Yellow Bar beta test results/comments.

[everconfused]

I'm not even a migraine sufferer and the thing is giving me headaches. I guess I'll look for a banner blocker. Would it affect flash games?

Hmm, well, I use IE and I've looked in the settings. The only thing I can find is something that will turn flash off. The problem is it turns ALL flash off - so that would mean games. Doesn't make sense to be having to go into settings and enabling/disabling the flash does it? The games do load slowly as it is (think it's the dial up?), so I wouldn't want to do anything to make them even slower. What I presently do to not have to see an endless looping shockwave in the corner of my eye is once the game starts loading, just minimize the main window, leaving the game window up.

Opera I really know nothing about to be honest. I use aol - the bane of techies ... they only talk about using netscape as an alternate browser. Not sure if it would work? Can you tell I'm like a total NON-techie?

It doesn't really seem like we're being listened to in our requests for testdom, does it? (btw, I fell off my chair today in uni. Lotsa weird looks). Then again, Neopets hasn't ever clearly claimed to be disability-friendly...

I also have problems with migraines triggered by flashing, colourful things. I can't play faerie racers either, can't watch any of the wheels turning, and Meerca chase turns into a nightmare. The one time I played evil fuzzles, I ended up in bed for the rest of the day with my computer off and the blinds down. I can usually get around Neopets fine if I keep away from these ads, but...it's very hard to ignore the top one. And I can imagine that there are probably a lot of people out there who suffer the same way.

I think I could live with the top banner if it were purely static. Or if I could go into options and turn it purely static. Or if I could turn it into text ads. But not dancing flashy colourful things that may be cute but if they catch me unawares will send me to bed with a painkiller that could knock an elephant out.

Ledi, I completely sympathize and empathize with you. I've fallen - off my chair, off the sofa (watching something fast moving on tv - had to watch Harry Potter laying flat on the floor and closed my eyes during the Quidditch matches), and of course when I really go boom into something and end up in ER with yet another concussion (DOH) ... a static banner that would change to a different ad when you went to a new page would be much better, at least an improvement. I too get migraines, docs think it's associated with the menieres (and beginning glaucoma) ... my aren't we just too much fun! I've watched my friend for about a minute? playing extreme potato counter and had to go lay down! But that's ok, there's plenty of puzzle games to make up for the action ones I can't handle.

No, Neo never has claimed to be disability friendly. It's something I never thought about, as I've always been able to get around just fine, and it is honestly a place I love (for all that I know I can complain - it's because I DO love the site), it's a release and escape from my "reality" as I'm sure it is for you and many of us - which we sorely need. Plus I do adore my pets and the friends I've made on the site and here


The only other thing I can think to suggest at the moment, since it appears these huge blasted banners have! to be there is (unless of course you pay for premium; which I cannot afford being on a fixed income) - put them at the bottom of the page. Maybe we could kind of avoid at least some of them that way? Won't help for slowness with pages loading, things like that though.


And Sierra? I have to do the same thing with clearing my cache - I do that and clear cookies after any site I visit. So there's no storing things - they'll have to reload every time I visit the site. Ah well, guess we'll have to wait and see? At least I will, since I'm not a beta tester.

[SierraRaven]

Hmm, well, I use IE and I've looked in the settings. The only thing I can find is something that will turn flash off. The problem is it turns ALL flash off - so that would mean games. Doesn't make sense to be having to go into settings and enabling/disabling the flash does it? The games do load slowly as it is (think it's the dial up?), so I wouldn't want to do anything to make them even slower. What I presently do to not have to see an endless looping shockwave in the corner of my eye is once the game starts loading, just minimize the main window, leaving the game window up.

And Sierra? I have to do the same thing with clearing my cache - I do that and clear cookies after any site I visit. So there's no storing things - they'll have to reload every time I visit the site. Ah well, guess we'll have to wait and see? At least I will, since I'm not a beta tester.

Everconfused, I use the same technique when playing games on Neopets. I minimize the main window after the game has loaded. I started doing that a couple years ago and had totally forgotten the original reason until I read your post. After an especially horrendous vertigo attack occurred while playing games, it dawned on me that it was the constant movement of the small Flash ad on the left sidebar. As long as I minimize the main window, though, I don't have much of a problem anymore.

