Banner ideas

[maddiedog]

WhiteNoise had a cool idea in this thread about making a photo into our banner.

I mocked it up and think this might have potential:

Untitled.png (256.25 KiB) Viewed 3215 times

I'll create a new sticky thread in the Gallery subforum every month to post picture nominations for the banner. You can nominate your own pics, someone else's pics, any cool looking graphic, or whatever, to be selected as the banner for the next month. At the end of the month, we'll post up a poll for a couple of days with the nominations. The picture voted for the most will be changed into a banner.

To prevent having a GINORMOUS banner that takes up half a page, the images in the banner thread will have to be able to get sliced down into a banner no more than 200px in height, and no more than 800px wide.

What do you think, good idea or not?

[WhiteNoise]

Hmm... As a long term reference, I'm thinking it might be helpful to explain Here:
a) What a "sticky thread is"
b) Have a detailed explanation of "How To" reduce a photo's pixels to spec, in order to qualify for an entry
c) Then "How To" submit your entry.
I personally think we would see a lot more pics if it were made Very clear on the "how tos" for some old & newer members
Dave, you're excellent with step 1, step 2, directions and illustrations! I admit I find posting photo's outside of my computer a challenge The more I/ we know the "how to of" The better chance of input. Maybe asking too much & too soon?.......But....but.....The forum, She Is G R O W I N G !!! Fabulous, &
Cheers to all

[maddiedog]

a) A sticky thread is one that is always at the top of the subforum. For example, in the Performance subforum the topic GN2 made titled "For your consideration" is stickied, and will always be on top of the list regardless of which thread was posted in last.

b) That's a bit more difficult. The easiest way is to use MS Paint or GIMP or another editor, but the how-to would be different for every program. If there's enough demand, I'll make a how-to resize images to banner-size if we end up going forward with this.

c) You'd simply reply to the stickied thread I'll put in the Gallery subforum, using the attach images option when making a reply.

[gn2]

Leave it as is please, it looks just fine and the smaller the data size the faster the page loads.
I suppose if you do stick a banner on and folks don't like it, they can just AdBlock it.

[you you]

where is the "let's not get too involved and spoil a good thing" option

[maddiedog]

qed -- that's the "Keep it simple, and leave the current banner."

gn2 -- the current logo is 9.02KB. Each Fuelly signature is about 15KB. The banner could be anywhere between 25KB and 200KB, depending on what colors it's using. Your browser downloads it once, then caches it, so only the first load of the website per month would be ever so slightly delayed (under a quarter a second to load on average internet). This is more of a cosmetic preference discussion than a logistical discussion -- vote based on cosmetics, not based on load time preferences (because load times and bandwidth will hardly change).

For reference, the below image is the size of the banner image that would be used:

Untitled.png (121.48 KiB) Viewed 3191 times

[you you]

qed -- that's the "Keep it simple, and leave the current banner."

gn2 -- the current logo is 9.02KB. Each Fuelly signature is about 15KB. The banner could be anywhere between 25KB and 200KB, depending on what colors it's using. Your browser downloads it once, then caches it, so only the first load of the website per month would be ever so slightly delayed (under a quarter a second to load on average internet). This is more of a cosmetic preference discussion than a logistical discussion -- vote based on cosmetics, not based on load time preferences (because load times and bandwidth will hardly change).

For reference, the below image is the size of the banner image that would be used:

Untitled.png

not sure it is. its more if the let's not get drawn into things option that you have done really well with before but are slipping a tad now alternative

[Taz]

When I see that specific photo all I see is a monster Givi windscreen that overpowers a tiny but beautiful PCX and blots out the nice seascape Be good on a givi forum though! If there is to be a PCX photo I think it needs to be stock setup, which precludes mine too!

[gn2]

Your browser downloads it once, then caches it, so only the first load of the website per month would be ever so slightly delayed

Nope, my browser deletes everything every time it closes.
The site looks just fine the way it is and I don't like change for change's sake.

[WhiteNoise]

Holy Smokes! Did ya'll see the poll ends soon? C'mon folks, the clock is ticking and stops Sunday (geez, that's tomorrow ), so please give this poll a try, consider it Your voice....release the brakes and give her some throttle. Just click on one of the three choices and you're done....ezy-peazy Cast your vote Today!

[hondamatic]

I like the idea of the banner. I also look at the Honda Silverwing forum and they have a banner with Swing's that change from time to time. I have a slow connection and it really doesn't slow my computer down at all. I would contribute a picture every now and then but I would get banned for a picture with a Honda Met ranther than a PCX. I like this site and still deciding which ride to up grade to next spring.
Keep up the site Dave....it's growing I think

[maddiedog]

The vote sits at 9 for and 6 against. -- 60% for and 40% against. That's not enough of a majority for me to make the change, so I'm going to leave this idea alone for now.

[Taz]

I bet Obama would be happy with a 60/40 vote! I have a few web sites with banners and other pics that seem to crash my android tab's browser unless I wait for the page to fully load.

[WhiteNoise]

Well, you gave it a fair try Dave. Thanks for making and taking the time

[Ben Lee]

I do like the idea ...

@ an other forum we had that same idea, we did a "foto of the mounth" (with theme) compitition, the winner had his dog (because it was a dog forum) on the banner for the comming month.

My foto would be this one ...



Ben.

[WhiteNoise]

I Still Like the idea too Ben (sigh). Nice photo by the way