So, what do you think? Like our new theme? I’ve been playing around with some different layouts for some time now, and I think I’ve finally got it finished. As much as I enjoyed the previous look, there are some good reasons why I felt it was time to change. Here’s your last glimpse at the old theme:
It was a free theme, so SiteFever wasn’t the only kid on the block with that look. Judging by the popularity of this blog in its first two months, I felt that it needed its own “brandable” layout.
I think you will find that this theme along with some other improvements I’ve implemented will greatly improve this site. Here’s some stuff I did:
I moved the site wide 468×60 ad spot from the center of the screen to the top right. This still allows the banner to be displayed at the top of each page while leaving me enough room to place a really sweet logo that Julien from TheWebsiteProfessionals.com helped me to create. There’s also room for some decent sized RSS buttons and popular articles without having to bump the main content down too much.
Although “whitespace” is a good thing, the old theme was letting a TON of space go to waste. I widened not only the content area but also the sidebar, which now allows room for two 125×125 banner ads side by side.
As you may already know, I really like to push for reader participation on SiteFever, so I have done quite a few things to help. In addition to removing the nofollow attribute from the comment links, MyAvatars plugin and the top commentators plugin, I also added the subscribe to comments plugin which allows you to receive automatic email notifications when somebody replies to a topic you left a message on. Also, Brian’s threaded comments plugin allows you to reply to specific comments rather than having all the comments being grouped together, which will be a big help especially with the larger number of comments we have been seeing on SiteFever. To top things off, you will also notice that I added the recent comments plugin, which displays the most recent comments in the sidebar.I decided to move the recent MyBlogLog avatar box down to the footer because as some of you already know, MyBlogLog can get a little goofy a few times a week and take a while to load- or not load at all. I did make the avatar box bigger so it will display more recent visitors than it did before.
There are some other tweaks I did to the site to make it load faster than it was- or would have with this theme. I will write a post on what steps I took to decrease my average page load time by almost 40%. Anyone who owns a website or a blog should check back to see these tips because speeding up your page load time is something that everyone should want to do.
As much as I might have thought this redesign was necessary, I am anxious to hear what everyone else thinks about the changes here at SiteFever.com. Please let me know what you think!
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(4 votes, average: 4 out of 5)
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Article posted by: Neon on August 31st, 2007
This new look rocks!!!!! MUCH better than before. You got me thinking about updating my theme, only I dont think I can customize one like you did.
The threaded comments was long overdue, but I am really glad you have it now. Sitefever- you’re looking better and better everyday! Congrats!
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Yey, I knew it was only a matter of weeks. This is a huge improvement from your last theme. I did like the orange though because it just reminds me of like something “hot” and “sizzling” — a fever baby! :c) I’m not a fan of the threaded comments thing, but I’m curious to know from others if it is something they really like? Bill likes it … so maybe most others do?
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Thanks Sarah… I really liked the orange too, but I just couldn’t get it to look quite right. Every time I used orange it looked like a kindergarden classroom to me for some reason.
Why do you not like the threaded comments? I’m curious to know why.
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I’ve always just been a fan of the flat view. When forums started to have style and they didn’t thread them I was one happy puppy. For me since I come back later often at night when I can read the most, anything that is threaded toward the top won’t be read. I read from where I posted to bottom and if its above where I left off (this case I started early in the topic so I caught all the threads) I might miss something. Thats all! We need to get you a favicon! I just noticed you don’t have one. Stefson agrees with me. :c)
I don’t think your design reminds me of J.Chow at all. I think it very unique at the top how you integrated the logo inbetween your popular and rss icons. I miss the meter too.
@TextAdSearch: 800×600 is just not that common anymore. I’m sure John checked his stats and found he could move up to a new resolution! See my stats here, but check your own to know about your own visitors.
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I have had a favicon since day 1. I tested it in all different browsers and it always displays for me. Actually, when I leave a comment on your blog, it always displays my favicon next to my name.
