Wow, lots of changes this week. First, I decided to remove all ads from qrisper.  Figured I wasn’t going to be making money that way any time soon.  So why clutter up the site?

Removing the ads gave me some room to play around with.  So I changed the content and layout a bit, primarily by removing the leaderboard section.  I also gave search its own tab and removed the searchbar from the page.  And I moved the recent answers into the search tab and added categories to the left column.  After chewing on it for a bit, I think I’m going to bring back the search bar…just need to figure out where to put it.

Had a couple of duh moments.  I was maintaining duplicate files with slightly different content for logged in/not logged in users when I realized that a couple of PHP if statements could swap out the content using the session id.  Yeah, duh.  Doesn’t end there folks!

I was using Simplepie to pull the latest q&a’s from my database.  But then I realized, why the heck am I not pulling the data directly from my database instead of using my own RSS feed?  Umm, beats the heck out of me.  Anyway, changed that.  Progress!  Slow but tangible.

I didn’t forget about the non-existent logged in users out there!  The right column will become the exclusive domain for the logged in user.  Added some stats (questions answered, skipped, remaining, etc) so that users can keep track of their progress.  Gonna be adding a lot more exciting stuff so stay tuned!

Furthermore, the main questions page was modified to  focus is more on the users answers.  I came to the conclusion that I need build two very different qrispers – one for folks seeking answers, another for folks seeking questions.  And with that, qrisper just became a lot more complex.

I’ve been meaning to write a few thought pieces on where qrisper is headed.  Read a couple of interesting blog posts that I plan to respond to.  Hopefully some time next week.

Well, I succeeded in removing four images from the index page. But I replace those with a couple of hundred lines of javascript. Meh, what’re you gonna do. Went a little nuts with jQuery. I changed the forgot password link to do a little switchToggle animation. I also replaced the original qrisper leaderboard ad, which used to be a simple onclick/onmouseover event, with a snazzy sliding panel.  I think it gets the message across, don’t you?

But I didn’t stop there with the javascriptin.  I wasn’t happy with just having the recent answers in the left column.  So I added a cool accordion function, this time using prototype/scriptaculous.  I saw another version using jquery but I liked this one better.  I think it’s pretty neat.  Except I couldn’t figure out how to set the max height for the content (that’s why the recent answers heading isn’t sitting flush against the bottom).  I decided to leave it as is since it doesn’t look that bad.

The problem with the accordion function, however, is that as soon as the user clicks on on of the recent answers links, the page will load and the recent answers column will reset back to the bottom.  Not very user-friendly.  So I figured I’d add a dash of ajax and make the recent answers links load on the screen without a page refresh.  I found another handy tutorial on Nettuts that did just that.  But the source code appears to have gone through a number of revisions, with the final version incompatible with the current versions of IE7 and Safari.  Looks great on Firefox though!

All of these javascript functions were weight my site down.  So I looked into ways to optimize the handling of my source codes.  Initially, I was using Google’s Minify to minfiy my code.  But then I discovered that Google also hosts most of the popular javascript libraries.  So instead of attaching a copy of those files, you can link to Google hosted copies.  Those are already minified and could potentially provide a speed boost if your users already have a cached copy of the library, which most people probably do.  You can find all of the details at Google’s AJAX libraries API.

With the addition of all of the new fancy effects, I also decided that qrisper would no longer support IE6.  So I created a redirect page for those poor souls still using that wretched browser.  I’ve been using IETester to test qrisper on IE6.  Worked pretty well.

Decided to take a breather on the php to focus on the interface.  Actually, the php issue was interface related so I guess what I really mean is focus on making qrisper a bit flashier looking.

The landing page was getting a little noisy so I decided to put the registration into a modal window. I used jquery and followed a tutorial from yensdesign.com.  Implementation was pretty straightforward. One thing I want to tinker with is the location of the window.  It looks a bit off-center…I noticed that on the tutorial as well.  If anyone can see the reason why, please holler (code below).

function centerPopup(){

        var windowWidth = document.documentElement.clientWidth;
	var windowHeight = document.documentElement.clientHeight;
	var popupHeight = $j("#popupSignup").height();
	var popupWidth = $j("#popupSignup").width();

	$j("#popupSignup").css({
		"position": "absolute",
		"top": windowHeight/2-popupHeight/2,
		"left": windowWidth/2-popupWidth/2
	});
}

I’m using jquery with prototype so I needed to make sure that I included jquery’s noconflict clause and change the $ variable for all jquery scripts (hence the $j).  There’s so much information out there about jquery that it’s hard not to use it.  But now that I have the power, I need to be responsible and practice restraint.  qrisper’s getting a little large around the waist from overindulging on all of those image files. Found this site on web optimization, telling me that qrisper needs to go on a  diet.

Also added a little feedback button…meh…looks alright.  The button made me realize that I’m digging myself into a trap.  I am maintaining slightly different versions of the same page.  Which version the users see depends on whether or not they’re logged in.  Decided that I could probably use a php if statement to swap out includes depending on whether or not a session id exists.

Wanting to trim the fat further, I went to clean up my css files and optimize them with a few new tricks I learned.  Big mistake that was.  Spent a few hours fixing all of the damage I caused.  I found the tips from David’s old blog.  Actually found a number of good resources…a few of which I used to fix a few issue that had been bugging me.

Haven’t made much progress in the ajax front.  Stuck with a couple of php issues that I need to resolve first.  Fixing those two things should drastically change how users navigate qrisper.

In the meantime, I’ve been taking care of a couple of other things:

• created the first drafts for the About Us page and the Sitemap (plain HTML, not XML)
• spiffed up the images in the What? tab…I might redo them still
• changed the content in the Skipped tab.  Instead of a form listing all of the questions that users skipped, it simply becomes another pool of questions that users can choose to answer or skip again.
• made enough changes to score a B on YSlow.  But feels like the sites actually slower…
• added the Digg this and Yahoo buzz icons to all results pages.  But I added them only to the non-logged in pages.  I’m sure this will need to change.

I’ve been playing with affiliate programs and adding a few ads here and there.  Figured out a strategy to diversify my ads portfolio.  Now all I need are users to view and click on those suckers.