Welcome to the new-look UK Free TV

Published on 12th June 2012 at 17:26 by Brian Butterworth 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.

Your comments are always welcome. Please use the form below to add your thoughts or questions to this page. We will get back to you as soon as we can.

Ash
Tuesday 12 June 2012 6:09PM

May I be the first to say, well done!

27 posts

Stuart O.
Tuesday 12 June 2012 9:59PM

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:  http://www.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)

125 posts

jb38
Tuesday 12 June 2012 10:46PM

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.

4,523 posts

Peter Henderson
Wednesday 13 June 2012 12:28AM

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.

154 posts

Briantist
Wednesday 13 June 2012 9:31AM

Peter Henderson: Not a single one has been removed. Look under "Freeview" then "Transmitters" -  Full service Freeview transmitters | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice and  Transmitters | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice or "Help" then "All masts"  All masts | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice or "Freeview" and "Maps"  TV regions overview map | ukfree.tv - independent free digital TV advice or use the search box.

37,135 posts

Briantist
Wednesday 13 June 2012 12:58PM

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

37,135 posts

Briantist
Wednesday 13 June 2012 1:56PM

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.

37,135 posts

Mike Dimmick
Wednesday 13 June 2012 3:00PM

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

2,443 posts

jb38
Wednesday 13 June 2012 5:39PM

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

4,523 posts

Briantist
Wednesday 13 June 2012 5:49PM

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...

37,135 posts

Mark Aberfan Aerials
Monday 25 June 2012 6:29PM

Hi Brian,

Nice looking update mate !

Mark Aberfan Aerials

1,060 posts

Paul Hardcastle
Friday 29 June 2012 2:48PM Rugby

Brian,

on 12th June, Stuart O. commented on links not working. There is still a problem with the transmitter links for Tyne Tees and UTV (26th September and 24th October) on the "closedown" page. I get a similar message - "Call to undefined function", but this time on shutdowndetail.php, line 529 or 557.

1 post

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jb38
Friday 6 July 2012 8:55PM

Briantist: I would appreciate if you could have a check the facility for accessing ukfree.tv comments via Twitter, as it appears to have failed as no access has been possible since the 5th.

4,523 posts

jb38
Friday 6 July 2012 9:25PM

Briantist: Or to be more accurate, the site hasnt been refreshed since the 5th.

4,523 posts

Peter Henderson
Saturday 7 July 2012 1:07AM

Brian: The links to all UTV transmitters still aren't working, as Paul Hardcastle has also commented.

Any chance of these being fixed ?

I also miss the links to online live TV which were very useful.

154 posts

Pete
Monday 9 July 2012 11:37AM Bath

Hi Brian,

My Postcode now only shows the local Relay (Bath) not the further away Main TX (Mendip) that I actually use.

I used to get 4 or 5 TX - While this may have been confusing for some, it better showed the possible availability and also where problems could come from more distant TX that were normally not available but could cause issues in odd atmospheric conditions !

An option to filter or not filter the results by whatever method is now being used would be useful. I need to be able to see all the possible TX and compare their terrain and distance/direction details.

Pete

1 post

 Show: map terrain
 R+T Investigation
 Digital UK tradeview
 DAB checker

Sid Feldman
Monday 9 July 2012 6:30PM

Until a couple of weeks or so I have been very happy user of my little over 3 years old, HUMAX Freesat HD box. When I tried to power up as usual, all I got was the start-up rectangle, and all the buttons had locked up.
I phoned the HUMAX help line and was informed that a replacement box could be supplied for £58.50, to which I agreed. My details were taken. I was informed that they could not accept cash at present, but I wwould be called very shortly since when I have heard nothing more.. I am concerned that the firm may be in financial trouble. I should be grateful for helpful advice.

1 post