New Spring site design, I need your feedback.

[smoth]

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.

the logo is fine, the way you did it is not.

2. I agree, it's just a quick effect I did not even bother making a real source file for it, can you

Remove it, you do a 1 pixel wide bg and then do gradients on the tables which then wastes what bandwidth you saved.

3. Softmoreish?

childish, like it was your first time, very much like a beginner would choose. Nothing insulting but it does mean you did do what I would have done in the 90s back when I was just beginning in web layouts and graphical design.

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 define

The banner needs some scan lines or something to put it further in the background. It has vibrant colors, not a good thing when you have text displayed on it. You would be better off making the text part of the image that way you can do outer glows etc to make it show more.

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.

solid color is better in this situation

[AF]

Tim, the vast majority of people on thsi planet arent going to learn Gimp so that they can make a logo.

Suffice to say the majority of applications for any logo competition will be in either PSD form or in a raster format like the png I sent you.

Ontop of that the way you've done it means you're guaranteed it has to be either a gif or png at least as theyre the 2 most popular image formats with transparency support.

And my psd is openable in gimp, it just lacks the blend layer, for which there are only the outer glow, and an alpha setting.

Also a logo competition would need to be endorsed by Tobi. imo there is no need for a new logo its just something that some people want, and therell always be people who dont like the logo.

In the mean time I shall apply all your arguements against yourself, only because xcf is extremely version specific and opens only in Gimp, theyre now much much more applicable than when theyre applied to my image.

So please dont just dismiss my updated spring logo. Its not a fancy new design, its just a fix to make the logo look more like the existing logo in our current banner with a little improvement.

[aGorm]

I always though something mroe liek this would be better.

aGorm

[Tim Blokdijk]

@smoth

1. Ahh, that logo is just sexy. Anyway how about some logo competition?
2. Alright I can remove it.
3. Can you make something better?
4. I can't make text part of the picture as that would conflict with the translation system. (can't translate a picture) Still you can make the glow part of the picture to some extend. Maybe in some future version of the site we could implement some picture generator like http://net-fu.sourceforge.net/ but that is not on my radar.
5. I like the site to have some effects in it like that gradient as the current site is a bit pale. But I will see how a solid colour looks ok.

[Tim Blokdijk]

@AF

First off, I'm not dismissing your logo!
And I'm also fine with using psd for the site as source files but that will exclude me and all other Linux users as contributors to the graphical side of the site.
Gimp is not a great alternative to photoshop, but it's cross-platform and the only real raster application I can use on my system.

And I think we need to have some competition as I like my logo, just like you guy's like yours.

[Tim Blokdijk]

...

I always though something mroe liek this would be better.

aGorm

Why don't you make a Star Wars theme for the site? Then you can make a total new layout like that.

[MelTraX]

I'm back in the game now..

About the ladder site: I don't know what Phoz is doing but the topic in #league says "Phoz is making us a ladder" so I probably don't have to do it.. Maybe you could get in touch with him so you (both) can integrate his ladder into the main site..

About my slideshow: I already did some work a few weeks ago but didn't post it because I wouldn't have had time to answer questions/suggestions..

Now here is my current version: http://tinyurl.com/2unsb8

I still need to point the links to the right images and some other stuff but as you can see the slideshows slide..

I'll send you a patch as soon as I get everything to work..

[very_bad_soldier]

I really like Agorm's version.

[Tim Blokdijk]

@MelTraX
I also don't know what Phoz is doing with a ladder, but I'm to busy with the other things that need work that I'm not going to do work on a ladder. Someone else will have to take the lead on that one.

The slideshow looks quite nice.
There are two things that I did notice besides the linking, clicking the pictures will open a new window (I think that's the non-javascript behaviour) and the same thumbnails are displayed at the same time.

@very_bad_soldier
Yes, me to. aGorm I'm quite serious about you making a Star Wars theme.

[MelTraX]

Phoz is taking the lead.. It would just be about the site-integration.. But a stand-alone page is probably fine.. We can't include everything in the main page anyway.. That's what links are for :D..

The new window stuff is because I didn't touch the links yet.. And I don't think the same thumbail thing will be a problem if there are ~100 screenshots on the server and only ~3-5 slideshows.. But ofc I could give each slideshow a distinct set of images..

