Slimmed down forum borders

ericpode

Is there any prospect of having the amount of large and repetative stuff which appears at the top and side of the forum pages reduced?

Almost all of this is exactly the same on every page and imparts almost no useful information while navigating the forums. It also means that this same data is having to be transmitted from very busy servers and received by users who have dial-up access for every page. It seems like a dreadful waste and means that users have to wait longer for page loads to complete.

It also takes up a HUGE amount of space on the screen. I am viewing the forums on a laptop and for every page that loads the WHOLE screen is taken up with these repeated banners and links. Consequently I have to scroll the screen before I can see any postings or thread titles at all - which does get a bit tedious.

I understand the need to get forum warnings and Martin's email tips invitation across to users, but surely we don't really need to be bludgeoned about the head with this on EVERY single page.

Reducing this would free up some of the load on the servers, make pages a bit quicker to load and reduce the amount of scrolling.

Surely it must be possible to add an option to remove some of the clutter. Yes if the warning text changes or there is a new special bit of news then I need to be told about it. On such occasions the option could be overridden to ensure the user gets this new/changed info.

MSE_Martin

One of the things we're looking at is a redesign to smooth this down. It's important to remember though the forums are just one part of the site and people need to navigate back. It's my aim in future to just have a top bar and a right hand bar to make it easier, but thats a BIG task.

At the moment you could turn images off which would help.

Martin

ericpode

Hi Martin. I'm happy to hear that this is being looked at at present.

Chippy_Minton

ericpode wrote:

Is there any prospect of having the amount of large and repetative stuff which appears at the top and side of the forum pages reduced?

Almost all of this is exactly the same on every page and imparts almost no useful information while navigating the forums. It also means that this same data is having to be transmitted from very busy servers and received by users who have dial-up access for every page. It seems like a dreadful waste and means that users have to wait longer for page loads to complete.

Your browser caches elements of a page on your hard drive, so the same data isn't transmitted every time you request a page, only the data that isn't cached locally.

Since virtually all MSE pages have the same HTML elements (e.g. jpegs, gifs, form elements etc.) on each page, the whole page is downloaded only for the very first MSE page requested. Thereafter your browser checks in the cache first and will retrieve the elements from there until it is cleared. This reduces the amount of data transmitted and speeds up page loading.

SamC_4

:idea: GreaseMonkey script for FireFox anyone?

Edit: I have a script that does this now, thanks to Platypus. It's a bit crude but it only took 5 minutes, and it does the job of removing the top and side bars. If you use Firefox 1.5 and Greasemonkey and you want to try the script, PM me and I will send you a copy.

ericpode

GreaseMonkey script for FireFox anyone?

Well I did kind of wonder whether anyone had done one of these too!

Yes elements of the page are cached but the base HTML structure of the page must be sent every time. It may be re-using CSS files as well as images.

There are two issues really, the quantity of data repeatedly sent for each page, and the physical screen area taken up by it.

I suspect that greasemonkey won't prevent the borders from being downloaded but just won't render (all) of them.

SamC_4

ericpode wrote:

I suspect that greasemonkey won't prevent the borders from being downloaded but just won't render (all) of them.

Yes, the browser will display them while the page is loading but GreaseMonkey chops them out afterwards.

Mr_Proctalgia

I'm not exactly techie but I have at least managed to get rid of the horizontal scroll bar on my 15" laptop and some of the clutter from the forums .
Using Firefox and adblock I removed Martins Piccie and the banner from across the top of the page (and the kisses too!!!!) and now everything fits and I can have my booksmarks open as well! It only takes 5 minutes to do and it does seem a little snappier now.

Hope this helps.

ericpode

I can confirm that the Greasemonkey script works very well.

I added ....../forumdisplay.html to the list of URLs so that it also works for the thread list (within a forum). I've left the page which displays the complete list of furums unchanged so that I can easily see any new warnings or whatever.

Everything is cut out up to the forum name, e.g. up to:

MoneySavingExpert.com Forums > MoneySaving And The Site > This Site: Questions & suggestions

and the whole of the left hand column is removed too. The threads and postings now fill the screen. Doesn't appear to have removed any functionality. Bliss!