SSP: Rename Announcements.....

[froglips]

Started wondering why I hear from what I'd say is "too many people" that don't know about upcoming events.

Got me to thinking (yeah, again), maybe "Announcements" isn't the optimal name for that box at the top of our page.

So, any thoughts? Maybe "Events, Gatherings, Goings On"

Also, maybe make it stand out a little more? Change the font, color etc?

This might be controversial, but what about also sending out a PM for each new event added?

Jim

 

[scsmith42]

Jim - what about simply "upcoming events"?

 

[TracyP]

The folks that are not seeing them may have the box minimized to clean up their screen. They may have done it at some point and don't realize it was once there. I wouldn't want to take that option away though. Although is still says announcements when minimized.

jmtcw

 

[froglips]

Great points!

I totally prefer keeping things collapsed when not interested.

One thing we could try is making the "Upcoming Events" box title dynamic. We could do all sorts of things.

"Upcoming Events! We have 7 events"

or

"Upcoming Events! Just added "Scott Smith's Why I despise QSRO Bonfire""

I'm not great at marketing/wording. But I am funny.......in my mind.

We have a finite amount of space when collapsed, but we could fill it.

Jim

 

[Bas]

I totally prefer keeping things collapsed when not interested.

This applies to many things in life

I wonder how hard it would be to automatically build the scrolling marquee text with the announcements, to make it like a news ticker, e.g.

Handtool exchange meeting Septeber 1, Jim missing in action ..... Scott Smith buys new tool, power outages reported ... Roger holding a seminar 9/15 on building cool looking headgear ...

You get the idea.

 

[froglips]

Neat idea. I'll see what I can find.

I'm probably wrong, but I "feel" like my browser slows when we run a scrolling banner.

BTW, two people at the RTP Lunch, who are long standing members, were unaware of the shop crawls. So something is way off.

Jim

 

[froglips]

A bit more on this, in side conversations.

Folks are collapsing the Announcements.

One person actually looks at the calendar!

Also, when people only visit the site say once a week, New Posts can be hundreds of threads. So lots of announcement type threads are easily lost.

I got mixed opinions on the scrolling marqee.

Did soundly get a thumbs down on the force read thread.

Jim

 

[Bas]

I looked at whether it's possible to prevent users from collapsing the Announcement box, but I didn't see an option for that. Perhaps the best option is to sticky important announcements, like Shop Crawls. That would prevent them from getting lost. Anything more forceful is likely to feel "pushy".

 

[froglips]

I've found that collapse is usually inside the template code. This is a CMPS module, so it would require spawning a new template, they share a common template for the header/collapse functions. Forcing it open is possible.

I'm currently hacking some code to pull from a db and update a subject, we might be able to use that to create a dynamic title......

For today, how about I start with Scott's suggestion of "Upcoming Events"?

Jim

 

[froglips]

Ta. Da. Now its Upcoming Events!

I edited the vbadvanced CMPS -> Edit Modules -> Announcements module.

Changed the Module Title from Announcements to Upcoming Events.

That also displays it as Upcoming Events in the Edit Modules page.

Shall we raise the bar with something fancy next?

Jim

 

[toolman]

:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap:eusa_clap :notworthy::notworthy::notworthy: :rotflm:
Looks GOOD!
​

 

[TracyP]

:gar-Bi:gar-Bi:gar-Bi