New Homepage

[Vicious]

Thank you guys at AF.com for making it less jumbled. It still looks like a cheap knock off of the old site, which nothing was wrong with, but it's worlds better than what it was previously "upgraded" to. Now if you could just figure out how to put the advertisements on the right as a banner across the top to give the boards the same room they previously had then that would be great. I don't understand why that wasn't done in the first place, but I'm starting to see that common sense isn't very common at all. Go Falcons!

EDIT: Ok, the new look might be growing on me. Also, the navigation seems to be wayyyyyy faster. Good job guys!

[FalconTough]

I only see one ad at thats in the top right corner of the thread..

Then Its the popular and recent topic, then all the way down is white..

[Vicious]

I only see one ad at thats in the top right corner of the thread..

Then Its the popular and recent topic, then all the way down is white..

I don't even see the ad. Everyone else keeps talking about the ad, but I definitely see the popular and recent topics. IMO they should be moved to the top or bottom of the forum and stretched across the page or stacked beside each other so that the rest of the forum can go back to covering the width of the page, but again that would be me. Apparently someone enjoys looking at a scrunched up screen. It already hurts my eyes looking at the forums on this netbook at work, but now it's 10x worse.

[Atlsport]

I had just made this topic, because I coudn't easily see that VA had already made one thanks to this ridiculous layout until later so I zapped it.

FYI to OP, Unlike the AF.com page, the NFL and a 3rd party not the Falcons host and manage the MB's and are the ones responsible for the changes we've seen here.

[Tandy]

I love the new home page - easy to navigate!

THANKS TO THE WHOLE AF.COM CREW!!! BEAUTIFUL!

As for the message board - I added Adblocker and switched to Firefox, beefed up the size a little (Hit Ctrl - and roll the mouse wheel) - and it's readable and tolerable until they remove that ad.

[NorCal Falcon Fan]

I give an "attaboy" to the new homepage! Sweet work, nice layout, light design, and easy to navigate.

So, about this message board issue.....

[Vicious]

I had just made this topic, because I coudn't easily see that VA had already made one thanks to this ridiculous layout until later so I zapped it.

FYI to OP, Unlike the AF.com page, the NFL and a 3rd party not the Falcons host and manage the MB's and are the ones responsible for the changes we've seen here.

I'm aware of that, but I'm sure they can voice our displeasure to the people responsible.

[NorCal Falcon Fan]

I love the new home page - easy to navigate!

THANKS TO THE WHOLE AF.COM CREW!!! BEAUTIFUL!

As for the message board - I added Adblocker and switched to Firefox, beefed up the size a little (Hit Ctrl - and roll the mouse wheel) - and it's readable and tolerable until they remove that ad.

Tandy, Thanks for the hints to make the experience on this page more tolerable to my old bifocaled eyes.

I learned one thing after scrolling the mouse wheel and enlarging the page though. I hit +1 to give you an attagirl, but, no worky. Then I hit "reply" and nada. Scrolled the page back to it's original size and, voila! Hit reply and here I am responding to your post. Not sure if it's an IE thing or not, but I'll download Mozilla/Firefox later and give it a whirl, see if it works on the buttons.

Good tip, Thank you!

[KJinCton]

I love the new home page - easy to navigate!

THANKS TO THE WHOLE AF.COM CREW!!! BEAUTIFUL!

As for the message board - I added Adblocker and switched to Firefox, beefed up the size a little (Hit Ctrl - and roll the mouse wheel) - and it's readable and tolerable until they remove that ad.

Great tip Tandy! I've never come across that before.

[Guest James H.]

Now if you could just figure out how to put the advertisements on the right as a banner across the top to give the boards the same room they previously had then that would be great. I don't understand why that wasn't done in the first place, but I'm starting to see that common sense isn't very common at all. Go Falcons!

Thanks man.

Sadly, it's just not that easy. Things change daily in the NFL - we get thees memos with new requirements, sponsor obligations, etc, etc, and it all just makes consistency and focus impossible.

We do our best, but trust me -- nobody here sucks. There is usually an unfortunate reason for why things are the way they are. We have highly respected designers, but there isn't much you can do the kinds of challenges we have.

It's a balanced chaos.

[bossFALCON™]

Thanks man.

Sadly, it's just not that easy. Things change daily in the NFL - we get thees memos with new requirements, sponsor obligations, etc, etc, and it all just makes consistency and focus impossible.

We do our best, but trust me -- nobody here sucks. There is usually an unfortunate reason for why things are the way they are. We have highly respected designers, but there isn't much you can do the kinds of challenges we have.

It's a balanced chaos.

so are they going to be stuck like this or is it really just temporary.

gotta give it to jay he was right. the new site is a lot better. it's very similar to the old one, just looks updated. a WHOLE lot easier to navigate.

[JayAdams]

so are they going to be stuck like this or is it really just temporary.

gotta give it to jay he was right. the new site is a lot better. it's very similar to the old one, just looks updated. a WHOLE lot easier to navigate.

I wouldn't steer you wrong.

[ukfalc]

The new HP is definitely a huge improvement. Clear to navigate and much more pleasant on the eye.

Unfortunately, some of the menus at the top of the page don't display correctly for me, but I suspect that's because I'm still running an old version of IE from the stone ages.

[Vicious]

Thanks man.

