Somcom 2.0

[Holy_Diver]

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.

[kilroyfx]

I don't have time to read through such a long post, but I tried....so are you remaking the SOM website to look different? I understand the new look, I think its much harder to read for several reasons....

There is a double vision thing going on, which is hard on the eyes....and the [Forums,Addons,Games,Links] is so far at the top, and so small its hard to get at.....
Also, its way too narrow....theres a lot of information thats too small to read, why can't it be wider?? ‎  I guess just from a artistic/compositing standpoint it doesn't really
lead the eye to the appropriate locations....it seems overly complex for the information being presented...
Are you getting rid of the musical hit in the opening, because that was really cool....I guess I just dont understand why its being changed......I like the old one
better....

Also, there is no interesting ART to let people know its SOM.....My overall feeling is YUK....it doesn't flow or make me say "WOW!" but there are examples of site out
there that do that.

Maybe we should post links of sites that we think look really cool, and you could make SOM look like those?? What does DMPdesign think?

I will study it some more and make some suggestions...but thats my first impression :)

[Holy_Diver]

I don't have time to read through such a long post, but I tried....so are you remaking the SOM website to look different? I understand the new look, I think its much harder to read for several reasons....

Well find the time to read before you post again.

There is a double vision thing going on, which is hard on the eyes....

That is the Moonlight sword. The theme is the Moonlight sword itself if you pay attention. If contrast is really a problem for you you might wanna change your browser stylesheet settings. There will probably be some usability options for logged in users. Have you seen the website lately? The effect has been toned down as much as possible and does its present best to center itself in your reading area. The final background graphics might be darker so the text will stand out more. I had not intended them to be so bright, but it adds to the radiance of the sword I think. I could tone it down more but at some point it goes from atmosphere to just distracting.

and the [Forums,Addons,Games,Links] is so far at the top, and so small its hard to get at.....

Well that's left over from the old layouts. We haven't really thought about this yet. I don't think it's small however.

Also, its way too narrow....theres a lot of information thats too small to read, why can't it be wider??? I guess just from a artistic/compositing standpoint it doesn't really
lead the eye to the appropriate locations....it seems overly complex for the information being presented...

All websites should fit inside an 800x600 display with room for a scrollbar or it's just real bad design. Some sites like imdb.com are not even readable on many PCs (unless there is an option to change the way the site reads I've never found)

You can scale the site up different ways, but that's usually best done by an OS or browser. The width of the website is about a wide as you want a column of text. This is the 21st century, the majority of screens are getting smaller, not larger, some people still don't get this.

Are you getting rid of the musical hit in the opening, because that was really cool....I guess I just dont understand why its being changed......I like the old one
better....

Well it's not safe as it is. It's not something we've thought about. It could be a login option if put back. People don't like their web browsers randomly making noises, everyone figured that out like 5yrs ago when for a while that was socially acceptable.

Also, there is no interesting ART to let people know its SOM.....My overall feeling is YUK....it doesn't flow or make me say "WOW!" but there are examples of site out
there that do that.

Maybe we should post links of sites that we think look really cool, and you could make SOM look like those?? What does DMPdesign think?

We've decided on the theme. This isn't a post so much about that. As it says.

I will study it some more and make some suggestions...but thats my first impression :)

Lets hope it grows on you. It's a logical theme for a website called swordofmoonlight. It's literally the sword of moonlight. Makes sense. Design wise everything you see is standard. If anything we're taking the website from a dysfunctional/non-scalable state and bringing it inline with modern standards.

[Holy_Diver]

PS: I almost forgot (or did forget) to add/stress. I'm not a website author. I'm an administrator. So if there's going to be a full-fledged website here, someone or everyone is going to have to step up to fill that role. I'm not convinced Todd is on board for writing up more pages, much less filling out an entire website. That said, I'm here to facilitate everyone in the process of building a community website.

Just on the topic of SoM itself, all else aside, there could and probably should be at least 10x the content there is on the present website. I think we can do it, but if you're not ready to lend a hand, I suggest at least to start praying for a savior to come and help everything along its way.

There's lot's of info in the forum and offsite. It just has to be made more accessible, put where we all know it should be, ie. on the website. So consider this thread also a call to arms. We want a plan, but we also need people to bring home the content.

