I do like one part of this new page...

kk7jo writes "I tried to be constructive with my last sarcasm, but I can say that I really do like the swapmeet preview on the first page. But, overall this just looks like a reordered version of the old page, nothing that new about it. Unfortunately the extra boxes that were need to organize things (rather than the long unsorted list on the current page) really do draw the readers attention to way too many places all at once. It looks like you are trying to follow the Netcenter or Lycos or goodness knows how many "mywhatever" webspots. Why? be original. Start from scratch. If this is how it might change, stay with what you've got until you get something really better.


Hey, I have an idea, make it look like a radio! Look at some of the radio control programs or labview and make it look like that. Give it knobs, sliders, a digital readout with little windows where the item behind it changes like my old Drake of an old Collins rig. Now that's COOL!

73 de kk7jo,

Kerry"





Fred Lloyd, AA7BQ writes:
<blockquote>



Well Kerry, one of the unfortunate things about this new
system is that there are a lot of improvements that are
invisible. It's unfortunate because a lot of people won't
see much of anything different and will tend to think
that all we did was a makeover of our existing site,
which is untrue. This is a completely new system with tons
of new logic. A lot of the features that were on the old
site are also on the new site, because, they're popular.




Some folks would be pretty amazed at the amount of work that
it takes to keep QRZ running smoothly. For example, three
people are kept busy just answering emails from our users
(myself included). Judging by the types of email that we
get it's often hard to imagine how some of our users can
find the power switch on their computers. After about
a week of handling some of the typical email around here,
a new volunteer editor will usually ask me, &quot;How in the
world do you manage to keep your cool while being asked
so many stupid questions?&quot;.




&quot;Well&quot;, I say, &quot;they're not all stupid but a great
many of them are avoidable&quot;. One thing that we've
learned is that few people can or will read
instructions, no matter how carefully we write them.
Another thing that has become apparent is that for
every hour we spend on making something
automatic it will usually save us a thousand
emails. The new system has several invisible improvements
that will do just that - save us from drowning in
end user email.




For example:

<ul>
[*] There have been
some rather big changes in the way callsigns are edited and how
security is implemented. While the typical reader doesn't see these
things, those of us who watch over the site see more than our fair
share. The new system has some rather unique safeguards that
you'll notice only when you start updating one or more callsigns.





[*]
Another &quot;technical&quot; improvement is that now our feature
story editors will actually be able to post stories themselves. One of the reasons that so little new material gets into the existing system is that every new article must be hand-formatted by me
and that takes plenty of extra time that I seldom have. The new
system lets me give authors their own password so they can submit
stories right online, without any intervention from me.






[*]
Another feature, which will be appreciated in time, is that the
feature articles can now draw immediate feedback from the readers.
The existing system has no provision for reader feedback whatsoever and we believe that this will become lot's more apparent once a
rich collection of articles and stories go online. Users will be
able to state their opinions directly under the article and this
will lead to a more diverse view no matter what the topic.






[*]
Another feature is the ability for authors (and readers) to imbed HTML Code directly into
their comments and articles. The old system prohibited HTML in
all user input. The typical user might not know or care to
know much about HTML coding, but, those that do will welcome
the change. In the long run it will give our site a much
nicer look and feel. It's a techie thing, and if you're a
techie, you love it.


[/list]





So it's safe to say that one of the reasons for the new design was
to freshen up the looks and partly (mostly?) to improve
the underlying system so that it was more secure, easier
to maintain and easier (for us) to operate. It wasn't
necessarily a design goal to add fantastic new
features to the site, but at least the new foundation provides
plenty room to grow. Having a distributed authorship
system is a huge improvement, but end users won't notice it
other than to see that lots of new articles are arriving. Those
who choose to write will see a big improvement right away.




One of the nice things about being a programmer is that if I
don't like something, or, if something doesn't work just
right, I can change it. As far as I'm concerned, if my
incoming email box ever starts to get empty while at the
same time the site is heavily used, I'll consider my efforts
a success.




-fred


[/list]
</blockquote>