in from work the last 3 digits of your IP address changes. In your case the last three are:
          72.xxx.xxx.161
          72.xxx.xxx.163
          72.xxx.xxx.105

          Your home IP seems to be always the same at 66.xxx.xxx.xx.

          The system is designed to block any username with more than 4 IP addresses. I deleted all the IP addresses so it should be fixed – for awhile. Once there are 4 different IP addresses against your user name you will have the same problem. When that happens shoot me an e-mail and I will clear them out again.

          Sorry for the hassle.

          Art

    • Gotta echo this. Going through all the comments for the different libraries is a bit cumbersome right now due to it being like a blog.

      Thanks for the site btw; very useful. 🙂

  6. Hi Art,

    Apart from the font and snow-glare, I didn’t notice any tangible difference.

    (My 2c, as always, is for a forum style setup. Easier to navigate, find comments and follow extended discussions.)

  7. Font size seems a little big in the “recent comments” section, and maybe a tiny bit big over all…. I like the font size on the original site because you don’t have to scroll as much. Looking good though!

    • I actually shrunk the font size a bit but will mess with it some more. My problem is I know enough to be dangerous. I’ve been working with the theme developer but his communication skills are a bit lacking.

  8. Since you ask Art, visually, I was going a little snow blind on that one to be honest. Could use a crayon or two but I’d would be fine with whatever you do to keep the site going.
    I know this ones been having problems.

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