WC2K7 Public Beta Open

Tuesday, November 21, 2006 by T-Man | Discussion: Developer Journals

As you all know we have been working hard at updating the design and code for WinCustomize.  A couple weeks ago we made our test site available to subscribers (https://forums.wincustomize.com/?forumid=153&aid=135594) to get a first look at how the site is coming along.  Well today we are opening up the test site to everyone. 

We are still a couple of weeks away from making the site live but we want to start getting more traffic to the site to make sure we find as many bugs as possible and make sure that we have not over looked anything.

So for all those who want to check out the beta of WinCustomize.com please visit http://test.wincustomize.com/ . We hope that you enjoy the new site and please feel free to post any problems you run into here so that we can make sure we have the site running as smooth as possible.

Thanks and enjoy.

 

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teddybearcholla
Reply #1 Tuesday, November 21, 2006 11:32 AM



Looks fantastic T-Man!!!! Appreciate all the hard work going into the new site!!!

CerebroJD
Reply #2 Tuesday, November 21, 2006 11:56 AM
T-man, are you going to provide a method for users to provide feedback to the site developers with problems? I know we've been going through Thumper, but do you want everyone to email him with problems?

T-Man
Reply #3 Tuesday, November 21, 2006 12:46 PM

T-man, are you going to provide a method for users to provide feedback to the site developers with problems? I
 

To be honest I really haven't given that much thought.  But it probably would be beneficial to have some system in place to report bugs.  I will have to think about how we want to handle that. But for now, people can post issues here in this thread.


CerebroJD
Reply #4 Tuesday, November 21, 2006 1:36 PM
Alrighty! Just wanted to know where I should point people.

Frogboy
Reply #5 Wednesday, November 22, 2006 1:21 PM
For now, just post here.

PurrBall
Reply #6 Thursday, November 23, 2006 11:14 AM
There's a little visual bug that is driving me mad. At the top, the line right below the navigation bar changes color from dark to light. Also, where it just says "Home" right under "Home", it should be hidden on the home page, or say "You are here" or something. Here's a picture. Happens in FF and IE.


Z71
Reply #7 Thursday, November 23, 2006 12:54 PM
The biggest problem I have has to do with the cookies.
At the old site, I could log-in and never have to again, as long as I didn't change anything.
Even if I left the site, I could go back and everything would stay the same.

The new site, is another story.
First I log-in, then it says I need to log-in. I'm logged in but I can't make comments because it doesn't recognize me. So I log-out, but I'm still called "Master", then I log-in and I'm a citizen again. I can make comments, go back 5 min. later I can't make comments again, even though it shows I'm logged in.
I delete my cookies and cache all the time (hoping it will help. It's a constant fight to get it to act right.

If you're confused, then you know how I feel.

:: Windows XP Home, Running IE6 and (IE7 for the past week, same thing), Avant browser and Crazy Browser. All doing the same thing.

Also, I've been getting double spacing whenever I make a comment on someones skins. You can see my comments here. WWW Link
Comment #10 was done here. Comment #13 was done at the old site.

seldomseen
Reply #8 Thursday, November 23, 2006 1:13 PM
Z71, you've got me curious enough to run a test, myself:

seldomseen
Reply #9 Thursday, November 23, 2006 1:17 PM
Hmm...tried "edit", and got "server unavailable". Running XP PRO SP2, IE7. Will watch and wait. Thanks. Oh, Happy Thanksgiving Day!!   
[EDIT! worked on this comment, but got a "Please sign in" when I tried to edit the post above this. Probably normal.
My only thought at this time on the new site is: "There's sure a lot of extra space on the sides!!" Grey and white blankness on my 1280 X 1024 monitor...]

nyteinc
Reply #10 Thursday, November 23, 2006 11:21 PM
I dunno, fills my sreen up pretty good, but I'm using 1024 x 768 resolution. I think everything looks good. I like the direction you guys went with things. I like the little scroll through feature for the featured skins on the home page. Can't wait 'til everything is worked out and it's officially up and running.

windoe
Reply #11 Friday, November 24, 2006 5:44 PM
Very modern look, more visual and interactive.

Just regret that the daily shot move from Home to Gallery...

Excalpius
Reply #12 Saturday, November 25, 2006 5:44 AM
It looks nice, but doesn't fill up the browser window like the current one does. So, I'm getting about 1/2 the information on this version that I do on the current one. I'm running large monitors (1600x1200 and 1920x1200) and it makes a HUGE difference to have the text/windows/posts/etc. all auto fit the browser width. Thanks for listening.

windoe
Reply #13 Saturday, November 25, 2006 5:50 AM
It looks nice, but doesn't fill up the browser window like the current one does. So, I'm getting about 1/2 the information on this version that I do on the current one. I'm running large monitors (1600x1200 and 1920x1200) and it makes a HUGE difference to have the text/windows/posts/etc. all auto fit the browser width.


The same for me

MindlessPuppet
Reply #14 Saturday, November 25, 2006 8:19 AM
navigation column on the right, ey? Doesn't seem to feel right to me. Also could use some captions under the favorites. Other than those comments I think it looks great.

Excalpius
Reply #15 Sunday, November 26, 2006 3:21 AM
I agree, when the navigation panel is moved to the right, it minimizes its importance (just standard GUI psychology 101). And because it is placed far below a couple of rather unimportant boxes (login and submit windows - huh?!), it causes the gallery and forum lists to not even appear in the top/first view area of the page. Instead, one would have to scroll down to know they are even there. Bad form all around.

The most important part of this site is the gallery, since it shows the DEPTH of this site's offerings and invites viewers to click and explore. It should always be the top main left side column, imho.

The current site handles all of this quite well. You could have kept its underlying structure and just updated the graphics, templates, etc.

You know, give it a new skin.

Bebi Bulma
Reply #16 Sunday, November 26, 2006 3:47 AM
I agree with what someone else had said, the gallery list really needs the program icons back like how it has here. I mostly go by icon when looking at that list, and besides, the screenshots for the today's favorites and master skins have the icon badge on them for identification.

Also, something I noticed when browsing the forums. In thread view the names and titles are smashed together for the Stardock people. There also seems to be a lot of wasted space on the right side of the forums where there's nothing there. That is unless the menu that's currently on this version has yet to be added. Here's the screenshot: link Using Firefox 1.5.0.8.

KiloKrash
Reply #17 Tuesday, November 28, 2006 9:13 PM
When commenting on a skin (not in the forums) I usually change the font and size, then insert a smiley and start typing again. Upon insertion of the smiley, my custom font and text size settings are set to the smiley font and size, which is very small. I then have to set the custom font and size again.

Settings: font = Georgia size = 2

MS. LADY
Reply #18 Tuesday, November 28, 2006 10:39 PM
It takes some time to get use to it, but I like it, I like it a lot  

Bebi Bulma
Reply #19 Tuesday, November 28, 2006 10:44 PM
When commenting on a skin (not in the forums) I usually change the font and size, then insert a smiley and start typing again. Upon insertion of the smiley, my custom font and text size settings are set to the smiley font and size, which is very small. I then have to set the custom font and size again.

Settings: font = Georgia size = 2

I do that here on the forums, mainly because I despise Arial for some reason. Sure would be nice if there was a feature to save our font settings huh?


andrew_
Reply #20 Thursday, November 30, 2006 10:30 AM
The default font size for the article comments and the skin comments was set lower than the main site, and lower than the older sites which are adding font tags directly to the database. I'm unsure when an update will be posted to correct the skin comment font size issue, but the article size issue should be resolved now.

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