The Furious Angels
Staff and News => News and Announcements => Topic started by: Tbone on February 10, 2011, 02:22:05 pm
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So I've added a toolbar to the bottom of the site. I'm still playing with it, but it should be functional for everyone. Current features:
-Who's online and where
-Like button for Fbook
-YouTube channel
-Facebook page
-Live chat (using Fbook, Twitter, MySpace, or Yahoo logins and includes private chats and notices when you get a message!)
-Notifications
-User Bookmarks (create your own custom list of bookmarks for the FA site)
Known limitations:
-For now, anyone visiting our site can see the notifications, join in chat, etc. I don't necessarily think this is a bad thing, as long as we remember going forward not to share sensitive information that way.
-To fully take advantage of the toolbar, you'll need a Facebook account. You could use Twitter, Myspace, or Yahoo as well, but Facebook seems to be the most integrated.
Let me know what you think! I quite like the functionality!
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Very nice!
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I don't like it. I consider things like this clutter, and I remove them whenever I can.
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I thought it was a virus at first... boooo
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Yeah, it feels trashy. Like something a cheap news site would have.
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I love it so far. In terms of progressing our site as a social community, I think it adds a lot. It makes our site more of a social hub. And all without distracting from the rest of the site. The bar doesn't seem intrusive at all.
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I don't care for it. I feel that bar is the same as those damn "bottom-of-the-screen" ads that TV stations have during shows to promote for other shows on their same network. They started out very small and weren't that intrusive but now they appear every few minutes and are taking half the screen.
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It basically combines a bunch of features that I've been trying to add to our site for years.
-Watching our movies without being taken to YouTube. I was able to accomplish this with a different program, but this makes it even simpler.
-Live chat with PMs that can be accessed from any page. If you login, you stay logged in while you're on the site. You don't have to log back into a chat each time you switch pages!
-Facebook like button and access to our Facebook page. I used to have a whole block of the site with a facebook banner. Then I simplified it to the like button. But this is much better than having an entire block devoted to the facebook like button.
-A simple notification system to draw attention to important things. Right now it's public, so I won't be able to use it very much for member activities, but I'm sure we can find a good use for it or maybe make it more private.
On top of this, there are other features that I know our members enjoy. Postnuke allows you to make a custom home page so that you can put your favorite spots at "home", but this allows you to create bookmarks that you can access from anywhere on the site. Also, you can see who's online without having to devote an entire block to that, so I might be able to remove that block as well.
It doesn't spam any ads or throw up stuff you don't want it to. The only thing that pops up is if there's a new notification, you get that the first time you come back to the site. Other than that, everything on the bar is tied to the website or our facebook stuff.
I could see something like this being cheesy and unnecessary for a lot of sites (for instance, I found this bar while looking at a theatre I was debating auditioning for...but why would a theatre website need all this functionality?). But for a community website like ours, I think it's perfect.
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Well the bar has limited functionality for me considering I don't have any social networking accounts.
So I can't use the bookmarking and chat feature.
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Frankly I like it. I thought a chat option would be sweet as soon as facebook implemented theirs, and you have access to a lot of sweet, important things in that little bar. I agree, some sites have similar shit that they use for ads and intrusive, annoying crap. But, I truly think this is very convenient and functional for us.
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I love the concept of fa chat, but don't really see the considering ts. The bar is annoying and I'd love it if it was optional. I visit this 90% on my phone because I'm always on the go and the formatting is jacked up so it's in the middle of the page.
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You can click the down arrow on the far right to mostly disable it. The thing does do an annoying modal pop-up from time to time asking about some beta feature.
If you want to chat join TS.
If you want to facebook then join facebook. I choose to keep my facebook strictly close friends/family only. I am not using it to interact with FA members.
We already have youtube videos popping up in modal format.
I don't like the fact that my location flashes like adware to anyone who chooses to see.
I think I can understand why you think you like the features... but that doesn't make it any less trashy in comparison to our standards.
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I dont really find it that annoying honestly, dont know what the big deal is. with the page background I barely notice it when i put the menu down and the little tools icon is there.
Im pretty indifferent about it, but to me its just a navigation tool, so its got the same feelings as I would have for a hammer I guess.
But thanks Tbone for putting in the work for it nevertheless. The youtube links were very convenient.
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I love the concept of fa chat, but don't really see the considering ts. The bar is annoying and I'd love it if it was optional. I visit this 90% on my phone because I'm always on the go and the formatting is jacked up so it's in the middle of the page.
Hmm, it doesn't show up on my phone at all.
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https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/_OZtTcNUfx0M/TVT8Zfx9hxI/AAAAAAAAAEc/ET013TvXJ1I/snap20110211_030536.png
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/_OZtTcNUfx0M/TVT8by9Ss_I/AAAAAAAAAEg/3JmXxUgAvhc/s512/snap20110211_030603.png
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Same here. Nothing on an iPhone 4.
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Other people have already echoed my thoughts.
It adds visual clutter. I don't like elements that remain constantly in view as I scroll. I hate seeing these kinds of things on other sites, so I would rather not see it on a site I visit daily. At first I thought it was some kind of ad and was instantly turned off.
I like the idea of "FA chat", but isn't that what TS is for? If you can't log on to TS, then use the forums. The majority of us work or go to school throughout the day. Our schedules may not be arranged in such a way that permits us to hang out in a chat room for extended periods of time. In fact, the time when we are most likely to sit down and hang out in a chat room is when we are at home on our own machines where TS is installed.
As Yotogi said, it doesn't serve much of a purpose for people who aren't linked to other social networks.
The toolbar either duplicates functionality that is already available, or it provides functionality that is not necessary. For instance, do we really need customized bookmarks when the site is already very easily navigable?
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I don't like it. It visually clashes with everything and as soon as I saw it I assumed either the site or I had been compromised with malware. I'll give it a couple days to see if my opinion changes.
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Same here. Nothing on an iPhone 4.
T, is the bar flash based? Do you have an iPhone as well? Can someone else running android pipe in?
I'm using xScope on gingerbread.
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It's kind of fun trying to figure out which little star Broin is on that map. :)
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The bar doesn't show up on a Droid X running 2.2.1.
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Same here. Nothing on an iPhone 4.
T, is the bar flash based?
It's Javascript.
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Not sure if the default android browser fully supports jsp, I've always used third party.
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Really, after the first time I saw it, it blends in now. I thought I was infected with some malware as well when it first came up. I don't think it is a bad thing at all. Overall though the only thing from the bar that I see as a big plus is the notifications. Maybe that can be implemented without a full bar across the bottom of the screen and they only pop up as "toasts" when there is one.