Introducing F1 Fanatic’s new community and mobile features
F1 Fanatic updates
Today F1 Fanatic launches the biggest changes to the site in five years.
The upgrade is designed to improve how F1 Fanatics can interact with each other through the site and provide better site performance on mobile devices.
Your new F1 Fanatic profile
F1 Fanatic user profiles are a much bigger part of the site now.
You can now use your profile to keep track of all your comments on an articles and in the forums. Note this will only apply to comments made from this moment on, though all your previous comments remain on the site.
When replying to another user, you can place an @ symbol before their name so they are notified of your response. You also now have the option to send direct, private messages to other users.
Avatars can now be uploaded and edited within the site.
For the first time you can also declare your allegiance to a particular driver, team, or even racing series – and use it to find other supporters on the site.
Groups and forums
The F1 Fanatic Forum has now been fully integrated within the main site.
Where these were previously separated into “F1″, “F1 Games” and “Not F1″, you’ll now find a much wider selection of Groups on offer.
These include different racing series (IndyCar, GP2 etc..) and dedicated discussion areas for people visiting races.
More groups will be added in the near future and there will also be a space for you to suggest new ideas for groups.
You can still find a list of all the forums in one page but please be aware the URL has changed to http://www.f1fanatic.co.uk/forums (note the plural).
Mobile
Users visiting on mobile devices will notice a number of additional changes and improvements.
First, all the new features are part of the new mobile site.
On top of that, some other features that were previously missing have been added. Comments now appear threaded as they do on the desktop site and the forums are now optimised for mobile viewing as well.
Changes in full
See here for an overview of all the changes made to the site:
The home of racing fans
F1 Fanatic aims to be the best place for motor racing fans to share their passion for the sport.
These enchancements, built using Buddypress and Buddypress Mobile, offer new ways for fans to do that.
There is also plenty of opportunity for new developments in the future.
While incorporating these changes I’ve taken the opportunity to make some changes to the layout of the site. The fundamental structure and basic look and feel remain unchanged, but you will notice wider article pages and comment boxes, a re-organised home page and some other tweaks.
As is always the case these changes will take some getting used to but I hope you agree they add up to a substanial improvement.
Inevitably there were some features that I hoped to include but had to be left out for the time being, such as an editing facility for user comments.
Thank to Andrew Tanner, Magnificent Geoffrey, BasCB, Icthyes, Greg Morland, Tom and Alex Odell for helping to test the developments and their many excellent suggestions on how to improve them.
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.
Magnificent Geoffrey (@magnificent-geoffrey) said on 5th October 2011, 20:13
Finally, everyone else gets to play with all of Keith’s new toys!
Really excited about these new features. I hope everyone enjoys them as much as I have.
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner) said on 5th October 2011, 21:05
Ditto. Exciting, isn’t it?!
BasCB (@bascb) said on 5th October 2011, 21:18
Same here, really great to see it live!
Mike (@mike) said on 6th October 2011, 5:07
This is fantastic.
daykind (@daykind) said on 6th October 2011, 10:55
Wow – this is incredible!!!
JT19 (@jt19) said on 6th October 2011, 12:42
A real class act, everything so clean ‘n’ shiny! I like a lot!!
Todfod (@todfod) said on 6th October 2011, 11:28
Agree. Keith, I think all the features are absolutely awesome!
I hate to be splitting hairs already, but the only thing that bothers me is when I try to leave a reply, the text box is now at the bottom of the page and I cannot refer to the post I’m replying to without scrolling up through the page.
Keep up the good work Keith, I think you have taken a huge step forward in forming the world’s most awesome f1 community.
Grace (@grace) said on 6th October 2011, 12:33
Its taking a bit of time to get used to, but I’m loving what I see so far! :)
xx
sid_prasher (@sid_prasher) said on 5th October 2011, 20:14
trying everything out right now :)
sid_prasher (@sid_prasher) said on 5th October 2011, 22:24
Excellent work! The site looks great in both Chrome and IE9 and on so does the mobile site.
