Coming soon... EF will be getting a slightly new look.

The header, logo, and top menu will change. The rest of the forum remains the same.

The aim of this is to make the look and feel more consistent with the other websites in our family, namely: thelocal.se, thelocal.de, and toytowngermany.com

To see a preview, click the following:

- http://www.englishforum.ch/index2.php
- http://www.englishforum.ch/xtra/forum2/forum.php

Note that those two previews are not fully functional. Parts of them don't work properly. But still, you get the idea of what it will look like.

Feedback welcome.

hmmmmmmmmm

It doesn't excite me to be honest with you...
some of the things I am used to on the home page are not there anymore, and even though I like the fact that I can see a highlight of up coming events, I find the prominent adverts a bit over the top! but thats probably not what the financial backers think!

Anyway I hope you guys can sex it up a little bit, it really looks dull!

Also one more thing, I think you should make the titles of the forum discussion overview more prominent, in back like they do on thelocal.de, and perhaps even including some of the attached pictures if there are any. with the number of the reads and comments underneath in similar style and colour to thelocal.de

I can just see this becoming thelocal.de turn into forum.thelocal.de rather than englishforum.ch!!

Don't know if it's doable, but it would be nice to see at a glance who the OP is

Looks very tidy. The reduced banner across the top is welcome. There seems to be more space going to advertising, in the current UI you can minimize these banners once your a registered member so removing them permanently effectively. Will this functionality be available in the new version ? although upcoming events is sort of welcome, the Find Us On Facebook takes up a central space if you don't want it, and the ads down the side don't seem to have the remove function.

The Discussion forum overview looks nice.

Can we get two buttons on the top, one that says "Ask here about your salary!" and "Ask here about your speeding tickets!". Clicking on either button will delete your EF account close your browser.

Facebook changed last week, so tis the season. Mind you, half the users on there are still moaning. I found it takes a day of getting used to it, and (editor) bob's your uncle - you forget what it looked like before.

Agree with the Doctor, it's remarkebly dull and the adverts are way too prominent. Looks a tad amateurish, to be honest.

I welcome the addition of the Google Powered search. Makes it easier to retrieve information.

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Will it improve the quality of the posts?

..will we see on the next episode of "Pimp my Forum"?

Bah humbug, I hate change just for the sake of change (especially online, when I've got used to doing things, like the layout etc).

However, improved search sounds good

New look is nice enough (but I see no problems with the old look), but I generally prefer function over form. And I've just seen that basically it's just the front page that is changing? The forum page seems pretty much the same, except for the annopying flash banner ads (but hey, the cash has to come from somewhere for this site!).

I asked the Magic 8-Ball... Here was it`s response...

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Is it in beta testing stage? -- can user feedback effect final release?
As a (relative) new visitor to this forum, I can hardly plead that I was used to the old U.I. However that (existing) version is more in keeping with other forums I have used. Much information can quickly be gleamed at a glance.
This new proposed U.I. reminds me of free paper you pick up at the station, which can't afford the employ of a photographer -- just a sea of type script and ads.
Again, with limited experience, I get the impression that it is almost irrelevant to include the initial thread post, as over half the threads seem to quickly deviate away from the original point.
With browser link preview add-ons it is currently possible to preview a thread just by hovering the curser over it, so the inclusion of this, is unnecessary and unpleasant to the eye.
Finally, (as previously mentioned) it's good to instantly see, who's saying what and when.

To add some colour to the frontpage, I'd like to see a small CH flag like this .

At the very least, it ought to inform would-be visitors that it is about life in Switzerland, and not about eg Learning the English language, a forum about UKGB etc.

Can we have a dashboard of threads with the highest groan/thank clicks within the shortest response intervals? Those are the fun fluffy ones.

I personally think there are really enough Swiss crosses around here... but if you have to, take one in the right shape and color...

+1 for this one: I personally am not really impressed with the way the new start page looks like. To be precise, I am missing some info I have today:
- who is the OP (sorry to say so, but there are members who I do not bother reading)
- which part of the forum is the discussion in? (rumor has it that some people here like to make parodies of "serious" threads and I would like to see at first glance if it is in daily life or jokes)
- who made the last response

I really like:
- that the events are a bit promoted, I think EF is currently lacking a bit there and used to be much more active...

P.S: The "Live in Switzerland - work in Germany" banner is some sort of insider joke, right? Who would possibly be able to afford living here while earning over there...

From experience of revamping the look and feel of a website, I can tell you that you'll initially experience a drop in traffic - people don't like change.

btw - it doesn't render properly in IE5. Which you might think isn't an issue, until you are aware that MANY companies are still on IE5 without plans to update in the near future.

I don't like it too much, but I will probably say the same when it changes again. To me the front page somehow looks overcrowded with the text of the op.

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That Magic 8 ball is spot on. That's why I use Thunderbird.

Be forewarned that clicking on Facebook's "Like" button will then expose your Facebook identity (picture included) on EF. It doesn't show your corresponding EF account name but maybe some one might put 2 and 2 together after seeing your Facebook account. So if annonimaty is your thing you might want to skip that.