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I love Big Closet and I visit just about every day. However, I find the layout of the site very confusing. I wanted to comment on a story and even though I am logged into the site, I can not comment. I figured that I need to have permission from the administrator before being allowed to post comments, but there isn't even a link that I can find to email the administrator.
I would really like to have a discussion with the administrator/owner of the site on usability. Not a rant, but a real discussion as I also build web sites. By the way, I can tell from the site layout that this is running on some sort of CMS software.
Why is your cost for Big Closet 400$/month? Are you running an in house server or using a root server at one of the hosting companies. I would think that even renting a root server at a hosting company would not be 400$/month. Have you checked out 1&1.com?
Comments
Hi Kimberly. Not being part o
Hi Kimberly. Not being part of TS admin, I don't have many answers. But if you want to comment on a story, just open the story to read it. At the end of the post, there is a space to click to make a comment or respond to one of an already posted comment.
Commenting
Hi Kimberly,
I'm glad you enjoy the stories and other features at the BigCloset. :)
At the bottom of each story and article is a link that says "add new comment" clicking that will take you to a screen on which you can add comments. No special permission is needed, at the current time, even non-logged in visitors are allowed to comment. I posted about this recently. If you are having some trouble other than finding that link, perhaps it is the setting of your browser?
The TopShelf site is running on the Drupal CMS, not the latest version but a recent one. BigCloset Classic runs on PostNuke. BC Gallery runs on Gallery.
BigCloset costs me about $400 a month in part because it is not the only TG site I run or host. Also, I'm on a fixed income, retired, so I include all of my expenses in that $400. I do have a server with 1and1 that I use for storing really big files so their download won't impact BC itself. That one costs me $20 a month. I had a big server at 1and1 but when I had a security break-in they essentially locked me out of the server for a week, behavior I considered unacceptable.
My two main servers, one hosting BC Topshelf + BC Gallery, and the other hosting BC Classic and several other TG and non-TG sites are located in North Carolina and Texas, respectively. I have one other server that I pay for space on where I experiment with software, it costs me $5 a month. Bob Arnold also lets me use space on his servers from time to time.
I don't have that much cost in terms of Bandwidth since all of the sites added together amount only to about 60gig a month. Processing speed is the bottleneck for why I need more than one server.
Other expenses include broadband access to the internet for me, costs for keeping my domains, telephone service, office expense, software and hardware costs. I've displayed the totals here before. When I get paid for freelance editing, writing or webdesign, all that money goes into the donation box, too. In the last year, that's amounted to over $1000. Advertising monies also go into the box.
In December, I layed out over $700 because of prepaying several months on a server to replace the 1and1 server. After getting donations for January, I planned on completely reassessing my costs and perhaps reducing them further by moving the stuff on the Texas server to one in North Carolina. If you look at the Donation box, you can see that I'm still accepting donations for January.
If you want to email me to discuss more things, I'm at [email protected] or we can arrange to meet in the chatroom. :)
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
I too like big closet but...
Erin,
You haven't addressed the issue of useability. I can understand you being defensive about costs and feeling a need to explain but the main point of the lead message in this topic was ease of use of this site.
Big Closet really fails the useability test for me. I find the layout of your closets confusing. I'm not sure what each closet contains nor why. And navigation to find a story by an author is impossible. Well, it has been for me anyway.
There is far too much on the main screen and it scrolls on forever. For me, the whole site could do with a serious makeover. There is much to be said for the mainly accepted standard of left side links to populate a right hand main frame.
Finally if you use a database back end, why can't we search it?
I know you do this for love but if I were to judge you less hard than I would a commercial site that would be patronising wouldn't it?
Useability
One question on useability was asked, I answered that. I didn't know what other questions on useability to answer since none were asked by Kimberly.
Questions about finance were asked and I answered in detail because I thought it was important. I wasn't being defensive, just informative.
Now on your useability questions: If you register and log in, there's a menu of authors on the left side. I've just turned that on for people who aren't logged in but if you are logged in, you can turn it back off in the |my account| settings. Other ways of sorting the site are also available to turn on or off for logged in users.
I have no idea of what you mean by closets so I can't explain that. The site is one BigCloset and I don't call anything else a closet. :) If you're talking about Classic BigCloset, that's a different site, an earlier version.
I don't think there is too much on the main screen but if you do, there are three alternate layouts you can use, just click on |Recent| or |Stories| or |RSS| and bookmark the one you like. Also, many of the sidebars on the main page can be turned off in "my account" if you are logged in.
The main page, "scrolls on forever" because I liked to keep at least ten days of stories listed up front. I don't think the authors will complain about this and I really didn't expect anyone else to do either. When the site has been less busy, I've cut down how many stories display to keep the limit at 7 to 14 days or so.
There is no "mainly accepted standard of left side links to populate a right hand main frame" in my experience. I see all sorts of layouts out there. If anything, I see more "right hand" menu sites than left hand. Three column sites like BC are pretty common among us geekier types. :) Since the software I'm using comes this way standard, it is a standard of sorts. BC is designed to be legible at least, with no gray type on a black background.
