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Welcome to the new-look UK Free TV

As a special treat for the tenth anniversary we've given the site a new look and made some changes to the layout that we hope will make it quicker and easier to find what you are looking for.

As a special treat for the tenth anniversary we've given the si
published on UK Free TV

It has been a few years since we changed how UK Free TV looked back in October 2008, and with the continuous additions since then, it had become apparent that some changes were needed to bring the site up to date again.

There have been a few different improvements.

Firstly, the design has changed to a look based around photography. Each section now has, rather than the poorly-understood colour coding, a large background photo to illustrate the section:



The sections are now shown at the very top of the page, with a site search box to the top right, and a clickable logo to the top left.

As more people now access UK Free TV on devices such as tablets and phones, the page design has been updated to make the site work for touch. For this reason links are now shown with larger target areas. Here is how the site now looks on the iPad and a Google Nexus Prime mobile phone:



One change that I know many people will find useful, is that all text is now shown as black-on white: all the coloured background boxes have been removed.

Using the right-hand column on the site has been improved. You can still find the site settings box there, with the useful quick links to UK Free TV maps and terrain plots as well Digital UK, BBC Engineering, and Freeview HD as before.

The many other boxes have now been condensed down to two. The first, "Most popular", shows you four options: the latest news, the latest comments, the most popular pages, and most popular questions.

The second box "On other sites" shows you news pages on other sites you should read ("Zeitgeist"), the Twitter feed and the Box updates.

For both of these boxes, clicking on the header changes the information displayed immediately.

To help you find your way around, the main sections have been reordered. They are now News, TV, Freeview, Freesat, Online, Radio and Help.

Each of these sections now starts with the most poplar page.

The new "News" section contains the headlines, the "Zeitgeist", plus your comments (as lists and maps), "History" which covers old news.



The "TV" section has the all free TV channels page, the Freeview/Freesat/Freesat from Sky/Freeview Light compare pages plus the local TV and HDTV secrions.

The "Freeview" section has the "My Freeview" mapping, terrain plot and details service, plus Transmitters (including Full Service, all transmitters, faults and engineering), Freeview and switchover news, the multiplex maps, "Installing" covering Setting up, Interference, the Rigger's zone, current box updates and the "Maps" of regions and frequencies.

"Freesat" has pages for general, Freesat and Freesat from Sky information.

"Online" has on-click access to online TV and radio, in addition to news about online TV.

"Radio" covers Digital Radio: radio on TV and DAB, and analogue radio on FM, MW and LW.

Finally "Help" has not just the frequently asked questions, but the UK Free TV blog, a glossary, the old diagnostics system and a list of every last mast.

In addition, the site has been made to operate much more quickly. Most of this has been done by upgrading all the PHP3 and PHP4 code to PHP5 classes, which I know you can't see directly, but I am confident will make your visits here more useful.



All questions
BBC Three Linear channel re-opens1
Removing all barriers to communication between diverse cultures2
How do I get a test card with Freeview3
What can I do when my Sky Digibox says 'No Signal' or 'Technical fau4
Can I receive UK TV in Ghana?5
In this section
Seeing something different? We are doing A/B testing on a new Material Design1
Please share your thoughts about UK FREE TV2
The next 50 things on UK FREE TV. What would you like to see? 3
UK Free TV now uses friendly web addresses4
Best ever emails and improved menus on UK FREE TV5
Use the Knowledge base to find answers to your technical problems6

Comments
Tuesday, 12 June 2012
Ash
sentiment_satisfiedBronze

6:09 PM

May I be the first to say, well done!

link to this comment
Ash's 27 posts GB flag
Stuart O.
sentiment_satisfiedSilver

9:59 PM

I'm sorry to tell you this, Brian, but there seems to be some problem with the blue underlined links since this new look.

When I click on a lot of these links, it shows the following near the top of a plain white page:

Fatal error: Call to undefined function getbloggoto() in /home/admintv/public_html/s/index.php on line 21

That Fatal error for example is what the page goes to when I click on the Freeview HD link above on this page where the address is: https://ukfree.tv/s/?1…1740

I don't know if anyone else is getting that or if it's just me and my computer. (LL115FQ)

link to this comment
Stuart O.'s 156 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

10:46 PM

Briantist: Any idea what has happened with the page accessed via the twitter link? as it hasn't been updated for not far off 24 hours now, me having checked this on two different PC's earlier on this evening.

Below being the link used in the browser.

Twitter

Of course now that I have mentioned this I fully expect Murphy's law to jump in and it start updating again.

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jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Wednesday, 13 June 2012
P
Peter Henderson
sentiment_satisfiedSilver

12:28 AM

Much preferred the old site Brian which had a wealth of information on individal transmitters along with very useful coverage maps etc. Sadly, now gone.

As they say, if it's not broken, don't fix it.


link to this comment
Peter Henderson's 240 posts GB flag
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

12:58 PM

StuartO: Sorry about that, the new version of the keyword redirect didn't upload. It is fixed now.

link to this comment
Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

1:56 PM

jb38: The comments RSS feed, ukfree.tv - independent digital television and switchover advice, since 2002 - comments was failing to output correctly, I have corrected this so this should drive the Twitter page again shortly.

link to this comment
Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
M
Mike Dimmick
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

3:00 PM

Briantist: On the topic of that RSS feed, you shouldn't be including a DTD (!DOCTYPE directive) in it. It can no longer be obtained from my.netscape.com:

To DTD or not to DTD - The Netscape Blog

IE 9 won't read an RSS feed containing a DTD:

Why Does IE not support DTD Feeds? | TuxReports Communities

link to this comment
Mike Dimmick's 2,486 posts GB flag
J
jb38
sentiment_very_satisfiedPlatinum

5:39 PM

Briantist: Re: Twitter link problem. Many thanks for sorting that out and pleased to report that all seems to be OK again now.

link to this comment
jb38's 7,179 posts GB flag
Briantist
sentiment_very_satisfiedOwner

5:49 PM

Mike Dimmick: I have removed the DTD from the two (of four) feeds that had it in. It's been so long since I looked that that file, I can't recall putting it in there in the first place...

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Briantist's 38,915 posts GB flag
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