Nice and fluid.
1 suggestion – can we do away with the bold in the article headers or perhaps a different font (is it Tahoma?)
djdaveyp85 (@djdaveyp87) said on 5th October 2011, 20:15
Love It! This is an amazing improvement. The best f1 site on the net just got better!
Carlitox (@carlitox) said on 5th October 2011, 20:25
Finally I have an avatar! Great job Keith!
JCost (@jcost) said on 6th October 2011, 7:37
I’ll get one soon :)
I hate yours anyway :)
P.S.: Just kidding.
Steph (@steph) said on 6th October 2011, 11:28
And speaking as a Massa fan I love yours @Carlitox !
KeeleyObsessed (@keeleyobsessed) said on 5th October 2011, 20:26
Well, I’m a Doctor Who fan, so I’ve gotta like change!
I use the mobile site a fair bit while at college, so I’ll check that out tomorrow, hope it’s good!
AndrewTanner (@andrewtanner) said on 5th October 2011, 21:07
@keeleyobsessed The mobile site is good. I put a lot of time into checking it out on Android and think I made Keith aware of everything I could. Works really well and very fluid.
KeeleyObsessed (@keeleyobsessed) said on 5th October 2011, 22:47
I’ll reserve judgement on the mobile site till tomorrow, but I have no concerns about it..
Also, the new layout gets my approval aswell Keith, excellent work! And the others, of course. Now I just need to get the hang of it all…
Convtro (@convtro) said on 6th October 2011, 0:18
Still working fine on my ancient K800!
damonsmedley (@damonsmedley) said on 5th October 2011, 20:28
Keith, I think there’s a small problem. I’m getting the WordPress dashboard at the top for moderating the site, and I’m assuming I’ve not suddenly become your employee!
Icemangrins (@icemangrins) said on 5th October 2011, 20:31
Keith will let you attend the flying lap with Peter Windsor
Fixy (@fixy) said on 5th October 2011, 20:44
@damonsmedley I see the Dashboard option on the Forums, and if I select the “new post” option, for example, it then tells me I have no permission to perform such action.
JPedroCQF1 (@joao-pedro-cq) said on 5th October 2011, 21:13
Same here.
BasCB (@bascb) said on 5th October 2011, 21:49
I got that one as well, when I tried a search for a user it was suddenly on top, see picture link
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 5th October 2011, 21:49
@damonsmedley Will look into this, thanks.
BasCB (@bascb) said on 5th October 2011, 21:51
@keithcollantine i think that glitch with the dashboard comes up on the search results page Keith. See picture posted in the link above.
Icemangrins (@icemangrins) said on 5th October 2011, 20:28
wohooooo….. I have a new avatar. Keith, new features are great. I’m now trying my hand on the mobile version
OmarR-Pepper (@omarr-pepper) said on 5th October 2011, 20:29
Congratulations! good to see the brand new changes on our old favorite site (well mine so far). Thanks Keith!
Murraytastic (@sharon) said on 5th October 2011, 20:31
Thanks for all the updates and the hard work Keith! :)
Don Speekingleesh (@don-speekingleesh) said on 5th October 2011, 20:33
Very nice Keith. Congratulations.
Catalina (@catalina) said on 5th October 2011, 20:38
wow, this is just brilliant haha :D btw, is there any way of associating this account to twitter?
Keith Collantine (@keithcollantine) said on 5th October 2011, 21:11
Not yet, but it’s something I’d really like to have. And for other social networks too.
Catalina (@catalina) said on 5th October 2011, 22:27
umm..thanks :)
Aetost (@aetost) said on 5th October 2011, 20:40
Great job!
Ciaran (@walsh-f1) said on 5th October 2011, 20:43
I got a shock when I saw this. Great job Keith!
TommyB (@tommyb89) said on 5th October 2011, 20:45
AWESOMENESS!
Younger Hamii (@younger-hamii) said on 5th October 2011, 20:46
Amazing,Love every single bit.Keep it up Keith & i really hope & believe that this Website is still big in the coming years