There are several ways to search for things in BC, including the various search tabs in the top menu. If you're logged in, you can turn on a Google site search window but I left that turned off for the moment since Google is having trouble serving the ads for it this weekend. Besides, it appears in the right hand column. :)
When you use any of the search methods, you are searching the database--how else? Well, the Google search uses a site map of the site it makes to do the searching. If you're asking why can't you search the database more directly, no thanks. I've got enough security problems.
You can even do a title search on a partial title, though this is not well documented. Go to make a comment on something, anything. Type the title or partial title you want to search for inside square brackets like this {Higher Power} except use square brackets instead of curly ones: [Higher Power]. Now hit the preview button which will turn the square bracketed title into a link. Hit the link and it will bring up a story by that title, or a list of stories containing that in the title or tell you that no such story title exists. Neat, huh? :) I haven't figured out how to put that capability on a button link, though. :)
Yes, I do this for love and my own ego. :) Good thing, huh?
I'm going to look the site over again, I just found that the |Authors & Categories| link at the top does not work when the site is busy (auto-throttle on database intensive operations). I'll fine tune some of the features and maybe turn some of the right side items off for non-logged in users. But the recent comments box stays, that's BC's trademark--that it's easy to see which stories have been getting comments.
I find criticism helpful. You could have been more specific though when you say the site has far too much on the main screen. What should I leave out, in your opinion?
Thanks,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Useability and candles in the darkness.
There are those who light candles in the darkness, and those who complain about the colour of the flame...
I've been an IT professional since the late '70s and nowadays build and maintain database-backed e-commerce systems. Personally, I find the site design of TopShelf excellent. Exactly how a user responds to a site is of course a matter of taste and opinion, but I would make the following comments.
"There is far too much on the main screen and it scrolls on forever. For me, the whole site could do with a serious makeover. There is much to be said for the mainly accepted standard of left side links to populate a right hand main frame."
I like designs where information is presented on long, document-style pages. It is trivially easy to scroll down quickly without taking my hands off the keyboard by tapping the space bar, and I can easily search for any word on the page with my browser's Find feature. In my opinion, that is preferable by far to digging my way through multiple separate pages by clicking on menus and links.
I wouldn't call it a standard, but TopShelf does have left-side links populating a right hand frame. TopShelf has right-side links as well but that's hardly a major challenge to cope with.
"And navigation to find a story by an author is impossible. Well, it has been for me anyway."
One of the best features of TopShelf is that one can search by author, or any other category, without having to enter a separate search page. On the left-hand side of the page is a category menu which contains all the available search categories, including author names. To search for Gwen Lavyril's stories for example, simply go to the home page, press Ctrl-f (I use Firefox), type in Gwen's name and you'll be taken directly to a link to her stories. You can search for any of the other categories in the same way. Other search facilities are also available through the links in the blue title-bar at the top of the page.
"Finally if you use a database back end, why can't we search it?"
As I said above, TopShelf has several search facilities. I'm not sure what more Erin could offer.
"I know you do this for love but if I were to judge you less hard than I would a commercial site that would be patronising wouldn't it?"
Actually, I think Erin's design is better than most commercial sites. Typical commercial web-sites take a cookie-cutter approach which emphasises presentation over content, and they often feature interface choices that look clever, but actually obstruct the user. TopShelf by contrast emphasises content, and makes most of it available from the home page, rather than forcing the user to dig for it.
Kudos to Erin IMHO.
Best wishes, Andrea.
Function as Design
Yes, Andi, BC is designed to have as much as possible on the front page in the interest of not having to negotiate multiple menus and pages. I've even got hidden menus for me that allow me to go directly to various admin functions without using layers of menu choices. To me, this is good design. It ain't as pretty as I could make it, I did have two years of graphic design in college, but I went for efficiency over prettiness even in my choice of fonts.
The most telling criticism is that I have so much on the front page that some people have trouble finding the feature they are looking for. I need to make a good FAQ and have it easily to hand. Time is always an enemy since I also write and edit stories, too.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
BC TS is loading slow latetly
I've noticed that Big Closet has been taking a very long time to load, both when I click my bookmark and when I am navigating on the site. Has web traffic picked up that much in the last month or so?
Mr. Ram
Culprit
The culprit seems to be Gallery for the images. We're looking at putting that on a different server.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Gallery shut down
Gallery is going to be shut down for awhile so Bob and I can figure this out. Sorry.
- Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Erin - Please consider
To do is to be. - Socrates
To be is to do. - Plato
The way to do is to be. - Lao-tzu.
Do be do be do. - Sinatra
(Popular bathroom graffiti of the sixties. Hmmmm, what would make a bathroom popular? Inviting stalls. Forgiving mirrors? Friendly sinks?)
Sometimes I don't know where people are coming from. From an author's standpoint, your website is amazing. It is easy to load our stories -- and instantaneous. If we errored, which I do all the time, we can easily change it.
There is an African proverb that states, "By his deeds we know the man." This would seem to be a non-gender statement and one that applies to you. The care you took in developing your website and the ongoing work you put into it, defines you in a very positive way.
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)
Angela Rasch (Jill M I)