red knight Posted May 3, 2005 Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 (edited) WARNING: This thread has been disclosed just for documentation purposes, the new design has been already settled and implemented. The remaining features that will be added are what we are going to focus in the next iterations. Well in a chat with the Rincewind, Mindstormmaster and Me we have gathered the requirements for the new site. Required Functionality---------------------- * Login for modify members * Image galery* Recruit application form - That would include the ability to define them by department* Maybe build a tie-in with the paypal donations system. * Modificable news* Downloads page* FAQ page * Upload models/textures for artists. If we forgot anything, post it here... We will start coding following this functionality criterion. GreetingsFederico Edited July 3, 2006 by red knight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[stewart] Posted May 3, 2005 Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 How does recruit application form, tie in with forum access? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted May 3, 2005 Report Share Posted May 3, 2005 How does recruit application form, tie in with forum access? We don't know yet. That will be figured out as we work out the details of each part. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red knight Posted May 11, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 11, 2005 Mindstormmaster, can you put the summary of the specifications that we did the other day? So we can have input from the other seniors... I will probably assign Azrael to do some stuff with that, given his seniority in the CTD too. GreetingsFederico Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted May 11, 2005 Report Share Posted May 11, 2005 (edited) Site Redesign Specifications*Image Gallery*Recruit Application Form*Updatable News*Downloads page*FAQ*Artist's model/texture upload page-PayPal Donation system Login system/user authentication*Accounts are created by an administrator*User roles control access to site aspects*Lost passwords are randomly generated and emailed to the user News*Users with "news" role can post news*If a news post is longer than 100 words, the first 100 words are shown on the main page with a link to the full post.*Old news is automatically listed on the archived news page*News "expires" by date or by number of posts per page. News can be marked as exempt from default expiration.-News can be scheduled to appear on a future date Image Gallery*Images are divided into categories (ie. battlescape, geoscape, etc)*Image thumbnails are automatically generated by the server.*New images can be uploaded to the gallery by users with "gallery" role.*Images can be moved to a different category.-Comments can be added to images. Member Roster*Department management (Add, Delete, Rename)*Senior board management (Add/remove members)*User management (assign/unassign department membership)*User profile page (world visible) Recruit Application*Two part form, first part is common to Xenocide, second part is specific to departments*Questions can be added/removed from the application Edited August 9, 2005 by mindstormmaster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red knight Posted May 12, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2005 Mindstormmaster, can we start right away with the Login system? Login system/user authentication*Accounts are created by an administrator*User roles control access to site aspects*Lost passwords are randomly generated and emailed to the user GreetingsRed Knight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted May 12, 2005 Report Share Posted May 12, 2005 I can try to get an authentication framework started. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red knight Posted May 12, 2005 Author Report Share Posted May 12, 2005 Great. GreetingsFederico Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted June 20, 2005 Report Share Posted June 20, 2005 I'm leaving for 7 weeks, starting pretty much today. I probably won't be able to do much until I get back. So this is on hold until then. If there are other design requirements, add them and I'll review them when I get back. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted August 29, 2005 Report Share Posted August 29, 2005 Site Redesign Specifications*Image Gallery*Recruit Application Form*Updatable News*Downloads page*FAQ*Artist's model/texture upload page-PayPal Donation system Login system/user authentication*Accounts are created by an administrator*User roles control access to site aspects*Lost passwords are randomly generated and emailed to the user News*Users with "news" role can post news*If a news post is longer than 100 words, the first 100 words are shown on the main page with a link to the full post.*Old news is automatically listed on the archived news page*News "expires" by date or by number of posts per page. News can be marked as exempt from default expiration.-News can be scheduled to appear on a future date Image Gallery*Images are divided into categories (ie. battlescape, geoscape, etc)*Image thumbnails are automatically generated by the server.*New images can be uploaded to the gallery by users with "gallery" role.*Images can be moved to a different category.