SPLIT: The official Swordofmoonlight.com 2010 Makeover thread...

[Holy_Diver]

The theme at (https://www.swordofmoonlight.com/wp-index.php/) is beginning to look more like the website is supposed to.

It still has a ways to go (obviously) ...and I just remembered the reason I'd set this up (sooner than later) was to do a test upgrade of WordPress.

I think the scope of this website at least for now is much simpler than the installation I've adapted this from, so I will probably remove/hide a bunch of features before we're done.

Some decisions need to be made however...

For one the major decision is whether the main site will be principally a blog (very popular these days) or a mere portal showcasing the games like your average corporate website that fits on one squat page with a bunch of logos and a huge smiling family or random assortment of people with a slender menu across the top if you actually want to know something about the business there.

What I've done so far is I've sort of cheated and put the everything to the left of the right/Welcome column in the first blog post for the website. You could theoretically just sticky it there and use the first post as a headlines rundown. Then either have a real in-depth blog below it (kinda hard to find) or no blog or blog on another page (kinda weird that)

I could copy the blog here (https://www.swordofmoonlight.com/forum/indexold.php) into individual blog entries. Speaking of which anyone who wants to blog/make pages should make an account with the WordPress system via the "User Access" menu's registration link.

The serious thing to consider with a blog setup, is who is going to be writing a blog. A site with a blog kinda needs a new entry now and then or it can look dead. Ideally you'd like everyone blogging a bit about this and that. But in practice with a setup like this the brunt of the blogging tends to fall on one persons shoulders (hopefully someone who enjoys the duty/not me)

The website is thinner. I just feel strongly a website should not be over 800 pixels wide with room for a scrollbar. You might say, but but displays are larger than ever and we have widescreen standard now. Well there are also more people than ever visiting real websites on very small portable screens. Speaking of which, people will be able to read the website (and can already visit the forums) via WAP devices. Basically your small cellphones which like to have special miniature versions of websites tailored to their needs.


PS: I had an idea to take that outline font and see if I can't get the server to generate label images for us on the fly, so we could apply them much more liberally. Anyway, it will take time, but things will just keep getting better and better, just wait and see. It's good to have a bunch of guys committed to a cause. Makes all the work all the more rewarding.

[Holy_Diver]

PS: One thing I suppose worth bearing in mind with a blog, is the real pages that get linked to by Google and company are the single blog pages with comments. So it really doesn't matter so much where if anywhere your item by item blog is. I think as long as everyone is ok with the homey Todd's welcome style, all the landing pages might as well have the full welcome message.

I think a really clever way to approach the game section links would be to work them in like advertisements and rotate them. That way you could be sure that every page on the website will have some links to games no matter how many games develop.

[dmpdesign]

I will be honest, I dont really see myself blogging about anything, so as far as im concerned you can take the blog idea out of it (unless we have some sort of volunteer).

I like the idea of the blue on black grid theme...phantasy star 2 is awesome btw :P

You said you could use help on moving pages to word press. ‎  How exactly is this done ‎ 

[Holy_Diver]

Well it's really hard to imagine a living breathing website without a blog component these days. Despite all the hype about "blogging" a blog is just a log (web+log=blog) of any form, probably (but not formally) made more accessible by an RSS feed.

7/15/2009-
=The new forum is a go, thank you HolyDiver for upgrading our forums!

=The tutorial section is coming along nicely, please check out the new sections and comment.

=A few new add-ons were added recently, be sure to download them.


4/29/2009-
Added a demo video for Dark Destiny, click here to view it and stay tuned for updates on its release.


2/2/2009-

Announcing!




Trismegistus launched! ‎  See the new section for details on this awesome new addition from Tom Eversole.


1/19/09-
Added new sections for SOM Translation, SOM Add-Ons, Dark Destiny and ‎  a ‎  forum. Check out the new sections and email me with feedback!


1/05/09-
Site got a facelift, hope you enjoy the new look.

^Is a blog.

It's just the way to let followers of the website in on what's happening/letting the world know shit is happening.

I think in theory a nice service would be to setup blog categories for each game/project so those pages can have their own game specific blogs.

Of course the format here (https://www.swordofmoonlight.com/forum/indexold.php) is obviously a blog. So you've been blogging whether you realized it or not. Or maybe you just dabbled in it, and decided that was that. But either even if your blog just alerts people to new website sections, a blog is really expected these days. Every single content oriented website anymore is a blog in one form or another.

[Holy_Diver]

You said you could use help on moving pages to word press.? How exactly is this done?

You start by going here (https://www.swordofmoonlight.com/wp-logi...n=register)

I haven't worked out the new page layout, but it's something I want people to be ready to do when the time comes. Basically the process is turning the website into a database rather than a collection of php/html pages. We will want at least all of the tutorial/add-on/etc pages to work this way in the future.

[Holy_Diver]

Updated Wordpress today. Nothing seems broken for our purposes here. Then updated install can auto-update itself. I'd made a number of changes to the sources, but I don't know if we will or won't need any of those features for this website. If so I really need to try to replace the hacks with a custom plugin sometime (especially if the auto-update feature is turned on)

[dmpdesign]

I created a user on the wordpress link you sent me. ‎  I am interested in learning how to do some things with it but the control panel the pops up when i log in is just a welcome screen. ‎  Im assuming youll have to change my account to have some sort of access?

Ill wait to hear back on it and maybe soon I can figure out how you do some things on here and start helping out a bit better.

[Holy_Diver]

Yeah, I noticed your account today actually. I had meant to say something.

The reason you didn't see anything is because you just had Subscriber privileges... which basically just let's you change a little stuff about your experience and comment without jumping thru hoops.

I made you an Editor, which is just under Administrator. Editors by default can't make pages (typical blogs don't have very many) but since this is a website more than a blog (yet we still use WordPress -- hey it works) I think I will add page making to the Editor privileges when I can, or make a new class altogether?? Pagemaster?

Over at digitaldevildb.com I have a system that fetches page content from private posts (to the blog) which works really well given the user generated nature of the website... but I don't think this website will necessarily follow along the same philosophical lines.


Edited: There will be a lot for you to do once I have all the themes and stuff setup. I want to try to time things with a Japanese release of some of these games. Hopefully by years end, or whenever your ready for the final final version of DD. I still think a public Beta (for DD) for a few months wouldn't hurt anything.

[Holy_Diver]

If you like you can start practicing posting by copying over your blogging from here (https://www.swordofmoonlight.com/forum/indexold.php)

Just make a post for each one, and the posts will show up at https://www.swordofmoonlight.com/wp-index.php/ underneath.

[Holy_Diver]

Here's a quick mockup of my makeover proposal (take that Tom's cat!!)


PS: Obviously it wasn't really possible to separate the website content from the black background with just a screenshot. I also had to cut the banner off the top and a bit of the tip (though it never comes to anything close to a complete tip) from the bottom because a glow effect I employed wrapped around outer edge of the image (square) and I didn't want to give the wrong impression.... however I'd already entertained in the back of my mind doing away with any banner completely for an artsy effect.

The effects I've done are all doable and fairly efficiently so, though we could try other stuff. I didn't bother to match the angles with any version of the sword, though it would be worthwhile in the final layouts. The final design would go up a number of pages high if need be but never reach the hilt area. I think that would be much cooler than a fixed background with a builtin scroller.

Edited: We could accentuate it more by making the footer text tapers downward (instead of upward as seen below...)

PS: Cutting out the banner would also make pages load up that end with the footer on a single screen... otherwise you don't really always get the full effect. Though you do if you read to the bottom.