The downloading of image files and shockwave flash files takes forever on my pathetic internet connection. If I didn't spend so much darn time on the site, I wouldn't have to clear my cache so often, lol! But if I don't clear them every couple days, my Netscape crashes.

Dial-up users are already at a disadvantage when it comes to restocking in shops. It's just about impossible to get anything good. With the extra top flash banner and slow d/l speeds, I'm already dreading Mystery Picture days, of which I'm an avid fan. But such is the way of progress, I guess...

*kicks self for moving out of San Diego, with high-speed internet, to the Sierra mountains*

[happysmileyfungirl]

WHAT!?! I missed it all again? Why do I have to sleep?! I wanted to be a beta tester
I think you should take sapphire faerie's idea of different colour themes, the blue looks pretty cool! From the screen shots I've seen, it looks pretty good but can anyone tell me if you have to refresh the page to get the time on the clock to change?

[okamotosan18]

Oh, maybe we could have special "Yellow" Bar choices based on how long we've been on Neopets, like another choice for every half-year.

[The Wonder Weezel]

All of my friends LOVE that halloween themed bar that we arent supposed to speak of!! Just kidding But it is really cool... oh, oh.... earlier, you said that one added thing on the bar is a surprise, but "think chat avatars"...

is there a possibility that you can collect side bars? *Which sounds kind of akward, but makes sense, I supposed* (WHoo Whoo! A NEW SIDE BAR!!) It sounds wierd, but that is a good idea though.... is that by any chance what you were talking about when you said "think chat avatars"?? Or maybe you will release new one on pet days or random themes or something?

I also LOOOOOVE the clock... that thing really will come in handy! Thanks so much for giving us the opportunity to see these things early!! These are cool!

-TWW

[meowth1982]

Everconfused: I put the links that I wanted to give you up, they're on page 2 if you wanna read them.

Ledi: No, they haven't ever clearly stated to be disability friendly, and it's going to end up getting them in a lot of trouble. I don't want to see it, but I'm waiting for the mother of a child who has problems reading because of blindness or a kid having a seziure do to the ads to sue. I hope they change the banners to straight HTML so this isn't a problem anymore.


Adam: That's my suggestion. Make the banners HTML. Flash banners look great and all and show off you guy's mad skills, but they cause more problems than they solve, oh, and is there any reason why you can't code the clock in Javascript, making it real time?

[xjox]

Everconfused: I put the links that I wanted to give you up, they're on page 2 if you wanna read them.

Ledi: No, they haven't ever clearly stated to be disability friendly, and it's going to end up getting them in a lot of trouble. I don't want to see it, but I'm waiting for the mother of a child who has problems reading because of blindness or a kid having a seziure do to the ads to sue. I hope they change the banners to straight HTML so this isn't a problem anymore.


Adam: That's my suggestion. Make the banners HTML. Flash banners look great and all and show off you guy's mad skills, but they cause more problems than they solve, oh, and is there any reason why you can't code the clock in Javascript, making it real time?

From what I can see the flash ads arent very fast at all, certainly no faster than any of the games already on the site. Once you are used to it being there you wont even notice it anyway cos your eye is automatically drawn lower down on the page.

Everconfused, you said you have a slow computer anyway so the banner is never gonna be super speedy and flashing etc. So hopefully its not going to cause problems for you, but as my mum always says , "lets cross that bridge when we get to it!":)

[Runevalkyrie]

Oh, maybe we could have special "Yellow" Bar choices based on how long we've been on Neopets, like another choice for every half-year.

I don't like that idea. If a feature is introduced for it, it should be equally available to new members and old ones a like. It would sound odd that the account I don't use anymore (about over 4 years now) would have more features that the account that I currently use (over 2 years)

[Shifty]

This has probably been mention on one of the 50 pages of the 3 topics, but I can't read all of that now... So does anyone know when this new sidebar will be open to the public? Or if there will be more beta testers?

[Ledi]

From what I can see the flash ads arent very fast at all, certainly no faster than any of the games already on the site. Once you are used to it being there you wont even notice it anyway cos your eye is automatically drawn lower down on the page.

