Why doesn't PPRuNe have a website icon?

[soay]

Most websites nowadays have website icons which browsers display alongside the site's address and page title. This is quite helpful with modern tabbed browsers, because each tab displays the page title, which for forums is the current topic title. As PPRuNe doesn't have one, it's impossible to be sure which tabs contain their pages, without clicking on the tab. Implementing website icons is trivial, so how about it?

For more information, start here (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Favicon).

[PPRuNe Towers]

Perhaps it struck us as trivial, or maybe nice to do one day but not really important to us now. I use many other forums and haven't found your suggestion adding or detracting in my experience. It's 'invisible' to my perception let alone useful. There are many things, simple to implement, that we don't go for.

We don't advertise PPRuNe, we don't issue press releases, don't allow any audio in ads and generally cut out every aspect of eye candy. No sigs, no attachments. Content and word of mouth has led to the site you see today - other sites see it differently and go for a far more intense graphic style and good on 'em. We've found that if we're running successful forums there isn't the time even consider the pretty stuff.

Many will have entirely different views but Danny and I didn't even bother to register on our own site until 5 or 6 years after it started. We plow our own furrow in life and I'm sure we seem pretty odd for not following the, graphics rich, herd. Can it change? Of course but only for content and not the periphery. Thus we're working towards enough server capacity to host video and pics within posts in 2008 without it turning the site to treacle.

Rob

[soay]

Thanks for your quick response, and for explaining the philosophy of your site, which is excellent.

Website icons don't come in the category of flash graphics, and you needn't worry about the bandwidth implications. They are very small and are downloaded exactly once for each unique visitor to your site. In fact, not having one clogs up your error log with "could not find favicon.ico" error messages. Just think of them as a helpful service to those of your members who struggle to find their way through multiple web sites without them.

Can I tempt you with a ready made solution? Just right click this link (http://209.62.65.108/uploads/favicon.ico) and save favicon.ico to your hard drive. Then upload it to the root directory of your web server (http://www.pprune.org/). Job done!

(I created the icon and hereby assign all rights over it to you.)

[frostbite]

Whilst on the subject........

I wonder why it is that sometimes the wrong icon will attach itself to a website in my browser?

[soay]

Try clearing your browser's cache. To do that in Firefox:

From the Tools menu, choose Options
Click the Advanced tab
Click the Clear Now buttom

In Internet Explorer:

From the Tools menu, choose Internet Options
Click the General tab
Click the Delete buttom

Hope this helps.

[PPRuNe Towers]

Thanks indeed for the time and thought Soay,

Much appreciated from us here at the Towers.

Rob