Website Revamp: Its time for change and I need feedback

[Impaler]

There's to much negative space. I would like to suggest that you move the diagonal lines out from behind the text and put them in the back ground in a fashion like this...

[Crayon]

I'll see how it looks, but most websites have negative space when viewed full screen at 1920 width. Actually, I randomly clicked 6 bookmarks and they all had negative space when full screened. I'll try it, but I think it will look more filled in when I get the recent post section done and there is actual information being displayed.

In a live setting you will be reading the text and looking at the pictures and will barely notice the sides of the site.

[Impaler]

Well the other thing i was trying to get at was the lines behind the text. I think i would be easier read if it was more like the mock-up you did (http://escapeplod.net/ru/slayfest.html) But i like the idea of the black text over the tint of gray. Simply put take out the diagonal lines. Less is more.

[Slayer]

Any more progress?

[Crayon]

http://escapeplod.net/sf/

I think everything we need works now. I hacked together the share button, got the WolfET server on the main page in a way that doesn't look horrible. The recent posts are working. On your site that section would be longer, my forum doesn't have 10 posts. The gallery isn't even started because we never really decided what to do with it. The footer needs to be finished, so I get that done soon. Also, do you want to write up copy for the about page?

I didn't do anything with rss because I think you had those figured out in phpbb.

I could probably stop by next tuesday and see if we can get it up and running on your server.

[Slayer]

Thank you for your continued work. We can get this running on my xampp test server first. Once thats good to go then I will upload the finished version.

There are a few things I would like to do prior to getting it online. I am anxious but I want it to look and function right.

We need to see how this theme you have created will look on some of the forum themes we can find. Some forum theme tweaking may be required.

I would like to look into Search Engine Optimization. URL rewrite, dynamic meta tags, and a sitemap. Most of this will be phpbb mods but we may need to tweak the homepage to get it to use the SEO url's.

I will get an about page going and see if I can get the old gallery back. The gallery is not as big a concern now as it was when we were planning this.

EDIT...

Next Tuesday Classes start back up. Mine are between 6:30-10pm. If we get together between 2-4 to do stuff on the test server that should give us an idea of what else needs to be done.

[Slayer]

Seeing as Crayon and Impaler are too busy. I have taken over work on the new -=Slayfest=- layout. I have made a ton of progress in the past 2 weeks.

I started with the basic prototype that I linked earlier in the thread. That was functional as it was but very little css and layout were in place due to may lack of real html knowledge. That has now changed.

Current Status:
Layout foundations - done
Home page functional - done
Forums visually embedded - done
Gallery visually embedded - done
Events page basic - incomplete still undecided on how to implement. maybe google calendar.
RSS testing - incomplete
Contact page - done
About Page basic - more copy needed
Formal Email Newsletter - Forums has mass email but not easy html editor. A good email newsletter script could do the job and keep it optional.
PHP include header and footer - working everywhere. forums and gallery were tricky. Dont let me forget to change absolute paths from windows to linux in configs.
Links to terms of use, privacy policy, facebook page, twitter, and steam group in footer - done.
AddThis layout integration with share text instead of button - working for each individual news entry due to creativity with php variables and javascript for drop down config.

Incomplete:
Icons for facebook, twitter, and steam - not started. Will need someone with photoshop skills for that.
Donations Page
Donations Thank You page - for return from paypal
Servers Page - WolfET and Mohawk.
Some way of displaying Server info on homepage - maybe in Banner or something.
test phpbb3 seo in xampp with short links's
look into nuked_gallery bridge for user integration from forums to gallery.
make Sitemap for pages I created. Forums and Gallery will have their own.

I would like to thank Impaler for his help with teaching me div and css.

Mad Props to Crayon for his excellent example. His example saved me a few times after I broke the layout with float.

Very Helpful tools. Dreamweaver, FireBug, Google, View Page Source, XAMPP, Notepad++, TDS 10mb DSL, and Windows 7 Snipping Tool.

Tip of the day: Use the following CSS to disable automatic margin and padding in browsers. Otherwise you'll get all kinds of nonsense from body, h1, p, span, li, ul and so on.

Code: Select all

* {
   margin: 0px;
   padding: 0px;
}

Please critique my screenshots and give constructive feedback.

Home

Forums

Events

Gallery

Contact

@Crayon
I wanted to try to get the recent posts to show up with alternating css class like in your example but had trouble with the php I found. I would really appreciate it if you could explain how you do that.

[Crayon]

I had the thing done. All you had to do was contact me and I would have helped it get up and running on your server.

It wasn't an example, it was fully running with php. I'm not sure how this wasn't clear. If you didn't like it and you wanted to go your own way telling me would have been awesome, because that is a lot of wasted time and energy.

[Slayer]

I want to thank you for everything you have done so far. Your involvement in the process of creating a website layout and color theme played a large role in both our designs.

I tried to contact you back in March. I replied to your post from Thursday March 11th on Friday March 12th. You never posted a reply back. I called you to invite you over for the following WolfET session on March 16th so that we could get things running on the XAMPP test server. You didn't answer so we could schedule a time to work together. Its been one month without any posts from you in this thread. So as far as I'm concerned I did try to contact you.

