Coming Soon: Site header redesign (UPDATED FIRST POST 7/1)

[CH0Z0]

panoptes

Rasabon

People have hacked Facebook, the site you are attempting to imitate, in order to give people the option to view "Classic Facebook," because New Facebook is so globally despised.

oh! good point!

I'll save all the javascript and CSS now so I can greasemonkey this update out of existence later.

Soon there gonna be making themes to override gaia's newest ugly interface and it'll be like firefox themes or something... o.o you know you got a problem when people go through the trouble to do that.

[Catanaition N. D.]

panoptes

Rasabon

People have hacked Facebook, the site you are attempting to imitate, in order to give people the option to view "Classic Facebook," because New Facebook is so globally despised.

oh! good point!

I'll save all the javascript and CSS now so I can greasemonkey this update out of existence later.

If you do this please either post it publicly on the site or at least PM me ;-; I hate floating anything on my screen and I hate the fact that bubble is being relegated to ad-status. If that becomes the case I will adblock both the bubble and the footer.

[Besmirched]

Thank you for getting rid of the map but PLEASE don't get rid of the notification bubbles!

[Daffodil the Destroyer]

Catanaition N. D.

panoptes

Rasabon

People have hacked Facebook, the site you are attempting to imitate, in order to give people the option to view "Classic Facebook," because New Facebook is so globally despised.

oh! good point!

I'll save all the javascript and CSS now so I can greasemonkey this update out of existence later.

If you do this please either post it publicly on the site or at least PM me ;-; I hate floating anything on my screen and I hate the fact that bubble is being relegated to ad-status. If that becomes the case I will adblock both the bubble and the footer.

I was about to say this - I would like to greasemonkey this too but I don't know how to write my own scripts for it.

[Nyadriel]

I am not exactly thrilled with the idea of Gaia changing into and "MySpace" type site either. And WHAT the hell makes them think I will notice anything at the BOTTOM of my pages? Do you (the Staff) even have any idea how often I tend to scoll all the way down? Especially since some of the pages are quite long and I really have no real need to scroll all the way down there.
And WTF is up with the floating things being planned? Its annoying enough to have something floating on my page when I happen to find one of the pink/blue/brown boxes and the LAG it causes! Seriously now! Not to mention the irritation it will cause. You may think its fun, but its not. Especially to us "older folk".

You are better off KEEPING THE BUBBLES ON THE HEADERS than you are in taking them away because they are more noticable. Taking them away would cause more problems than solving. Irritation of your users being one of the biggest issues. Imagine the problems there - especially if you cannot get RID of them because things keep popping up. Some people get a LOT of pms and profile comments. This decision IS NOT A VERY SMART ONE!!

Sorry to see the map being removed. It often gave me an idea of when there is daylight and when there is nighttime in Towns. I certainly hope that the header will at least continue with that much as many of us DONT like having to waste so much time going to a page or even going into Towns just to check. Bad enough there isnt a clock anywhere to tell us anything. And I DONT like "guessing games"!

The icons at the top right, I AM liking the small tweaks. Those make better sense. But the rest of the changes - specifically the bubbles, are NOT. You are going to end up putting them back.

By the way, I tried MySpace once, I HATED it! And I could not get my mind around it either. Needless to say I stayed only one day and quit. DO NOT MAKE THE MISTAKE IN CHAGING THIS SITE INTO THAT IN ANY WAY!!! It is NOT the best move for GaiaOnline dispite the "teenage genre" in Gaia's population. A lot of them come here to escape that in case you miss that point too!

[XanAmpersand]

My answer:
HELL. NO.

Why change anything? It doesn't need to be fixed. Period.
GO FIX SOMETHING THAT ACTUALLY NEEDS TO BE FIXED.

"Unfortunately, after much pondering and debate, we decided to remove the world map as it was taking a big toll on the page load speed."
^That up there is complete and utter bullshit. All the map has is a link. That's it. Does to ******** follow people around the page as they scroll? No. Adding a floating footer would screw with page loading more than the map EVER could.

I also find it ******** ridiculous that you won't answer what people have been asking:
What's the point in changing it in the first place?

I also just LOVE how you're not responding to barely ANY of the feedback. At all. What? Are you just going to ignore all the negative stuff? That would mean ignoring the entire thread, actually. Minus, well, three or four replies.

I come to Gaia to GET AWAY from the other sites like Facebook and Myspace. Thank you for having the creativity of a rock by copying those social networking sites. Great job. I just hope you don't try to shove this down our throats.

And if you take away our bubbles, I swear to God all hell will break loose.

[Fried Ovaries]

Dont get rid of our bubbles D;
I dont want something floating around on my screen.

So please take them away.
Dont fix something that isnt broken.

I come to Gaia to get away from Facebook &&Myspace.
Dont change.

[Dielle Levine]

To be honest, i don't like it. I love the bubbles and i'm using the Shortcuts very often.
I don't understand, why Gaia want to change this.

