Forthcoming changes

[Rochej]

One of ths original purposes of inthevendee.com was to provide an online 'yellow pages' for English speaking businesses who work in the Vendée; since it's beginning this has almost become a secondary part of the project so I have decided to give it a boost by extracting the directory from intheVendee into its own home at www.vendeepages.com.

There are still a few things to sort out before I take the final hurdle and launch this on the world, but to follow in the footsteps of other software providers I'm letting you all know about this change at the end of its 'beta' programme. That is, it is all there and it (seems to) all work, there is just some tidying up round the edges. Over the next few days this will 'go live'.

So please come on in and take a look and let me know what you think.

It's not easy to extract the directory from intheVendee, and this part of the project could go on for ever (!); I will begin to restructure inthevendee as part of this move. If you are interested in watching this evolution you can see it at www.intheVendee.com/beta.php. Bear in mind this is a working example so there may occasionally be changes happening to it before your eyes. Again, let me know what you think as it evolves.

As they say, watch this space


Barry

[Rochej]

I've given http://www.inthevendee.com/beta.php an overhaul...

[Mouton]

Not sure that I like the new look website. The font seems very large and the "Latest Vendee news and discussion" section doesn't make it clear that this is any entry point to the forum. Also, it was interesting to be able to see the latest posts before deciding on whether or not to explore further.

[Rochej]

Thanks for the feedback. All very welcome.

I chose the larger fonts to improve the readability of titles and to try to declutter the page - I still think its a bit too cluttered and as I've 'lost' many of the old links which I need to reinstate I need to resolve this.

I agree the initial forum headlines don't work well for the regular forum reader, I did it to make it more obvious which are the latest topics - ie news - rather than the latest posts, and I'm thinking about how to resolve this. I will include a direct link to the forum from these 'headlines' soon.

As they say, watch this space.

Barry

[Rochej]

I have added an option under the vendee news section (a check-box) so you can chose to show the latest post details rather than the headlines, and a couple of direct links. You can chop and change as often as you like - it will remember your choice on the computer you make the choice on.

Hope this achieves what is required: please let me know if there are any problems

Barry

[Mouton]

Thanks it does make a difference.

[Mouton]

Rochej I hate to be curmudgeonly but I find the site extremely awkward to use now and terribly busy. The title takes up about a quarter of my screen, the font is so large that I only see one or two items before I have to scroll. Scrolling is very difficult within the property section as you have to manage two sets of scroll bars and you don't seem to be able to enlarge pictures anymore.

[CRAZY DIAMOND]

Rochej I hate to be curmudgeonly but I find the site extremely awkward to use now and terribly busy. The title takes up about a quarter of my screen, the font is so large that I only see one or two items before I have to scroll. Scrolling is very difficult within the property section as you have to manage two sets of scroll bars and you don't seem to be able to enlarge pictures anymore.

I agree. It seemed fine before and was, as far as I'm concerned, much more user-friendly. Now it ain't, Mouton's right, it's a mess. A case of tweaking just for the sake of it perhaps?

CRAZY DIAMOND.

[Rochej]

The two main reasons for the change were to reduce cluttered look and to improve the search, whilst providing access to more from the initial screen. Maybe this is of more interest to the more casual user than regulars(?).

I left lots of space around the title to reduce the cluttered look of the site, at the expense of pushing the information down the page. This obviously didn't work!

The other item which pushed the information down is the search bar which gives the search via google uk, with the refinements to restrict searches to sites providing information in english on living in France, a feature I have been asked for and is certainly being used.

I've 'squashed' this up a bit so hopefully this will help.

If anyone has any ideas to reduce clutteredness, I'm willing to look at them. I've tried reducing the fontsize, but this makes it look very cluttered. I'll see whether I can make this a preference as well (this will take a couple of days).

I agree the double scrolling takes some getting used to (its coming more and more across other sites as well), but once you know its there is manageable, I'll see if I can find away to reduce this. I don't have any problems with the picture enlarging - this still works for me using IE, Firefox and Chrome - please try again; and if it still doesn't work please let me know you configuration so I can look further into it.

[Mouton]

Rochej - squashing up the title has helped and the property links are working OK for me. And it looks like you're not being inundated with complaints. I do think the page is still very cluttered but if it works it works so don't mind me. I took a look at http://www.livingfrance.com/ - in case it gives you any ideas. I like the way the ads are in the right-hand column, so you can ignore them if you want. Personally I think less is more and ads that blink at you are quite annoying. I do appreciate all your work on the site.