[kilroyfx]

Thanks for answering all my questions. I am available to create graphics that you can pick and choose from at your leisure...That stuff is easy....to me its like NEW COKE vs COKE CLASSIC. ‎  It would be nice to revert back to the old web-site if possible....

I still don't understand the double vision thing, and the Narrow view....thats a hard choice I guess....I kind of see part of a sword but I never experience the full effect....so we are looking at the website on a piece of CRYSTAL then ?? ‎ 

Be nice to have the choice of AUDIO like on other websites, where you can turn it off or on, and use cookies to remember the selection. ‎  Is there a way for the website to determine the
display size of the user? That way you could adjust the opening page to fit the user....All I know is some people have paid a lot of money for really nice HD screens only to view a webpage that looks like a COLUMN....hmmmm

I know it is a lot of effort, good start.

[dmpdesign]

PS: I almost forgot (or did forget) to add/stress. I'm not a website author. I'm an administrator. So if there's going to be a full-fledged website here, someone or everyone is going to have to step up to fill that role. I'm not convinced Todd is on board for writing up more pages, much less filling out an entire website. That said, I'm here to facilitate everyone in the process of building a community website.

Correct!

I am not good at all at making a website...the original stuff is completely hacked together in an old version of frontpage. As much as I enjoyed making the original stuff, I knew it garbage, and would likely either get hijacked, broken or just turn people off quickly.

With that being said, I like that Holy is moving the main site/tutorial/manual etc into a uniform setup via wordpress. ‎  The graphics need some work, and we can all help out there...but the concept is going in the right direction.

If you are using IE8 you can disable the double vision if you want via the compatibility option at the top of the browser...maybe holy could be persuaded to add a turn on/off option under your user profile later down the road.

Kilroy, youre a great graphic artist, if you would be willing to work with Holy and some other folks on perfecting the main site theme with some upgraded high res graphics (holy we should go over the 'grid' style thing we talked about sometime with everyone) then we can get all the theme work out of the way and work on making the individual page information a LOT better than it is now.

I would like to ask for some volunteers down the road to help fill a section of the main page with a blog style news section, so that folks other than myself can update the main page with news about program releases (like your pumpkinpaster) and game demos and things like that. ‎  I think its important on the main page to make it look like the site is being updated and is alive.

More to come, lets keep the commentary on this post clean and helpful, and offer solutions and opinions to improve stuff here.

[Hguols]

I like the new design.... ‎  but I'm with Kilroy that I'd like to have the option to view "new" or "old" site versions.

[kilroyfx]

Hear , ‎  hear !!

Hear, hear is an expression used as a short repeated form of hear ye and hear him. It represents a listener's agreement with the point being made by a speaker.
It was originally an imperative for directing attention to speakers, and has since been used, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, as "the regular form of cheering in the House of Commons", with many purposes depending on the intonation of its user.

It is often incorrectly spelled "here here", especially on websites. The phrase hear him, hear him! was used in Parliament since the late 1600s, and had been reduced to hear! or hear, hear! by the late 1700s. The verb hear had earlier been used in the King James Bible as a command for others to listen.

[dmpdesign]

Well the main problem with the main page as-is is that is was constructed with frontpage, and quite honestly is probably not compatible with a variety of browsers. ‎  Also it lacks some of the basic formatting most standard pages have these days (and I don't know how to format it any better unfortunately).

I guess if the majority actually like it, then there is no real reason to change the theme, but I figured it looked amateur and likely could use an upgrade.

Remember how bad the forums used to be? ‎  Well they were fixed up a ton (not be me) so I figure given time, the main pages can probably get similar treatment and look real professional as well.

As for me, it doesn't really matter much. ‎  I am more interested in making things the way the people who use the site want it. ‎  So I guess if the site will remain democratic (which is fine for me) then theme styles etc could be voted on in a poll format?

[kilroyfx]

Without retyping my post, I was simply saying LOOK at this...
And see the mirrored banner of shadowy graveyard?? ‎  That would work for different screen types ...Also a template could be created for
additional pages....I don't know how much work that is....but its inspiring ??