I'd appreciate feedback on how you are customising the new Homepage - http://www.fiso.co.uk - and whether there are any bugs or issues arising or improvements you could suggest for me & BD to look at. What forums are you selecting and in which sections or blocks?

For those that haven't noticed it, the 'Customising' link is the 1st of the quick links on the top right of the Homepage or a direct link is - http://www.fiso.co.uk/homepage.php - If you haven't tried to customise it could you please try and let me know whether there are any problems/bugs in so doing or suggestions for improving it.

You are allowed 4 blocks for the 'Top Section', 5 blocks for the 'Left' section and 4 blocks for the 'Right' section. You can have either 1, 2 or 3 forums appearing in each block. So in theory that's 39 of the approx 100 forums that FISO has that can be shown on your Homepage in the order that you choose. Customising your Homepage will then allow you to see at a glance what's happening (i.e. the latest topics) in your favourite forums.

As an example, below is how I've set my Homepage in order for me to better view at a glance what's happening in my favourite forums:

Top Section

Block 1:
Team News (incl. INJURIES)
Specialist Club Knowledge
Fixture News

Block 2:
The Sun Dream Team FF Games
Fantasy PremierLeague.com (FPL) & UEFA.com
Telegraph Fantasy Football (TFF)

Block 3:
Fantasy Golf
Fantasy Darts
Fantasy Horse Racing

Block 4:
Travel, Holidays & Leisure
Movies, TV & Radio
Music

Left Section

1. FISO Forum News
2. General Fantasy Football (FF) Notices & Comments
3. The Betting Forum
4. FISO Golf Society
5. FISO People, Events & Meets

Right Section

1. FISO Goals (Premiership Predictions)
2. FISO/Fanbanta 'Champion of Champions'
3. Metro Fantasy Football Mini-Leagues + Fantasy Darts Dream Team Mini-Leagues + Sun DreamTeam Mini-Leagues
4. Other Fantasy Competitions + Other Fantasy Football games + Football Score Prediction Games.


For the 'Left' and 'Right' sections I've only selected one forum in each Block (apart from Blocks 3 & 4 in the 'Right' section'). This is because (at the moment) the Forum name isn't displayed in these sections i.e. the display is different to the display for the 'Top' section.

to be honest, I never use it . got the "new posts since last visit search" bookmarked as a favourite and I just click on via that.

Snap

I take it you mean - http://www.fiso.co.uk/forum/search.php? ... d=newposts - which is the 2nd one down under 'Community Forums' on the top menu bar?

I too use that new posts link or the 24hr link for viewing the forum but find that I can miss some relevant threads because of the huge number of threads all displayed on 1 page. I like checking my customised Homepage first so I can easily spot more important threads.

aye


I'm sure some folk will find this very useful, Me? - I'm just a creature of habit, plus, it looks a bit "busy" for my liking.......

I jiggled mine around, it was easy enough to do but i dont use it very often at all.

*cue innuendo jokes*

I've just started setting mine up and I think it's great. Perfect for when I just want to keep an eye on TFF and FPL related forums and leave the rest alone.

There are a lot of individual forums that are 'important' to me so it would be an incredibly cumbersome homepage to cover them all. Also as a regular visitor I don't get 17 pages of topics since my last visit. If I've been away for a few days I still like to skim down the few pages of Latest Topics to see everything there.

I do however await the day when php3 arrives and I can customise my Latest Topics pages to only show forums I want to see making the browsing easier.

All of this is only my personal perspective (but that is what is wanted)

I've set mine up and it's great to be able to group them - for instance at the top I have team news, specialist club news and general FF. Next section is FPL and Metro, next secion TFF and EGG cup. Then I have FISODAS, Lucky 7s and Goals, then Arts, music and TV and so on.

The only problem is the layout is a bit funny, but I think that is because I've done something wrong so I will have a play around with it before complaining.

Im happy to scroll down the forum index. Ive got it down to a fine art. I can pick and choose where i want to be.

I've been using this for several weeks - great when you're in a hurry and just want to check out the latest posts on the forums that really matter.

Karrde - I can see where you're coming from but the advantage with this is that you don't have to wade through stickies.

Set up TFF and Team News in "TOP SECTION".

Trouble is when you click on the latest topic and read it, it doesn't then mark it as read in any way so you will never know if someone else has posted so it is useless imo and also there is no date/time stamp on it so that I can quickly see the posts say from just today.

Back to my links then,

My Posts
TFF
Team News

I too am a user of the 'last 72hrs' or 'latest posts' button. I dont look at the homepage to be honest, sorry Chris

same for me

I dont think spending a fraction of a second scrolling past 5-6 stickies is wading

I just open Opera and continue browsing from where I left off.

I don't think we should be able to see topic titles from private forums that we are not subscribed to - I can see all the titles from FISO Scotland and the Poker forum if I want to be nosy.

To go slightly OT - I think the more people personalise their page (and Latest Topics in the future) the worse the issue of people posting in the wrong forums and staying in their own game 'ghettoes' will get.

Examples as things such as "Micah Richards is injured" being announced in game specific forum threads (OK if asking advice but it generally isn't the reason of the post - just misguided helpfulness). If not everybody sees the Team News forum etc then it will encourage people to break the rules accidentally or intentionally. It also encourages certain attention seekers to wrongly post in the more popular forums so more people can see just how witty and amusing they (supposedly) are.......

Moved to TFF Forum for a while for those that don't get out much.

true - what a drama queen I am!
(still find stickies annoying though which is why I prefer to see latest posts - but just for the forums I want)

Very good point... can we sticky the T&Cs to the top of each forum and make it compulsory on customized views?

Excellent option.

The "favourite forum" sections could be improved if: a) forum names were shorter, b) if there were less of them and c) if you could pick more than 3

please - no no no stickes on lastest topic views - this would drive me over the edge

A bug that BD should sort.

Well, I'm bucking the trend

I didnt even know a homepage existed. I mainly use TFF & Team News forums, so have customised my homepage for those two. Cheers

Just testing murfs hypothesis.....

..... and he's right!!!


I don't like it either!

I hadn't really paid much attention to it, but now I've customised it I think I shall use this over the bookmarked 24hr latest posts link.

I haven't used the left and right sections as they seem a bit cluttered, the top section is nice and clean.

Moved to FPL for a while for those that don't venture out of there much.

What would suit me very nicely is to have the option to select the latest posts feature, not
only in it's entirety but sub divided into 3 sections - football - other sports - and other
topics - I really do find it a headache now trawling through it all although I like to keep
up with all the latest posts. Just might relax things a little.