2009-11-15, 08:06 PM
There is a preview of the new website theme here (https://www.swordofmoonlight.com/wp-index.php/)
The graphics will get better, and there will probably be a fullscreen background in time, however the basic thrust of it is in the can. The font for Windows environments is "Arial Unicode MS", I'm not sure what will be done for Mac and Linux (Linux probably has better options) yet, however this font is pretty much the only game in town. Things look a little funny on Webkit browsers (Safari/Chrome) but I'm planning on customizing the stylesheets against these agents.
If you have any complaints as for the theme, you're welcome to air them / we can attempt to ameliorate them one at a time.
However I would prefer this thread focus less upon cosmetic concerns so that instead it can be a survey/conference rabout how the new website should work and be organized etc.
The new website is built upon Wordpress. The old website's pages can be either retained with banners alerting readers to the new site, or converted into redirects to the new pages. Wordpress anyway is not compatible with these pages for the most part because it expects all of its page urls to look like directories.
My personal intuition is the site would not work well with a traditional unified sidebar (ie. a link to every page or a parent of every page on every page)
I think that sort of site, though great for archives, is a bit unnerving for many readers, especially with this kind of subject matter. And I don't think the website itself will be completely thematically unified from page to page.
My present thinking is to make the core pages like mini websites. And I reckon we could start by modeling them upon SOM itself. For instance www.som.com/main/ could be about/like SOM_MAIN.exe, then www.som.com/main/edit/ could be like SOM_EDIT.exe, then www.som.com/main/edit/map/ would be about the map editor and so on. Www.som.com/main/edit/run/ could house like a generic game manual for playing/planning SOM games as well as covering difficulties of the runtime build process (which personally to this day I've still been unable to pull off game intact)
Main would actually be the real unadulterated homepage of the website with a big hairy sidebar.
The front page I'd like to call the Exit page because Home seems a little domesticated for the theme, and because if you "Exit" the Main page in SOM fashion you end up on the home page. It just has the welcome message login links and announcements/news highlights like now.
Then there could be a News (or maybe Info or Press) page, which is like a traditional WordPress blog, with archives and latest headlines basically from all the blogs throughout the website. I'd like each project/game to have a blog and their own page(s) ...I will also set it up so you can post game blogs that won't show up on the news page so you can have exclusive/more detailed information about/for your game if you want.
Then I like the idea of having a special page called Mini, where people can make quick posts about non-news topics like howtos and things. Something people can easily wade thru quickly looking for ideas.
Possibly a Games page highlighting games would make sense. However I'm unsure where games should be parked. It's probably best left to the game makers how they want to do that.
I want to reserve www.som.com/ex/ for my SomEx extension work. And www.som.com/ex/lang/ for translation via SomEx.
I think we're planning to put all of Todd's current install/tutorial pages into a special series of pages at www.som.com/intro/. He might want to pare them down to be more introductory/save some more detailed info for detailed explanation pages in the main pages however.
I think add-ons and official (From Software) tools can be parked under Main. Managing add-ons (as in game resources) effectively will probably a bigger project than the website itself. Adding/power-browsing add-ons will probably be integrated with the Wordpress control panel. I am also going to hopefully succeed at unifying the forum user accounts with the main site accounts. So if you do register with WordPress before that time, use the same login name/password as your forum login codes so to avoid any problems with your account in the future.
Anyway, this is your chance for input and question asking.
The graphics will get better, and there will probably be a fullscreen background in time, however the basic thrust of it is in the can. The font for Windows environments is "Arial Unicode MS", I'm not sure what will be done for Mac and Linux (Linux probably has better options) yet, however this font is pretty much the only game in town. Things look a little funny on Webkit browsers (Safari/Chrome) but I'm planning on customizing the stylesheets against these agents.
If you have any complaints as for the theme, you're welcome to air them / we can attempt to ameliorate them one at a time.
However I would prefer this thread focus less upon cosmetic concerns so that instead it can be a survey/conference rabout how the new website should work and be organized etc.
The new website is built upon Wordpress. The old website's pages can be either retained with banners alerting readers to the new site, or converted into redirects to the new pages. Wordpress anyway is not compatible with these pages for the most part because it expects all of its page urls to look like directories.
My personal intuition is the site would not work well with a traditional unified sidebar (ie. a link to every page or a parent of every page on every page)
I think that sort of site, though great for archives, is a bit unnerving for many readers, especially with this kind of subject matter. And I don't think the website itself will be completely thematically unified from page to page.
My present thinking is to make the core pages like mini websites. And I reckon we could start by modeling them upon SOM itself. For instance www.som.com/main/ could be about/like SOM_MAIN.exe, then www.som.com/main/edit/ could be like SOM_EDIT.exe, then www.som.com/main/edit/map/ would be about the map editor and so on. Www.som.com/main/edit/run/ could house like a generic game manual for playing/planning SOM games as well as covering difficulties of the runtime build process (which personally to this day I've still been unable to pull off game intact)
Main would actually be the real unadulterated homepage of the website with a big hairy sidebar.
The front page I'd like to call the Exit page because Home seems a little domesticated for the theme, and because if you "Exit" the Main page in SOM fashion you end up on the home page. It just has the welcome message login links and announcements/news highlights like now.
Then there could be a News (or maybe Info or Press) page, which is like a traditional WordPress blog, with archives and latest headlines basically from all the blogs throughout the website. I'd like each project/game to have a blog and their own page(s) ...I will also set it up so you can post game blogs that won't show up on the news page so you can have exclusive/more detailed information about/for your game if you want.
Then I like the idea of having a special page called Mini, where people can make quick posts about non-news topics like howtos and things. Something people can easily wade thru quickly looking for ideas.
Possibly a Games page highlighting games would make sense. However I'm unsure where games should be parked. It's probably best left to the game makers how they want to do that.
I want to reserve www.som.com/ex/ for my SomEx extension work. And www.som.com/ex/lang/ for translation via SomEx.
I think we're planning to put all of Todd's current install/tutorial pages into a special series of pages at www.som.com/intro/. He might want to pare them down to be more introductory/save some more detailed info for detailed explanation pages in the main pages however.
I think add-ons and official (From Software) tools can be parked under Main. Managing add-ons (as in game resources) effectively will probably a bigger project than the website itself. Adding/power-browsing add-ons will probably be integrated with the Wordpress control panel. I am also going to hopefully succeed at unifying the forum user accounts with the main site accounts. So if you do register with WordPress before that time, use the same login name/password as your forum login codes so to avoid any problems with your account in the future.
Anyway, this is your chance for input and question asking.