What's new

New look for RCDB

davidm

Strata Poster
nadroJ said:
how do I get like, the lists of coasters in a certain country and stuff like that?

1...2....3....


or the "Census" option if that is what you meant?


:)
 

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caffeine_demon

Strata Poster
Click on the three lines icon, between the home key and the search box, and it brings up a few options to do the advanced searches and record holders etc. (someone beat me to it)

Also - Click on the pin icon under the camera on a park screen for the parks nearby and mapping options (although it seems you can only map parks nearby rather than get a nice list now)

Or - you can view in IE and use compatibility view.
 

davidm

Strata Poster
caffeine_demon said:
(someone beat me to it)
40 minutes ago Dan, pay attention!

caffeine_demon said:
Also - Click on the pin icon under the camera on a park screen for the parks nearby and mapping options (although it seems you can only map parks nearby rather than get a nice list now)
Ian said:
The only thing I don't like is the "Parks nearby list" is fiddly to use compared to the previous version.

Actually overnight he appears to have re-instated that quick "Parks nearby" list so you don't have to click that pin icon...

which is nice.
 

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caffeine_demon

Strata Poster
david morton said:
Actually overnight he appears to have re-instated that quick "Parks nearby" list so you don't have to click that pin icon...

I only noticed after I'd posted - the new look feels a little odd, having used the old look for several years, but isn't as drastic as yahoo mails latest changes.

Seems all we need now is direct image linking and the ability to save images and we're all hunky dory!
 

gavin

Moderator
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
It looks like ****. Dress it up in "If you don't like it, move on" all you want, but it's **** dreadful.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with the old site. Nothing.

It did the the job it was meant to do, with an easy, simple, intuitive user face.

I HATE to talk in clichés, but if it ain't broke...
 

Hyde

Matt SR
Staff member
Moderator
Social Media Team
I appreciate the vision, but there isn't enough content to fill out the entire webpage at present.

Definitely a departure from the previous design.
 

TilenB

Strata Poster
I quite like the change. For all of you, that are complaining, you don't really know what a bad change is. One of the websites that I also visit quite a lot, fis-ski.com (I'm also quite a winter sports fan), has also changed their webpage design and the whole thing turned out as awfully dreadful. Database, standings and whole lot of other stuff can't really be found. The webpage is laggy and overall **** compared to the old site. Plus you can't really turn to the old design, as you can on rcdb...
 

BenSullivan

Roller Poster
Compared to the old site its merely just a redesign, but at least its one less click of the mouse between ride stats and images now that they're on the same page
 

Darren B

Giga Poster
It's a much better look, the only problem for me is where the list of nearby parks is positioned, it's not cred whore friendly.
 

Gazza

Giga Poster
Hyde244 said:
I appreciate the vision, but there isn't enough content to fill out the entire webpage at present.

Definitely a departure from the previous design.

This is what I don't get. What's the point in having the census etc as a pop up menu, when there is plenty of space to have it in the side bar as per the old version.

I mean, I don't really dislike it, but it does little for me...using html5 for the sake of it basically.
 

furie

SBOPD
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
rollermonkey said:
As for those who aren't getting the change: If your browser doesn't support HTML 5, you won't see the changes. The site may also be giving mobile devices the old site while work progresses on the mobile specific site.

Although he finally accepted some help with things like uploading pictures and Lat/Long coordinates, he still does all the programming himself outside of his day job. (Programming CNC machines)

...and for those who don't like? He's always said that people are more than welcome to make their own site.
;)

Hmmmm... I'm using Firefox 17 which supports HTML5 - I'm still not seeing the new site. Though it only scores 374 out of 555 points on a compatibility test.

I'll be Frank, I always found RCDB to be function completely over form - but it was always relatively easy to navigate. I've not used the new site yet, so can't comment, but it was always a little "nerd produced" :lol:
 

ECG

East Coast(er) General
Staff member
Administrator
A letter from Duane that explains why he changed the site's look and might answer some of your questions.
After 8 years, rcdb.com gets a fresh new look and one step closer to a mobile rcdb.com

Date: 11/18/2013

Many of you are seeing a new and very different look to the rcdb starting on November 14th. If you are still seeing the old look, you are probably using an outdated web browser. The biggest offenders are versions of Microsoft Internet Explorer prior to version 9 as they do not support HTML5 and therefore the new look.

