Network Criticisms

There's some problems for me with the design. I'm on an asus eee with 1024x600

http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w200/SilasJ/Problemwiththebar.jpg?t=1266857249

The 'Test Site' with the white and the smokey violin at the top looks great but with the white underneath it doesn't give justice to the top. If you perhaps used a dark red and black it would pop out nicely and an explorer might stick around to join in the fun. And as long as you had a break between the colors you could still use white. Hopefully this makes sense.

Also, when I'm listening to a piece of music and the comments are listed below they are there in a way that is a little challenging to read. could you make it look like what it does on the forum?

I'd just be nice for me to upload composition here to get commentary WITHOUT being asked to buy more memory when I have hardly used any! I find the suggestions to buy more MEMORY especially insulting. In fact when this happens I am unable to get back to the young composers site on my Mac. I just get a white space.

Such a fundamental problem encourages me to:

1) Come here much less

2) Comment much less on other pieces

3) Offer less info on competitions, composition techniques and interesting repertoire

So, before considering how to improve the banner, the social network, the speed of the site ... why don't you fix something as fundamental as the uploading problem as I know such a problem has been occurring with other members. Otherwise you may as well turn YC solely into a discussion board and dispense with the upload feature. I can upload my compositions much more easily at soundclick, composer's forum, myspace etc ... than here.

I'd just be nice for me to upload composition here to get commentary WITHOUT being asked to buy more memory when I have hardly used any! I find the suggestions to buy more MEMORY especially insulting. In fact when this happens I am unable to get back to the young composers site on my Mac. I just get a white space.

Such a fundamental problem encourages me to:

1) Come here much less

2) Comment much less on other pieces

3) Offer less info on competitions, composition techniques and interesting repertoire

So, before considering how to improve the banner, the social network, the speed of the site ... why don't you fix something as fundamental as the uploading problem as I know such a problem has been occurring with other members. Otherwise you may as well turn YC solely into a discussion board and dispense with the upload feature. I can upload my compositions much more easily at soundclick, composer's forum, myspace etc ... than here.

This is why they're currently in the process of rigorously testing the network.

http://forum.youngcomposers.com/t23596/testing-the-yc-test-site/

The switch to the new (well-tested and more fully funtionctioning) site is imminent, and all the major issues have/will be eliminated. Chopin and the developers are well aware of the problems you mention, and have been working diligently for weeks to solve them, along with redesigning the visual aspect.

Patience, grasshopper...

@iamlittlelady: I will be working on different color schemes once the layout is all set. I will try to get a volunteer CSS expert to help me, so this part should be easy.

@composerorganist: Understand your frustration, and keep in mind the message you get to buy more space is an error. With the introduction of the new and improved site, I do hope we can conquer this annoying mistake.

Not sure if it has been mentioned, but i have a request regarding the forum navigation links at the top. the ones that tell you the pathway of forum links you have gone thru (i.e. * Young Composers Music Forum* > Board* > Announcements, Technical Problems and Suggestions* > Network Criticisms) I think this should be also be at the bottom of the page. That way we dont have to scroll all the way back up after reading a really long thread, just to go to another section of the forum

Hi,

I would like to see a much simpler concept to the entire site/forum/music/wiki etc.

Right now there's a lot up to and it seems to either be too much or not laid as good as it could be.

May I suggest:

• having the same bookmark bar (or whatever it is lol) up the top of the page no matter where I am in the site.
  
• Removing features or links up top that seem to have little/no use. "The Wire" "Calandar" etc
  
• Having one profile that's universal for the entire site. Atm I've somehow set it up so that I have an avatar for the forums, my music page, home page and the settings page. Maybe just have "Real life photo" and "Avatar" or something like that.
  
• The option to upload a piece to the music page but not start a thread about it.
  

Simply. There are a lot of features and they all just don't seem to work together.

P.s new white themed site looks cool! ;)

OK, I've been browsing the network a little...

Everything look good, i just found this:

in homepage I clicked the "most viewed" and "most discussed" and was slow, the waiting/loading bar took about 25/35 secs, ... the "Last Activity" layer gets overlaped but it moves to correct position after I pass the mouse over it.

The profile pic / avatar on right top looks with a very bad focus,

The BB code finally works but I still consider the space of music description is too small, it could be wider without that pic with the 8ths, just take a look to this page I know I wrote a truly large description but see how wasted the space looks having only 1/3 of screen space for that..

The "users that viewed this piece" link remains without working,

The links "Music" "Forum" "Music&Forum" at left, above the Search field ... I clicked and nothing happeded....

even so.... everything is much better than it was, speed is fine too

2 Things:

The front page seems a bit bland.. I like the Young Composers theme better... it seems a bit more, well, homey in the way that I remember the site being when I first came here.

And the last thing... I must have said this 10000 times...

POST PRECENTAGES!!! I liked those little bar thingymadilios we had.