Need help from all the members

[Mopar1973Man]

Now I'm going to be very honest here. I'm a very tech-savvy guy and I'll admit that I do things kind of short hand and want to fix a bunch of that for you guys and gals out there. If there is a function, prompt, text box you don't understand or can find something easily let me know I'll be working on improving the design of the website for functionality. Like right now I know there is a few issues with the subscription area and need to improve ease of use being I'm having to make phone calls to help get people changed over to the new accounts. This is only one example of what I'm talking about. 

 

If there is anything you see that doesn't make a lot of sense on how to use then ask me we will work to make things easier. Being that most people visiting the website are on their mobile phone mostly iPhones to be exact. Now I want to make your experience here easy as possible. I want you all to have the ability to use all the functions. Like the club, the function is open for all member to create their own local clubs which gives their own message forum inside this website, and many more functions. The garage area is supposed to light the signature line and allow you to post up all your mods to a database so we can all share without a monster-sized signature line and huge photos since the Garage allows me to limit photo sizes down make them lighter. 

 

Again if ANYONE has ideas, suggestions, or improvements please SPEAK UP! Post it here and let's work on making this the best place to be for support of Cummins trucks. There are no dumb ideas, and no dumb questions either...

[Threadzy]

Local club forum? That’s pretty cool! Be nice to meet up  with some local members. 

[Mopar1973Man]

8 minutes ago, Threadzy said:

Local club forum?

Yes... All you got to do is start on you become the owner of that group and have you own Admin panel then.

 

https://mopar1973man.com/clubs/?do=create <- To start your club now. 

 

Or go up top and browse -> clubs and hit the "Start A Club" button and follow through. You don't have to hold to just trucks you can start a club of any topic you wish. Totally up to you to grow your member base. I can help you at that too. I've worked for many different people building websites and kind of got the knowledge of what people want or look for.  

Just for information value... The Clubs area has...

• Forums - You can have more than 1 forum even.
• Downloads - You can have your own download files area.
• Classified Ads - Even have your own classified ads.
• Calendars - You own calendar to post up when group gatherings might be or wrench parties. What ever!
• Raffles - If you got things you want to raffle off in your own group. 

Just looking over the clubs functions more your club could have a physical location and map pins also so people can gather and meet up.

Edited February 1, 2022 by Mopar1973Man

[Mopar1973Man]

OK another thing no one is using is the modification tab in the garage. This allows you to document each modification on your truck with photos. Thenb you would have pages of all the mods and give more information for others to see. Signature line ok for quickie info fine. For more detailed info the garage works much better you can have multiple pictures of your modification, detail information on the modification, price, etc. 

 

Example... You just hit manage and add 

 

Now start adding modifications...

[Andyba20]

Mike, is there a way to set up an area for quick questions that don’t really need a dedicated thread? Almost like a chat room? I guess we could start a “quick questions” thread, but was curious if the site had a better/different way. 

[Mopar1973Man]

Sorry Invision years ago had chat room option which was obsoleted. I've considered a chatroom again but I'll have to find one. Again it comes with the price of the software and license up keep. There is lots of add on programs. 

 

I could start a new forum but I've got to merge most of the generations together. Trying to shorten amount of screen scrolling for mobile users. This will lighten also the desktop and allow for me to possibly add back so more information of the site.

 

Here something only admins see. This is why a pay so much to keep software current. Now to look up indexnow and read how Google really doesn't want to use indexnow but will try it. Yes the software I pay for is kept current and always up to date.

Edited February 2, 2022 by Mopar1973Man

[Max Tune]

11 hours ago, Andyba20 said:

Mike, is there a way to set up an area for quick questions that don’t really need a dedicated thread? Almost like a chat room? I guess we could start a “quick questions” thread, but was curious if the site had a better/different way. 

 

That's what I thought the General Conversation area was for. Questions or observations that don't really fit in the other forums.

[Mopar1973Man]

Yeah I wish there was a better way. 

 

There is lots of function here on the site are very different for layout and how the forum might be used. Like there is a Q and A style format that allows a member to post a question then everyone can respond with answers. Then as others read along and can give a good answer response or bad answer response then it tallies up and you get to see what answer was the best. I see this kind of layout on most of my server sites. Then you just read the answers with the high good scores. 

[Silverwolf2691]

@Mopar1973Man, I think if you put this as one of those banner links at the top of the page like I think you did for the high idle kits, you might get a bit more views and input. Not sure what the viewership stats are for the general conversation area is compared to others..

 

One change I would like is a more direct link to change a signature.. Like another link to the same page from the settings area of the profile drop down when you hit your user name in the top right. 

 

23 hours ago, Max Tune said:

On 2/1/2022 at 10:44 PM, Andyba20 said:

Mike, is there a way to set up an area for quick questions that don’t really need a dedicated thread? Almost like a chat room? I guess we could start a “quick questions” thread, but was curious if the site had a better/different way. 

 

That's what I thought the General Conversation area was for. Questions or observations that don't really fit in the other forums.

 

Not sure that's what he means by that..

 

General conversation is more for non truck related stuff. 

 

@Andyba20, could you expand on this? I have an idea as to what you mean but I'm not sure.. Were you thinking like a newbie FAQ section or something?

 

 

Edited February 3, 2022 by Silverwolf2691

[Mopar1973Man]

24 minutes ago, Silverwolf2691 said:

@Mopar1973Man, I think if you put this as one of those banner links at the top of the page like I think you did for the high idle kits, you might get a bit more views and input. Not sure what the viewership stats are for the general conversation area is compared to others..