[Tim Blokdijk]

Integrating the ladder into the site is a given I just like to see someone (Phoz) take a active lead on it.
And I'm looking forward to the finished slideshow.

[MelTraX]

Should I make the image sets for the slideshows distinct?

[Tim Blokdijk]

I would do something to prevent the same thumbnails to show but how to implement it is not that important I think.
I fixed it by letting them cycle in a linear fashion, but if you like to have it random then I would check to see if the thumbnail is already loaded in one of the slideshows before changing the slideshow with the new thumbnail.

[MelTraX]

OK, done.. Now each screenshot can only be in one the slideshows.. It's the easiest way.. Shouldn't matter anyway if we have enough screenshots..

edit: hmm, doesn't work yet

edit2: now it should .. and it doesn't change the image onload anymore..

[Tim Blokdijk]

Seems to do the trick, I would have to study the code to see how hard it would be to implement it the way I suggested it but the slideshows seems to work ok now.
I do get a JavaScript error here in firebug but I guess you are aware.
Keep it up anyway.

[MelTraX]

Hmm, yeah, I just saw.. But that's not mine.. Maybe some leftover from the old slideshow..

Since I might help out with the site a little more, I have some questions:

Why are you planning to use a different set of php files per theme? Don't you think a good use of divs and a css per skin would do the trick? A la CSS Zen Garden.. It would make making a skin for the site more attractive if you ask me..

Why do you have kinda identical files in the www-root directory? Why not make it one php script that gets a content or page variable and then use mod_rewrite to make the URLs pretty..

Why do you develop with error_reporting(0)? All those warnings would drive me nuts if it would be my page..

Also include/session.php and include/functions.php seem to be pretty identical.. I'm assuming you're switching from one to the other atm..

Don't take this as "you're stupid, I can do better".. It's just that I like to understand why you did it that way.. And if it's just "yeah, didn't have time yet to do it better" I could help out..

[SwiftSpear]

The image you use for #5 is really really really ugly... It may be a simple effect but it doesn't look like anything. It's just a massive distraction in the background.

[Tim Blokdijk]

Initially I made it so that you had to use css for themes (like CSS Zen Garden) but there are two reasons why I moved it all to the theme. The most important is that you can't change the html structure with css, so if you would like to add a second screenshot panel for example you would not get it done with just css. And I did not like to see anybody try to use JavaScript to add something like that. Second is that not everybody has good css skills, html is more broadly understood by people lowering the barrier to make a theme.

The identical files in the www-root dir used to have the html structure. I don't know yet what the "best way" to do this is, I like to use generated static html files to make the language system work with mod_negotiation, I know what mod_rewrite is but never used it, I don't know if we can mix both without breaking the language detection.

I never changed anything in the error reporting, I belive Fnordia did something with it in the overal config files of the dev. env. but I did not look into it.

session.php should be gone, I moved it to functions.php some time ago.
I guess svn did not delete it on your end?

And be assured that I don't know how to use everything, I'm sure you can do things better in a lot of places. I had to read up on .htaccess files for example a few weeks back as I never used them. If i had to change Apaches config I always used the general config files.
Anyway I'm very happy with your questions as I would love some broad teamwork on this thing. And it also gives me a good insight on where I can improve the documentation.

[SwiftSpear]

Tim, the vast majority of people on thsi planet arent going to learn Gimp so that they can make a logo.

Suffice to say the majority of applications for any logo competition will be in either PSD form or in a raster format like the png I sent you.

Ontop of that the way you've done it means you're guaranteed it has to be either a gif or png at least as theyre the 2 most popular image formats with transparency support.

And my psd is openable in gimp, it just lacks the blend layer, for which there are only the outer glow, and an alpha setting.

Also a logo competition would need to be endorsed by Tobi. imo there is no need for a new logo its just something that some people want, and therell always be people who dont like the logo.

In the mean time I shall apply all your arguements against yourself, only because xcf is extremely version specific and opens only in Gimp, theyre now much much more applicable than when theyre applied to my image.

So please dont just dismiss my updated spring logo. Its not a fancy new design, its just a fix to make the logo look more like the existing logo in our current banner with a little improvement.

Gimp can rip a PSD to it's native format anyways...

[Tim Blokdijk]

You mean bug free? Can you tell me more about that?