-Comments can be added to images. Member Roster*Department management (Add, Delete, Rename)*Senior board management (Add/remove members)*User management (assign/unassign department membership)*User profile page (world visible) Recruit Application*Two part form, first part is common to Xenocide, second part is specific to departments*Questions can be added/removed from the application since we are now using SVN, is the need to have a form for uploading models andtextures not obsolete and unnessary for the site? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted August 29, 2005 Report Share Posted August 29, 2005 since we are now using SVN, is the need to have a form for uploading models andtextures not obsolete and unnessary for the site? Yes, I don't think we need that anymore. But the image gallery is still nice for showing screenshots or concept art. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted August 29, 2005 Report Share Posted August 29, 2005 since we are now using SVN, is the need to have a form for uploading models andtextures not obsolete and unnessary for the site? Yes, I don't think we need that anymore. But the image gallery is still nice for showing screenshots or concept art. wasn't planning on deleting the image gallery Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red knight Posted August 29, 2005 Author Report Share Posted August 29, 2005 Well we can still store the screenshots on the SVN and the site would only retrieve them and allow to categorize them. GreetingsFederico Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Posted September 5, 2005 Report Share Posted September 5, 2005 Could it be possible to allow certain members to put others in moderation? We've had a problem recently with one and there was no Admin to take care of it, luckily Red Knight could, but I was thinking it would be good to allow members of Global Moderator status and Seniors to put someone into moderation, what do you think? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted September 6, 2005 Report Share Posted September 6, 2005 Could it be possible to allow certain members to put others in moderation? We've had a problem recently with one and there was no Admin to take care of it, luckily Red Knight could, but I was thinking it would be good to allow members of Global Moderator status and Seniors to put someone into moderation, what do you think? I'm not exactly sure what you mean. Moderation for what? Posting news? The user management will be entirely separate from the forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 7, 2005 Report Share Posted November 7, 2005 Ok after much silence I finally got some time to sit down and start bringing a concept together. This is an alpha stage concept and doesn't have alot of bells and whistles or perfect hierarchy yet but you get the idea Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted November 7, 2005 Report Share Posted November 7, 2005 (edited) How will this scale for larger resolutions? At 1280x1024 it looks really narrow, and I hate wasting space on my screen. I'm also looking at different/new web frameworks to use for the site. Right now it looks like JavaServer Faces (MyFaces) is a very good candidate for this. Edited November 7, 2005 by mindstormmaster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATeX Posted November 7, 2005 Report Share Posted November 7, 2005 (edited) it's an alpha as he said. I'm sure a lot will change. Looking pretty good until now. What about ANY designer throwing in an alpha and then blend the best elements togheter? cheers, Thomas Edited November 7, 2005 by ATeX Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 7, 2005 Report Share Posted November 7, 2005 it's an alpha as he said. I'm sure a lot will change. Looking pretty good until now. What about ANY designer throwing in an alpha and then blend the best elements togheter? cheers, Thomas you are more than welcome to stick one in, I started up because I finally got the free time to work on it again and last I'd checked with you you ahd gotten bogged down Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 7, 2005 Report Share Posted November 7, 2005 How will this scale for larger resolutions? At 1280x1024 it looks really narrow, and I hate wasting space on my screen. I'm also looking at different/new web frameworks to use for the site. Right now it looks like JavaServer Faces (MyFaces) is a very good candidate for this. I was thinking more along the lines of a fixed scale. I'm not too fond of websites that stretch themselves out to fill whatever size browser I have. They tend to be a little contrived and wasteful on their use of space. BLank space helps pad the boundaries and draw attention to the site iteself. That said I'm not opposed to dynamically scaling it to properly fill the screen at higher resolutions. My screen back home is @ 1280x1024 and I'm not bothered too much by the blank space around it. I'm designing the site for 800x600 res. so maybe use the CSS points instead of px call for text and size. