New style pages
I've done a bunch of changes to the style pages.
First off, style URLs are now in the format "/styles/1" rather than "/style/show/1". Many other URLs have changed in the same way. If there's any URL in particular that you find useful but that's broken now, let me know.
Reviews are back on the style pages by default. Clicking on the "Post a review" will dynamically add the editing controls, if you have JavaScript enabled. You can no longer not rate a style in a review.
Category pages no longer list every style. Now, they have a search feature that searches only that category. They also list select styles, much like the main page does.
The criteria for which styles are highly rated has changed. Before, styles were rated based on average rating, then number of ratings. This was unfair because a style with 20 5-star ratings and 1 4-star rating was listed below a style with 5 5-star ratings. Now, styles are ranking based on the formula sum(rating - 3). Simply put, every rating above 3 will raise a style's ranking, every rating below 3 will lower it.
Every page that lists styles offers Atom and RSS feeds, except search results, which should be coming soon.
All these changes pave the way for caching of styles pages, which means better performance and less load on the server.
First off, style URLs are now in the format "/styles/1" rather than "/style/show/1". Many other URLs have changed in the same way. If there's any URL in particular that you find useful but that's broken now, let me know.
Reviews are back on the style pages by default. Clicking on the "Post a review" will dynamically add the editing controls, if you have JavaScript enabled. You can no longer not rate a style in a review.
Category pages no longer list every style. Now, they have a search feature that searches only that category. They also list select styles, much like the main page does.
The criteria for which styles are highly rated has changed. Before, styles were rated based on average rating, then number of ratings. This was unfair because a style with 20 5-star ratings and 1 4-star rating was listed below a style with 5 5-star ratings. Now, styles are ranking based on the formula sum(rating - 3). Simply put, every rating above 3 will raise a style's ranking, every rating below 3 will lower it.
Every page that lists styles offers Atom and RSS feeds, except search results, which should be coming soon.
All these changes pave the way for caching of styles pages, which means better performance and less load on the server.
Comments
But thanks a lot for your work (is it me or is it faster, much faster too? I'm on a very fast cable and pages fly in minus 1sec.!)
It's not really faster from a server perspective, but browsers will obviously render the content there now that it's not a list of 1000 styles.
You should also make it so the four boxes, "New styles, Updated Styles, etc.." are clickable to the full list of recently added or updated styles pages. Just my thoughts, but i'd appreciate the above :D
The mouseover tooltip idea is a real pain in the butt.
Even different colors for the various link ratings (1-2-3-4-5) would be helpful.
I see ".good-rank" and ".unranked" but I can't figure out how to change the link colors based on their rating.
Posted By: ZathmanYou should totally put a parent (aka id category-top-styles or something) around the four div.category-style-top :D and a (aka id google-ads) around the google ad placement.
Easy enough. Give me a couple days and it'll be done.
Posted By: ZathmanYou should also make it so the four boxes, "New styles, Updated Styles, etc.." are clickable to the full list of recently added or updated styles pages. Just my thoughts, but i'd appreciate the above :D
Maybe... I don't want to overload that page with links though.
Posted By: dougeeebearI liked the old way of showing the rating stars next to each style.
The mouseover tooltip idea is a real pain in the butt.
Even different colors for the various link ratings (1-2-3-4-5) would be helpful.
Well, it doesn't have one for each number, but bold means good and fady means bad.
Posted By: dougeeebearI see".good-rank"and".unranked"but I can't figure out how to change the link colors based on their rating.
.good-rank { color: red !important}?
Posted By: dougeeebearNow you can post a review on your own style ... cool ... or not :)
Are you sure? It looks like it'll let you but if you try to smacks you down with a plain text page.
(2) - Maybe having the titles as links would be cheezy, however I think it'd be convenient to have some way to quickly jump to those pages, maybe a small "more styles »" link in the bottom right of each div? I dunno, just thinking of convenience ;) I have no problems going back to the front page to click on those links.
(And in regards to the whole mess that my little icon for this particular comment - I have no clue why its doing that O_o)
People do like to browse styles, but they wouldn't like to browse 1000 at a time, especially in the two column format that existed before. There may be some subcategorization that would allow listings. Site styles could be broken down into what sites they affect. App styles could be broken down by app.
The stars are gone because:
1. They didn't fit in all that well
2. Not all styles had stars because they weren't ranked yet - confusion with "0 stars"
3. Too many server requests.
4. I'm looking into combining popularity and high ratedness into a single metric.