After over 46 million page views, 22 thousand stories, and 100 thousand comments on the old site, we give you a new iBrattleboro.
We hope you like it. We’ve been listening to feedback, thinking about how people use the site, and have new features to share.
Our primary goal was to keep it similar to the old site, but also to make everything better. We looked at each of the features of the old site and then for ways to improve them. You can now do repeating events with calendar submissions, add write-in votes on polls, and add images to stories, comments, and events.
We also have added new features, such as Classifieds, Groups, and a Skills Cloud, to help make the site more useful and interesting. There are new sections for towns around Brattleboro, too.
Of course, the best way to explore the new site is not for me to describe it, but for you to begin using it. One place to start might be to fill out your user profile. You can also submit stories, events, links, and comments just like the good old days.
There may be some bumps as we make the switch and appreciate your patience as we go from two users to thousands rather suddenly. When we started the first version of iBrattleboro, there were no users. Now we have over 2,500 accounts to move to the new platform.
Speaking of platforms, the new site is built using Drupal. It allows us to make under-the-hood changes, tweaks, and improvements on an ongoing basis now. Our ability to further develop, refine, and enhance the site is greatly increased, so consider this new site as a new starting point rather than a finish line.
The old site, by the way, is archived. You won’t be able to add new information there, but it remains searchable.
NOTE: If you posted a story in the last few days and want to repeat it here, go right ahead. All the events should be up to date.
If you have any problems, please let us know. We hope to have the transition to the new site go smoothly and quickly.
Enjoy, and let us know what you think.
Me too
We’re still finishing off the final details here, but I just wanted to say that I also hope everyone enjoys the new site too. Stay in touch and let us know what you think.
Getting Used to the New iBrattleboro
What a tremendous amount of work you guys have done!
I’d be curious to hear you get really wonky (feel free to sail right over my head)about what went into the decision to do this and what you were hoping to achieve.
For myself, the old iBratt was so familiar – my old “software” (mi cabeza) is still adjusting.
NEW!
Congratulations you guys! This is truly amazing. It’ll be a while before my head stops spinning but holy cow! So much to learn and explore in a shiny new site full of many more things! Woohoo!! Thank you!
Greetings!
Glad you could make it.
You get the prize for being the first. We’ll have to get you a special hat or something.
So nice to have people here
Thanks for being the very first person to sign in and post a comment — it warmed our hearts to see it there. Looking forward to seeing lots of folks return tomorrow.
Congrats
The new site looks great — congratulations!
Looks much cleaner.
Looks much cleaner. Congrats to you both. Testing “image picker” forthwith. And an “edit” function, too! Hooray!
…
Congratulations!
Congrats on the new look of iBrattleboro.com – Welcome back and Happy St. Valentine’s Day!
So far so good
We’re encountering minor glitches here and there, but generally things are going well from our end.
Welcome back everyone. Looking forward to some new stories, some write-in poll options, some classifieds… but I know this must be a bit overwhelming for many. We’re pretty used to it, but it does take a bit of reorientation. Hopefully we kept it similar enough.
Great job guys!
Great job guys!
It’ll take a while getting used to but its fun trying new things. When it goes from fun to frustrating you’ll be getting some questions 🙂
Just discovered we can now edit posts…….thats a good thing.
Thanks
Being able to edit comments and stories is going to make many people happy, I think. Glad you noticed it.
You can also add comments (ie, reviews) to events… : )
going up
OK, I’ve scrolled down and have read all the comments of a story. Now I want to return to the top to read comments on another story.
The only way I’ve found to get back to the top is to re-scroll (is there really such a word?) which is a pain. Am I missing something?
New site
This looks great! Thanks for all your hard work in keeping ibrattleboro up to date and relevant. Still (slowly) inching my way around the new features but it really looks wonderful. Good job, you guys!
Congratulations, and thanks
Congratulations, and thanks for all the hard work which this clearly entailed. I hope it was more fun than burdensome.
On the other post, you said, “In addition to showing Recent Comments, we’ve added lists for Most Read and Most Discussed stories in the top center of the page.”
Most Read and Most Discussed are right there, but i cannot find the “Recent Comments” list. It always has been a very useful feature as one keeps up with ongoing discussions of interest, even if they are not the most popular ones. Where did you hide it??
By the way, my favorite piece of this whole transition was that wonderful drawing of the back of Lise’s head at her desk and little Chris on the floor banging away at his keyboard, (and your cats watching nearby, naturally.) It showed up yesterday on one of the “under construction” interim pages, but now it’s gone. I think you should keep it around for everyone to enjoy!!
B.
Recent comments are back!
It’s back… thanks for reminding us. (It was there for testing, but with few stories and comments we had turned it off temporarily while we worked on things),
I’ll add the image to the image galleries.
"Look Outside..."
I would love it if you’d bring back the “Look outside, then look here” which used to be next to the weather info. It made so much sense.
2 things
Hey Lise, Chris —
1) I’ve always wanted some mechanism whereby I can tell if someone has commented on a post or comment that I’ve made. Would Drupal allow this easily?
2) What’s the red box with ‘#’ in it after the title of each post?
Nice!
The new Site looks great. Thanks for all of your hard work. You are a great community resource.
A Few Old Things I'm Missing and Some New Ones I'm Enjoying.
Here’s a few things from the “old” iBratt that I liked that I don’t see here:
– the tab at the bottom of each each story that said, “more by (author’s name)”
– a number at the bottom of the story thumbnails that say how many words total are in the story.
– there seemed to be more space on the old site – more room for the eye to roam around. Here things are more busy.
– would it be possible to have a tab on the top tool bar that returned one to the old site?
On the plus side:
– while it seems few people have found the new poll I, for one, am excited about the expanded possibilities – the write in option is a particular thrill.
– I enjoy the new slide show at the top of the homepage. I hope this will attract more photo submissions to B’media (I have not made any in a while because I find the process daunting and time consuming).
– although I haven’t used the profile tools yet, I can foresee liking those a lot in the future.
– still learning the pleasures of the new site!