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATeX Posted November 7, 2005 Report Share Posted November 7, 2005 yes, I'm still not able to work on it intensively. It's not that I bogged down. It's that I had (and still have) too much real life work. But there were quite a few designers that applied for the ART department. How about them? How are they going btw? cheers, Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 7, 2005 Report Share Posted November 7, 2005 We have gotten one or two good ones, but they are primarily 2d aritsts not designers. I've not see any that are good graphic designers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATeX Posted November 7, 2005 Report Share Posted November 7, 2005 ok, time to bump the topics on the recruiting forums then. I'll do that this evening. With a little bit of luck, we might attract some more artists then. cya later, Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted November 7, 2005 Report Share Posted November 7, 2005 I was thinking more along the lines of a fixed scale. I'm not too fond of websites that stretch themselves out to fill whatever size browser I have. They tend to be a little contrived and wasteful on their use of space. BLank space helps pad the boundaries and draw attention to the site iteself. That said I'm not opposed to dynamically scaling it to properly fill the screen at higher resolutions. My screen back home is @ 1280x1024 and I'm not bothered too much by the blank space around it. I'm designing the site for 800x600 res. so maybe use the CSS points instead of px call for text and size. I take issue with sites that only use 700px of my 1280px width. Especially if they scroll down three pages or so. What about designing for 1024x768? That seems to be a pretty common one among gamers. In my very humble opinion, anyone that runs 800x600 or lower deserves to be shot. That said, I do agree that sites that dynamically size themselves do sometimes look a bit odd. However, if there were a couple points in the design that were setup to expand horizontally, the designs usually work. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 7, 2005 Report Share Posted November 7, 2005 actually a majority of the population still uses 1024x768 and 800x600 (combined something 80%) with 25 to 30% using 800x600. and to cater to the lowest common denominator (considering it is still quite a chunk of the visiting populace) the site should be designed for 800x600. Using CSS measurments not tied to pixels should look fine on most screen resolutions even if the page doesn't dynamically scale horizontally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted November 7, 2005 Report Share Posted November 7, 2005 I'm just saying that my personal preference is sites that don't waste space. There have been some really bad designs that do this, and some designs that are optimized for 800x600 that aren't bad. Two sites that I take some issue with:http://dystopia-game.com/ - The left side image means that space is dead lower on the screen. The right side panels are blank lower on the page, leading to even more dead space. The effective width of the page is about a third of my screen size, or just over 400px. Long posts with lots of text end up scrolling vertically, something I don't like.http://www.ivslo.org/ - Again, wasted space below the nav-menu on the left side. Wasted space = scrolling. A statistics source claims the number of people using 800x600 or less is about 23%, with the rest at 1024 or higher. I can add in some statistical reporting to the xenocide site to gather resolution stats for our visitors. As an aside, it is possible to determine the resolution of a user's browser through javascript. So it is possible to create layouts optimized for both, and have it dynamically selected. Probably a bad idea though. Just my personal beef. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 7, 2005 Report Share Posted November 7, 2005 yeah having 2 layouts for different res is a pain to update. and any demographics on the resolution of most of our visitors would be good to determine what we need. 23% is still more than enough to warrent designing for 800x600. however the final version will use more of the horizontal width. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 7, 2005 Report Share Posted November 7, 2005 A small update but I think this refine most of the functionality and solidifys the layout a bit more. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted November 7, 2005 Report Share Posted November 7, 2005 (edited) Looks good. I'll probably be working to get some basic framework working for the programing aspect. For the last couple hours, here's the resolution breakdown. This will become a bit more solid after a couple days or weeks.1024x768 56 % 1280x1024 25 % 800x600 8.3 % 1152x864 4.5 % 1280x960 3 % Others 3 % Edited November 7, 2005 by mindstormmaster Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
red knight Posted November 9, 2005 Author Report Share Posted November 9, 2005 Looking very good so far. Excelent work. GreetingsFederico Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 Small update: Site has been resized to fill a maximised browser window @ 1024x768 after we looked over the demographics for our visitors. The overall layout has been tightened up and added the info on the status bar as an idea... we could put past pictures of the day up there or quick links to news topics. For other pages like the gallery it could be a menu section for easy access to the subsections. There are some color tweaks I want to make before I give the layout its final polish. Any major changes ot things I missed we need on the page? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 News: Are we going to have all news listed on the main site? or do we have an age-cutoff? or do we need a "View Older News" (or something like it) button ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 I like the idea of the putting information in the status bar. I think we should only use it for certain pages though. The news page definetly should have the current status, though I don't know about the "project status". Downloads could have the current release, and the gallery could have a random image from each category. