website development blog

[eFestivals]

1. two 'quick jump' drop-down lists have been added to the top of the homepage, one of each of the festival listings, and for the line-ups. It means that it's much easier to get to a specific festival's listing page or line-up page.

2. it's now possible to enter the competitions on the mobile website.

I believe that it's now possible on the mobile site to get a version of every page, tho some of those pages have reduced functionality &/or content. It might be the case that these pages are flushed out as a fuller version only after the new version of full the website goes live.

[LondonTom]

Unfortunately, due to Easter and staff holidays, the planned launch-date of 1st May for this new (tho expanded) design to be the full website has probably slipped a little, but I remain hopeful that it will be in place by mid-May at latest.

Edited April 23, 2013 by LondonTom

[eFestivals]

Work your holidays

I mostly did.

The jump lists are really useful, especially on mobile!

thanks for the feedback.

[Paul ™]

Jump lists are handy, the alignment is out on my Samsung S2 though, it's as if the bars are too long for the screen width.

*edit* That happens in both the app and the mobile website.

Looks fine on my Nexus 7

Edited April 23, 2013 by Paul ™

[eFestivals]

Jump lists are handy, the alignment is out on my Samsung S2 though, it's as if the bars are too long for the screen width.

Hmmmm, that's odd. They were fine on my crappy old phone yesterday, but today it's doing what i guess is the same thing. I've changed a few things in the meantime tho, so I'll take a look in a minute and see if there's anything I can do with it which will help for smaller screens.

[eFestivals]

How is it now?

I've just tweaked it, and it now displays OK on my crappy old phone - so hopefully it'll be OK on yours too...?

[Paul ™]

Yup it's better, both same length and not extending off to the right.

[eFestivals]

Yup it's better, both same length and not extending off to the right.

cheers.

[eFestivals]

I'm on the home straight now with getting the new site finished, with only bits and pieces and tweaks still to do.

Before the end of the week the new site will be uploaded and a number of people will be using it to test it to help pinpoint any issues and suggest any improvements. Hopefully it won't be more than a week beyond that when it goes fully live.

And just to help manage people's expectations .... while the site has had a makeover which (I hope) will have people find it easier to use, there's not a huge number of changes beyond that just yet. The major reason for the new site is a much better designed back-end to how it works, which will then allow further changes and developments to be easily made as time goes by.

[eFestivals]

The current dropdown menus don't interact well with tabbed browsing. You can't select any option in a way that you can open in a new tab which'd be really nice to do.

I'm not sure if it's possible to have middle-click/right-click functions operating on any dropdown menu, but if you're restructuring the site it'd be great to have ways to open other sections in new tabs.

I've tried changing the menu set-up so that it's possible to right-click and select 'open in new tab' (or whatever), but unfortunately that causes big formatting issues with the menus so it's not going to be possible to have that option.

However, what I have discovered along the way is that it is still possible to have a menu option open in a new window - and you achieve that by holding down the shift key when clicking on a menu option.

Sorry you're not getting the change you wanted (and that I'd have also liked), but I have tried.

[eFestivals]

I'm pleased to say that the new website is now into its testing phase.

There's a number of people using the new site to bring any issues to my attention, and while I've got a list of snags to work my way thru, I'm hoping those will all be sorted before the end of the week.

With a bit of luck, by this time next week you'll all be using the new website.

[Paul ™]

Nice one

[kaosmark2]

I've tried changing the menu set-up so that it's possible to right-click and select 'open in new tab' (or whatever), but unfortunately that causes big formatting issues with the menus so it's not going to be possible to have that option.

However, what I have discovered along the way is that it is still possible to have a menu option open in a new window - and you achieve that by holding down the shift key when clicking on a menu option.

Sorry you're not getting the change you wanted (and that I'd have also liked), but I have tried.

[LondonTom]

Nice one Neil, I shall raise a cider in celebration once it's up

[dan05delaney]

awesome I'm looking forward to using it!

[eFestivals]

Your opinions wanted.....

The new website is both a mobile and full website.

There's two different ways of deciding which version (mobile, or full) of the website a person gets. Which one would you prefer?

1. the version a person gets is decided by their device type (phone/tablet, or PC). If they are using a phone or tablet, they get the mobile version; if they're using a desktop computer, they get the full version.

2. the version a person gets is decided by the subdomain (m.efestivals.co.uk, or www.efestivals.co.uk) their page request is made to. If they request a page from m.efestivals.co.uk they get the mobile version, and if they request a page from www.efestivals.co.uk they get the full version.

(Note: in either case, there'll be an option on every page to give them the alternative version with one click).

Please let me know which way you'd prefer it to work.

[Paul ™]

Option 1 for me

[LondonTom]

I like Option 1 it would still work for tablets as you can always request the desktop version in a browser.

I am not sure if you can do that from the App though? It would be good if you could set the default on your own device(E.G. At home on my Note 10.1 I'd want the full desktop version to load every time I use the app, on my SII I'd want the mobile site still.)...

Might be getting a bit complicated there

[eFestivals]

LondonTom, on 02 May 2013 - 11:09 AM, said:

I like Option 1 it would still work for tablets as you can always request the desktop version in a browser.

yep, that's the upside of option 1.

The downside is having your choice of version decided for you. There's part of me that rails against having that choice made for you.

LondonTom, on 02 May 2013 - 11:09 AM, said:

I am not sure if you can do that from the App though? It would be good if you could set the default on your own device(E.G. At home on my Note 10.1 I'd want the full desktop version to load every time I use the app, on my SII I'd want the mobile site still.)...

Might be getting a bit complicated there

not complicated at all - the function is already there.

Having said that, it's not currently possible to access how to change to the (new) full version from within the app. Tho when it's possible to access the settings controller it still might not work from within the app, as I'm not entirely sure that it works as it should do with cookies in the current app version.

(I've held off changing anything within the app for the moment, because stuff like this options choice is still up in the air. A minor update to the app is planned for soon after the new site launch; bigger updates will follow).

[eFestivals]

I think the new website is finished, and ready to be installed.

[LondonTom]

Woop!

[eFestivals]

The new website is now live on the mobile subdomain - http://m.efestivals.co.uk.

If you visit there with a desktop computer you'll get the full website; if you visit there with a phone or tablet you should get the mobile version.

Fingers crossed it all works OK. As long as it does, the 'www' subdomain should be running the same thing by Monday morning.

Take a look and let me know what you think.

[eFestivals]

The very first issue I've found is that the efestivals app doesn't want to serve up the full version of the website if the link is clicked for the 'full version of this page', which I'm guessing is related to the cookie handling within the app.

This should be addressed within the next week, with a new version of the app.

[eFestivals]

I've just published an update to the app, so that it works OK with the new website.

It takes a few hours to appear. It's numbered as v0.70.

Also, according to Google Play the app will now install on my old android v2.2 phone. Whether it'll actually do everything that it should tho I'm not entirely sure.

Edited May 10, 2013 by eFestivals

[lusau]

Oh cool, cheers Neil