New Spring site design, I need your feedback.

Relative · Post by **Relative** » 12 Jun 2007, 23:20

I'm having an issue with the drop down menus; both of them are open by default when open the page. Is it meant to do that?

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 13 Jun 2007, 13:59

They start open as otherwise people with JavaScript disabled can't use them, I could try to make them slide in and out?
I will try some things with it..

I only have a little problem that this morning some new things poped up at work so can't play with the site right now.

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 14 Jun 2007, 22:57

I had a chat with the friendly guy's over at my hosting provider and now I have myself hosted on another server that can do the things I need for Spring's site.
No need to open up my home system to the world any more.
http://www.timblokdijk.nl/spring/spring-site10/
It's still the same as the last version I posted here, you're all still invited to comment of course.

very_bad_soldier · Post by **very_bad_soldier** » 15 Jun 2007, 02:39

I like it, its pretty cool. But what i not like is the gap in the topbanner between the left and the right part. It looks IMO a bit strange. I think a continuous banner would look better.

CaptainMaim · Post by **CaptainMaim** » 15 Jun 2007, 04:35

It looks alright, I'll kinda miss the news and the wiki on the side though.

It looks good for showing new people what the game's about, though I'm not sure what mod those pictures are from.

You might want to run a spell checker over it before you finalize it.

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 17 Jun 2007, 00:42

clericvash wrote:If you want something to display posts from a forum and do it well i can actually recommend my own phpbb mod Topic Extraction - http://www.phpbbhacks.com/download/3859

That should answer what tobi said.

I took a peak at the code, should work I think but it has a few problems..
My biggest problem is that it's procedural PHP, it lacks any abstraction in functions.
I can't find any license information?
And phpbb3 will need "changes". (but I don't know how much)

Would it be possible to use the phpbb internal parser?

TradeMark · Post by **TradeMark** » 17 Jun 2007, 01:35

I dont like that layout, its confusing / too big text/other elements too big... and javascript lists are a bad idea... and you shouldnt use nanoblobs as example of this engine... it gives somewhat wrong/boring picture of the game... there is zero TA mod images, which is weird, because Spring was made from TA... and most players playes TA based mods...

Also that list

Spring Features

Video's are availeble if you have a flash player installed and JavaScript enabled.
→ Massive battles.
→ Cool explosions.
→ Deformable terain.
→ Water effects.
→ Phisics.
→ 1st person control.

gives me that feeling you are pushing the game to me, so i can download it and its spyware/malware in it, and install some google toolbars with it etc bullshit...

Use less ! marks so it feels more professional, and less pushing the game to the page browser...

Also those news/community news should be at the top of the page...

introduction is bullshit, nobody reads it anyways. same with "highlight" which i dont get, why is that there... Download shouldnt have separate box at the first page, it gives the feeling you are pushing the game to me so i can download the trojans with it.. etc...

get rid of those javascript lists, they suck and they are useless, nobody cares about themes or languages so much that they should have special place which covers half of the right side of page. Language list could be done with normal <select> tags with HTML and with some CSS styles...
And that javascript doesnt even work with IE properly, which made me pissed of that list...

Also, dont oversell the product, dont say its the best, like "Enjoy taking RTS gaming to the highest level!"
that also makes people sad when they notice its not so good...

Boirunner · Post by **Boirunner** » 17 Jun 2007, 18:28

TradeMark wrote: introduction is bullshit, nobody reads it anyways.

I disagree. When visiting a website for the first time, I want a short overview of what the fuss is all about. Something like

"Spring is an open source, multi-platform game engine for multiplayer real time strategy games. It was initially developed to be able to run content from the 1997 Cavedog game Total Annihilation, and most of the games played on Spring are derivations of Total Annihilation gameplay. However, the engine now offers possibilities that go beyond those of Total Annihilation, and many mods have been developed that are not based on it."

Post by **jcnossen** » 17 Jun 2007, 18:36

introduction is bullshit, nobody reads it anyways. same with "highlight" which i dont get, why is that there... Download shouldnt have separate box at the first page, it gives the feeling you are pushing the game to me so i can download the trojans with it.. etc...

=crap

Obscure download links really annoy me, I just want a big download button when I go to some site I don't really know.

And you do need introduction just to let people know what it is they're going to download

TradeMark · Post by **TradeMark** » 18 Jun 2007, 11:45

Well short sentence which tells about the game is ok, but what i saw in that page, that introduction took half of the page.

Obscure download links really annoy me, I just want a big download button when I go to some site I don't really know.

