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New Site and Enhancements

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Thanks everyone for the lovely compliments on the new site. We’re all very proud of the sleek look and Christian and Lynn should take a well deserved bow. They are still working on a number of add-ons and enhancements and a few things that have gone missing, but most of the features of the old site are now here plus some new ones. The purpose of this post is to give you an update of the changes and where you can find “stuff” on the site.

You will notice two new Menu Bars underneath the header. We have moved almost all content that was on the main page of the old site to pull down menus. If you can’t find anything, more than likely it’s beautifully hidden behind a menu. This makes for a much cleaner, less cluttered, more elegant look.

Here’s a quick rundown of the changes:

There’s a new HOME button on the Primary Menu bar, in addition to the moving HOME button that you’re accustomed to
A new CONTACT button is now on the Primary Menu. This was initially under Navigation but because so many of you use “contact” we thought we would make it easier for you
Archives are now on the Primary Menu – just click and all site content will show, initially the previous 30 days and then monthly content
Current Polls are also on the Primary Menu
Cool Links shows all the links that were previously on the main page of the site. Authors Sites/Blogs, Blogroll, Publishers, Cool Blogs are all there at the click of your mouse
Facebook and Twitter links are also on the Primary Menu on the right hand side
POSTS shows the RSS feed for the posts and COMMENTS the RSS feed with all the comments.
Navigation, Reviews by Author, Reviews by Title, Rating (if you hover your mouse over a particular rating it will indicate what each rating means), and Contributors are on the Secondary Menu.
On the Main Page, Featured Posts is basically in the same position but we have moved up Welcome, Site FAQ’s and Authors (the alphabetical listings that you love so much) to make them easier to find. The Popular Posts is in the same location as are the Chat Board Followers widget, Free Books. carousels, Facebook Activity widget, and posts under Ins and Outs of M/M Romance, Josh Lanyon’s posts (when he writes something) 🙂 and Erastes’s posts. Bringing up the rear is the M/M and Gay Sex Terms widget.

We also have a new Live Search feature. As you type in words into the search box, the new feature continually queries the site database, looking for search results that match what you have typed so far. This intuitive feature will hopefully provide the result you’ve been looking for before you’ve even finished typing the query, saving you the step of having to click on the search button to get your results. Isn’t that incredible?

Christian was able to indulge me, and all of my hot guys are still with us. 🙂

There is a new Footer – META  (where you log on), the Neoworx Map and Counter as well as logos from the publishers who bring you all those wonderful free books are now located there.

If there are any broken links please write Christian. LOL Kidding! You can leave a comment on this post. 🙂

Did we forget anything? Please write Christian 🙂 Please leave a comment on this post.

The most important question we would like answered is: How do  you find navigating the site now? Please let us know by leaving a comment on this post.

Christian is still tweaking several elements to speed up loading. He is going to change the “Already Available” carousel so that it loads differently, and ultimately he will do the same thing for the “Coming Soon” carousel. At this rate the site will load faster than the speed of light rather than as slow as molasses. 🙂 The downside? Christian and Lynn have taken away all my toys. 🙁

My sincere thanks to our Webmaster, Christian Otto and Aunt Lynn our other technical expert who worked her creative magic, without whom this would not have been possible. Thanks to all of you as well for continuing to support the site and especially during this transition.

I know it’s early but the new site is like an advance Christmas present for me and I wanted to share it.

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36 comments

    • Mark
      The old site was only 15 months old but we outgrew it very fast. I never realized how slow it was until bloggers complimented us on the speed of the new site. 🙂 I wish they had said something earlier.

  • Hiya wave, I love the look of the new site, very streamlined. I never thought the old site looked cluttered when I used it but I can see by this improvement – that it probably was. I like the drop down menus for finding content, that’s what everybody is used to anyway.

    The improvements are cool but I come here for the reviews and I’ve never been led astray yet. If you guys say a book is a 5 it always is and if you say it’s a 3 or less, well, I usually don’t bother reading it. I love that I can trust the reviews, that’s worth more than you know in crowded book review blog land!

  • Hi Peggy

    >>The improvements are cool but I come here for the reviews and I’ve never been led astray yet. If you guys say a book is a 5 it always is and if you say it’s a 3 or less, well, I usually don’t bother reading it. I love that I can trust the reviews, that’s worth more than you know in crowded book review blog land!<< Your comment is what I consider most important. Above all the fun, this is a review site and we constantly try to improve. It's great that you appreciate the new sleeker look but it's also wonderful that you love our hard work on the reviews. Thank you. 🙂

  • Once again to Wave, Christian, Lynn and everyone who works on and contributes to this site – my hat is off to you 🙂 Setting up and maintaining such a site is no small feat. I will take this opportunity to say I am so very glad I found you here this year – it is marvelous being able to share my love of reading with everyone here and to be able to communicate so directly and easily with the authors themselves. So, thanks again!