Edit: And the footer looks like crap.

[Zlitchy]

zℓιтcнч wants to say;;
- »» NO, no footer please, or at least give us the option to have it on the header. I don't want an ugly menu bar on the bottom of my page... worst since I have a large screen I'm sure that it won't show off correctly.

Put that flooting footer on the banner, like just over the menu bar under where the gold and gaia cash count are.

And please, I like how the Gaia Logo is placed presently, don't put it higher and on a tab like thing.

[Celestial Fireflies]

Like:
- The top right is more minimal. I like that.
- The map feature, while a nice touch, was(is?) fairly useless. If it relieves lag to remove it, that's great.
- You left a lot of things alone.

Dislike:
- The blue used for the top right. Who picked that and why? It makes it look very disconnected and out of place in this layout. I would stick with the current colors (beige and white), as it seems to fit better.
- Floating footer; probably a sign that the designers spend a bit too much time on Facebook. Okay, you want to focus on the social aspect, that's great, just come up with something that isn't a direct ripoff of other sites. It's also annoying to deal with, clutters the page, and probably adds more lag than the world feature did.
- Notices for PMs and comments now part of the floating footer? Friends online now display on the footer? Hmm, gee, what other social networking sites do we know of that use that same exact layout? Please don't change the bubbles, they're fine where they are.
- If you absolutely refuse to come up with a different idea and go ahead as planned with the footer, a closer matching purple would look better.

Overall, this feels very unoriginal, plus the additions seem tacked on and out of place. It seems very few people like the footer, so hopefully that gets reconsidered and at least becomes an optional feature.

[JK]

Ok, so after letting the ideas sit in a bit and reading carbonphyber's post, I'm more welcome to trying a footer. BUT I'm still not happy with the screenshot, mostly for aesthetic reasons. I kind of like the silver and white goin on at the top of my screen, so perhaps use some different colors for the username/gold bars. And if you don't do that at least make the two things the same height. It's bugging me. And I like the design of the footer better than the navigation bar under the header. Please change it to match; I feel it will really pull the theme together more with matching bars. That would be much love. <3

As for the bubble, I will be disappointed that it will be used less but we'll see how it goes with the footer before I'm completely upset. I would love to see some screenshots of what the new notification bubbles from the footer look like. Just take a screen of every notification: announcement, PM, comment, friends request, trade, and notice. I think that about covers it.

Also, how often does the footer refresh? Is it like the header where it loads per page, or does it refresh itself every time there is a new message/comment/etc. (I'm assuming the second tab is profile comments?) I would think it loads every page like our current header so I would see no real justification to moving the bubble to the footer since every page starts at the top anyways, except for the occasional link that jumps to a certain post or having just posted. If it's constant that would be very useful to see my notification pop up right when it happens if I'm looking at something particularly long. But then I would be worried about the possibility that it will bog down my browser. I already have a hard time in some of the flash heavy areas.

Speaking of flash heavy, would there be any possibility that you guys will design a generic Gaia Lite? It'd be great if you could make your own light versions of the site for computers and mobile devises instead of having to rely on the Verizon one (which I don't think works for non-verizon customers, but I can't test it).

And one more question that Endrael asked but I'm also very curious about. Will the floating footer cover up the links at the bottom of the page? It looks as though the bar would be large enough to cover the copyrights and possibly part of the bottom row of links. Does it fit under those or will you guys add a bit of space down there to allow it to fit? I would hate be like "hmmm I want to quote the ToS to this user for my argument here in the SF" *scrollscrollscroll* "..... lame."

[Damalis]

NO!! DONT TAKE AWAY THE BUBBLES!!! scream

Instead of changing something that DOES work, like the header and the bubble, fix the crap that is not working!!! Gaia is not Face Book, please please dont try to looke like it!!!!

[Cotton Candy Cupcake]

I hate it! i do not want one of those awful footer chatbars. I hate them on Facebook, hate them on MySpace, ick nast.

i dont like the moved Gaia onine logo on the pages...i think it looks better where it is now. the blue looks awful.

PLEASE GAIA keep the current layout. PLEASE I BEG YOU!!!

[Duo-chan_in_wonderland]

I hope you read this negative feedback, and decide to change your minds instead of disregarding nearly the whole userbases opinions and removing something thats become unique to gaia.

That being said >.> There are so many things and features on this site that need attention and updating, and you waste your time developing this?! talk2hand

[Sventeen]

Definitely NOT liking this. I absolutely loathe footers. They're distracting and ugly and a general nuisance, and I've avoided using entire sites just because they have a footer implemented.

I also am not happy about the bubbles being taken away, the bubbles are a very simple and effective way of showing when you've got a PM or a comment, and I'd very much prefer they stay.

Same goes for the shortcuts menu.

I do not, however, mind the map removal, and if it'll relieve some lag, then go for it.