Suggestion Make thread section "descriptions" collapsible?

[SurferGeek]

Would it be possible to make the new thread descriptions that appear at the top of the section collapsible?

These:

Replica Movie Props

Below you will find a list of discussions in the Replica Movie Props forums at the Replica Prop Forum. The Replica Movie Props forum Research, discuss and share information about replica props from movies, television shows and other media or showcase your original designs and collection.
Please do not post want to buy, sales or trade related threads in this forum.

There's enough stuff taking up room at the top of the page with ads, sticky threads and menu items. Any way to make this less disruptive?

 

[Art Andrews]

Will take a look at it, but we have to be sure it doesn'y defeat the purpose of them being there. Will get back with you on this.

 

[SurferGeek]

So much screen taken up. This is what I see after logging in. 640 pixels of "stuff" before getting to the good... stuff. Also, it would be nice to collapse the subsection notice as well.

 

[Art Andrews]

Gotcha loud and clear, and thanks for the screengrab. Illustrates the issue well. One of the things we definitely want to do as we move forward is figure out the whole ads things and what is acceptable vs what is too much... right now, I am leaning toward "too much" in the props forum, the only one with two 90pixel tall ads in place. Please bear with us as we continue to refine this.

 

[Art Andrews]

Just made three small changes to the title and description that should cause it to take up a little less space. Granted... it isn't going to be a massive difference, but every little bit counts.

 

[robn1]

:lolWhat ads? Thank you Firefox, for NoScript and AdBlock!

 

[Art Andrews]

Nothing like showing off your lack of support for the site! Thanks!

 

[robn1]

No lack of support, really. Honestly, I had no idea those ads were even there :$

 

[Art Andrews]

Just giving you a hard time. No worries.

 

[SurferGeek]

Damn Rob! That's some large size font you're using.

Thanks Art, I'm at work currently but I'll have a looksee this evening to see how the changes have affected my home computer.

 

[LordFett]

What exactly is the point of the descriptions of threads? It has the title which already displays on the page and part of the first line of the first post. Yet it doesn't display anything when replying. It would seem that would be more useful than at the top of every page of the thread.

 

[LordFett]

It also seems that at the top of subsequent pages it gets the summary from the first post on that page rather than the first post in the thread, which would to me make more sense. But I may be missing the whole point of these things.

 

[Art Andrews]

It also seems that at the top of subsequent pages it gets the summary from the first post on that page rather than the first post in the thread, which would to me make more sense. But I may be missing the whole point of these things.

Yeah, I am not really happy about that because it does somewhat miss the point... the problem there is that the software looks at each page of a thread as a new page entirely and it isn't smart enough to know to look back to the OP for the description. I am looking into this to see if it can be corrected.

 

[SurferGeek]

Sorry it took so long to get back to you...

Not much has changed really. Looks like you decreased the font size of the description but that's about it. I still have to scroll down a page before getting to the first post.

 

[Art Andrews]

Your concerns are not falling on deaf ears. We are looking at this and actually looking at the entire header of the site. Not something that is going to change today or tomorrow, but it is something we are actively looking into.

 

[SurferGeek]

Any further thoughts on this... other than filtering out the banner image as well as the stacked adverts? Even if I make the Dock hide I still only see maybe one post at the very bottom.

 

[Art Andrews]

SG, for the Replica Forum, we are probably going to end up with the one 728X90 and two 468X60s (side by side) which will lessen the vertical by 30 pixels (as opposed to the two 728X90s). Beyond that, we will have to look into it a bit more. Again, this hasn't been forgotten but it isn't on the front burner yet either.

 

[Art Andrews]

OK, we have made a couple of changes and are slowly getting the header where we want it.

If you are using the Star Wars theme, the header is still excessively large and we will probably end up reducing the size of it, but to give you a better idea, take a look at the "The RPF Standard" style where we have a 468X60 banner (as opposed to the Star Wars style's 728X110 banner... another 50 pixels of height!). Additionally, in the Replica Prop Forum, where we have had two 728X90 ad banners stacked atop one another we have replaced one with two 468X60 banners placed side by side. What does this mean?
For right now, it means if you use the Standard RPF theme, you are going to get about 80 pixels more on screen than before, which is almost the total height of one of the large banners.

We are finalizing the ad layouts for the site (removing some ads, adding others) and should have this project completed by the end of the month.