As mentioned earlier this week, we are working on a redesign of all of our product sites.
Today, the first new site design goes live: The New Most Popular Solitaire Site
There are a few things to note about the design. First, the screenshots down the left side is an idea I stole from Snood, who did that in their recent redesign. I think it will work better than links, although of course the increased graphics will slow down the initial page load.
Second, note the javascript menu across the top. I hope there won't be any problems with this, I've tested it in IE and Firefox. I figure that almost everybody has JavaScript turned on these days, if you didn't you would run into so much that wouldn't work that you'd never be able to do much.
Finally, there's another big change that was made besides the site redesign. I'll leave that for people who are looking closely to figure out for now.
Over the next few days I'll be watching to see if there are any problems. The next site will be ready to switch over next week. I'm starting with the lowest traffic/least sales sites and moving my way up, so that if any issues come up I can deal with them with them on the low traffic sites. Once everything is clearly working, the high traffic sites will be switched over. It's a process that I will expect will take a number of weeks.
I would appreciate people checking out the site and making sure it works. My main concerns are page load times and whether the javascript menu works. Comments and criticisms are welcome.
Tried here with firefox and works. I like it :)
Posted by: Winter Wolves Games | May 19, 2006 at 03:40 PM
Just to note: your JavaScript runs flawlessly on Firefox for Linux, too. :)
Posted by: Tiago Tresodli | May 19, 2006 at 07:02 PM
If you run google analytics, check the number of clicks on your new javascript menus. We just removed all of ours after a couple of years because the clickthrus on the dropdown menus were almost zero.
Posted by: Max | May 20, 2006 at 08:45 PM
One suggestion on the JavaScript menus: If someone clicks directly on the menu bar (e.g., 'Buy Now') instead of the dropdown, it should do something, going to either a selection page or the default option.
Also, the Cleverbridge page was a little slow (more than 5 seconds) to respond the first time (only), though that could certainly have been my connection.
Posted by: Gregg Seelhoff | May 21, 2006 at 10:54 AM
I have never heard of Cleverbridge before. Is it any good? Why not use plimus?
BTW the Cleverbridge page is a bit slow here too.
Posted by: Al | May 21, 2006 at 09:49 PM
Tiago,
Good to know it works on Linux. Although since all of our games are for Windows, it is really the Windows platforms that I'm concerned about.
Max,
I've been watching the logs carefully and its clear that people are definitely clicking on the Javascript menus.
Gregg,
Thanks for pointing that out, I've fixed it so that clicking directly on the menu bar now works. Of course the developer didn't provide any kind of information on how the menu bar works, I had to figure it out.
Cleverbridge does seem to be a little slow in loading.
Al,
I'll be finding out whether they are any good. I considered Plimus but they had a number of problems and chose Cleverbridge instead.
Posted by: Tom | May 22, 2006 at 07:57 AM
You need to use css to define your sizes, because your menu bar went to two lines on my ie browser. Also, I think you should be able to click the images on the Left Hand side, not just the title above it.
Posted by: Mike | May 22, 2006 at 11:04 AM
Is there anyway my email can be removed from the previous post? I don't want it open on the internet like it is now.
Posted by: Mike | May 22, 2006 at 11:05 AM