Main site wonkiness and changes

[heavyharmonies]

Just a heads up that you may see some wonkiness over on the main site over the next month. eBay suddenly announced 2 days ago that it is killing off many of its advertising/affiliate tools by the end of this month, including those that I use on the site. So I'm doing a bit of scramble to come up with functional alternatives, some of which necessitate me changing up the page design somewhat.

The eBay affiliate money is important, as it's the only way I can bridge the gap between the annual donation drive (which I delayed this year due to COVID-19) and my actual out-of-pocket costs, which amount to several thousand dollars per year. It matters, so I have to find a way to keep it up and running.

Most companies give you several months notice and time to transition, but eBay has a history of being fucksticks and treating their affiliates like dogshit, so this really doesn't surprise me at all.

Unfortunately it comes at absolutely the worst time with respect to a busy period at my day job and my preparing to be off work for elective surgery next month, so things may occasionally get left in a partially-completed state, or some pages might not completely match others, etc.

In the long run, this is actually a good thing in that it's forcing me to look at code/markup that hasn't substantially changed in 15+ years, and I'm taking this as an opportunity to make some elements more responsive (mobile-friendly).

Note: This is NOT a total site redesign. I have neither the funds nor the time for that. This is a quick and dirty fix. The functionality and layout will remain substantially the same, but may look a bit different in places.

Hopefully at the end of it, there's a site that's at least a bit more useful on tablets and phones.

Thanks.

-Dan

[KarpetRydOFunk]

You're still doing the donation drive this year, right?

[heavyharmonies]

Undetermined at this time. I know a lot of people are still either out of work or having reduced hours, etc., so they've got more important things to focus on with respect to their money, only exacerbated by the idiotic carnage and destruction of the last week.

I may do it later in the year or just suck it up and hold off until March of 2021 if things don't improve on a widespread basis.

[heavyharmonies]

Ok, so I made the tweaks live on the main site tonight. Please let me know if there's anything not working properly. I will give it a few weeks to refine and then carry them over to Brutal Metal. At some point in the next year I plan to completely overhaul the semi-abandoned Heaven's Metal to utilize the updated layouts.

[Jez]

When you  click the A-Z on the main site, every letter you click takes you to 'A'

[heavyharmonies]

Oops. Give it a try now. Thanks.

[Evil Rick]

The main site is still a bit wonky when pulling it up on my cellphone. Instead of the 2 columns for each letter it's now one loooooooooong column of artists that does show where the column separation should be about halfway down, so if I'm scrolling to find an artist it's taking a while to get through everything.

[heavyharmonies]

Actually, that is a deliberate change. It's different from the way it was in the past, but you're actually supposed to reflow/reorganize a page's content for smaller screen sizes rather than making people zoom in or scroll sideways. It's more complicated than that, but the new design is "acceptable" in the eyes of the Great God Google, whereas the old design was unacceptable.

Question for those who use the main site primarily on mobile devices, would it be better if the main letter pages were set up in collapsible table format with a search bar that filtered inputs, like this page does:

https://heavyharmonies.com/cgi-bin/coversearch.cgi

I still need to refine the pages that use that table+filter construct, as I'm still not 100% happy with the way it works on smaller window sizes.

-Dan

 

[AlphaMale]

I for one love the change. But I rarely use with my mobile, mostly the desktop. 

I think it's easier to find what band I'm looking for now. Spread out and great spacing. Perfecto Mundo.

[Leykis101]

I didnt know about any of this shit of course, I just tried going on to search a few bands, the 1st 4 times I went in from the link on this message board, it kept telling me server is not responding, so I tried on my phone, it told me server was timed out, so I googled the band Crash Diet, then clicked on the HH link, that took me to it, but then when I typed in the band to search, it kicked me back to the server in timed out screen, what the fizuck? sheeeeiiiittt! BLM

[heavyharmonies]

My host was having upstream network issues overnight, so that was likely making things go sideways for you.

Also, try not viewing the site on an Etch-A-Sketch. 

[Leykis101]

suggestion noted, it is a Etch-A-Sketch V.4 Sketchy, I figured it would work no problem, lol, that makes sense, cause it's working great now, now I forgot what bands I was looking up, sheeeiiiitt! no wat im sayen, thanks Dan can we call you God on HH? your the highest authority we can talk to, your the supreme being on HH. also was wondering where you'd been.

[heavyharmonies]

Well, I've been dealing with some craziness at work, and in addition I'm trying to wrap several things up as I'm going into the hospital for surgery on July 13, and will be out of commission for several weeks, so things are just chaotic.

[Leykis101]

Well hope your surgery goes well, make sure you take your laptop, so we have an E-Line to our Metal savior, who will be moderating in your absence?  Oh and also, I was noticing in my profile, I have an empty category, how can I go about achieving some warning points? can we purchase them? If I call G-Off's a dumb kangaroo fucking homo, or if I say something about myself like, all Gooks are good at math, and drive like shit, dental floss blindfolds them so lets eradicate them, or their all Wok using little nip mother fuckers, is that good enough to get hooked up with some warning points? if anyone reading this has received some warning points, could you give me a few tips on getting some? thanx Dan, hope your surgery is awesome, and there's all sorts of hot ass nurses giving you sponge baths, and wearing loose fitting scrubs, so when they bend down to take your blood, their cleavage is falling all over, it always makes my hospital stays very enjoyable, really though, hope shit goes well buddy.