Jake Bunce
Well-known member
I had this idea after reading Brogan's post.
This has been my experience too. No one uses the home page of my site (including me) because it isn't really a home page. Rather it is a cover page.
It's the difference between content (home page) and presentation (cover page). This is an important distinction. It has been my experience that many people who say they want a home page or portal or CMS really just want a cover page.
There is no sense over-complicating the solution when in reality people only want a cover page for presentation. Many people go through the trouble of installing portals and other addons to satisfy this want, often times breaking the forum into multiple directories. Yet after going through all of this trouble the reality is that no one uses the cover page because the real content is on the forum.
At most, cover pages are a useful presentation for guests. Once a user is registered and logged in then they don't want to see the cover page.
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I suggest implementing a simple cover page in xenForo to act as the index for guests. The idea is to satisfy people's want for a cover page without inconveniencing regular users.
index.php = if(guest) cover; else forumlist;
index.php?cover = Home tab
index.php?forumlist = Forum tab
When installed in the web root this satisfies people's want to have the cover page be the index for the site. It could also satisfy people's sense for aesthetic URLs with respect to the "forums" route since everything can now reside in the web root for a typical forum site while still maintaining certain URL and file naming conventions to which people like to adhere.
A simple page with summary content and a welcome message is fine. There is no need for a full CMS. And of course there needs to be an option to disable the cover and set your own Home link.
I'm using a Page as a 'home' page.
I considered adding the latest few posts to it but feedback from my members suggested that they didn't find it that useful and instead just use What's New, Recent Activity or manually check the forums.
This has been my experience too. No one uses the home page of my site (including me) because it isn't really a home page. Rather it is a cover page.
It's the difference between content (home page) and presentation (cover page). This is an important distinction. It has been my experience that many people who say they want a home page or portal or CMS really just want a cover page.
There is no sense over-complicating the solution when in reality people only want a cover page for presentation. Many people go through the trouble of installing portals and other addons to satisfy this want, often times breaking the forum into multiple directories. Yet after going through all of this trouble the reality is that no one uses the cover page because the real content is on the forum.
At most, cover pages are a useful presentation for guests. Once a user is registered and logged in then they don't want to see the cover page.
_____
I suggest implementing a simple cover page in xenForo to act as the index for guests. The idea is to satisfy people's want for a cover page without inconveniencing regular users.
index.php = if(guest) cover; else forumlist;
index.php?cover = Home tab
index.php?forumlist = Forum tab
When installed in the web root this satisfies people's want to have the cover page be the index for the site. It could also satisfy people's sense for aesthetic URLs with respect to the "forums" route since everything can now reside in the web root for a typical forum site while still maintaining certain URL and file naming conventions to which people like to adhere.
A simple page with summary content and a welcome message is fine. There is no need for a full CMS. And of course there needs to be an option to disable the cover and set your own Home link.
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