Yeah, but if the page is designed well, you can easily find the download link from the menu. Download page also could give more than one mirror, for faster downloading.

clericvash · Post by **clericvash** » 18 Jun 2007, 14:30

Tim Blokdijk wrote:
clericvash wrote:If you want something to display posts from a forum and do it well i can actually recommend my own phpbb mod Topic Extraction - http://www.phpbbhacks.com/download/3859

That should answer what tobi said.
I took a peak at the code, should work I think but it has a few problems..
My biggest problem is that it's procedural PHP, it lacks any abstraction in functions.
I can't find any license information?
And phpbb3 will need "changes". (but I don't know how much)

Would it be possible to use the phpbb internal parser?

It is under the GPL license, why do you need to use the internal phpbb parser? (if you mean for bbcode i did plan to upgrade it to use the phpbb parser).

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 18 Jun 2007, 17:53

The internal phpbb parser gets maintained by the phpbb group. If I just would have to include some code that gives me the classes that parse the bbcode I would be done. (in an ideal world)

Anyway I would love to work with you on this one clericvash. Do you know how to use svn?

clericvash · Post by **clericvash** » 18 Jun 2007, 18:17

I have honestly never used SVN in my life, but it would be nice to work with you, i am in the process of getting my website back up, after that i will sort out my phpbb mod so it can use phpbb's internal parser :)

clericvash · Post by **clericvash** » 18 Jun 2007, 18:19

Ps. As many have suggested the homepage needs cleaning up a lot, there needs to be much less content on it, and the menu needs major sorting :)

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 19 Jun 2007, 00:52

It's not that hard, all you need to do is a checkout. (download)
I believe there is some information about how to use a svn client in the sticky's at the development sub-forum and in the wiki.
But it's not that important at this point as I have not committed (uploaded) the site to svn yet. Once I have the translation back-end and a few sub-pages done I will commit it so you and others can actually download the PHP code.

Anyway, once you have your site back up, let me know. I like to give specific feedback on your phpbb mod.

About your "Ps." are you talking about my redesign or the current site?

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 19 Jun 2007, 01:14

I have a short question for the people here, what is correct English, "Spring's" or "Springs" when you talk about Spring's wiki or Springs news page?
Or is this depending on whether you talk about the season, a water spring, spring to live or spring as a shock absorber?

Boirunner · Post by **Boirunner** » 19 Jun 2007, 01:21

Spring's Wiki. It's a possessive apostrophe, which is not the same as one that signifies an omitted character (it is -> it's), but an apostrophe nonetheless. See over here for more apostrophe fun.

clericvash · Post by **clericvash** » 19 Jun 2007, 10:14

Tim Blokdijk wrote:It's not that hard, all you need to do is a checkout. (download)
I believe there is some information about how to use a svn client in the sticky's at the development sub-forum and in the wiki.
But it's not that important at this point as I have not committed (uploaded) the site to svn yet. Once I have the translation back-end and a few sub-pages done I will commit it so you and others can actually download the PHP code.

Anyway, once you have your site back up, let me know. I like to give specific feedback on your phpbb mod.

About your "Ps." are you talking about my redesign or the current site?

In my PS i was talking about your design, as suggested many times, have 1 official news item and 4 or 5 community news items.
The rest of the content needs to be split into a few pages.

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 19 Jun 2007, 21:16

Well I decided to move "Participate" to the development page. Have the "Language" and "Theme" menu├é┬┤s start closed for JavaScript enabled browsers. And with that I'm not going to change the layout of the entry page anymore.

I coded a lot of the translation back-end, hope to have that ready tomorrow.
Then I'm going to work some on the sub-pages and then it's time to commit.

The following stuff will get fixed after my commit to svn:
- Get JavaScript to work cross-browser (again).
- The banner will still need some more work.
- Getting the text final and translated
- Theme support working across the board
- PHPBB and Wiki integration
- New video's for the features
- Screenshots
- More?

At that point the site can go into production.

Post by **Tim Blokdijk** » 22 Jun 2007, 02:44

It's late here I need my bed but I will let you guy's play with the fancy translation system while I'm dreaming.
I finished it up today.

Wiki and forum don't work at my hosting provider and you have to put ".php" after the url for the links in the menu for news, about and development.
like ...pring-site11/news.php

Other then that, take a look at the new function:
http://www.timblokdijk.nl/spring/spring-site11/ and
http://www.timblokdijk.nl/spring/spring ... lation.php

Note: I will delete all translation work with the next version, it's a try-out do not translate things as if it's the real deal!
Try to break it (server side) if you like but don't use JavaScript or other shit that crashes people's browser. (you can - I still need to fix that.)

Spring RTS Engine

New Spring site design, I need your feedback.