New Spring site design, I need your feedback.

TradeMark · Post by **TradeMark** » 26 Jul 2007, 17:41

i lolled at this: http://www.oswd.org/design/preview/id/3360

looks like freewebs.com layouts...

beejayzed · Post by **beejayzed** » 02 Aug 2007, 03:27

Looks nice, but unfortunately adzapper (a plugin for proxies like squid) blocks the header.
The reason is that the header images have the word banner in them. (99% don't, and most images with banner in them are ads, which is why they are blocked).
Since the layout is still in development I thought I'd mention that.

Unfortunately I'm not allowed to post images to show what it looks like.

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 02 Aug 2007, 14:42

That's good to know, I will look into it.
Thanks!

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 07 Aug 2007, 14:29

Update:
http://newspring.clan-sy.com/index.php

It's the new site development environment, here we can play around, get feedback, test stuff and develop things before we move it to spring.clan-sy.com.
The wiki is dysfunctional but the rest should work more or less.
It has a few changes from site12 at my own domain so take a look.

blublub · Post by **blublub** » 07 Aug 2007, 19:58

why is there no krogo in the banner ??

u want more ppl to come show them the mighty krogoth !

seriously now it woudl be cool if banner woudl randomly change in nice battle spots (make it dymamic or one scene for one user session) and another thing there shoudl be a krogo in the banner

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 07 Aug 2007, 21:41

please get rid of the bullet images, they look unprofessional. Also check the site at different resolutions. On mine it looks awful. 1400X900.

AF · Post by AF » 07 Aug 2007, 21:49

Please post screenshots.

Also, the site is in the svn. If you have an issue, start a thread in the development forum, and state:

what your problem is
what it should do
how your going to fix it
justify why its needed

Then if everybody agrees, implement it and submit the patch and hey presto.

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 07 Aug 2007, 23:29

I can't find any real problems at 1400 x 900, I run 1680 x 1050 myself and it's quite alright here. So if you can paste a screenshot of the problem that would help indeed.

As for the fact that the site is in svn, you can indeed participate in site development. I wrote down a development process here (chapter 2.1 at this time). It's a little more detailed then the summery AF gave but the idea is that it would allow people to participate in a constructive way very easily.

Satirik · Post by **Satirik** » 08 Aug 2007, 00:56

the header is awful

AF · Post by AF » 08 Aug 2007, 03:27

I dont see a thread saying that its awful, why its awful, what it should be replaced with, and how it should be done. It isnt hard, it could be 2 or 3 lines at most, 1 line even.

smoth · Post by **smoth** » 08 Aug 2007, 05:01

cong06 · Post by **cong06** » 08 Aug 2007, 05:04

blublub wrote:why is there no krogo in the banner ??

u want more ppl to come show them the mighty krogoth !

seriously now it woudl be cool if banner woudl randomly change in nice battle spots (make it dymamic or one scene for one user session) and another thing there shoudl be a krogo in the banner

I'm quite content with the banner. Looks flashy, good color balance, and not too foggy.

It shows war, but not dirt. the only thing weird is the transition from the Green/yellow to the gray tower.

I also think that the space under the "download category is a bit big...not sure what should go there to fit.

Lastly, It seems to make more sense to have the Introduction category near the top for new players...(is it possible to have it pull from cookies to see if the viewer visited the site before? probably not worth it though...)

anyway. here's a picture to demonstrate.

aGorm · Post by **aGorm** » 08 Aug 2007, 10:19

Im with smoth... infact if the site was changed to that Id no longer be able to log on. The current one is better than that is.

Your problem is your trying to build two sites in to 1... you need a very glam site for new people, and a functional site for the people that are already intrested.

Take a look at almost ANY game site... its 90 percent eye caddy!

Then if you click into teh site far enough the layour changes into somthing more functional, wit htehg forums, wiki ect...

I keep hoping this layout your doing is goona suddenly become apealing, but it just isnt.

Sorry... cause I know your working on it. Just I realy dislike it.

aGorm

AF · Post by AF » 08 Aug 2007, 12:22

This isnt tims website, this is OUR website.

If you want somethign changed, follow the development procedure and suggest a change and if nobody objects you or someone else can go ahead and do the business and the site will be changed.

By now you guys could have written 6 or 7 threads saying something should be changed what it should be changed to and why.