I know it was running php, I gave you the code. Example sounds a bit harsh but that was its function for me. I the code running on the prototype test page back in December. We discussed many things about layout and color schemes prior to your design.

I liked your layout and I appreciate your help. Since I'm not the only one that uses -=Slayfest=- I wanted to get the community involved in the initial design. I'm just sick of relying on people to help me and and fail to give me updates on their progress. You told me up front that you had other things going on and I'm not paying you for this so your only motivation would have been to do this for -=Slayfest=-. It became clear that you were either too busy/occupied to post or return my calls/texts. Its been 4 months since I created this discussion and we still don't have it live.

Since i wanted to get this done sometime soon, I decided to take matters into my own hands and I have learned quite a bit about php/xhtml/css in the process.

[Crayon]

You know I suck at returning calls, and this is the one time you decide to only try once to call me? I've also played like 3 WolfET sessions since it's been done and a couple of the times I was in voice chat. I work 30 hours a week and do work for my internship, slayfest is naturally quite far back in the things to think about. When I did think about it I just figured you weren't ready, or you didn't like it because the lack of discussion.

You're still more than welcome to use the layout. I don't really want it to be wasted.

[Slayer]

I figured you would either get back to me or post. I know your busy which is why i didn't want to bug you but at the same time I want to get this done. Ive only just worked up the motivation to learn all this from scratch and create things myself. I should have asked you for your source files some time ago.

Two major things I would like to integrate from your layout is the rounded corners and the alternating CSS php code for the recent posts.

I would appreciate it you could email me a zip of your source. Don't send me your forum config.php as it has a sensitive password. Also I'm thinking of making a staff page where I can give you credit, link to your site and forum profile.

Could you explain the php logic for the alternating css class? I know basic programming but couldn't exactly make sense of the stuff I google'd.

Also what exactly does the reset.css reference do?

What would be the preferred way for us to contact you in the future? Since phone calls are out.

[Crayon]

Two major things I would like to integrate from your layout is the rounded corners and the alternating CSS php code for the recent posts.

I'll send you what is finished. Everything but the footer is done (e: finished the footer before I sent it out). Just use what I've got done.

I would appreciate it you could email me a zip of your source. Don't send me your forum config.php as it has a sensitive password. Also I'm thinking of making a staff page where I can give you credit, link to your site and forum profile.

I'll give you the index.php, and css files. I really only want credit if you use the layout in it's entirety.

Could you explain the php logic for the alternating css class? I know basic programming but couldn't exactly make sense of the stuff I google'd.

Also what exactly does the reset.css reference do?

It's just an if else statement inside a while loop that looks to see if a number is odd or even. If it is odd you get dark gray, even you get light gray. At the end of the statement you increment the number by 1 so the next one is different.

Code: Select all

$zebra = 2;
while ($row = mysql_fetch_array($result, MYSQL_ASSOC)) {
            
if($zebra%2){
echo  "light gray";
}
else{
echo  "dark gray";
}
$zebra++;
}

Reset.css; browsers thought it would be a good idea to give some tags like <p> preset values for padding or margin. Reset takes all these values with browser presets and makes them 0. This means you have to manually set things like <p> to work like paragraph, or <strong> to make things bold, or <h1> to make things a header. It sounds like a huge pain in the ass but it really helps browser compatibility.

What would be the preferred way for us to contact you in the future? Since phone calls are out.

Voicemail or email. These are the only things I cant remove from my phone in the blink of an eye and then forget about 5 minutes later.

e: sent you a .zip

[Slayer]

That bit of php code for the alternating css is much easier to understand than the other code I found.

Thanks for the source.

I think Im going to hold off on the rounded corners. The method your using does not work on IE8. I think to get the same results cross browser we are going to have to use images.

[Crayon]

You can get rounded corners in IE, they just have to be all the corners. You cant specify which ones get rounded.

I have to ask; what are you going to use for the site? Are you just going to hack apart my layout (I would rather you didn't do this) or are you using your layout? I don't mind if you learn from what I did, but I would rather not see my design be uploaded in some mutated form without me atleast getting a say in it. Every aspect down to fonts, margins and padding was thought about before I set it and changing these things may seem minor but it can kill the flow and readability of the design. Basically what I am saying is could you please go one way or the other, I really don't want my design mated with something I didn't do.

[Slayer]

You can get rounded corners in IE, they just have to be all the corners. You cant specify which ones get rounded.

The bit of searching I've done came up with the moz and webkit methods for css. The only other method i found is images. Which one are you talking about?

I have to ask; what are you going to use for the site? Are you just going to hack apart my layout (I would rather you didn't do this) or are you using your layout? I don't mind if you learn from what I did, but I would rather not see my design be uploaded in some mutated form without me atleast getting a say in it. Every aspect down to fonts, margins and padding was thought about before I set it and changing these things may seem minor but it can kill the flow and readability of the design. Basically what I am saying is could you please go one way or the other, I really don't want my design mated with something I didn't do.

I will be using my layout. I've done too much css hacking on the gallery and forums css to get things to line up on a site of different width and padding. Yours is 70 pixels wider than mine. I don't intend to butcher your layout. I was most interested in the implementation of the alternating css which is why I asked for the source.