Coder1
04-05-2006, 10:13 AM
My community is T. Greer PrintForum (http://www.tgreer.com/cmps_index.php). What makes it a great community? Nothing, yet! It's very small, but I have a core group of very high-quality members. Since I do absolutely ZERO promotion, except via my sig in various forums, and am not particularly into SEO, I expect it to be slow-growing. That's fine by me.
The focus is on digital printing and programming (think, super-high-end seven-figure digital presses).
The site isn't fancy - but that's what I wanted: a fast, pared-down, clean interface. I have a page-compression plugin, plus some modifications for articles & op-ed. I run GARS Lite, which I'm slowly rewriting to better fit my needs. I also run my own articles system for the Analysis & Opinion features.
I've modded a lot of the templates to give me more of a clean look, including adding space between the forums, removing a lot of the "Posting Rules" and "Forum Jump", graphics, and so forth.
I coded the navigational buttons at the top... I like them! What's nice is that if you navigate to a specific category, not only do the sub-forums show, but underneath, are the "associated" Analysis & Opinion articles.
Since I'm a professional coder/trainer, I have a "private projects" category, and each client has a private sub-forum underneath. So in addition to the public forum, there is a private side I use for project management, documentation, code postings, attachments, and even billing. I've coded a system for billable hours, and when I post a thread I have an option of attaching a billing code. As a result, the post contains a small section that acts as a project/billing log. When a particular project/thread is closed, the system auto-posts an invoice as the final posting in the thread, and emails the client a PDF version. It's greatly simplified my business.
Please visit - no need to join unless you're in the printing/publishing business. I'm completely receptive to any suggestions for improvement, however, so I invite your feedback.
P.S. I forgot to mention my favorite modification: I added a special "invite" block for guests who reach the site via a search engine. Since usually they'll be reading a post at the bottom of a thread, they won't see the "Welcome block". This mod invites them to join, using the search engine and search terms they used, in the message. Screen shot attached.
The focus is on digital printing and programming (think, super-high-end seven-figure digital presses).
The site isn't fancy - but that's what I wanted: a fast, pared-down, clean interface. I have a page-compression plugin, plus some modifications for articles & op-ed. I run GARS Lite, which I'm slowly rewriting to better fit my needs. I also run my own articles system for the Analysis & Opinion features.
I've modded a lot of the templates to give me more of a clean look, including adding space between the forums, removing a lot of the "Posting Rules" and "Forum Jump", graphics, and so forth.
I coded the navigational buttons at the top... I like them! What's nice is that if you navigate to a specific category, not only do the sub-forums show, but underneath, are the "associated" Analysis & Opinion articles.
Since I'm a professional coder/trainer, I have a "private projects" category, and each client has a private sub-forum underneath. So in addition to the public forum, there is a private side I use for project management, documentation, code postings, attachments, and even billing. I've coded a system for billable hours, and when I post a thread I have an option of attaching a billing code. As a result, the post contains a small section that acts as a project/billing log. When a particular project/thread is closed, the system auto-posts an invoice as the final posting in the thread, and emails the client a PDF version. It's greatly simplified my business.
Please visit - no need to join unless you're in the printing/publishing business. I'm completely receptive to any suggestions for improvement, however, so I invite your feedback.
P.S. I forgot to mention my favorite modification: I added a special "invite" block for guests who reach the site via a search engine. Since usually they'll be reading a post at the bottom of a thread, they won't see the "Welcome block". This mod invites them to join, using the search engine and search terms they used, in the message. Screen shot attached.