New site design, test and comments please...

RonP

Member of the WMRC
Hey guys I have been away real busy with summer stuff. In the meantime I have been working on a new site design I think far beats the old one.

Please let me know your thoughts on how I can improve the new design before I replace the old one.

www.scratchbuildersguild.com/beta/
 

jbaakko

Active Member
Oh Oh... DON'T use Joomla! its VERY VERY VERY prone to hacking. I used it for 2 weeks and crashed it twice, and then was reccomended by a number of people to just give up on it.
 

hickstmj

Marcie
I'm no expert so I can't really critique but I like the design & it sure looks like you have put in a lot of hard work & it shows.
 

RonP

Member of the WMRC
Oh Oh... DON'T use Joomla! its VERY VERY VERY prone to hacking. I used it for 2 weeks and crashed it twice, and then was reccomended by a number of people to just give up on it.

Josh our gaming site is 5 years old we used mambo before joomla. Its merits far out way the problems we have encountered. To further that I couldn't possibly see using a system thats not open source goes against my moral obligations with technology.

The current design of the guild uses joomla as well, and it has been flawless. The trick to using a cms system is making all changes on a test site before moving these changes to a live site. Database issues have effectivley been fixed by running test sites.

Hacking is a matter of server security, allowing the non secure plugins to be enabled isn't going to happen with me and the crew we have working with us.

I couldn't possibly expect the same quality with another site system wordpress and the other flops are too much of a one man army. I aim for a community of contributers and this system is working perfect for us.
 

nolatron

Member
Ok I guess i'll move this conversation to another community.

Sheesh. Not even 24 hours since the original post and you're already knocking on users here for not replying? Pardon them for not stopping their daily lives to rush to your every need. w/e :rolleyes:

To comment on the site. I like the new color scheme selected to use for the site. Not a fan of the drop down menu/story/box thingies. I really didn't know how to use them at first until I noticed the numbers were clickable to show hidden stories in the bottom blocks.

Subdue the gigantic hostgator ad. They're a great hosting company (I use them), but the big red ad really detracts from your look and it's what catches the eye first on a page cause of the size/color.

Ugh. Flash ads too. Can't stand 'em. Can't stand flash in general. Too much dependency on the visitor's browser and machine which can really ruin your site's performance (you'd be surprised how many people still use ancient computers and dial-up).

There's a box at the lower right for Podcasts with some recent episodes. How would one access an episode older than the one's shown? Say I wanted to listen to Show #5, how would a visitor do so?

The box labeled Blogs should really be labeled links since these are other people's sites. A title of "blogs" to me made me think these were blogs of users on this site, when in fact they are simple links to other blogs.
 

jesso

Member
In the right hand column above the hostgator ad, there is nothing for about two inches on my web page.

Edit: Oh nevermind, my filtering software is blocking the movie (I guess) that is supposed to be there. However, that might be something to think about that filtering software is blocking some of your page.
 

jesso

Member
I like the overall look of the color scheme and the top news story changing. I don't know how I feel about the 0|5|10|15 thing , and I definately don't like it when they are closed as it make the "minor" column longer than the wider column. I think I would make them all open at the 5 level and then have more or less buttons if you want them to be able to expand or contact that area. Also, I would make the titles of those sections click to go to that page instead of either opening or closing that area. However, remember these are just my opinions and they can be wrong and more importantly, ignored :)
 

RonP

Member of the WMRC
I like the overall look of the color scheme and the top news story changing. I don't know how I feel about the 0|5|10|15 thing , and I definately don't like it when they are closed as it make the "minor" column longer than the wider column. I think I would make them all open at the 5 level and then have more or less buttons if you want them to be able to expand or contact that area. Also, I would make the titles of those sections click to go to that page instead of either opening or closing that area. However, remember these are just my opinions and they can be wrong and more importantly, ignored :)

Thanks for the reply Scott.

The fact of 24 hours was not why i pushed for a response it was the fact that the thread had 60+ views with no response. This forum runs so much activity without bumping the thread would have buried it permanently.

Your opinions are closely matching my brothers and although I like them I will take yours and my bro's advice and tone the news flashes down allot. Would it make a difference if the were broken up to only have 1 per relevant page ?

The hostgator ad is a placeholder, it is a affiliate ad for me but I was going to put a manufacturers ad there. I guess bring the size down 25% would improve that allot huh.

Thanks for taking the time to view the new design.
Ron
 

jesso

Member
I like that the page is shorter and that the wider column is long enough for the narrower column. I think you might want to make the forums button available on the top menu bar as well, since you may get users that come back just for the forum and may not like having to scroll to the bottom of the page. Now for something REALLY rivet-countery (sorry): The word Guild in you heading starts in a different pixel on several of the pages. I know, not really important, but I see these things.
 

RonP

Member of the WMRC
After a lengthy session, I added the analytics, translator, random image (not settled), cleaned up more content.

The most important upgrades are the contributers registration, login and article pages in the bottom menu. These aren't to attract more contributers it only adds a ton of functionaliy to our current contributers.
 

Biased turkey

Active Member
Nice work Ron, your updated website has the most important quality by which I judge any website: It is simple and it easy to navigate .


Where is the "Linux" tab in the main menu bar ? :)

Jacques
 

fsm1000

Member
Hi Ron
Just my opinion for what it is worth. I would make the font a couple points to 4 points larger. I have found that many of us online reading these forums prefer the larger font as it makes reading easier. One thing many of the guys state about my sight is the ease with which it is to read.

Also, define areas of clickability better. Not much more, just enough to see the difference between one and the other. make it stand out a tad more.
Other then that it is looking good. :)
 
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