Posted by Paula Wynne on December 13, 2011 at 5:11pm
Hi Guys ... and Greta and Lisa
I recently launched a social community built in Commons and looking to set up a dev team: http://groups.drupal.org/node/196453.
Please feel free to take at iHubbub http://ihubbub.com/ and let me know what you think. Wait! We are in soft launch live debugging so please be nice :) and tender. Lots of work still to plough through. Has been a long, long, long road ....
Regards
Paula
Comments
.... looks impressive!
Paula
the launch of ihubbub looks impressive! Very very well done! Well i am pretty new to Drupal and i am really surprised bout the possibilities of Drupal.
Regards
Unleash
thanks Martin for your kind
thanks Martin for your kind comments, we have certainly worked our butts off to get it looking this good! Still a way to go before we are completely happy though.
regards
Paula
Wow
I've only used Commons on one project and it certainly doesn't look this good. I was wondering, it looks like you had a subdomain running pressflow that is serving ads. Is that working like a CDN?
James
--James
heck James,where did you see
heck James,where did you see the pressflow thing? we did try and install and use pressflow to optimise page speed but it didnt work out so we had to ditch that idea and use mem cache and other ideas to speed up the site. Didnt realise we were building a bit of a 'hungry' fella here ...
CDN? I am not techie so please enlighten me? Always willing and keen to learn :)
Hang on, not thinking today,
Hang on, not thinking today, brain dead. did you mean a distribution network?
Pressflow
When I moused over the ad it showed the url as http://pressflow.ihubbub.com/ad/redirect/9930/t1142?url=http://ihubbub.c.... And yes, a content distribution network. I was thinking that since pressflow has cookieless anonymous users that having a subdomain running pressflow to serve up static content might be what you're doing.
--James
how strange. I can't see the
how strange. I can't see the banner that is showing this link and just checked, please can you tell me what page this was on?
Ahh, I see now, it is in the
Ahh, I see now, it is in the bottom loading bar - not sure why this is happening! Will have to add this to the snagging list. That is why we are now looking for a full time developer who can suss out these kinds of things and get them fixed and sorted. Know anyone?
I wonder if it is becuase
I wonder if it is becuase that particular banner was loaded while we were trying to get pressflow to work and thus the site at the time was called 'pressflow'. And maybe it is storing the old url, not good!
Yes, that's it! Fixed and
Yes, that's it! Fixed and sorted on that particular banner, will have to check the others. Is there a way to do this globally rather than each individual banner - bit of a mission manual job!
Paula, I really like the
Paula,
I really like the site, the concept, as well as the design. I'll be sure to sign up.
One comment: your rotating banners - please find some new images - I can't tell you the number of times I've seen those particular istockphoto images all around the web - especially the collaborate one as well as the girl in the green dress - i think she's on just about every site and flyer I look at these days.
Take care,
kevin
thanks Kevin, good point -
thanks Kevin, good point - that is def on the to do list! We wanted to do some bespoke ones but havent had the time, but well worth looking for more images. any ideas on good sites to find images?
If you sign up use the code to get a Silver Membership :)
Congrats on the launch!
Hi Paula,
It is good to see you launch!!!!! All the best...
Remarkable work!
I am quite impressed at what you have been able to do with Commons. Very nice.
Did you create your own theme or what theme did you use and how did you modify it? And, can you share what modules you have added and whether they integrated seamlessly?
Could I suggest that you put the country dropdown before the county / state dropdown for the member sign-up, as the US states don't show up (for obvious reasons) until USA is selected?
Also, new members might be a bit overwhelmed by how many bells and whistles you have - such as understanding the difference between groups and networks. I've seen a recommendation to let a community get used to a smaller set of features initially, and that seems to make sense.
Thanks for sharing this.
Jonathan Sibley
Jonathan Sibley
Personal & Executive Coaching and Psychotherapy
Helping people to do better, be better, and feel better
Good point Jonathan, we also
Good point Jonathan, we also have more bells and whistles hidden as we also realised it was a bit overwhelming when we launched so we hid a few areas which will be 'revealed' over time with 'check what's new' sort of thing.
Yes, we started with a basic two column theme and then I created mock ups for the dev team to follow the way I wanted the site to look and feel. I create a mock up for each and every page that goes on front end. Talk about 'hand-cramp'! But it has been worth it as everyone comments on the gorgeous look and feel. We have been very fussy about making sure it feels warm and welcoming and I think ... hope we have achieved that.
Modules - sore point. Too many to mention and lots will need removing so I am more than happy to answer any questions on modules, but don't have the time to list them all.
