F1 Fanatic’s new features at-a-glance

F1 Fanatic updates

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A quick guide to the new features introduced on the site today.

For more on the changes, see here:

Community enhancements

  • Follow other F1 Fanatics and keeping up with their activity on the site
  • Private messaging system allows you to send direct messages to other F1 Fanatics
  • Refer to other users using @-messages and receive notifications when someone refers to on the site
  • New community functions available by redesigned top navigation bar and always in view

New user profiles

  • Name your preferred drivers, teams and other types of motor sport, and find others F1 Fanatics with the same tastes
  • Easier profile updating
  • Upload and edit your avatar directly to the site
  • Your own activity stream shows all your activity across the site including the main blog and forums
  • Post unique updates directly into your own activity stream
  • Configure which site notifications you receive
  • Option to report spam users

Click on “My Account” at the top-left of the page when logged in to see these new features. Not got an account? Click here to register for one.

Groups

  • Dedicated groups for different areas of discussion including race visitors, other racing series and more
  • Join the groups you’re interested in to stay up-to-date with them more easily
  • Suggest new groups for other subjects you’re interested in

View and join the F1 Fanatic Groups

Forums

  • Now fully integrated within the main site including the mobile site
  • Post videos from major video-sharing sites (YouTube, DailyMotion, Vimoe and more) easily via oEmbed

View the new F1 Fanatic Forums

Search

  • New search facility shows results by article, username, group and forum
  • Individual results pages available for article, username, group and forum
  • Search box is always in view at the top-right of the page

Design

  • General style refresh to incorporate new elements
  • Wider article and comment columns
  • Single sidebar layout
  • Revised top navigation bars

Mobile

  • New mobile site design
  • Forums and threaded commenting now supported
  • New site functionality also supported
  • Toggle between the normal and desktop views on mobile devices

Bug fixes

  • Internet Explorer 9 commenting bug fixed

As always, if you experience any problems with the site please follow these steps to report them:

Please leave any other feedback on the changes below.

Author information

Keith Collantine
Lifelong motor sport fan Keith set up RaceFans in 2005 - when it was originally called F1 Fanatic. Having previously worked as a motoring...

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78 comments on “F1 Fanatic’s new features at-a-glance”

  1. Refer to other users using @-messages and receive notifications when someone refers to on the site

    That is something I have been wanting for years.

    Keith, I love it. Every bit. Can’t wait to have a play with it all!

    1. sid_prasher (@)
      5th October 2011, 20:22

      @damonsmedley totally agree :)

      1. This is miles better than Christmas. Actually, this has been more exciting than the races this year and that’s saying something! :P

        1. This time after the F1 season ends the off season won’t be boring.

          1. Without wanting to sound really sad, this is almost making me cry… BRILLIANT!!!

  2. @Keith Collantine and his team of testers have done a fantastic job here!

    1. Thank you! @djdaveyp85

        1. Wrong person, @Fixy! :P

          1. i guess i’m @sato113

          2. @fixy Ha! @damonsmedley getting corrected for my mistake, nice ;)

          3. @damonsmedley sorry I mus’t have read badly! @andrewtanner

      1. @BasCB does it work’

  3. Messege notifications are one of the most important features for any site, good job.

    1. Just need to be able to edit comments now..

  4. everything looks great :)
    but i prefer original title font for the articles on home page

    1. It does seem brilliant! I’ll get used to the new layout… Surely!

    2. Definitely looking great, but I too think I preferred the old font for article titles.

      1. We thought that though when the site changedit’s design last year. You’ll get used to it…

  5. jsw11984 (@jarred-walmsley)
    5th October 2011, 20:28

    This is starting to look more and more professional everyday now Keith, well done it looks fantastic!

  6. Love this. F1Fanatic gets better and better every year. And I hope it stays like that. Good job, Keith and the testers.

  7. The new features are quite nice. I must say I am much more impressed by this than the iPhone 4 all over again from yesterday!

    1. @lord-stig Wow that is a compliment!

  8. Great job, Keith loving the new upgrade. Theres now more of a social theme to the site.

  9. It will take time to get used to it, but it’s all excellent! The bold font is a bit too big in my opinion, in a few days it’ll be fine.
    This is more complex than Facebook now! A real community for F1 Fanatics, all that we can desire is here!

  10. Fantastic job Keith! This site is fast becoming (actually already is) the Red Bull of all F1 websites. Congratulations!

  11. Keith has created heaven with the added bonus that you don’t have to die to enter.

    1. @steph This has to be comment of the day for me! A beautiful comment! :D

      1. Thank you very much @Fixy ! :)

    2. Hahaha this is my favorite comment! We are indeed in F1 heaven ;)

      1. @LAK Thanks LAK! There’s just no way any F1 site can compete with F1f. There are a few good and unique ones such as Badger and Wtf1 which I love but F1f is the king of them all.

        1. Badger’s got nothing on F1F!

    1. Quick test, @TommoTHFC

      1. Comment messaging works on your username so you’ll need to use @spursfan39

        1. @keithcollantine, so people’s names can appear differently than their username? How does that work?