 

Creates a problem which takes months to fix I found out. The CLS Content Layout Shift is a problem. So I place a notification up there and the CLS value goes over 0.1 then Google de-rates all the pages. Now I've got the entire desktop side that is having issues with CLS but the mobile side is fine so I'm trying not to use those options at this time. But I could mass email everyone just as well.

[Silverwolf2691]

19 minutes ago, Mopar1973Man said:

 

Creates a problem which takes months to fix I found out. The CLS Content Layout Shift is a problem. So I place a notification up there and the CLS value goes over 0.1 then Google de-rates all the pages. Now I've got the entire desktop side that is having issues with CLS but the mobile side is fine so I'm trying not to use those options at this time. But I could mass email everyone just as well.

 

Well sh!t...

 

I'm starting to understand more and more some of the memes around programming.. 

[Mopar1973Man]

So here is my current issue on the desktop side regarding that... Desktop for some reason is scoring high on the CLS value and not the mobile for some reason. So now I gotta let Google do its thing to re-score the pages all 3,000 plus pages. All I can do is keep telling it to re-validate the pages after 30 days are up. Eventually the score improves but boy you take a good hit. Like testing right now I've got CLS scores of 0.2 roughly for desktop so it should start going back to normal soon I hope...

 

Then the mobile side....

 

 

[Andyba20]

2 hours ago, Silverwolf2691 said:

, could you expand on this? I have an idea as to what you mean but I'm not sure.. Were you thinking like a newbie FAQ section or something

For example, if I just wanted to ask “can I see p1693 companion codes with an OBDlink MX”. That’s kind of a yes/no question that probably doesn’t need a dedicated thread. By the way, can the OBDlink mx do that?

[Silverwolf2691]

Obd link can read codes yes.. just did it this past weekend. If it can read everything on a Cummins, no idea.

[Mopar1973Man]

22 hours ago, Andyba20 said:

For example, if I just wanted to ask “can I see p1693 companion codes with an OBDlink MX”. That’s kind of a yes/no question that probably doesn’t need a dedicated thread. By the way, can the OBDlink mx do that?

 

Why not built that answer? Start a forum post asking others if that can be done. Since I don't have one I can't answer that question. Then you can create an article post from that.

 

That was the main design of this website. I wanted everyone to ask the dumb or simple questions so now after a discussion on the forum the author could basically cut and paste the information to his own article page to maintain as he does his own study for his topic. Like @pepsi71ocean started the article on Computer rebuilders and still maintains the list and keeps it up to date.  @IBMobile has done several articles as well trying to improve the 2nd Gen world with mods he's built and tested on his own truck. Like myself, all the work and effort that I've done on my truck is all made into articles as well. I got to admit I need to review some of them and possibly update them. But that is the whole point we can discuss topics as a group and test and validate answers then document the solution as an article. 

Edited February 4, 2022 by Mopar1973Man

[Mopar1973Man]

Since 80% of the people that visit the website are on mobile phones I merged the powertrain, non-powertrain and performance forums together for each generation EXCEPT 2nd Gen as requested from the membership here that to leave that as is. Which I di and now the scrolling on mobile users is reduced. Enjoy guys and gals this shuold improve the mobile experience on the website. No data was lost, just merged. 

[Doubletrouble]

Nice ! Thanks Mike

 It does reduce scrolling quite a bit. I shot right past the 2nd gen stuff! Lol

[wil440]

On 2/5/2022 at 3:54 PM, Mopar1973Man said:

Since 80% of the people that visit the website are on mobile phones I merged the powertrain, non-powertrain and performance forums together for each generation EXCEPT 2nd Gen as requested from the membership here that to leave that as is. Which I di and now the scrolling on mobile users is reduced. Enjoy guys and gals this shuold improve the mobile experience on the website. No data was lost, just merged. 

  I wondered why stuff had changed, was blaming Microstupid 

I never use a mobile to browse as either mobile phones are too small or my hands are too big. 

[Mopar1973Man]

21 hours ago, wil440 said:

  I wondered why stuff had changed, was blaming Microstupid 

I never use a mobile to browse as either mobile phones are too small or my hands are too big. 

 

Lol... Microsoft is junk. That is why I went to Linux way back about 10 years ago. Being ive got my Android phone tied to my PC it does a bunch of nice things. Like when my phone rings the caller ID is displayed on my PC screen then at the same time my music is paused. After the phone call everything is unpaused and back to work. Can't do that with Microsoft.

 

As forphones being to small and hands are to big well I've got that problem but here I am laying in bed posting this on my cellphone. I've got to use that same tools 80% of the people use. Personally I'm not impressed with iPhone being they can interact with Linux as clean.

 

Heck ill go a step farther I've got all the same tools on my cellphone as my PC I can do 90% of my job on the website right from my phone. I've got apps for doing terminal work, web links to my WHM (web hosting management). You can do roughly 80% to 90% on my cellphone.

 

So my focus is making changes to help member use the common devices they use. Like I said 80% are on cellphones surfing the website.

[Silverwolf2691]

Phones like the Galaxy Note series are also physically larger as well. The galaxy S20 ultra is huge as well.

 

Reason I moved to Samsung Galaxy a long time ago was due to the options/features you can futz with. Expandable memory was the other thing I wanted. Over the time of me having each phone I have cleared 2.5-3k photos in the gallery. MicroSD allows that to stay off the phone and keep it reasonably fast. Uh oh, I'm making this sound like a galaxy sales pitch... Whoops..