More banner/advert feedback

I'm afraid things aren't getting better. Hexus' advertising agent seems to be only creating banner adverts with high resolution/large window size and firefox in mind. Having IE and a windowed browser Hexus is becoming more and more unreadable.

Opening the gaming subsection now, first thing I see is the Hexus.gaming logo obscured by a large XFX banner. Just a bit further down the page is a huge ATI AIW advert spanning the length of my window that completely obscures the 'lastest review' panel and the 'my HEXUS' panel.

I appreciate the need for adverts, and I don't have a problem with them when they don't get in the way of my reading Hexus webpages, but recently it's becoming a chore to use the site and read content. Yes I know it's because I have to use sucky IE, however I think Hexus would benefit from a website that was not bugged/hard to use for IE users as well - it would increase viewers and professionality.

Please try and get the advertising agent under ground - it's letting down the rest of the site.

I've also noticed that the adverts stay on top of any popup menus (such as the quick links menu) making it very difficult to know what you are trying to click.

The site works fine in IE, it has been designed to work across all major browsers. I suspect the root cause of your problem is a change to the style sheets to offer the large central banner and your browser has cached the old ones. Press CTRL-F5 to refresh the page and it should solve your problems.

Blueball your issue is forum related and unfortunately there isn't anything we can do about that. Macromedia in it's infinite wisdom makes Flash content appear above anything else on a page and it's a choice between having a forum with a Flash advert or not having a forum at all. Hosting of the size and nature required for HEXUS doesn't come for free.

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Originally Posted by Iain

Blueball your issue is forum related and unfortunately there isn't anything we can do about that. Macromedia in it's infinite wisdom makes Flash content appear above anything else on a page and it's a choice between having a forum with a Flash advert or not having a forum at all. Hosting of the size and nature required for HEXUS doesn't come for free.

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Many thanks.

Now that I know the answer it doesn't annoy me any more ;) It's the thought of putting up with it and NOT telling anyone that was silly.

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Originally Posted by kalniel

I'm afraid things aren't getting better. Hexus' advertising agent seems to be only creating banner adverts with high resolution/large window size and firefox in mind. Having IE and a windowed browser Hexus is becoming more and more unreadable.

Opening the gaming subsection now, first thing I see is the Hexus.gaming logo obscured by a large XFX banner. Just a bit further down the page is a huge ATI AIW advert spanning the length of my window that completely obscures the 'lastest review' panel and the 'my HEXUS' panel.

I appreciate the need for adverts, and I don't have a problem with them when they don't get in the way of my reading Hexus webpages, but recently it's becoming a chore to use the site and read content. Yes I know it's because I have to use sucky IE, however I think Hexus would benefit from a website that was not bugged/hard to use for IE users as well - it would increase viewers and professionality.

Please try and get the advertising agent under ground - it's letting down the rest of the site.

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We have to have a cut off somewhere - I presume you are talking about the http://gaming.HEXUS.net site? The banner obscuring it is a 468*60 which is one of the smallest "premium" banners we run, and we won't be removing them. Recently we have cut the page to introduce a 728*90 but this doesn't break or affect anything.

We have made this to run in a minimum of a maximised 1024*768 window - we can't really develop for 800*600 anymore, but the site should still work reasonably well within it.

Please check that your browser has its cached flushed since we did some new style sheets yesterday.

We are moving to smarter banner management but it does take time - and we have to work on it bit by bit, when we change things over night things tend to break :)

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I've also noticed that the adverts stay on top of any popup menus (such as the quick links menu) making it very difficult to know what you are trying to click.

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This is Flash as Iain has said, however we are going to do some code hacks later today to stop this happening on the forums, we have finally worked something out :)

I pretty much ignore them, no issues.

I can't even adblock the ads any more

This ageing PIII 1GHz just can't take Hexus :(

Ad-blocking is naughty :(

Hope you get the flash/layering thing sorted... it is a pain at times.

Got a call from David, we discussed and have changed the layout to allow the popup menus to work without problems, of course, feedback is welcome on this.

Regards

Matt.

Thanks for the reply - let me reiterate I understand the need for adverts - the feedback is purely on the grounds of trying to improve the hexus site more.

I view hexus in windows of about 650-700 pixels wide, which would explain some of the problems, but I'm sure it can't be that unusual to view forums along side other work/webpages.

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Originally Posted by david

Recently we have cut the page to introduce a 728*90 but this doesn't break or affect anything.

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Actually it does - try shrinking an IE window - as soon as you hit 750 or less pixels (not including scroll bar), the search button jumps down, pushing the 728 fash ad lower which then obscures My Hexus and Latest Reviews.

HEXUS is developed to be as flexible as it can be whilst maintaining content and feasiblity for us, very few sites can now completely scale down to a 700 pixel wide size, its not an industry standard anymore, the minimum people develop new sites for is 800x600, the most common is now 1024 x768, HEXUS itself is designed around the 1024 dimension size.

Time for a new VDU? Are you sure you have your monitor adjusted properly?

Matt.

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Originally Posted by PrivatePyle

When I go to sites where an advert slides across the screen, or a popup window appears saying my computers broken and when I close that window a bigger one appears then I'm grateful for hexus only having banners.

The only time I dont like flash is when it has sounds, which I have never come across here, the most annoying I've seen on another site is an advert for a smiley site with some dumb womans voice saying 'helloooooooo' everytime you mouseover. It makes me want to punch my monitor :)

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We won't have annoying noises - thanks for the feedback :D

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Originally Posted by kalniel

Thanks for the reply - let me reiterate I understand the need for adverts - the feedback is purely on the grounds of trying to improve the hexus site more.

I view hexus in windows of about 650-700 pixels wide, which would explain some of the problems, but I'm sure it can't be that unusual to view forums along side other work/webpages.

Actually it does - try shrinking an IE window - as soon as you hit 750 or less pixels (not including scroll bar), the search button jumps down, pushing the 728 fash ad lower which then obscures My Hexus and Latest Reviews.

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Whilst I am hearing you - I don't think its fair to expect us to develop for such a low resolution - we set 8*6 to work - as a rough guideline, but the 10*7 is a strict rule. Next thing we will have is people wanting it is 320*200?

Perhaps time to upgrade? ;)

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Originally Posted by kempez815

I can't even adblock the ads any more

This ageing PIII 1GHz just can't take Hexus :(

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Good, I am glad you can't :) Do you recommend people block adverts on SysExtreme as well?

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Originally Posted by David

Good, I am glad you can't :) Do you recommend people block adverts on SysExtreme as well?

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They can do if they want - its up to them I spose - if we had any flash ;)

I'm just dead against flash banners I spose as they take up unnecessary CPU cycles :)

rubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbishrubbish ;)