new toolbar is up!

[Tyd]

I kind of like it, it makes it feel more...Neopetish o.O The clock is cool too, i sometimes forget the time to do Snowager ect =)

And i guess the new craze will be sometime like Secret Layouts, like the Secret Avatars

[Evilone]

Download Firefox and then get the extension adblock. Then it'll give to the option to block certain ads from ever showing. This is good for blocking certain ads, I'm not sure what you'd want for blocking all of them unless you take the time to block each one as you see it.

Blocking the Top Ads

Step One: Download Firefox.
http://www.getfirefox.com/

Step Two: Within Forfox, install: http://update.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=10

Step Three: Click: http://img67.exs.cx/img67/5530/neo-step-01.jpg

Step Four: Highlight and delete everything after 'http://images.neopets.com/ads/' http://img67.exs.cx/img67/444/neo-step-3.jpg

Step Five: Add an asterix, '*', to the end of 'http://images.neopets.com/ads/'. And click ok. http://img67.exs.cx/img67/7596/neo-step-03.jpg

Ta-da.

http://img67.exs.cx/img67/2182/neo-step-04.jpg

Wow, finally someone persuaded me to get Firefox - you were right, it rocks. I'd be dallying and thinking about it for a while, but this does it. I also adblocked all headers (http://images.neopets.com/new_headers/*), so that all the game pages (like nq2) shift up a bit.

[autechre]

i would say i like it even though the word "world" on the sidebar seems to my eye, disproportionally larger than the rest of the sidebar clicky things.

but its nice to have the change, i like the stars across the top, and especially the clock. the clock rocks, i'm glad they managed to figure out how to do it, i've seen other sites have a live clock, and bookmarked a few, since mine's always out of date by the time the page gets back to me.

my faults with it would be; the double bannerings, but i suppose its because i'm not used to it, being used to the page banner being higher, not a huge problem, obviously have to acustomise myself to seeing it thats all. *finds excuse to play neopets more, never a bad thing*

huge peeve, my username is minescule font and so is my current neopet and nps ect. and my scroll button plus control doesn't seem to make a difference. i like small font, but it would be nice if i could make it larger when i need to read it thats all and i wouldn't mind if for the 2 seconds i did so, the toolbar looked stretched or odd or otherwise

[Qanda]

I think it is stupid to advertise their own site when we are already on it. If they wanted to advertise different games/places in Neopia the small advert slot on the side bar does the job well, and is relatively unobstrusive. Now the side advert slot is very seldom noticed, since it is too far down the page and the top banner takes up all the attention.

[Dragonfire]

Woah. That freaked me out. It looks cool, but they need to update the right bar. <.<

[autechre]

If they wanted to advertise different games/places in Neopia the small advert slot on the side bar does the job well, and is relatively unobstrusive.

but if they did that, it would give them more opportunity to advertise with sponsers

personally, i prefer a neopets ad to a sponser ad, neopets ads remind me to try games i haven't in ages, and ideas for exploring the site in search of res and the elusive pant devil who afer 3 years hasn't deigned to visit me sponser ads just don't interest my and rather annoy me because i couldn't care less about ebay since i have no use for it, since parents would rather murder me then let me use a credit card over the internet.

[eighteenaishas]

b) The page proportions are ruined, especially by the old "top banner" things still being left it, especially on games like neoquest.

And not to mention the shops..

I don't 'hate' it but I'm not greatly fond of it. What can we do though, it's their site, they do what they please with it.

I do like that clock though.

I myself haven't seen an Ebay ad.. It's wierd because I had a dream about this new NP layout..

[Evilone]

b) The page proportions are ruined, especially by the old "top banner" things still being left it, especially on games like neoquest.

And not to mention the shops..

I don't 'hate' it but I'm not greatly fond of it. What can we do though, it's their site, they do what they please with it.

I do like that clock though.

I myself haven't seen an Ebay ad.. It's wierd because I had a dream about this new NP layout..

Use Crimsonmon's guide to getting firefox and adblocker, then read my post in this thread about completely removing the top bar.

[ladyredhat]

EDIT: You fixed the shops! YAY and Thanks!

2nd biggest complaint: having 2 banners + lots of wasted space at the top. I think the introduction banner should be redesigned, made about 1/2 its current height, and incorporated into the yellow bar below the ad banner to conserve vertical space. Yeah it would be a pain to redesign every one of those banners, for every game, etc. but it would be worth it. Some don't look so good anyway, for example the Snowager one with no black border, just slapped on the page.

I hate to only complain. I really love it that Adam & Snarkie post on here and use some of the feedback. I like the clock and I'm really looking forward to collecting themes - I like the avatars but I don't use the neoboards.

Too bad I am always too late so no-one from TNT sees my comments.

Last edited by ladyredhat on Fri Oct 22, 2004 6:28 pm, edited 1 time in total.

[Nani]

Eventually there will be themes for you to collect, much the same way that avatars currently work.