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The new look is definately an improvement over the previous one.
I really don’t like the logo, but I guess that’s personal.
And I’m with Sarah on the threaded comments thing
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A great improvement although you now have the biggest header on the internet, I feel sorry for those viewing your site in 800×600
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It really looks great John. Honestly I thought you needed it
The result will definitely help you expand your blog and your ad income further.
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It looks good! I’m so afraid I’ll want to change my theme someday soon, but I can’t even remember half the stuff I’ve added to it, so I think I’d go crazy trying to change it. I like the idea of the threaded comments, and the subscribe to comments. I need that. And I like the chartreuse green color theme.
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Actually my mouth will slip on this, the theme is reminding of new johnchow.com looks. Anyways great redesign I’m too hoping to get a new redesign. How much this cost.
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I knew someone would say this sooner or later
The truth is that I have been fidgeting around with a different look even before the new J. Chow theme. I must admit that I did take one idea from his theme by putting the MyBlogLog avatars in the footer. I noticed that they load very very slowly every once in a while and I thought by putting them in the footer, chances are they would have loaded completely by the time someone scrolls down there.
This look didn’t cost me anything because I did it myself- other than the help on the SiteFever header.
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Actually i didn’t tell that to demoralize you, I’m just teasing. I’m just another blogger that likes your blog. And great that you did it yourself, i just wanted a designer the johnchow designer was two costly, $600 odd seems to much.
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Where did your little meter thingy go. I liked that.
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I definitely wanted to keep it up- at least until we reached the $1,000 mark. The red color didn’t go well with this theme anymore, so I’m going to have to draw up another one using colors that look nice with this new layout.
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Oh great look now..that’s fantastic…but still i think the terafirma theme that u were using was great..and followed KISS standard.
For one of my new blogs i’ll use terafirma.
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Nice theme, it looks very good. Congrats!
But where is the contest page?
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Contests page link was moved down in the footer. I usually link to it from within my posts so I wanted to free up the top menu a little bit.
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John,
I also love your new look. It is very web 2.0 and the width is much better.
Monika
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Looking snazy! I’ve just been setting up http://blogsformoney.com/ (previously my money-making posts were at blog.dantup.me.uk, but I’ve decided to seperate them) and it’s starting to come together, but the header is a mess
Shows what happens when programmers build things!
I’ll look into fixing mine when I’ve got time - first thing is to beef the content out!
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check this cool logo
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Sorry link didn’t showed up
http://i163.photobucket.com/albums/t310/maina231/Untitled-1.png
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Nice redesign! After John, Darren, redesigned their themes, it’s as if the blogosphere wanted to do the same. My own blog, Slyvisions, had a new look as well about a week ago and the changest drastically affected the way my readers participated and read my blog.
By the way, about the banner on the very top left of the page, is it suppose to be clickable or not? As of right now, it’s just an image with no link. Maybe you need to fix that.
Sly from Slyvisions.com
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No, the image in the top left is just sort of an extension of my logo. The big “SITEFEVER.COM” in the middle of the screen is clickable and will take you to the homepage. The image in the top left is just a background and does not need to be clicked. The image in the top right is the advertisers 468×60 banner that is paid for each month, and remains clickable.
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chk the image i gave.
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I saw the image you uploaded and it looked nice. Thanks for taking the time to design it. The only problem is that I was looking for a “tribal” sort of look with the new logo.
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Love your new theme, John! But what I don’t see is a meter… I have the feeling that there is something is while its on the blog
btw, I’m with Sarah and Stefson on threaded comments thing…
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I will definately have to incorporate the meter back into the blog! I didn’t know that it was so popular.
I must say that I had no idea so many people did not like the theaded comments, but I see where you’re coming from.
The easiest way to keep track of any new comments is to subscribe to the thread and then you’ll receive an email notification every time someone replies, even if they reply to a comment above yours.
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