Hi gang,
You know I'm glad this topic has been started. One doesn't like to hear negative opinions about 'their baby' but sometimes this is the best way to improving things.
For instance it took a negative review of us on BoingBoing to give CaptDJ the idea of installing our Preview feature. Now we can't imagine the site without it!
So thanks for sharing guys. CBpop - very kind and thoughtful words. You explain DCM's goals exactly and the considerations that have to be made.
Thanks to digodiego as well. He may be blunt but he is entitled to his opinion. I seriously doubt we will ever look like his examples. Our focus just doesn't fit into those layouts IMO. But he does bring up a couple things that we are actually trying to work into the site eventually
Searching by more than just publisher and title (both assume a level of knowledge about the GA comics on the site that newbies might not possess) has been on my wish list for ages.
My #1 wish from even before I joined the staff is to add the
GCD data to the site for each book. By adding this we could add so much more to the search field options.
As for digodiego dislike of the graphic design of the site. Well, that's more about personal taste. We figure the banner is the first place people look so we put all our important links around the banner. The two most important - logging in and the search field are right on top. We thought it was easy to find and away from any other text that it might be lost in.
A lot of the site layout is built into the RWD software that runs the download site. Where it might shine at database functions like adding publishers, titles and keeping track of it all letting the staff sort and manage things there are some shortfalls. RWD was certainly not bug-free so our first few years at GAC were spent working around them and eventually fixing the worst of them. Remember though - the DCM staff are all volunteers. CaptDJ, our code guru, has made MANY fixes and upgrades behind the scenes that members might not see and added several new features such as our very popular Preview feature. Unfortunately he can't devote as much time to us as he would like so these things can take time. Only longtime members have an idea how crippled the site was compared to today. Is there room for improvement. Absolutely. And someday I hope we can look back and this topic and say yes, we have gotten better.
As for small text size. There is the option to increase font size on your end by just holding control and hitting the "+" key on your keyboard.
There are other sites out there you might try digodiego.
CB+ shares a lot of the same books, runs on the same RWD software but does have a different layout and some features we don't have.
AIBQ is another that is more 'visual' but don't share nearly as many books. (I've never understood why they call it AIBQ though, anyone out there know?)
Thanks for sharing guys!