SO later on in my day instead of seeing 6 or 7 threads about the site with people in agreement I see nothing. This means that instead of implementing your changes I'm surfing the web and doing stuff elsewhere and that site isnt improving.

So please, follow the procedure, because otherwise everything you say here is pretty much pointless unless its about broken formatting (help the site turns into a banana picture under xyz browser!!).

SwiftSpear · Post by **SwiftSpear** » 08 Aug 2007, 13:11

Smoth made exactly the same critique I did forever ago. Remove the useless gradients and use a sensical title image and background already.

FFS, the new features on the site are cool and all, but it's too ugly to replace the current site.

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 08 Aug 2007, 13:45

First a more general remark, can you people also look and give comments on the other pages? It starts to look like painting a bikeshed as there is a lot of repeating feedback on the entry page, I know that the site (especially the banner) needs graphics work and I also told you guy's that it's not my (as in everybody is free to get at it) focus anymore.

@AF
Calm down,

the development process is just new and we still have to learn to use it in practice. But other then that yes you're right it's the new site, it will be the site Spring uses and everybody can change anything if they follow the dev. process.

@smoth and SwiftSpear
http://www.timblokdijk.nl/spring/Images ... ed1qk4.jpg I added a few numbers.
1. I talked to Neuralize about him setting up a yearly Spring logo design competition, but other then our discussion I haven't seen him make any more attempts at setting it up.
2. I agree, it's just a quick effect I did not even bother making a real source file for it, can you make a replacement? With a gimp xcf source file if possible.
3. Softmoreish?
4. Yes, banner needs, work I don't know if I will get to it as I like to focus on other parts of the site, you are free to make a better banner. (logo source, but be aware that there is this idea to have a logo competition floating around.)
5. It's a simple effect for a one pixel width image. Please keep that in mind the lighter the site is on the connection the better.

@cong06
Highlight has to much text in it at this moment, both download and highlight should be 10-20 words. It's just that the code that reads the forum posts is not fully functional. It's at the top of my list so it will get fixed soon.

@aGorm
No longer able to log on?
And yes I'm trying to "build two sites into one" the entry page is for "new Spring gamers" not for the existing player base.
Give comments on the other pages like the messageboard that has a wider base now for example that would be interesting for people like you.
Maybe you can try the translation page see if it's functional so you could maintain the site text with it?
Don't expect me to make big layout changes, I'm focusing on other parts of the site, people like you, smoth, argh and af will have to get your hands dirty. If you like big changes in the graphics department. I wrote the development process to make teamwork possible with the site.

AF · Post by AF » 08 Aug 2007, 14:04

In Opera the development and language pulldown menus overlay the development and About Us buttons

And I already made a replacement logo and provided psd and png versions

Satirik · Post by **Satirik** » 08 Aug 2007, 14:24

just added the header french translation and it doesn't select french automaticly as sayed in the first post, each time I change page it reselects english

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 08 Aug 2007, 14:27

AF wrote:In Opera the development and language pulldown menus overlay the development and About Us buttons

And I already made a replacement logo and provided psd and png versions

I know about Opera, IE also has problems with them I will fix them soonish.
And about the logo files you send me, let me quote myself:

Tim Blokdijk wrote:... I talked to Neuralize about him setting up a yearly Spring logo design competition, but other then our discussion I haven't seen him make any more attempts at setting it up. ...

and

Tim Blokdijk wrote:...
More practical, do you prefer GIMP or PhotoShop?
AF and I ran into some trouble with that.
PhotoShop is not available for Linux. (although I still have to try wine)
It has a closed format.
It's very expensive.
Not open source.

GIMP is overall behind in features and development is crawling forward as in the gap between GIMP and PhotoShop seems to grow not shrink.
I'm not aware of any real alternatives in the raster graphics section.
Corel Draw for Linux is discontinued as far as I know and still closed (format and source) and expensive.
The rest is vector based.

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 08 Aug 2007, 14:31

Satirik wrote:just added the header french translation and it doesn't select french automaticly as sayed in the first post, each time I change page it reselects english

Yes, that's indeed a big problem I like to fix soon.
You can select a language manually like so http://newspring.clan-sy.com/news?language=french (put ?language=french behind it.)

Spring RTS Engine

New Spring site design, I need your feedback.