Hah! I nailed it on the 1st thread. XD

[raudf]

The connection isn't balanced. It feels very left heavy because the top and left are joined and the content is left to stand out there.

Bingo, that's what was offending my sense of proportion. The top bar was just too much. If they were going to do it, they should have gone ahead and set it so we can change the color of the sidebar while they were at it. That yellow is such a thirsty color to be placed everywhere on the page. If one of my professors in Graphic Design had given this new bar a grade, I'm pretty sure it would have been no higher than a 'D'.

I find myself using Foxfire on both computers now.. because basic Mozilla doesn't have the adblock extension. Yes, the flash ads are very, very annoying. Before the adblock extension, I kept getting distracted by the overly large ads that contribute very little to the game enjoyment.

[everconfused]

GMTA! I previously wrote this:

Besides the physical problems I am having with it - even doing the scroll down fast thing - that doesn't always work, some of the pages are kind of "hanging" so I can't scroll. It seems now like all you really see IS the sidebar/topbanner. It's almost overwhelming in relation to the actual page you're on. Just too much. Maybe it's all that yellow?

Snarkie posted this:

Posted: Thu Oct 21, 2004 9:46 pm Post subject:

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ammer wrote:
Snarkie, considering you're answering our questions here, I have a few of my own pertaining about the Neopian Clock.

In the future, is it possible to setup a province/state/city or whatnot for the country we live in? For example, if I choose Canada, it should display all of the provinces in Canada.

Now this is leading up to my main question, once this is created, will you be able to code the clock to match each Neopian player's account to their specific timezone?

I know the second part will be difficult or nearly impossible to do, but I am simply asking if you would be able to do it. If not, I am perfectly happy with the NST time.

Wouldn't be hard at all, but there is no other time in Neopia besides NST. I can definitely understand why you'd want it set to your own time, as hyperflutterby explained. But it may confuse people otherwise on things like Count Von Roo, for example, when it says he's up at Midnight, and we need it to stay within the Neopian world, so it's been decided that it will remain NST (Pacific).

Amneris wrote:
Snarkie, I don't know if you caught this suggestion earlier, but would it be possible to remove this banner... [snip]

snarkie = code monkey so I have no clue on that. I can tell you though that if someone creates a page without a header, they are taken outside and beaten with wet asparagus. Headers are part of the branding, and our internal style guide instructs everyone to use them on any page you create no matter what. So I would guess the chance that they would be removed is slim to NULL.


Also, if anyone is curious, I've given the div that displays the flash banners a class called "banner" and the clock is "nst." Just set those classes to hidden in the CSS and they won't display on your userlookup. (It means editing your code, but it was the best way to make it really easy to hide on lookups.) So you should now be able to cover the flash with your own images and hide the clock with ease.

The template is set to go up with today's sync, and that should be any minute now.

Now I admit to being clueless at times when it comes to looking at code, especially css (mental block or being old?) ... anyway, I can't find that "banner" class and I don't know what it means to set those classes to hidden.

I wouldn't hide the clock, and I've never covered the small shockwave ad on my lookup - I always stop my sidebars at logout. Just don't believe in hiding/disabling the search, etc. stuff. It always bothers me when I see one of the long sidebars that cover everything ... but that's just me I guess.

But if it IS ok to do, I would like to be able to hide that topbanner just on my lookup. I just don't know how - I've seen some lookups that have the ad disabled, but there's still a huge yellow rectangle with a black line through the middle on the top of the person's lookup.

As I said - I only want to know how to do this with the topbanner if it is allowed. No matter how I feel about it, I also don't want to break a rule - written or unwritten.

[Daner]

I love the time stamp, but I really hate the top banner, especially what it does to the shops. Now it takes much, much longer to scroll through huge shops than before.

I like that Neo is trying to change some things, but some stuff is better left alone.

[santacamaleona]

Well, i'm not in love with the top banner, but i'll get used to it
The only thing is, now the headers for each page are kinda useless. I mean, they aren't even headers anymore...
Oh well
I do like the clock thingie, and i'm looking forward to the themes

edit: oh, and i keep clicking on "world" when i mean "explore", damn icon-changing (!!)

(sorry if i'm repeating what someone else said, i dont wanna read the whole 5 pages =P)

[Qanda]

But if it IS ok to do, I would like to be able to hide that topbanner just on my lookup. I just don't know how - I've seen some lookups that have the ad disabled, but there's still a huge yellow rectangle with a black line through the middle on the top of the person's lookup.

As I said - I only want to know how to do this with the topbanner if it is allowed. No matter how I feel about it, I also don't want to break a rule - written or unwritten.

TNT would look OH SO BAD if they started freezing people for blocking their ad banners. After all, their sponsors can't know if the clients of Neopets were blocking their ads, so it wouldn't affect advertisement revenue. It would just seem so... "Load our banners OR ELSE!" kinda unreasonable.

Conclusion - I don't think they will freeze you for blocking the top banner, but how can they even know if you've blocked it in the first place?