Thought [on web page]

[AF]

There would be no news or videos on the frontpage,

What is the point

This is the point:

• This is an RTS engine
• We're free
• Click here for details
• Click here for visuals
• Cleaner more obvious menu

A video:

• Takes up bandwidth
• Needs to be played
• Draws all attention to itself, or no attention at all ( making it worthless)
• Requires more effort to create
• Needs to be maintained
• Clashes with the design of the rest of the site unless the entire frontpage is designed around it as the focus

News:

• Is wordy and texty and runs counter to the goal of drawing people in
• Has been poorly done with no images
• Is irrelevant to most users
• Has little use beyond notifying users that new news items exist, so why not just use the titles and link to the full post?

At most I would say show the top 2 news items, and show their titles only. The frontpage is the landing page for most people, lets resist the urge to put everything on it and make it clear, focused, and effective. There's no reason to put something on there when we can link to another page.


So where would News and Videos go?

On the news and the videos page. I'd much rather have a full sized video pane with thumbnails or tiles underneath showing other videos, than a poxy little box on the frontpage like we have now that doesn't do them justice.

I'd also much prefer News to have a dedicated page showing full news items in all their glory in a dedicated format, rather than them being squished and compromised to fit on the frontpage like we do now.

But I like the current homepage

Good it did its job for you, but it's not aimed at you anymore, you're already in the bucket, it's the fish out there that need hooking, and our hook is old and rusty. Lets design for those people, lets not preach to the choir.

[FLOZi]

A page that shows nothing but a fancy animation is worthless.

And perhaps you didn't click the link, but i was being passive aggressive - it was the AFLobby wiki page you specifically asked me to keep. Which is also nothing but a series of images, some completely unrelated.

Please, no style over substance. (worth taking a look at current CSS3 support also http://www.findmebyip.com/litmus/ )

It doesn't have to be news (though its not unheard of http://www.ogre3d.org/) but there should be some real content or highlighting of features e.g.

http://unity3d.com/
http://www.garagegames.com/products/torque-3d
http://www.panda3d.org/
http://mycryengine.com/

But in reality I'll be happy so long as the wiki and forum remain in a fixed-width layout (and sadly what are the chances of that)

[knorke]

imo springrts.com is fine, except for
-The News somehow turned into "latest uploads to springfiles."
That produces many links on front page NOBODY cares about. Should new players first link be http://springfiles.com/spring/spring-maps/trololo ?
-some content (more things on wiki blabla)
-some links are stupid, it is not clear where to start playing (or creating):
Of the 3 big links on front page ("Learn More", "Download and Play", "See the games") only "See the games" is good.

Welcome to the Spring Engine website!
Spring is a powerful free RTS engine developed for Windows and Linux

windows links to http://springrts.com/wiki/Read_Me_First
Linux links to http://springrts.com/wiki/SetupGuide
imo those links should be removed.
There is no clear path how to start having fun and the links are kind of bouncing visitors around. (Too many subpages that try to be a "how to start playing" but none that is really good)

The tabs at front page above the video:
Videos|Screenshots|Show More!
all link to the same page.

And more stuff which is useless to write down.
But none of it requires a new layout to fix..

[smoth]

^ what knorke said.

[Forboding Angel]

The new shit on springfiles stuff has generated a LOT of traffic. I don't like it either, but sex sells.

You guys are all entirely missing the big picture here. You should probably read af's post again and think it through with a clear head.

Gimme a bit I'll post an mspaint depicting the general idea. You guys somehow got way off the trolly on the idea.

[knorke]

The new shit on springfiles stuff has generated a LOT of traffic. I don't like it either, but sex sells.

Except it is not sex, but viagara spam.

[AF]

CSS3 animation support is irrelevant as it only affects browsers that support it. Browsers with no support for it will just render the image in its final resting place with no transition.

Also it DOES showcase content. That ground at the bottom has to come from somewhere no? Does a scene with a set of gundam units fighting on a Smoth map with an air type mobile suit where the aircraft goes not help games while saying play the fuck out of this all while being rather passive and remaining on the engine as the focus? It gives far more limelight than a mere banner with a logo.

If at any point we have a half decent video showcasing the engine that isnt just "Giant spring logo, photoshop filter, Here's ZK, now here's BA, photoshop filters, here's Evo, here's etc " then we can put that where the aircraft is and move the text on the left underneath and make it full width.



Forum width wise, fluid width with a max width of 600px for the actual content. Which is close to what we currently have. Makes it readable on iPhones and iPads, but doesn't leave us with super long lines on widescreen monitors.

[AF]

The new shit on springfiles stuff has generated a LOT of traffic. I don't like it either, but sex sells.

Except it is not sex, but viagara spam.

The feed used by sprignrts.com isnt the only feed springinfo is spitting out. If you don't like it, filter out the content category in the URL you're requesting.

As usual, every URL in wordpress can be turned into an RSS feed by adding /feed/ to the end

[Forboding Angel]

But in reality I'll be happy so long as the wiki and forum remain in a fixed-width layout (and sadly what are the chances of that)

Pretty decent actually. Probably would be widened by 250 pixels or so (width of 999/1000 - that way it fits nicely + scrollbars on a netbook screen of 1024x600), but still fixed.