The word "Smartphone" hadn't even been coined 8 years ago when the previous look was designed and hence, no consideration was given to such a device. Today about 25% of the rcdb's traffic comes from mobile devices and that is growing quickly. Clearly, a mobile solution is needed and the new look is a big step in that direction. The change many are talking about is the hidden navigation links. Taking these out of constant view is necessary to make a consistent interface across all versions.

Some have asked "Why not just write an rcdb app?" It is simply an issue of time. While the market is currently dominated by Apple and Android phones, Windows Phone is growing and a Mozilla phone is on the horizon. That's four apps in addition to the normal website and four times the work for yours truly.

While the new look has not introduced any wiz-bang new features (yet) a couple have been improved enough to mention.

The photo galleries have seen a much needed update. You'll find they make far better use of the screen size and the navigation is less annoying. This design will allow for larger photos as well as "gesture" navigation on touch devices in the future. Another advantage is changing pictures now does just that, changes pictures and not whole pages as before. This speeds things a bit. Some have noticed these pages are not currently linkable. A solution for this is in the works, but isn't ready. The whole new photo gallery system came about in two very late nights of coding and your webmaster does need to occasionally sleep.

The roller coaster and amusement park pages have been reorganized to keep the most valuable information up top and tuck the more trivial information down below. Some photos have been introduced on these pages. Currently these are sequentially the first few photos. Given time these will be organized to be the best photos. There are 45,000 photos so again, I'm using that, it takes time excuse. Did I mention there are now 45,000 photos in the database? Many thanks go to Rik Engelen for reaching that milestone.

If none of this has sold you on the new look or you suffer from OMS (Old Man Syndrome) and you just want the old look back, we've got your back. Go to "Preferences" and change "Bling level" from "Auto Select" to "HTML4 / CSS2". You won't see future features in this mode and I cannot say how long it will be maintained, but for now it works. I'm all ears to anyone wishing to share constructive criticism on why they prefer this old mode.

Some changes mentioned here and some done earlier in the year were inspired by an ironic backfire. While every webmaster wants their site to be frequented by search engines, it is possible to have too much of a good thing. The rcdb previously used URL system where the URL differed depending on what language you were using and what unit of measure you used. Take in consideration the 11,600 pages in the rcdb which can be viewed in 10 languages with two different units of measure. That is 232,000 unique pages in the mind of a search engine. But wait; don't forget to add in those 45,000 pictures in 10 languages with two different units of measure. Now those 11,600 pages plus pictures look like over one million pages. The result is a very overworked web server. The new design has a lighter URL footprint and those 11,600 pages look like 11,600 pages as they should.

Thanks for reading and have a good holiday season,
Duane
Source: http://rcdb.com/document.htm?id=350
 

caffeine_demon

Strata Poster
Where is this "bling level" setting then? clicking on the cog next to the search bar just gives me "language" and "measure" settings...
 

Hixee

Flojector
Staff member
Administrator
Moderator
Social Media Team
caffeine_demon said:
Where is this "bling level" setting then? clicking on the cog next to the search bar just gives me "language" and "measure" settings...
Click the button just to the left of the search bar (three horizontal lines) and use the preferences option listed under that.
 

caffeine_demon

Strata Poster
ahah - i'll try at home tonight (did try at work, but we're on ie8 here!), also I find it a bit odd that he made the changes to suit mobile devices - yet my samsung galaxy s4 still shows the old style!
 

DelPiero

Strata Poster
I think it's an ongoing project Dan, so this is the changeover in style with the mobile functionality being added later, it's still the old version on my iphone too.
I had enough of IE on my work computer so downloaded and use chrome for 90% of my internet usage.

Edit: My thoughts are that it's slightly better, took a while to find things but getting more used to it now.
 

Mysterious Sue

Strata Poster
I like the new design, but is this really the only solution to pasting photo links?

ECG said:
Gazza said:
One issue that comes up for me is that because the pics now come up as a pop up there is no way to give a link to the page of a specific image.

Sometimes you might link to a specific RCDB pic because you want to point out a particular feature of a ride, but there is seemingly no way of doing that.
Yeah, that's a problem. You have to revert back to the old version (Preferences - HTML 4 / CSS 2 in the Bling level drop-down box) to be able to get the link to a photo.
 
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