One very important thing I will say on this point - if you use offshore or outsourced devs be sure to have someone who you trust as an advisor on the project. We didnt have this to start and the devs were just doing as I asked without probing to find out what I wanted to achieve with a new module and suggesting ways around or using other modules to the same or similar thing. Hence way too many modules and a plan of action to look at removal and rebuilding of some areas.
Regards
Paula
Setting password
In your welcome email, you give this option:
You may also log in by clicking on this link or copying and pasting it in your browser:
After clicking on the link, I had to go back to the email several times to see how to get to the screen where I could change my single-use password. Maybe it would be better to just show the direct link to the change password screen?
Jonathan Sibley
Personal & Executive Coaching and Psychotherapy
Helping people to do better, be better, and feel better
Good suggestion, we have done
Good suggestion, we have done lots of changes to the user dashboard as it was pretty damn naff from the start! I originally wanted to use 'Homebox' and the dev doing the work last July did his own custom module without me knowing! That's another whole long story. Upshot of this - yes, we are making changes to the dashboard to make it more user friendly. So I will add this comment to the dev list and possibly get our guys to add a link in the email so members can see where to change their password straight away.
Thanks again Jonathan.
Regards
Paula
PS: check the /training page as you may be interested in doing a webinar for your coaching biz ...
all looks great and impressive - well done Paula
i love what i see - you did a great job! Guess that hundreds of drupalers (from all over the planet) love your site - for its great design
keep up working like that!
greetings unleash
Public vs private
Hi Paula,
Any chance you could write a little about how you are handling the divide between what is public and what is private on your site?
It looks like a lot of your site is public, so can we assume you aren't using "force login"? Are you managing everything through permissions?
Jonathan Sibley
Personal & Executive Coaching and Psychotherapy
Helping people to do better, be better, and feel better
Yes Jonathan, as far as I
Yes Jonathan, as far as I know we are doing most things through permissions. However, I will discuss this with our devs as I am interested to know more about 'force login'.
Please do feel free to share any advice you may have on this subject.
Regards
Paula
Nicely done Paula! Site looks great
Hi Paula,
It is nice to see the progress you made on the site!
Marc
very good indeed
That site is brilliant. Its exactly what Im trying to achieve although still in the discovery phase. I'm also interested in joining your organisation!!
Suggestions...
Paula,
A comment about the site:
I find the "Job Type" field confusing, as most options are pretty synonymous with others. Not parallel construction -- not enough distinction. Example: "Remote or Mobile", "Work from Home", "Self-employed", "Freelance". The terms are too similar to be useful.
Be a bit like saying, "I like: a.) fruit; b.) apples; c:) bananas; d:) elephants." Some of those items are either subsets or implied by another option.
This causes a problem for job posters and job seekers. People will miss job/candidates if they select only 1 term. And, a time waster to repeatedly run the query.
Would be better to clarify those with some description to accompany, or better still to allow multiple selections. Really, multiple selection for all fields.
Also, if you want this site to be really convenient, add a field for "fee required" to weed out all those scamy 'work from home' jobs that require people to pay a fee to get into their program. Let user filter out those jobs.
I report this as someone who constantly uses job search sites.
Great Comments - Gift Voucher Invite
Hi All
Thanks for the great comments and suggestions of support! I really appreciate it. More work completed this last week on the user dashboard, bit of a mission to be honest as it was originally a custom module - not my choosing!
Advice - try to never ever have custom modules and on those occasions that you need them make sure you always leave tech notes in the commented out notes to help future devs understand your logic :)
As Drupal is constantly soaring to new heights I would like to develop a new area for Drupal Devs. It will be along these lines: http://ihubbub.com/freelancers.
Whilst basic membership is free, you are all welcome to join as a Silver Member [value £80], giving you free access to Buy, Sell and Swap in our Market Square and to Pitch Your Skills to our visitors and members – something that might be really helpful to you and your business.
Have a browse and add yourself to the directory as a freelancer to be showcased on the Freelancer page. And I will let you know when the Drupal Dev page is ready for you to show off your skills. By the way, the videos [only examples so far on the Freelancer page] are done through Skills Pitch and your chance to shout about yourself.
What's Next?
1. Join now and login
2. Go to Silver Memberships: http://ihubbub.com/silver-membership
3. Use this voucher code to claim your Gift Voucher: drpalcmbpqk2
4. Find out how to get started and complete your profile: http://ihubbub.com/complete-your-profile
Hope to see you all on site ... maybe one of you would like to start a Drupal Group for new business owners to see what you guys and girls can do for them - but groups has some bugs and being fixed today/tomorrow.
Thanks again for all your help and support. It is so gratifying to see your comments after the long year of 24/7 building and developing!
Regards
Paula