    Oh, and Wave………..so very glad you kept the guys in the header. Don’t know who they are, but I feel like I know them and it wouldn’t be right if they weren’t “at home” when I visit here 😉

    • Hi Dianne

      All the behind the scenes work was done by Christian and Lynn for weeks and when they went live last weekend we held our breaths. 🙂 Luckily everything worked out and all I can say is we’re all very fortunate to have such incredible talent working on the site. Christian and Lynn joined me on the old blog almost at the beginnning and stuck with me, bless them.

      I’m so glad you love the site and most important, the content. We try to have fun with books and everything associated with books as well as hot men. LOL

      Larissa wanted to get rid of my guys in the header and she’s still in the doghouse. 🙂

  • Thank you for the updates. The site is loading much faster now and it doesn’t freeze my browser occasionally as it used to do sometimes. I like it. Well done for all three of you. ^^

    • LadyM
      I never knew how bad it was but I’m glad that we have improved the logging on times. As I said in the post, Christian is still working on a few enhancements to further speed up those times and stop the freezing.

  • I’m glad you insisted on keeping the guys in the header, Wave. They’re my visual for Ty Grady and Zane Garrett. 🙂

    • I really love these guys Patty. I tried to find out from the site where I got the pics. who they were but they had no idea.. Ty and Zane huh? You’ll get a surprise when I post the interview with Madeleine and Abigail. 🙂

    • Hi Elaine
      Christian is in dreamland right now and Lynn is entertaining a lot of guests for dinner tonight, but I think both of them will be around tomorrow.

    • Hi Sirius
      I think I drove them crazy, especially Christian, and I’m sure he must have wanted to smack me a time or two. 🙂 As for Lynn she’s much too ladylike – she just hid and created her magic. The two of them make an awesome pair.

  • LOL, I hate to jump on Patty’s bandwagon, but I do the exact same thing she does—everytime I open this site, and I see the header picture, my mind goes straight to Ty & Zane.

    Lovely new Site Christian, Lynn, and Wave

  • Love the new look! Great job Christian and Lynn!

    The site is loading much faster for me. Also when I used to comment, it would lock me out of the site for awhile. That doesn’t seem to be happening now.

    • Nichem

      Thanks for commenting about the loading times. I had no idea that bloggers were locked out of the site whenever they commented. WOW. I’ll make a note for hristian to test that this doesn’t happen the odd time.

      Yes my two experts, Christian and Lynn, outdid themselves. 🙂

  • I love, love, love it! Great job. Looks fantastic, easy to read, and VERY easy to navigate. And like everyone else has commented, loads soooo much faster! Thank you to everyone for their hard work!

    • Thanks Kathy. As I said in the post, I’m most interested in how easy the site is for someone else to navigate. It’s great to be pretty but it must be functional too. 🙂

  • Oh yes, it’s looking so much better now!

    I used to find the sidebar way too cluttered and busy to find what I wanted – everything seems clearer now. Love the menu bars at the top as well.

    I always used to have problems finding the meta to log in – now I know it’s in the bottom widget area I’ll be fine 😀

    Gotta love WordPress – they make designing a site so easy – but it takes talent to get it all looking good. Well done Christian and Lynn!

    • Hi Jo

      Sometimes I want to kick the crap out of WordPress because it’s not user friendly. Luckily for us, in the hands of talented designers like Christian and Lynn they make it seem like a snap, when it’s a lot of exhausting, backbreaking work. I bow to my two colleagues.

  • Like the new look but one small problem: I’m using Firefox version 3.6.12 – when I navigate to just about any page I get an error message: ‘DIV with ID “simplegallery2” not found on page’.

    • Hi Jen
      That’s good to know. The error messages seems to be related to the Already Available carousel. Do you get the error message since we change the site design or before that too?

  • I know I’ve said it before, but it bears repeating. The redesigned site is beeeaaauuuutiful! It’s loads like lightening, and no more weird errors. Really fantastic job Lynn, Christian and Wave.

    • TJ
      With all the praise, now they’re looking for a raise equal to what I paid them last time. 🙂 Christian wants a hot looking man and Lynn just wants to be left alone by me. LOL. They’re ganging up on me.

  • This is so gorgeous, and I want you to know, you guys put me to a lot of work. A friend saw this and wibbled that she needed a facelift, too, and guess who ended up doing that…

    The faster load is a big plus.

    • Hi Pam
      Sorry we caused you extra work but it’s all good if your friend’s site got a facelift in the process. I’m sure she’s just as happy as we are. 🙂

  • Thanks for all of the wonderful comments, everyone. The site is amazingly better in so many ways. Christian and I make a great team. 🙂 Thanks, definitely, to Wave for the opportunity.

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