Where did the left sidebar go?

bj · #1 (**permalink**) 07-24-2007, 09:02 AM

I personally miss the "newest threads" thingie, and I know I'm not posting as much since it's gone. Also, because the left sidebar is gone, the line lengths in posts are very, very long now, and not as easy to read.

Just my two cents.

**mike** · #2 (**permalink**) 07-24-2007, 09:07 AM

The sidebar was dumped for the sake of load time (seems to have helped substantially I would add) and simplicity.

In your main bar, you will find a link for 'New Posts' (that shows you all posts since your last visit) and you will also see an option under Quick Links for viewing 'Today's Posts'

bj · #3 (**permalink**) 07-24-2007, 09:17 AM

Well, if I have to look for it instead of it just showing up in a sidebar, it won't happen. I would suggest you might wanna keep an eye on whether postings go down since you dumped the sidebar.

And the line length in posts is uncomfortable, especially on posts with longer paragraph structure. Would you please consider adding a max-width to the id#post, and give the text a bit of breathing room off the left and right side margins?

**mike** · #4 (**permalink**) 07-24-2007, 09:50 AM

It's looking like pageviews are up @14-16% since the bar was dumped... Some of that is just normal growth of course.

It's only been off for about 4 days so the jury is still out to some extent but that kind of increase over just 4 days is pretty exceptional.

I will see what we can do about the width though.

bj · #5 (**permalink**) 07-24-2007, 10:02 AM

Thanks, Mike!

tomcatuk · #6 (**permalink**) 07-26-2007, 06:00 AM

I'm with BJ - I liked it on the sidebar. I'm a bit of a duffer when it comes to forums - the quick access to active threads stops me from posting in 20 year old threads by mistake

Also agree the threads are a little too wide now for comfortable reading - I use 1280x1024 on my favourite monitor.

rocky1 · #7 (**permalink**) 08-04-2007, 11:11 AM

Although I did like the sidebar, load speeds are greatly enhanced!! It's obivous even on DSL, so I can only imagine those on Dial-Up are over joyed. Load speeds have always been an issue on this board; anything done to improve that situation gets two thumbs up in my book!!

**mike** · #8 (**permalink**) 08-07-2007, 12:34 AM

The dumping of the sidebar and some tweaking of a couple other knobs has led to a marked performance increase on the loading. I was hoping somebody else was noticing it too.