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 News: Are we going to have all news listed on the main site? or do we have an age-cutoff? or do we need a "View Older News" (or something like it) button ? There will be a cutoff, so yes there will need to be a "view older" link. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 I like the idea of the putting information in the status bar. I think we should only use it for certain pages though. The news page definetly should have the current status, though I don't know about the "project status". Downloads could have the current release, and the gallery could have a random image from each category.<{POST_SNAPBACK}>Yeah, we not always know when the next release is due. Or do we? (if we do, that's news to me ) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 Is is possible to create our own paypal button that will match with the color scheme? Or just move it into a "panel"? I'm going to setup an automatic tracking of our donations, so it will be possible to have a count of our current funds if we so desired. Or we could set monthly targets and have a progress bar type thing. I'm going to work up a better site map/flow diagram and post that. Hopefully that'll be up tonight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 (edited) I don't know if we can or can't change the paypal button so thats why I left it how it is. for the gallery page instead of a random image I think it would be much more effective to have the image categories up there. What we end up putting on the main page status section I'm not really partial but it needs to fill the area reasonably well or we should just leave it blank. Edited November 10, 2005 by Vaaish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 Here's a rough outline of the site map. A good portion of the pages shown are administrative. I'll see if I can get some page descriptions together soon. These should actually tell you what's on the page, and where and how they link to. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[[Micah]] Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 The PayPal buttong could easily be redesigned however we want it. PayPal does not stipulate what the button/link must look like. Here is some demographic data taken from a counter attached to www.projectxenocide.com/index.html for the month of October 2005. 1024x768 48% (2,482) 1280x1024 27% (1,392) 1152x864 5% (273) 800x600 5% (269) 1280x960 3% (165) 1600x1200 3% (149) 1280x800 2% (122) Unknown 1% (77) 1400x1050 1% (73) 1680x1050 1% (42) 1920x1200 1% (36) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATeX Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 that means 1024x768 is the way to go. cheers, Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 yup the site has allready been adapted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATeX Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 great! that was fast. Can't wait to see it. cheers, Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 you already have... it was in the last pic I posted Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 (edited) ok, next layout update. I've added in a couple of menu options and other layout changes that Mindstorm and I talked about and increased the number of news entries placed. I think this is ready for cleanup and finalization. Edited November 10, 2005 by Vaaish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted November 10, 2005 Report Share Posted November 10, 2005 Very nice. I think we're just missing a "register" link from the login box. Or is this with the "Join"? Or is registration done from the administrative side and the account details sent to the user? Also, maybe include the "login" panel after a user has logged in. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest Azrael Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 Is this Site going to direct to XCOMUFO? or Xenocide-specific forums? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATeX Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 great work! cheers, Thomas Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[mindstormmaster] Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 Is this Site going to direct to XCOMUFO? or Xenocide-specific forums? It should go straight to the xenocide specific forums. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 Very nice. I think we're just missing a "register" link from the login box. Or is this with the "Join"? Or is registration done from the administrative side and the account details sent to the user? Also, maybe include the "login" panel after a user has logged in. I was thinking that account details would be sent with the "join" function if they had been accepted as a recruit in xenocide. I plan to include the afterlogin page once everything else on the front is tied down Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaaish Posted November 11, 2005 Report Share Posted November 11, 2005 (edited) Final update to the main page functionality. I am also kind of partial to the simple, clean layout and not going back in and adding eye candy. Tell me what you guys think, if yu are good with it we wil leave it as is and start on subpages. Edited November 11, 2005 by Vaaish Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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