We’ve been working on lots of new things around here, and are very close to releasing the updated design for scsc!
Here is a preview pic of how things are shaping up:
It’s not quite done yet, but we will likely release this newly updated version of the site in the near future. Most of our visitors will likely not notice too many changes, everything should still remain very similar to how we have had things for years. The main difference in the backend is that we are using modern code to display some things, which should make simple things load faster, and display better on multiple devices.
So page speed should be a little faster, and things should display better if you are using a tablet or other mobile device. Of course I could not leave it at simply making it better for smaller devices, I had to make it better for the larger screens as well. So those who have bigger screens than say the average 1080p make notice that the pages and text are little bigger, and hopefully easier to read and navigate with.
The free chat rooms pages will be very similar, although the chat box itself may be just a tad larger, and the ads may be just a tad smaller. We will have a new social connect / sharing bar at the bottom of the screen that everyone will certainly not be used to. This is going to add some extra benefits, but some people may simply see it as being in the way. Don’t worry, the new design will not be finished when it is live on the site, I’ll be going back in and adding some more enhancements, and one of the things on my future features list is a toggle button to hide the social addon bar.
There are many other new things that will be popping up around here as well, some new chat rooms systems that we will be testing, and a few other goodies. For now, be warned, a slight update is coming everyone’s way – this should give a better foundation to work with more devices in the future, and to test and add more things as well. Hope this makes things better for most people, let me know what you think.
Sounds good, i am eager to see it and whatever may come of it. you are working hard at pushing the site forward and it is very much appreciated. one question i have is this new social bar is it connected to an internal database? if so could things like freechat and cam chat be synced to it as well as the peeps and forums section? this way its a one stop sign in for select or all services within the schat network of sites. you have multiple software solutions that present database integration; vbulletin, blogging, realchat all of which currently run off separate databases causing a person to register and keep track of multiple accounts which may or may not allow for same username across all platforms due to preregistered names. if this can bring all those together then it would make things so much easier.
also when you mention multiple devices does this mean this is part of the android/iphone push? or are we talking about devices as in screen resolutions? without a solution to most mobile platforms not supporting native programming language needed to view the chats then its pointless to arrange a better visual presentation for them. an app might solve this but then again an app would use its own interface unless it was just a port of the site itself.
Hey Kim, good questions. Our initial design update will include some easier navigation to various sections of the site, but will not have a sign in feature at launch. We are working to integrate some of the new chat options that are coming however. At the moment it looks like we may get a single sign in for the peeps section and our new cams chat options, IF all of the testing works as it should. This is something that we have spent a great deal of time on, and further integration has had a lot of challenges, most of our attempts at this have failed for one reason or another, but it is something that will we continue to strive for.
Yes, multiple devices and screen resolutions are the main focus of this 2.2 design update. Our pages should auto adapt most elements depending on screen size, which should make things display better for small screens on android phones and iphones, and should also display better with tablets and larger higher resolution screens as well. It’s a work in progress, once the initial update is online, future updates should be much faster to roll out. This is a complete remake from the bones out. We are dabbling with some of the mobile needs as well, but not everything is working the way we want it to.
Our newer chat system (the new new chat? probably be branded as m-chat for time being) should be able to function with android devices, but our testing with iphones,and ipads is not going as we had hoped. We are looking into some options for including a few other chat rooms options that will work seamlessly with the mobile devices that many are using these days, but it’s taking a lot more time and effort than we anticipated.
We are spending a great deal of time focusing on the privacy and security issues with all of these updates, and that is making everything much more difficult, but I think not taking the easy ways out with this is important. I do think we will get to the point of having some mobile apps available in the future, and better integration with our registration systems. Whether or not a majority of the users will embrace these other chat options and registration options is another ordeal that is unknown – but we will keep working on new features and see how they get used.