Changes...

[gusstrand]

I have made a few changes to the main site, now using a wordpress front end as a portal... hope you like it... It's a little rough, as I had been working on it in the background and was testing moving the whole wordpress install to the front/root, and when I finally got the bugs worked out in the test, decided to leave it there...

I have also implemented a team of core contributors for that part of the site, much like the BIGCaT of smallstreams of old, and including some of the original folks from that, and some new blood as well. Watch that front end for articles, thoughts, insights, and highlights pulled from the forums, and enjoy the site!

-Gus

[Chef]

Looks good but here's a few comments so please don't take offense as it's not my intent. Just my opinion.

I think the site is hard to navigate and a bit busy on the opening page. I think it needs to attract fishermen to want more and to enter the site where you drive traffic in the forums and snag new members along the way. The idea for me is to want to go inside and get more and turn more pages. In my opinion I don't like the smallstreams tag through the banner fish pic. I think it needs to be tight fish pics that are clean. Click on a fish eye or fly to skip to forums or individual links below. Script

Logo
From the Mountains to the Sea

Streams
Rivers
Lakes
Sea

The Journey
Food
Life

Contest of the Month
Featured Member
Fish Porn

Forums
Scripts
Us

(Twitter, FB icons)

[gusstrand]

Awesome. I need that sort of feedback, Chef, especially from Core folks! I have been trying to see what I can do to simplify a bit. Right now, all of the bells and whistles are turned on... I'll be slowly backing them off until I get where I like. Simple is better from my perspective as well.

I've been debating about the overlay, and don't think I like it either... easy fix... soon people will wonder what we were talking about because it'll be gone. :)

The forums will/are linked from both the top bar and the left side link menu.

First bar is pages on the site. The second bar is categories with posts. I can take these and make them the categories... those of you who can post to the front page will have those categories to work with when posting.

Streams
Rivers
Lakes
Sea

The Journey
Food
Life

Contest of the Month
Featured Member
Fish Porn

[gusstrand]

Check it out now, Chef. Totally simplified the thing. I like it much better... there are also numerous ways to get here to the forums embedded all over the place.

[gusstrand]

Also - clicking the smallstreams logo in the upper left of the forums will now take you to the front end. If you were used to using it to take you to the front of the forums, look down beneath it in the blue bar for the "Board Index" link... :)

[gusstrand]

Oh, and the forums stay the same... different link, though... I noticed some searches for them showing up in the data. Sorry for any confusion!

[garethl]

I'm liking the new front-end Gus, top work there and well done.

Keep up the good work :D

G

[Alpinefly]

Gus,
Pretty good new look. I agree with Chef somewhat !!! Smallstreams has come a long way !!!!!!
John (Alpinefly)

[terry]

Love it! I really dig the "at home" feeling it adds. Thanks

[troutrageous1]

Enjoying the new landing page (thanks for the blog link BTW).
Not sure what it originally looked like pre Chef's suggestions, but like the functionality & options that are currently displayed.
Thanks again for all the work you do on the back end to keep this community running smoothly for the rest of us.