news site?

[scottc]

I'm not a big fan of automatic infinite scrolling, but a "load more" button could do the job (basically a "manual infinite scrolling")

I guess it's mostly up to preference, but I'd prefer it this way too. I've never encountered a site that actually does infinite scrolling smoothly...

[Icarium]

I'm not a big fan of automatic infinite scrolling, but a "load more" button could do the job (basically a "manual infinite scrolling")

I guess it's mostly up to preference, but I'd prefer it this way too. I've never encountered a site that actually does infinite scrolling smoothly...

If you exclude pictures you could probably do infinite scrolling by loading everything with the page. :p

[matt3o]

Do you prefer to have the whole body of the news in the homepage or just a list with an excerpt?

[Muirium]

I much prefer the former. Excessive clicking is what makes the forum impenetrable, too. (For the uninitiated.)

[matt3o]

thinking about it... it could be even configurable...

[Halvar]

thinking about it... it could be even configurable...

Standard software developer escape from questions that cannot be answered...

Anyway, a permanent URL that always leads to the newest full story with an "older stories" link or a navigation panel is great for people who follow the news regularly imo.

For people who don't visit so often or don't want to read everything, an overview page that shows excerpts seems to make a lot of sense to me. Not all stories are equally important or interesting to all people, so there should be a way to decide without scrolling through all the full stories, but with enough text to decide if the story is worth reading.

Unlike the forum home page, the overview page should definitely show all the stories there are (from a certain, pretty long span of time). There should be no need to dive into categories to check what's new.

[Icarium]

Anyway, a permanent URL that always leads to the newest full story with an "older stories" link or a navigation panel is great for people who follow the news regularly imo.
.

There's RSS for that...

[Muirium]

There is. But RSS is another niche, like browsing forums. We're looking to shake things up a bit!

Perhaps the best balance for a blog style news page is excerpted items, but with long excerpts. If there's just quick link items in there, with a few lines of descriptions, I want to see the whole thing without a hint that it's any bigger. In fact, two different title styles would be good to differentiate this.

I like the way Gruber makes this distinction clear on Daring Fireball. Regular linked items look completely different to his full posts.

[matt3o]

Anyway, a permanent URL that always leads to the newest full story with an "older stories" link or a navigation panel is great for people who follow the news regularly imo.

this is actually a nice idea. I've never seen something like this...

So 3 options for the homepage:

- 1 story at a time (the latest), with next/prev (and maybe a list of latest news to the sidebar)
- excerpts for all stories
- full stories (excluding very long ones/reviews/dossiers/etc...)

I will never find a CMS with such a flexibility......

[Icarium]

RSS is a way to read the site that takes care of keeping track of what you have seen and what you have not. That's what I thought Halvar was worried about.

Cookies can, of course, provide the same functionality.

[Icarium]

I will never find a CMS with such a flexibility......

Pretty sure you can accomplish that with wordpress themes.

[Muirium]

So 3 options for the homepage:

- 1 story at a time (the latest), with next/prev (and maybe a list of latest news to the sidebar)
- excerpts for all stories
- full stories (excluding very long ones/reviews/dossiers/etc...)

That first option… ack! Definitely not that! The second one, with longer-than-average excerpts is better. But the last is the way to get people to actually read anything. The click is dead!

Options are fine and all. But remember that only the default really exists. The people who alter anything are the kind of nerds like us who are already all over the forum!

[scottc]

But the last is the way to get people to actually read anything. The click is dead!

The click-follow-through-to-new-tab, maybe, but we could have some Javascript magic that would just expand it in-place. I think that would be the best of both worlds.

[matt3o]

Default would be #2 (with options for advanced users, I do not agree that only the default exists. To me even if just 2 users use a not-standard option is a victory).

Let me see if I can find a flexible enough WP theme (even pro/paid). Anyone has some insights/suggestions in that regard?

[scottc]

Let me see if I can find a flexible enough WP theme (even pro/paid). Anyone has some insights/suggestions in that regard?

If no free (or open-source) version exists, I'd be up for trying to re-create a paid WP theme of that style from scratch and releasing it GPL.

I say this, contemplating the horrors that are PHP...

[matt3o]

most of the themes are GPL (even the paid ones). Paying $50-100 doesn't bother me if the theme does 90% of what we need and we can concentrate on the remaining 10%

[DerpyDash_xAD]

I'm not a big fan of automatic infinite scrolling, but a "load more" button could do the job (basically a "manual infinite scrolling")

I guess it's mostly up to preference, but I'd prefer it this way too. I've never encountered a site that actually does infinite scrolling smoothly...

If you exclude pictures you could probably do infinite scrolling by loading everything with the page. :p

That's a part of the 'basic' mode I suggested - although limited to 100 articles a page.

[DerpyDash_xAD]

Anyway, a permanent URL that always leads to the newest full story with an "older stories" link or a navigation panel is great for people who follow the news regularly imo.

this is actually a nice idea. I've never seen something like this...

So 3 options for the homepage:

- 1 story at a time (the latest), with next/prev (and maybe a list of latest news to the sidebar)
- excerpts for all stories
- full stories (excluding very long ones/reviews/dossiers/etc...)

I will never find a CMS with such a flexibility......

The majority seem to want the last. It would be possible using #divs and JavaScript so down arrow skips to next article, and each article is a screens worth.

[DerpyDash_xAD]

But the last is the way to get people to actually read anything. The click is dead!

The click-follow-through-to-new-tab, maybe, but we could have some Javascript magic that would just expand it in-place. I think that would be the best of both worlds.

