AYP Books Page Upgraded - Feedback?

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AYP Books Page Upgraded - Feedback?

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yogani

USA
5192 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 12:35:02 PM

Hi All:

After some offline suggestions and months of mulling, some upgrading on the AYP Books Page has been done. The idea is to give people more information on the books to help in the decision-making process.

To that end, the following has been added for each book:

1. A link to a separate page with description, table of contents and collected Amazon reviews (multi-site/country).

2. A "Read Sample Now" link to a PDF selection.

3. A "Hear Sample Now" link to an MP3 selection (Deep Meditation now, and the rest of the Enlightenment Series books as they come out in AudioBook format this year). The link is currently direct to to an MP3 file, but will be converted to flash audio soon (like the radio interviews) with no wait for loading.

All of these links open new windows, so the books page is not closed during the additional reading/listening.

The AYP Easy Lessons book and Secrets of Wilder short descriptions on the books page have also been fine tuned to be more engaging.

Any feedback on these upgrades plus suggestions for additional improvements are welcome.

Thanks!

The guru is in you.

Jim and His Karma

2110 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 12:54:16 PM

In my browser, the right hand margin of the text seems excessively to the left, making the text column unnecessarily narrow and wasting lots of empty space to the right (before the book cover column).

yogani

USA
5192 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 1:03:43 PM

quote:
Originally posted by Jim and His Karma

In my browser, the right hand margin of the text seems excessively to the left, making the text column unnecessarily narrow and wasting lots of empty space to the right (before the book cover column).

Hi Jim:

What is your operating system and browser version? And which of the pages are doing that? The pages have been tested in Windows Internet Explorer 6.0 and FireFox 2.0, without having that issue.

We would like to fix it so these pages work properly in all the operating systems and browsers.

The guru is in you.

Richard

United Kingdom
857 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 2:22:05 PM

I see what Jim is saying I am running XP with I.E.7.0 and I see the space.

I love the book intro's though what a good idea

Jim and His Karma

2110 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 2:31:27 PM

I'm in safari, mac os, and I've clicked on the first link in your previous message. Just checked in firefox, also on a mac, and same problems. I think it's in the html.

yogani

USA
5192 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 2:58:31 PM

Jim & Richard:

Does it do it on this page too? http://www.aypsite.org/books2.html
That is the books page before the upgrade.

Thanks!

TGIIY

Richard

United Kingdom
857 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 3:02:04 PM

Yep same for me maybe it was like that before

Or could be an IE 0.7 upgrade has done it.

Edited by - Richard on May 15 2007 3:03:34 PM

Jim and His Karma

2110 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 3:09:56 PM

same

yogani

USA
5192 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 3:23:00 PM

Okay, so we don't have to go back to the old page to correct the issue. We will go forward with the new page and fix it!

Will check back here once we think it is fixed.

Any more thoughts on books page strategy and content are welcome. Glad you liked the extra material, Richard.

The idea is to make the books page an interesting place to explore, beyond the online lessons and forums. Who knows, if people hang around there long enough, they might even order something. That would be okay.

The guru is in you.

Richard

United Kingdom
857 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 3:24:48 PM

I thought the extra material was great its a really interesting page now

Jim and His Karma

2110 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 3:26:55 PM

Sorry that I'm not reading the actual material...I'm multitasking here and don't really have time to check stuff out. So I'll let Richard handle the positive feedback and I'll just bitch about layout for now! ;)

trip1

USA
739 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 3:48:05 PM

Hi Jim,

Just to clarify, is what you are referring to a viewing problem with the page, or more of a suggestion on how to make it look a bit better? Just want to make sure everything is working 100% before moving forward with anything.

Thanks,
Brett

yogani

USA
5192 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 3:52:41 PM

Hi:

With some additional offline feedback, what I am hearing is that it is the difference between old screen and wide screen monitors. The AYP website is old screen format, and looks fine on old (narrow) screens. However, the book cover column on the right side (MS Frontpage border) will automatically (usually) go to the right hand edge of the monitor (any monitor), and the text margins will stay the same in narrow screen format. So the wider the screen the bigger the space between the book covers column and the text. All the pages on the website should have this configuration. Is that the case, Jim and Richard?

Meanwhile, anyone with an old screen monitor (narrow) should not see the big space in the middle between the text and book cover column.

Someday, we will convert the website to widescreen format, but not this week. It is nearly 400 pages of HTML!

Most importantly, the text and associated links should be in the correct configuration on any computer, even if on the left side of a wide screen. If anyone has a problem matching up text and links to the corresponding books, or if things are out of alignment in a way that makes navigation difficult or is aesthetically unacceptable, let me know.

The guru is in you.

Richard

United Kingdom
857 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 4:05:30 PM

Hi, my monitor is not wide screen but it is a 19inch one of the flat screen type which are not so narrow as the older type, having said that by the time you take in the five tool bars at the top of my screen what I am viewing is wide screen so maybe that's it.

Its not a problem and I don't think I would have noticed it if Jim hadn't mentioned it.. ha ha all your fault Jim

and yes all the pages have this configuration

Edited by - Richard on May 15 2007 4:12:01 PM

trip1

USA
739 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 5:51:10 PM

Thanks, Richard. Just making sure there wasn't a problem with the functionality of the page.

And while we are on the topic: I agree that the ideal AYP site would utilize dynamic pages which resize according the monitor they are viewed on, and look forward to seeing this incorporated into the new and improved AYP site once the day comes for that. For now though, I think keeping the margins fairly shallow is the best bet in order to cater to those with smaller monitors.

Richard

United Kingdom
857 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 7:27:01 PM

Yes its fine as it is for the moment

...don't mend it unless its broke..

It all functions perfectly

Jim and His Karma

2110 Posts

Posted - May 15 2007 : 9:05:03 PM

Yes, narrowing browser window eliminates the excess space

Edited by - Jim and His Karma on May 15 2007 9:05:46 PM

yogani

USA
5192 Posts

Posted - May 30 2007 : 4:32:35 PM

Hi All:

The AYP book covers in the right hand border of every page on the web site now link directly to the corresponding books on the books page. From there you can go to individual book descriptions, tables of contents, reading and listening samples, and to book sellers around the world.

Also, Amazon USA has revamped the layout of reviews for all books to be much more favorable -- highlighting popular reviews, plus providing stats on all reviews. Feel free to add a review or two, if you have not done so already. Thanks!

The guru is in you.

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