Author Topic: New front page.. (Read 11504 times)

Shockwave · « **on:** July 06, 2009 »

This has been an intense last few days, but I am pleased to say that the front page is recoded and it's live.

I had a few hairy moments while I was putting it live but it seems to have gone fairly smoothly.

Hopefully it will repair the new signups that we lost after I got rid of the original portal, this one is here to bring elements from the forum and the resource site together, especially the showcase of competition winners and also summaries of recent posts and tutorials.

I expect there to be teething troubles, I had to hack the forum like a mad bastard to make it all work.

benny! · « **Reply #1 on:** July 06, 2009 »

The new frontpage is looking very good. I think you did
a fantastic job with it. It is much more informative and attracting
than the old version. Like it a lot!

Shockwave · « **Reply #2 on:** July 06, 2009 »

I would really love to thank the members of the moderator team who gave me their feedback while I was developing this page and I also want to thank the people who I chose to send messages to for their feedback, your comments went a long way to help and hopefully I have implimented as many of the things that you guys suggested that I possibly could

Hezad · « **Reply #3 on:** July 06, 2009 »

That looks really really nice

excellent job

zawran · « **Reply #4 on:** July 07, 2009 »

You did an ace job with the front page, its miles better than what there used to be. I really like the showcase shots, they are a great way of giving an impression about what the forum is all about. And if you at some point could make a shuffle button to fetch nine new shots that would just make it even better

btw. that link button for Chip-On.com points to a dead page with an advertisement and an offer that you can buy the domain name.

Shockwave · « **Reply #5 on:** July 07, 2009 »

Quote from: zawran on July 07, 2009

You did an ace job with the front page, its miles better than what there used to be. I really like the showcase shots, they are a great way of giving an impression about what the forum is all about. And if you at some point could make a shuffle button to fetch nine new shots that would just make it even better

btw. that link button for Chip-On.com points to a dead page with an advertisement and an offer that you can buy the domain name.

I'll replace chip-on.com with something active

I'll make a shuffle button this weekend for the showcase, good idea mate.

mziskandar · « **Reply #6 on:** July 08, 2009 »

Wow! something new.. I'm not able to get connected since last Saturday.. I'm in cybercafe now..
Actually I have a suggestion to make. Since DBF are focused on programming, I think it will be very convenient to have a "Colored codes" - C, C++, Basic, etc.
We can get the pre-made color scheme from Notepad++.

Example: http://digitalspine.blogspot.com/2009/06/custom-3d-loader-and-viewer.html

Using Notepad++. Maybe DBF can add a tag..

Example: for C.. [CCode]bla.. bla.. bla[/CCode]

Ahh.. got to go.. will continue later when I can get online again..

benny! · « **Reply #7 on:** July 08, 2009 »

Yeah good idea IMHO. There are some good engines around for
that like:

http://qbnz.com/highlighter/

or

http://code.google.com/p/syntaxhighlighter/

But I do not know if there are stable mods for this forum software
available. And installing alpha/beta versions of not officially supported
plugins always inherit the risk of having an unstable forum.

@Shocky:
Do you know anything about it ?

Shockwave · « **Reply #8 on:** July 08, 2009 »

I love notepad++, it's what I do nearly all my coding in these days and it's excellent how it highlights different languages syntax.

Modding the actual forum code tags to do this is possible but would mean that lots ot the templates would need to be changed and to be honest with you, that is likely to cause problems when upgrading this forum software so although it is a wonderful suggestion, I think that the rewards outstrip the effort needed to maintain it.

On another note though, I plan to take the guts of the new front page and work on it some more.

It has the functionality I wanted now but I want to make it look better so you can expect to see some improvements within the next couple of weeks

Shockwave · « **Reply #9 on:** July 10, 2009 »

Take another look on the front page... I've tidied it up a little bit

benny! · « **Reply #10 on:** July 10, 2009 »

Quote from: Shockwave on July 10, 2009

Take another look on the front page... I've tidied it up a little bit

That's way better. Good polishing Shocky. Like the lighter background a lot.
Makes it much easier to read.

Some things though:

- The link-buttons have a white highlighted site. Maybe it looks better when
they have a different color than the background (white). So having a visible border
might makes them appear more like a rectangle area to click on. The original graphical
link button doesn't fit there, or ?

