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

[Holy_Diver]

"limit the scope of the site completely to SoM"

Um, that is the whole point.? Where would you want the website to go?? If you are looking to turn it into something more I think youre probably in the wrong place.

Well, for instance you have a KF section on the front of the website. It seems more logical the site should be a hub for Sword of Moonlight related things, and the website name should be more a ref to the Sword than the software so to speak. Because the software itself after all is not going to seem relevant enough to float an entire website years from now. It's already showing it's age. In my mind I would make it the stepping off point both from where From' decided to neglect KF but also for fans who want to appropriate more of KF legacy than just waiting for From' to make new games (because after all we have SoM:KFMT, aka: a license to make KF games)

PS: Besides it's not like I can't make my own website. Which was my eventual/original plan after all...

[dmpdesign]

Well what you say there is totally fine, I guess I just thought you meant something way outside the scope of SOM in the first place.

I have no problems with adding portals to AC stuff, and any/all moonlight sword related materials.

I am not trying to cramp your style of making this site look and feel better than it is, I just wanted to make sure we were on the same page with where its going.

I likely wont be adding any more upgrades that cost additional money for a while, so i am hoping the tools you want to integrate can be done cheaply.

I think everyone here will agree what youve done with the forum is 100 times better than the original..and I would like to see a similar treatment done to the main page. ‎  But at the same time I just want to say the better the site gets and the more custom you make the less and less I personally will be able to do anything to help you (as it is I can do almost nothing hehe).

I like the theme you have going for the forum...I would like to dress up the main site with a tad bit more art than what we have here on the forums (such as individual graphical buttons for the different section links, and maybe some flash graphics down the road) but for now if you want to integrate wordpress or whatever it is on the main page feel free. ‎  Can you create a temporary page somewhere we can look at and tweak before making it live on the main page?

[Holy_Diver]

It will actually be 100% easier for you to manage the website after I'm done with it. As it right now, it is technically unmanageable by 21st century standards. You might not understand how it works, but as the administrator that is my job. In other words, this website is setup like a site in the 90s. We're pushing 2010 next year. We gotta make this place more functional, or people literally won't take it seriously. The technology itself to make a modern website is fairly daunting, but in reality it's as easy to setup as any piece of software. The way you're managing the website is really the very difficult way. Customizing things can be a little more tricky, but worth it... especially if you like to/need to know how things work.

[Holy_Diver]

PS: I'm planning on dropping $300+ dollars on a webhost for my stuff any day. It would probably be best then to move som to that host as well. I would give you full access like I have with yours, and we could sort of share the burden that way. This host is really better for hosting files than a website. There will not be any need to change domain name registrars, because the new host provider is not a registrar.

[Holy_Diver]

I think the only major change I see for the main website (well the front page at least) is it should be skinnier I think. 800px with a scrollbar has to be possible for any website. Usually for a blog I don't think you want it any wider unless the user increases the browsers fontsize (like ctrl+plus)

My recommendation would be to limit the Welcome message to one paragraph and stick a "read more" link after it that either expands it or goes to the "About" page. Then move all the content stuff underneath it, so everything to the left can be blog (some of the blog articles from the phpnuke setup could be copied over to fill up the space)

Still that wouldn't leave room for a traditional blog sidebar, but at least it would be a start.

I think eventually we could incorporate the game graphics into random advertisements that show up like between the blog posts and elsewhere. Of course there would be another page devoted to the games (probably accessible from the inactive "games" link atop the page layout)

[Holy_Diver]

FYI: The posts about the main website were split. Personally I like the cyan techie elements of main website. I'd encourage you to run with a whole "cyber" angle for all it's worth. Use Geara's lair in KF2 as your inspiration.

[Hguols]

I'm posting this again because my small fuzzy friend is an egomaniac with an inferiority complex, and he wants comments on his Sword of Moonlight logo he made himself.



So comment before he "accidentally" misses the litter box.

[Holy_Diver]

Does the internet "meme" subculture have a derogatory inside-name for themselves?

https://www.encyclopediadramatica.com/Main_Page

Or would that require self awareness

[Holy_Diver]

There is now a gutted install of WordPress here (https://www.swordofmoonlight.com/wp-index.php)

It will take me a while to transfer the website into a new WordPress theme. In the meantime I'll need help transferring html pages over to the WP database.

Besides the game pages which are outside WordPress, all of the tutorial pages should fit into whatever WP format is established.

Once the job is done, the WP install will become the website (ie. no more wp-index.php)

[Holy_Diver]

I kind of have an interesting idea for a theme. I'm thinking the page could be like the blade of the moonlight sword itself. And down near the footer it would start to come to a point, but would stop at the bottom of the page before getting too pointed. The stuff of the blade could be a repeating background image, either a single semi-transparent pixel or a repeating texture. And the slow taper of the blade could be defined by an infinitely tall image that is just a black mask (so to help it load fast) that would get wider towards the top of the screen depending on how tall the page is.

I think a cool background might be one that is a fixed 3D grid like in Phantasy Star two receding into the distance. Something like Geara's lair in KF2 only maybe more abstract.

If all of that worked, I even have this crazy idea of using overlays to make it look like the content of the page is reflected around in the background like a crystal. So the effect would be a couple after images of the webpage in the background. I've never seen a page like that, but it would not be so hard to do I think.