          1. @us_peter look at your profile, you can have a different name listed (using capital letters etc.) then your “username”

  12. Loving the new site! :)

  13. absolutely loving it! Where as before I would only log in every so often if there was a quiz or vote (my computer never remembers me for some reason), now i’ll make sure I’m always logged in :)

  14. Love the changes. :-)

  15. Loving the changes so far!!

  16. Brilliant,The Changes adds a new Feeling to the site & i really really welcome it,

  17. It’s a pity all the major motor sport categories can’t have a site as good as this lavished upon them (hint hint).

    Seriously though you go to the likes of Autosport and see 2 week gaps between stories in the LMS and ALMS sections. What does it say about all the serious journalistic type sites that I come to F1 Fanatic before I even think of looking anywhere else.

    It occurs to me that I’ve never donated to F1F so I think it’s time I got the credit card out.

    1. It’s a pity all the major motor sport categories can’t have a site as good as this lavished upon them (hint hint).

      Well, I will be expanding the groups area of the site to include more racing categories.

      But I couldn’t cover Le Mans or other categories in the kind of detail F1 gets at the moment. I did run a site called Maximum Motorsport for a while which had GP2, IndyCar and some other series on it. But I could never give it the time it deserved and it never got a fraction of the traffic – and, therefore, income – F1 Fanatic did.

      But at the end of the day it’s a question of resources. If the site brought enough money in to justify it and I was happy it was sustainable I would consider it.

      1. Maximum…now I remember how I found this site. I’d done a search for some Indycar thing and Google had a link to a Maximum Motorsports page. I clicked it right off, as the company I work for is named Maximum(in part). There was still a parking page that re-directed me here. Best thing a Google search has ever done for me!

        Site is da bomb ! This latest upgrade looks great, Keith. As an IT professional & website designer, I cannot compliment you highly enough for the work you have put into not only the looks of the site but the functionality as well.

        I have just one question, though — what’s the max size for the avatars? (I could figure it out, yes, but I’m lazy. LOL)

        1. funny enough, I just noticed that in the replies and the comment box below on articles comments, the avatars seem not to fit the picture boxes or are somehow badly aligned, see picture This is new in the past couple of minutes, I did not notice that before.

          1. Yes, and now my Gravatar isn’t showing. Been working fine these last 3 years. Wonder what’s up ?

          2. Well, the fix is to simply upload the image to F1Fanatic. Works great now. Perhaps the Gravatar site is mis-reading something in the code.

  18. Missing Formula Two on the Motorsports list. Otherwise, love it! @keithcollantine

    1. Yea, I noticed that too @mantolwen

  19. great job keith!

  20. This is a very good change. Thanks

  21. Test post to see if my Gravatar shows up…

    1. Okay, my avatar shows up if I upload it directly to the site, but the site doesn’t seem to interface with Gravatar anymore, even though the Change Avatar page says it does. (My avatar did not appear on the above post before I uploaded it to the site.)

      Also, would suggest a place on the profile to specify the country where a user is located.

      And no mention of the American Le Mans Series on the “Motorsports you follow” ?

  22. I am loving this. This is amazing stuff. Will be playing with this over the next few days. :D

    I still want comment editing, though. ;)

  23. I know this is an incredibly over-used phrase but there’s no other way to describe this and Keith’s work:

    a big fat “This is EPIC!”

  24. So much to do it will take sometime to get on with it.

    1. nice new avatar Wasif!

  25. Is Gravatar support currently broken? On the page where I can submit my own avatar picture, it notes that if the associated email has a Gravatar, that will be used. Mine certainly does — it worked until yesterday — but I get the default profile picture instead.

  26. This is Brilliant! (Yes, with a capital B!)

    I’ll be looking foward to using this siter for all my F1 needs from here on in.

    Regards,
    Stealthman (now known as SouthPawRacer)

  27. Very professional looking!

  28. Love the profile changes in particular. If I can offer one suggestion (hate to be critical after such a comprehensive improvement) it would be that in the replies the avatars are quite small, which is a shame. Generally great though, congrats.

    1. I think the different sizes for avatars based on hierarchy make for better readability.
      Not only you can spot more easily which are main comments and which are replies, but also they assure you can extend the indentation between them without making even deepest threaded replies “more tall than large”.
      I think It’s the right choice, aka the best compromise.

      1. You’re probably right, it’s just a shame that it’s harder to instantly visually spot who you’re talking to. Now that you don’t have to trawl through all the comments looking for your avatar to find your own comments though I suppose that to some extent renders the size of avatars a bit pointless.

  29. pretty good evolution, this site keeps getting better!!

  30. Keith, I still view the desktop version of the site when I browse with my phone and I can’t find where to change it.

    My phone is a LG Optimus 7, with the Windows Phone OS.

  31. @keithcollantine, will the site login now log us in for the live blogs as well?

    1. @us_peter Afraid not.

      1. Bummer. I hope that’s in the cards for a future update.

  32. Now all we need is a user’s Twitter directory :-)

  33. Great job! The changes are fantastic :D

  34. Wow, didn’t see the site yesterday, had a very busy day. This looks very interesting, and good. Looking forward to exploring all the new bits over the weekend! Thanks a lot @keithcollantine

  35. This morning I decided that I should focus more on my job and spend less time reading and discussing F1 stuff on F1 Fanatic.

    But then I saw THIS.

    I don’t know how you did this but the outcome is awesome. Everyone who has participated in implementing all the changes deserves maximum respect.

Comments are closed.