Sadly, it's just not that easy. Things change daily in the NFL - we get thees memos with new requirements, sponsor obligations, etc, etc, and it all just makes consistency and focus impossible.

We do our best, but trust me -- nobody here sucks. There is usually an unfortunate reason for why things are the way they are. We have highly respected designers, but there isn't much you can do the kinds of challenges we have.

It's a balanced chaos.

Oh I wasn't implying that you guys did. I'm referring to the powers that be who decided to place the junk on the right thus shrinking the boards. It could have been layed out way better by just throwing the stuff onto the top of th boards, or bottom, and making it the same width of the boards. Why shrink the boards to add something nobody cares about? Anyway, great job with the homepage redesign. It looks much better than it did.

[ukfalc]

Thanks man.

Sadly, it's just not that easy. Things change daily in the NFL - we get thees memos with new requirements, sponsor obligations, etc, etc, and it all just makes consistency and focus impossible.

James,

I checked out a number of other official team boards at random ealier today, by way of comparison.

The Giants, Bears, Broncos, Steelers, Bengals and Chargers all used different mesasage board platforms to ours, and all had much less advertising. The Chargers board didn't have any adverts at all. The only team board I visited that was using the same platform as us, was the ravens. Whilst we have 4 sizeable Ad banners on our site, they only had 2, and one of them was small.

Do the NFL really host all official team boards, and decide what advertisements are displayed, their dimensions and and where and how they are displayed?

[Point_Blank]

Looks much better.

[papachaz]

I love the new home page - easy to navigate!

THANKS TO THE WHOLE AF.COM CREW!!! BEAUTIFUL!

As for the message board - I added Adblocker and switched to Firefox, beefed up the size a little (Hit Ctrl - and roll the mouse wheel) - and it's readable and tolerable until they remove that ad.

get used to it, they won't remove the ad. go to some of the other teams webpage and MB and you'll see they are very very similar. I saw this at the Ravens board the other day looking for chevis signing info....we're stuck with it. get used to it OR we can all just migrate over to Peytons new MB.... which is where i'll spend way more time now since this one SUCKS

[Guest James H.]

Do the NFL really host all official team baords, and decide what advertisements are displayed, their dimesnions and and where and how they are dispalyed?

Nope. NFL Digital Media doesn't have much of any interest in message boards. Teams have a lot of flexibility in this area.

The margin of difference in the context of operations on the business wing is very broad among NFL teams. It isn't regulated like football ops.

[Guest James H.]

OR we can all just migrate over to Peytons new MB....

Good luck tomorrow with 20,000 concurrent server requests after every play. =)

[Arkansas Falcon]

The new homepage looks great.

[papachaz]

Thanks man.

Sadly, it's just not that easy. Things change daily in the NFL - we get thees memos with new requirements, sponsor obligations, etc, etc, and it all just makes consistency and focus impossible.

We do our best, but trust me -- nobody here sucks. There is usually an unfortunate reason for why things are the way they are. We have highly respected designers, but there isn't much you can do the kinds of challenges we have.

It's a balanced chaos.

I've been to several other teams boards just to see what they look like. I'm not buying that this is what is mandated by the NFL, the only other site i've seen that looks similar to ours is the Ravens, so maybe the other teams just haven't changed theirs yet? or what we're being told isn't entirely accurate. i think it's funny that one of the designers got his feeling hurt and shut down another thread...too funny. oh well my last mention of how bad the format stinks now, they're NOT going to do away with the ads, it would be much better to just have the ad across the top, but they're not going to do it that way, maybe they're TRYING to thin out the users?

[Guest James H.]

I'm not buying that this is what is mandated by the NFL

No one said it was.

i think it's funny that one of the designers got his feeling hurt and shut down another thread...too funny.

The thread was closed for violating policy. This forum is not for promoting external business.

it would be much better to just have the ad across the top

Placing a 250x300 ad at the top would push the page down 300px. Then you would complain about having to scroll. =)

[Vicious]

No one said it was.

The thread was closed for violating policy. This forum is not for promoting external business.

Placing a 250x300 ad at the top would push the page down 300px. Then you would complain about having to scroll. =)

I promise you that there would be 100% less bi****** about the format of the boards if that were moved to the top. Nobody cares that there are ads, but I promise you that everyone would be ecstatic about getting back the old format if it meant having to scroll down past an ad.

[Guest James H.]

I'd like to think so, but sentiment is always 50/50 for everything.

Nonetheless, redesign/re-layout is on the radar for these boards. Probably come within a month.

This is in conjunction with a minor software upgrade that will open up the necessary requirements to pull the boards into an iPhone app (and shortly after, Android app).

I'm keeping notes on all the legit, useful comments. Obviously we all love widescreen forums -- I do myself, too. I'll just need to figure out what to do about that 250x300.

Hey -- what do you guys think about liquid layouts? In other words, the forums do not conform to a static width -- they would expand the full width of your browser window?

Kinda hard to design for that, but function would defeat form in this case. If you guys want it, we'll see if we can do it.

This is, of course, assuming IPB can support such a layout.

[bossFALCON™]

i can guarantee you vicious is right. a lot of posters have said they'd much rather have the ad at the top or bottom than to have it cutting our board in half. why don't you run a poll to see what everyone wants for sure?