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Welcome to the new-look TV Tonight

What's new on TV Tonight? Get to know your way around the site here...

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Welcome to the new-look TV Tonight!

As you will have already noticed, the site has some new features and attributes, so let me talk you through some of these….

HOME PAGE

  • The site now has a Carousel of 5 in place of the former 2 x Top Stories on the old site. These will continue to include a mix of News, Programming, Pay TV and Reviews, all of which can also be found in their respective verticals. You can click on any of the thumbnails to stop the Carousel on an individual story in order to click through to the Post itself.
  • A new Menu has been added with each of the 5 networks plus Foxtel. These offer dropdown lists of profile shows that are on air (or about to air). It will then take you to all the recent stories mentioning the show, using the Tag system. This Menu is designed to help you find stories about your show more easily. Listed shows will fluctuate accordingly. I hope you like it.
  • Previous sections Coming Soon and Guides are now a subset of the Programming tab.
  • The News section is now much larger. As you can see it also shows the number of comments on each story.
  • Two verticals on Pay TV and Programming follow and Reviews are located at the bottom of the front page. All of these feeds can be accessed from the top Menu.
  • In the right-hand column you can now see Daily Pick, ICE TV Guide, Ratings and the Poll.

INDIVIDUAL POSTS

  • The essentials of each story remain intact. At the end of the post there is a section called “Related.” This will link through to other stories that also mention the same show/s, again using the Tag system. Comments follow thereafter.
  • In the right hand column you will find the Tag Cloud and recent Comments, plus a shortcut to recent stories.
  • At the left of each story is a floating widget for social media. You can Tweet a story, like it on Facebook, send via email or Google+.

COMMENTS

  • In order to Comment you now need to register an ID. You can continue to use the handle you have been using but you need to register through a working email. Note the password you are sent and then you can change it once you are logged in. The site will take you to a standard WordPress profile page and even offers a toolbar that sits across the site if you prefer. When you are logged in you will find the link to bring you back to the site sits at the top left of the toolbar. If it feels a little overwhelming at first, have patience. You’ll get used to it in no time and realise the benefits later I trust. Your cookies should remember you so you don’t have to keep logging in everyday. I believe adding an ID will lift the tone of comments, for the benefit of all.
  • Please remember no CAPS, no links and no slagging off other readers. Debate is healthy, abuse is not.
  • As we are all adults here you’ll be pleased to know the site will now allow more liberal use of language. I think common sense tells us the words that are still on the naughty list. Otherwise Comments moderation remains as is.

So that’s about it. The site is now in Beta mode during this transition phase, just in case of any teething problems.

There is no change to Twitter, mobile platform, Ratings, breaking news etc. And yes, it’s still just me pedalling madly behind the scenes, but I am grateful for your support.

From Monday the annual Programmer’s Wrap begins, with feature interviews everyday this week. Be sure to register an ID so you can have your say -they do read the Feedback.

My thanks to web designer David McDonald for the rebuild.

Hope you enjoy the new site!

Cheers,

David.

 

UPDATE: For technical problems please ensure you have:

– latest edition of your Browser.
– javascript enabled.
– any ad-blockers turned off.

124 Responses

  1. I quite like the redesign. It’s great to see that the reviews section, an important part of the site has been given more prominence. Overall, it’s quite neat, it seems just right and it’s not overbearing. Keep up the excellent work.

  6. I checked this out at 9am this morning and initially it took some time getting used to – thought I’d hold off posting my feedback after I’ve actually had some time to use the website.

    I’m mostly happy with the changes – but it’s much easier to expand on my constructive criticisms, so please don’t think I’m just a big whinger 🙂

    First off – as a visitor who frequents the website a number of times throughout the day to check for latest news, I’m finding I’m having to scroll past the image carousel each visit to check the latest news — it’s purely cosmetic and I think not required, as the same news is just a few scrolls away.

    I don’t think the header is as strong as the rest of the page design. All the elements (logo, primary nav, secondary nav) are kinda floating in a big white box. The secondary nav especially seems tacked on at the last minute.

    While I’ve never been a big fan of the logo, I think it’s a lot more readable now. And I don’t look like I’m visiting a flashy purple porn website at work anymore so that’s always a plus!

    Love your work, David – the website is and will continue to be my first point of call each and every day.

  8. Am loving the new site David… well done! But, like Secret Squirrel… Carousel isn’t working for me on Chrome and I too miss the arrow links to the next/previous articles. Site definitely looks the goods though!!

  11. It’s odd, I feel like the text in the articles is bigger than it used to be; side by side it looks no different, but on it’s own it feels a bit, bloated.

    On another note is it possible to have the comments have dynamic timing; such that the ‘posted at’ time is different depending on your local time?

    Cheers 🙂

  12. Hi David, loving the new site.
    But even though others have mentioned this, thought you would like an update… The mobile version of the site is not yet working.
    Keep up the good work!
    ZM

  15. Re: the comments suggestions. Whether you keep them as they are or change to older at top not every one will be happy – 50% will want the old returned and 50% will like the new added.

    The best solution is to go with what steven suggested then every is happy.

    Phoenix re: None of the names have the option of being highlighted … This may be a result of them not completing the WordPress profile i.e. not adding in the Website? I could be wrong though.

  18. OK I gave in and got an e-mail account. But I warn you David I’ll probably never read it or go there again. I’ll admit I prefer having distinct paragraphs in the comments. But otherwise it’s not too traumatic. 🙂

  19. None of the names have the option of being highlighted to link with the commentator’s website. How am I going to distinguish between people like Craig, whose name was always linked to a website, and the other Craig, who wasn’t linked? Both their names appear the same now.

  21. Love the changes David, they are fantastic. Well done.

    The new Network with Dropdown lists feature is a great new addition to the site.

    Some feedback : Not sure if this only applies to me (using Firefox) but I am having issues when trying to select either ‘Coming Soon and/or the Guides’ headings under the Programming tab. In most instances it will not allow me to select either heading.

  22. Congrats to the 2 Davids of the redesign. All seems to working ok so far, in Firefox 11 beta.

    A suggestion, if it’s possible: I prefer to read my fellow user’s comments in the order they were made. Which means first scrolling to the bottom of the page and then working my way back up.

    How about an option to switch the order of posts so the oldest one is first after the article and then continuing down the page?

    My favourite Apple site, Macworld.com lets you choose which way the comments are sorted, so everyone’s happy!

    Thanks

  24. Should’ve been clearer with the carousel problem for me – all I see is the dots chasing each other around in a circle (waiting for pic to load) in a frame.

  25. Lovely, one of the best sites on the web is now one of the best-looking too. Awesome work, the two Davids. Really like the clean look and the hints of purple (the mauve for David’s comments is exactly what I would’ve chosen). I’ll have a trundle around but so far the layout looks good and is very functional, too.

    Some minor issues:
    1. The carousel doesn’t work for me in Chrome (ver 16.0.912.77 m). Ad-block and Flash-block both disabled. It displays ok in IE8. Am using XP.
    2. Was shown mobile site at first in IE8 (around 12:15 EDST). F5 then gave full site.
    3. Homepage takes a while to load (8-12 sec) but other pages seem ok.
    4. Wasn’t able to register a Username with higher than 7-bit characters so had to go with boring old Secret Squirrel instead of Secret Squïrrel.

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