Everconfused, you said you have a slow computer anyway so the banner is never gonna be super speedy and flashing etc. So hopefully its not going to cause problems for you, but as my mum always says , "lets cross that bridge when we get to it!":)

That's just it - we have trouble with the games themselves, but we can choose NOT to play them - we can't choose not to have the banner appear and flash at us. a static image would make that so much nicer.

We wouldn't be able to get used to it - do you think you'd be able to get used to something that causes physical pain, knowing that it could be different? I would probably have to either quit neopets (and god forbid that ever happen, that'd probably aggravate my depression x10) or severely limit my browsing. Everconfused would probably have even more problems than I.

It may never be 'super speedy' as you put it, but even on a slower computer, if the games that are played on it hurt, the banners will too.

[zorg]

From what I can see the flash ads arent very fast at all, certainly no faster than any of the games already on the site. Once you are used to it being there you wont even notice it anyway cos your eye is automatically drawn lower down on the page.

Everconfused, you said you have a slow computer anyway so the banner is never gonna be super speedy and flashing etc. So hopefully its not going to cause problems for you, but as my mum always says , "lets cross that bridge when we get to it!":)

That's just it - we have trouble with the games themselves, but we can choose NOT to play them - we can't choose not to have the banner appear and flash at us. a static image would make that so much nicer.

We wouldn't be able to get used to it - do you think you'd be able to get used to something that causes physical pain, knowing that it could be different? I would probably have to either quit neopets (and god forbid that ever happen, that'd probably aggravate my depression x10) or severely limit my browsing. Everconfused would probably have even more problems than I.

It may never be 'super speedy' as you put it, but even on a slower computer, if the games that are played on it hurt, the banners will too.

Suggest it when adam appears again, its good point (he said 8am his time, so thats around now isn't it?). hopefullythey might give you a flash and html option (still or moving)

[Chris]

I didn't beta-test, but;

TNT, let's compare the following websites.

http://www.google.co.uk
http://www.lycos.com

Compare them.

Done?

Good.

Now then, let's see.

Which one has less adverts and graphics?

Good.

Which one is more popular?

Good.

I don't think I'm going to be able to stand this AT ALL. Ugh.

[Qanda]

Ok, so here's a summary of the main complaints of the toolbar ( I don't think Adam would feel inclined to sieve through that pile of replies ):

1) Longer loading time for dial-up users.
2) May cause headaches/dizziness/seizures/hallucinations (:P) for certain people.
3) Large flash ads may slow down slow computers.
4) Everyone is keen on having different themed toolbars.
5) Major scrolling problems. The extra banner causes the window size to shrink making users have to scroll extra on every page they visit. May not seem to be a great deal at first, but may be a major hassle in the long run.
6) Not compatible with certain non-IE browsers.
7) Any others I missed?

*Edited to add things I missed.

Last edited by Qanda on Mon Oct 18, 2004 3:22 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[amarise]

I like the themed toolbars, but I do hope there will be more than Halloween and regular. And I love the idea of collecting them, since I'm a major avatar hunter. (Although, may I make a suggestion? Make it be something like the treasure hunt game was. That way, people can't just give a link or something to get it, it doesn't require you to be uber-good at some game, and it won't inflate any items to massive proportions)


I noticed the 'Pick-a-___' pages were changed. (Although, you removed the Tatsu page. For shame. ) They look much better now.

*Edit* Ah yes. I'd still like the option to change the size of your username/pet/np on the toolbar.

Last edited by amarise on Mon Oct 18, 2004 2:55 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[xjox]

Ok, so here's a summary of the main complaints of the toolbar ( I don't think Adam would feel inclined to sieve through that pile of replies ):

1) Longer loading time for dial-up users.
2) May cause headaches/dizziness/seizures/hallucinations (:P) for certain people.
3) Large flash ads may slow down slow computers.
4) Everyone is keen on having different themed toolbars.
5) Any others I missed?

I think that alot of people who arent using Internet Explorer are having trouble with the new event button, its not scrolling if you hold the mouse over it. So you have to click 'show all' especially for items!