I also was considering JavaScript expansion, but tbh when I use it upsets the flow of my reading, so I left it out.

I'm going to get on my PC and compile all the suggestions so people can properly review them.

[DerpyDash_xAD]

Ideas

Muirium

Spoiler:

Perhaps each blog post (or as I'd prefer to call it: news item) automatically creates and links to a topic in the forum with the same content, where all discussion takes place.

No "read more" buttons

put all the focus on the posts

item can have its own URL (permalink)

whole body of the news in the homepage

excerpted items, but with long excerpts

quick link items different title styles

Icarium/Broadmonkey

Spoiler:

news shouldn't only include new products/keyboards -handpicked forum threads/activities and groupbuys

sth

Spoiler:

Wiki style intergration - same authentication

Icarium

Spoiler:

article about thread attached to the thread like a summary - stickyable

loading everything with the page

RSS

DerpyDash_xAD

Spoiler:

dedicated URL would appear more professional - retain deskthority as host

page, just with articles, and two links - Forum Thread and Permalink - below each article

distraction free/basic mode - zero images and pagination

regular/full version - autoloading with scroll down, images

topbar - displaying login status, level (user\writer\editor) and a dark/light switcher

authentication - cookies from deskthority

#divs and JavaScript so down arrow skips to next article

matt3o

Spoiler:

load more button instead of autoload

configurable

Halvar

Spoiler:

permlink leading to the newest full story

"older stories" link or a navigation panel

overview page that shows excerpts

scottc

Spoiler:

Javascript magic that would just expand it in-place

[matt3o]

I do not want to add work on webwit, so it is not clear yet how the integration would work. I'd need root access to the server, but of course I don't know if that is an option. So session sharing is still uncertain.

I suggested to build a very quick API to make the 2 sites talk, but I don't know if that is actually feasible (or if there's interest at all)

[Icarium]

This is the web, use links!


(Sounds silly but is actually the solution to almost everything.)

[DerpyDash_xAD]

Just links and a separate author system only for writers and editors would be very good.

[Muirium]

Typical that we get hung up on technical details!

The way I'd like to do it is (brace yourselves) put this news feature right on the deskthority.net homepage and push the forum root to /forum. There's no point in having multiple names. Different hostname = different people entirely. I'd say the public facing homepage – where the new content is at – would be best off right at the base host name. When people discover us and choose to get involved, then they already see what's going on and shouldn't find it confusing.

All right, enough blasphemy! Another idea would be to use deskthority.com to give this thing a trial. Webwit owns it already and used .com for server migration testing in the past. Seems just the kind of place for a playground. For us, the contributors, more than the eventual audience.

Anyway, there's definitely something good in the overall idea we're talking about. Curated forum news, including great discoveries (the Hataa department), group buys and other "newsy but not mainstream" stuff that wants to be seen. Always linking back to the forum for comments.

[DerpyDash_xAD]

But I am strongly against anything to click at all. Even though infinite scrolling is not smooth, it does remove clicks, which is why I like it.

Reading through my previous post, with all the spoiler tags would've been annoying, because you have to click to see the content. That's why I like full article RSS. If you have a good reader, you have all the info right there, no fluff, nothing distracting or detracting from your reading.

And this would match deskthoritys feel - no messing, just content.

I'll do a mockup later, of the suggested homepages.

[matt3o]

Just links and a separate author system only for writers and editors would be very good.

cool. if it works for you... it works for me

The way I'd like to do it is (brace yourselves) put this news feature right on the deskthority.net homepage and push the forum root to /forum.

that would be great but not quite feasible at this stage unless you want to lose years of google indexing.

All right, enough blasphemy! Another idea would be to use deskthority.com to give this thing a trial. Webwit owns it already and used .com for server migration testing in the past. Seems just the kind of place for a playground. For us, the contributors, more than the eventual audience.

technically speaking the easiest would be news.deskthority.net (which honestly I don't like much), we could share cookies and even database if we are on the same server. From a technical standpoint being deskthority.com or keyboardnewsbingobongo.com makes absolutely no difference.

Anyway, there's definitely something good in the overall idea we're talking about. Curated forum news, including great discoveries (the Hataa department), group buys and other "newsy but not mainstream" stuff that wants to be seen. Always linking back to the forum for comments.

Agreed, I'd pay for it

That being said...

I spent hours looking for a WP theme that wasn't too sassy, too trendy, too hipster or just simply not too flawed. It's incredible how bad that platform is despite the incredible planetary success.

Search continues. If you find something interesting please let me know.

[webwit]

keyboardnewsbingobongo got a ring to it.

[matt3o]

keyboardnewsbingobongo got a ring to it.

ah! it worked! you are listening then

wouldn't a deskthority.net (forum) + deskthority.com (news) be confusing for new users?

[DerpyDash_xAD]

The dotcom would be perfect for the news as dotnet has implications of being less professional, more guy in his basement watching xfiles all day and thinking its real

As the news site will be curated and such, it would fit the dotcom for permanent usage.

But the idea of the news being the homepage is also very good - I cannot choose!

An idea I just had is a ticker tape - those scrolling text things, with article titles/summary's. This is my favorite, in combination with full articles.

[DerpyDash_xAD]

I think a very clean and simple homebrew CMS would work best. Most everything we need is free liscenced, so all we need to do is bring the code together. TBH we could use XML and HTACCESS files that would be the easiest most universally compatible system.

Edit:
All it >NEEDS< to do is display formatted text. Not a difficult feat. Even the most fancy parts can be easily achieved.

This is going to be a news site - no need for a comment system, nothing but showing the article