It has been a busy couple of weeks with a few rough patches but as you may have noticed the new layout is finally here along with some major core additions. I have not been posting lately but have been working behind the scenes to improve the forum in many ways. The new layout is geared towards increasing web-accessibility and adapting the common look and feel of the
main website.
I have also been working on adding other accessibility features to the forum as well adding a second navigation bar. This allows for our forum to be rendered to a broader audience with less limitations and includes an increase to the relative font sizes so the links and navigation menus are easier to read. This also allows for and adds room for more options to be quickly found for members and visitors plus adds visual title (information) tags to the links and some category headers. To check it out just use your mouse and hover over any link outside the threads, you should notice a small information block, in most cases about the link itself. The main navigation menu has the dark blue background and contains the core links that are available to most users and visitors. Directly above you will notice a light blue navigation menu that is primarily for members. This menu contains links to options and settings just for members and are based on permissions so if you haven't yet, please
register for your free membership to enjoy the full functionality of the forum and participate in discussions or contribute to our community.
There have also been a few new ways added to access and participate in the discussion forum with your mobile and other handheld devices and low-fi versions are available. In the event your handheld device is limiting your access to the forum by default or you have a slow internet connection or non traditional browser you may choose to have the content delivered as a feed such as
RSS,
RSS 2,
Atom,
RDF or rendered via
WAP,
WAP 2 or
i-mode technology. Once you make your selection your session will continue to be displayed in that "mode".The links for the
Discussion Directory and additional rendering options are located in the page footer forum wide for your convenience.
I have added a forum
Site Map that is also available in
XML format and have also adding an additional search option to the search bar to allow users to search individual boards or the entire forum by simply selecting the appropriate option from the drop down menu.
In addition to the visual and layout changes I have also expanded the enhanced features to include member submitted
links plus a new community
photo gallery. The photo albums, categories and topics will be expanded and refined as the submissions come in. I have also increased the attachment sizes and am working on a
downloads section for certain resources to be shared and made available for download. Some of these options and features may be limited based upon membership and group status so be sure to
register for your free membership!
Let's help one another and support our community by sharing and collaborating our resources together. As always, feel free to post or send me your comments, suggestions, questions and concerns.
Thanks Again,
WindsorLive!