- Refer to attached screenshot. When I scroll down the whole page using the mouse
wheel - and then scroll down the shoutbox area with the mouse wheel - I see the
background gradient appear on the background of the shoutbox. Tested with Win XP
and FF3.0.

Ok, don't get me wrong - this frontpage truley rocks. Just those two points
came into my mind when browsing it the first time.

Very well done, Shocky!

zawran · « **Reply #11 on:** July 10, 2009 »

Code: [Select]

I see the background gradient appear on the background of the shoutbox.
I am not getting that error. I am using FF3.0.11 and Vista on this computer. I tried the scrollwheel on both the page itself and inside the shoutbox, and its not changing the background color like your picture.

Shockwave · « **Reply #12 on:** July 10, 2009 »

Yes I saw that bug... I think it's fixed now, ther is supposed to be a gradient in the shoutbox, it was not meant to look like your screenshot though!

As for the buttons I will tweak them a little bit to make them stand out a bit more.

The problem I have with the original links is that they take up a lo0t of space and it was pointed out to me that they didnt look like obviously clickable buttons so I took them off for now.

So as always, than you for the feedback.

Personally I am 95% happier with it now than I was yesterday, I am of course still listening to feedback, minor stuff will need to wait a while now though as I have other a few things to do as well

Of course if anything critical comes up I will be interested to fix it.

One last thing, maybe you will know better than me, but one of the link buttons will not pass W3C validator check, do you know how to get flash to validate without using javascript?

I want to avoid javascript on the page.

benny! · « **Reply #13 on:** July 11, 2009 »

Quote from: Shockwave on July 10, 2009

...
The problem I have with the original links is that they take up a lo0t of space and it
was pointed out to me that they didnt look like obviously clickable buttons so I took
them off for now.

Ahh .. ok .. didn't thought about that. That could be true - that some users didnt
recognize them as buttons. I just mention that, because the quality of the graphic
was pretty cool. Nevertheless, key point here should be that everyone knows where
to click. So you are right!

Quote from: Shockwave on July 10, 2009

...
Personally I am 95% happier with it now than I was yesterday, I am of course still
listening to feedback, minor stuff will need to wait a while now though as I have
other a few things to do as well Of course if anything critical comes up I will be
interested to fix it.

Definately. I think your last frontpage changes make a huge boost. For me it is
perfect!

Quote from: Shockwave on July 10, 2009

...
One last thing, maybe you will know better than me, but one of the link buttons will
not pass W3C validator check, do you know how to get flash to validate without
using javascript?

Right now - I did not know it. But I am happy to help you. Could you please give me
some more description - which button / what HTML code of it and what does the W3C
complain about ?

Quote from: Shockwave on July 10, 2009

I want to avoid javascript on the page.

Any reason for that ? Are there still people who disable javascript ?

Shockwave · « **Reply #14 on:** July 11, 2009 »

Quote

Right now - I did not know it. But I am happy to help you. Could you please give me
some more description - which button / what HTML code of it and what does the W3C
complain about ?

It is the only flash one on the page, the retro remakes banner, the rest of the page validates perfectly, I know how to hide the flash button from the validator using javascript, but for one little link button it seems to be overkill.

Quote

I want to avoid javascript on the page.
Any reason for that ? Are there still people who disable javascript ?

Some still disable it, not many I admit but just to use javascript for an advert banner is a waste of time imho, I've done the rest of the site with pure xhtml and css and I am a little bit loathe to change it for a little banner...

If there is another workaround to get the embed command through the validator I will be very interested to know how!

Hotshot · « **Reply #15 on:** July 11, 2009 »

Excellent Job as I have see the front page and You need a Pints after all that work!

benny! · « **Reply #16 on:** July 11, 2009 »

Quote from: Hotshot on July 11, 2009

Excellent Job as I have see the front page and You need a Pints after all that work!

Yep. I second that. You definately deserve to have some beer

Shockwave · « **Reply #17 on:** July 11, 2009 »

Sounds like a good idea to me!

slinks · « **Reply #18 on:** July 12, 2009 »

Haha, first time I saw the front page, I was greeted by this. Way to turn away the hardcore demosceners

Shockwave · « **Reply #19 on:** July 12, 2009 »

Gloomy Xmas is one of my favourite things in the showcase

We need more gloom entries to our comps!!!!!!!!!!!!!