Flozi, you in particular are so opposed and fearful of change, it's discouraging. That also gets in your way of seeing any future.

[Forboding Angel]

The new shit on springfiles stuff has generated a LOT of traffic. I don't like it either, but sex sells.

Except it is not sex, but viagara spam.

The feed used by sprignrts.com isnt the only feed springinfo is spitting out. If you don't like it, filter out the content category in the URL you're requesting.

^^ this is very true. Springinfo spits out 15 gazillion different rss feeds and it would be quite easy to filter it by just switching the feed used. But oh wait, to do that, you ahve to make a commit to git. lawl

[AF]

If anyone does change the feed, could they also change the cache time from 3 minutes to an hour?

[Forboding Angel]

It's cache time is 3 minutes?? Oh good god, no wonder the server gets repeatedly hammered.

[SanadaUjiosan]

I don't support either side, as I'm content with what we have now but wouldn't oppose some kind of face lift.

AF is clearly trying to modernize Spring's image, and while I respect that, I will say I find it frustrating when game websites are all flash and no bang. I like sites with information on them. I agree with Knorke and Smoth and the others who feel we need a change, but it doesn't warrant a complete overhaul.

But, I wouldn't be opposed to an overhaul if it ended up being better, of course.

[knorke]

The feed used by sprignrts.com isnt the only feed springinfo is spitting out. If you don't like it, filter out the content category in the URL you're requesting.

I have no idea how to do this. I only notice when you visit springrts.com you are greeted with taken-out-of-context downloads that are not helpful or interessting. (3 frontpage worth news out of 20 links)
Please make it stop kkthx.

[FLOZi]

Flozi, you in particular are so opposed and fearful of change, it's discouraging. That also gets in your way of seeing any future.

Thanks for the laughs.

[hoijui]

i agree with knorke and with AF, just that i am not sure if an animation is needed (i personally would preffer none, as it is at best cool the first time, and is likely already annpoying the 2nd one you se the site).

[AF]

The feed used by sprignrts.com isnt the only feed springinfo is spitting out. If you don't like it, filter out the content category in the URL you're requesting.

I have no idea how to do this. I only notice when you visit springrts.com you are greeted with taken-out-of-context downloads that are not helpful or interessting. (3 frontpage worth news out of 20 links)
Please make it stop kkthx.

Theres a git repo on github, fork it and edit a php file. It's straight forward PHP code, nothing complex, no super fantastic framework dependencies to account for.

You should be able to do all the work through the github web frontend, it'll let you edit a file and commit in one step, just fork the repo, make your change, and make a pull request.


That feed on the frontpage is merely a band aid anyway that covers up that we rarely have any news, and lets people know the community isn't dead as a dodo.

AF is clearly trying to modernize Spring's image, and while I respect that, I will say I find it frustrating when game websites are all flash and no bang. I like sites with information on them. I agree with Knorke and Smoth and the others who feel we need a change, but it doesn't warrant a complete overhaul.

I would posit that right now we have neither flash bang or relevant information. What information we have is poorly presented. Roflcopters design didn't take into account non-desktops, or the rest of the site. Its implementation was done using the standards of 1997, and without consultation or warning. It looked pretty, but in practise its unmanageable and has about 10-20 calls to action.

The paradigm of how games advertise themselves, how projects are ran, and how the engine is developed, has changed since then. We need to start coming up with ideas on how to streamline the site so it's more focused, effective, and easier to maintain.

WordPress can manage this for the main site pages very well, especially where media is concerned. Handling image galleries with WordPress is a solved problem, go look at the new Balanced Annihilation site for an example. There's already plenty of videos on youtube we can pull in too and there's code out of the box to put them up nice and big.

[AF]

i agree with knorke and with AF, just that i am not sure if an animation is needed (i personally would preffer none, as it is at best cool the first time, and is likely already annpoying the 2nd one you se the site).

I intend to put out design guidelines limiting animations to a maximum duration of 1 second and 1 movement from A to B, no compound animations, no long running animations, no javascript animations save for dedicated feature pages (I sincerely doubt anybody will be arsed with feature pages like that).

[AF]

For SpringInfo feed, minus the SpringFiles content:

http://www.springinfo.info/feed/?cat=-2257

[knorke]

For SpringInfo feed, minus the SpringFiles content:
http://www.springinfo.info/feed/?cat=-2257

Much better. Now put it on frontpage.
I won't because I cba to sign up for an account to change 4 numbers.

That feed on the frontpage is merely a band aid anyway that covers up that we rarely have any news, and lets people know the community isn't dead as a dodo.

13 news for this year already, that means one news thing every 4 days or so. Good enough!
Even just 1 thing every week is ok. If more spam articles are needed to look active you can add my interblog where I write about my daily bowel movement. though lately it has not been as daily as it used to be :/

go look at the new Balanced Annihilation site for an example

I did, it is terrible.