Spring Network

[AF]

My face is only on one blogpost, and the about me page

[hoijui]

z, is your installer based on the spring one, or did you create one from scratch? because the most effective sharing would be, to use the one in the spring repo. or in other words, if you have changes that you think should be integrated ...

[Forboding Angel]

Most games do not have their own installer because the game dev do not cares about making an installer (all but 3), do not care about updating the installer when a new Spring version comes out (S44), do not care about using my installer when I gave them one already made (GRTS), prefer automatic continuous update (CA, EvoRTS), ...

This is totally wrong. I have no problem keeping an installer updated, but there is no point in evo having an installer until the needs for spring pool are met.

[SirArtturi]

Jazcash gj! Your site is fine, though the background and banner image are not very representative. They look really restless and vague. Viewer cant really tell whats happening. It's all just mess of colors and shapes. You could pick up a bit more simple images. The logo could be a bit more bigger too imo.

[Jazcash]

Ok so I'm working on the Spring Network landing page atm. This should just be the root of all the game sites and will act as the main link between them. Not sure what to feature on this page quite yet but I've just draw a quick mockup with images of several games which would link to the relevant sites.

Need some feedback on this, what to put on it, links, styles etc. I'm also wanting to link the sites via some kind of discretely fixed bar so visitors have quick access to the other sites instead of having to go back to the network page.

[KaiserJ]

neat design jaz, very clean

know any flash?

[SirArtturi]

I like what I see

[Jazcash]

know any flash?

Nope, I was gunna try and learn the basics some time but never got round to it. Although, I'm not a great fan of flash in web designs as it takes me about twice as long to load them on my slow tinternets compared to pure HTML and CSS.

[AF]

With the name spring network perhaps you should add in the likes of spring files darkstars and springinfo?

[Neddie]

know any flash?

Nope, I was gunna try and learn the basics some time but never got round to it. Although, I'm not a great fan of flash in web designs as it takes me about twice as long to load them on my slow tinternets compared to pure HTML and CSS.

Don't bother with Flash, in web design it often corresponds with the old slang definition, gaudy or ostentatious, and closely relates to Trash.

[Jazcash]

With the name spring network perhaps you should add in the likes of spring files darkstars and springinfo?

Could be a nice idea. Maybe I'll add two sets of navigation, game and general? I'm hoping to integrate the Spring Ladder site as well some time. Got a lot to do on the game side first though, then I'll work on the setup and adding more into the site.

Still need some feedback for the main Spring Network page though, just throw out any ideas, thoughts or problems with the mockup a few posts up.

[KaiserJ]

Don't bother with Flash, in web design it often corresponds with the old slang definition, gaudy or ostentatious, and closely relates to Trash.

oh lawd. don't blame the tools, blame the worker. stuff can be shitty and overdone in ANY form of development, if something looks like shit, it's because it was made by an idiot, not because flash is bad

jaz; part of the coolness of flash is that you can dynamically create the page; you might even be able to make the flash file smaller than the html equivalent, if you're able to create the graphics via actionscript. does require some programming knowledge though

seems like something you'd enjoy.

[Neddie]

My primary concern is that he would have to learn and practice flash for some degree of time before delivering a good product, whereas he is already well-versed in other tools. We wouldn't want him to drop off the face of the planet after being eaten by the Flash-monster.

I do agree with you, flash in web-design can be good, but I also assert that it seldom is.

[Jazcash]

Small updates:

[AF]

Why are we still discussing flash? It's a technology on it's way out that is not as flexible as good html5+jquery+css3, Jaz has already expressed his view, we should focus on his current work

Jaz, I like what you've done with my logo, can you send me the PSDs for your modified versions? ( including the Fu and tortoise )

Perhaps you can apply the same dark outer glow shadow on the text to the blue square encompassing the logo itself so it doesn't look as floaty? I plan to experiment myself as a case study ready for my next iteration of those logos, Ive already pushed out a tonne of minor fixes and refinements in the modified logos Ive made for people who've requested them

[KaiserJ]

not trying to convince him to learn flash, i was just asking lol

and hell, just because something is used less and becoming dated, it doesn't mean it's bad either. i still mess with shockwave 3d from time to time, even though nothing much has changed in about 8 years, it's still the best platform for interactive 3d on the web

my other argument is that i find flash/shockwave fun to learn and work with. but these are just opinions from one person and are in no way definitive

either way i like the design

[CarRepairer]

Why are we still discussing flash? It's a technology on it's way out that is not as flexible as good html5+jquery+css3, Jaz has already expressed his view, we should focus on his current work

I love flash, I've created flash pages, but I agree with AF here. jquery is very powerful and HTML5 will slowly replace flash.

[SirArtturi]

Jaz, I like what you've done with my logo, can you send me the PSDs for your modified versions? ( including the Fu and tortoise )

lol. It's not tortoise, It's a porcupine!

Jazcash. I like it very much. Perhaps you could also add somekinda title (or something) to indicate that BA, CA, KP etc are games/mods. In other words. Add title "games" above the games navigation bar (or something like that...)

[Jazcash]

@AF: I don't use Photoshop apart from when I'm doing brush work or lighting. I use Fireworks for just about everything else. Fireworks uses .png for its editable files. It can save as a compressed, non-editable normal .png or a much larger .png which is editable only by Fireworks.

Fireworks can save as .psd but when opened with Photoshop, it doesn't render it the same, usually with misaligned pieces, missing layers or just general inaccuracies.

As for the Network logo, I did initially try it with a reflection beneath, I didn't think it worked too well but I don't know if you'd think differently. I'll chuck out a few different versions soon.

@Kaiser & Neddie: I'd like to incorporate some form user interactivity in the future when I'm fully confident with pure HTML and CSS but for now, I just want to get the base design down and the site up.
I've got some nice ideas for flash/javascript type activity but I don't think I'll get around to learning how to code flash/javascript until some time in the future. I'm trying to get the basics of PHP down first

@Artturi: Good point, I'll see if I can come up with some way of letting the visitor know what the links are without being too intrusive.


Thanks for the feedback guys, keep it coming.

Oh and also:

[Jazcash]

Some updates:



It's a shame custom fonts still aren't a possibility for web design. Initially I thought it would be a simple matter of having the user download the font file and then being able to view all text using that font on the page. Else provide an alternative font for those users who can't download the font for whatever reason or for viewing before the font is downloaded.

Is there really no way at all for use of custom fonts? I know there's a few scripts which turn fonts into images automatically but they don't have usual HTML text support like hovers, links etc.

I know it's more efficient for a web design to use pre-defined fonts and is probably the best way to go, but there's really not a lot of choice in the bold chunky category. I'm having to stick with Arial Bold again ¬_¬