Bloom, IN HA Web Site - Possible Redesign

The more I think about it, I like the blog idea with a RSS so I will now the min someone post.

 

If you do write an app to source our boards, displaying it on the HA site, can't you have an RSS feed that then reflect the updates coming from the board?

 

Umm, if we went with a blog it would be for news items and announcements, not for just everybody to post to (that's what the boards are for), i.e. you would be the one posting to the blog most of the time. All of the discussion would still be on the boards.

Using TheForce.net's newsfeed I don't think we'll need a blog, since that will handle regular SW news and we can post our specific club stuff on the boards.

 

In short, that would be quite difficult. The program I created (demoed here) uses LWP to act like a browser and grab the rendered HTML off of the main board page. I then systematically remove all the HTML except the main table, which I then strip of all the CSS styling that TheForce.net puts on it. What I'm left with is a rough HTML table containing the current list of articles from the boards. I was able to put this program together in an hour.

To do what you're talking about, I would have to create a database to hold the article information (to detect when something is new), strip out the article information from the HTML I get from the page (difficult, since it'll be hard to tell what link is for what since pretty much everything is linked and some topics have many pages), and then create a XML file that can act as the basis for the RSS feed. Putting that together could take quite a while (probably a couple days). But even with all that, I would only be sending out the name of the article that got updated, not what was in the post that got updated (like most people using RSS would expect). To send out the actual updated post would be very difficult and could take many days to program, and if TheForce.net changed something about their site/code it could break my code all over the place. Sorry, but I'm not going to sink days of work into programming something TheForce.net could break anytime they updated the site, not for a RSS feed.

 

No worries, just a thought. You're sample looks good though.

 

FYI, if you want to see my concepts as I'm working on them, you can go here:

http://test.hoosieralliance.com/

for a stable test version (i.e. it should work all the time; it won't be complete, but I won't be updating it as quickly), or you can go here:

http://dev.hoosieralliance.com/

if you want to see the latest-up-to-the-minute build, however since that's the site I use to test with whenever I make a change that site can be far more volatile (and messed up if I screwed something up with the CSS). Let me know your thoughts if you take a look. I'll be sure to post when there's been major changes.

 

Ah, my suggestion to use Squarespace was merely so it could look great (their templates are quite clean and modern, while also being very customizable). Also, it would be easy for anyone with appropriate credentials to get in and make their own updates using the CMS, rather than having to relay changes for you to insert. Plus, it's pretty cheap.

As you know, I *designed* (didn't implement) the look for http://www.oliverwinery.com and I think it looks good (of course, I'm a bit biased). If you'd like any design input or elements made in photoshop, or even some complete mockups, I'd be happy to work on some.

 

Tim, Will there always be a plane Black border to each side of the page?
If so, I would like to see something fill in that space. Just saying...

 

I kinda hope you are not implying that the site will suck or not look as good because I'm not designing it with Squarespace.

In short, I'm not going to move the site to Squarespace. My opinion, and the opinion of most of the industry professionals that I work with, is that CMS's are more of a pain to work with than what you get out of them. Over the years higher ups in the companies have claimed that using a CMS will allow everybody to contribute and such, and will save design time. Usually what happens is that we end up spending more time designing the sites using the CMS than we would have with tools like Dreamweaver, and people (usually) either don't add things themselves or they mess it up in some way that the admin has to come fix it. In the end you still have one main person responsible for taking care of the site wishing they weren't bound by the styling requirements of the CMS (in fact, I'm helping two companies right now take their sites *off* of CMS's).

As for the cost, as I have already explained I have my own private server. That server is more powerful than what Squrespace is offering for even its $50 a month plan. I'm not going to pay $20+ extra a month (which would be the minimum plan we'd need) for web space I don't need.

I do thank you for your opinions, but I'm not going to switch the site to Squarespace.

Actually, I didn't know or had forgotten that you designed the look for Oliver's site, which does have a nice look to it. Any input on the site design is always appreciated, and thank you for your offer of designing elements in Photoshop. Right now I've been putting together the new design of the site based roughly off of the current look of the boards. What I would like to do is get a basic new design published pretty quickly, and then go back and work on making both the web site and boards even better (we can control some elements of the boards, like the top header, sidebar, and some of the colors).

My grand plan for that was to ask the designers of the group for their ideas. So while I'm working on a basic site replacement for now, I would like to ask you and any other designer in the group to help me come up with concepts/mockups/etc. for the HA site and Boards 3.0. We can either aim for a site with a general feel to it (i.e. a site for all seasons), or we can come up with something that would be nice for fall/winter. Thoughts?

 

Well, the site is being design for viewing fullscreen on a 1024 px wide monitor (i.e. 1024x768, etc.). Common practice right now is to not design a site where the viewer has to have a large monitor to see the whole width of the page (i.e. they can need to scroll down but you should avoid making them scroll across). If you have the site full screen on your iMac at home (or even 3/4 screen), you'll probably see a lot of black border right now because your display is rather wide. However, someone with a smaller monitor or with the page not full screen will see it just fine.

I can design the site to be wider, however we may end up making people with smaller monitors pretty annoyed......

 

I am with Jedi Narf on the size issue.

I think it is good to focus on trying to have a size that works best on the most computers,
and not just for those with the latest version of something.

Often when I am on the road, I am at a public library, and finding/using many web sites,
can be challenging, (also when at home on my really old computer

So, good luck trying to have the flash-bang for those that can use it,
while trying to reach the largest fan-base possible.

ALSO,

and this may be more of an RSA suggestion,

But consider making the HA-link on these Fan-Force pages stick out a little more.

right now, it is just the same white as many other links.

The following is just a suggestion.

_ ____Hoosier Alliance Website____ _

also, is there a way to have the HA website always open up in a new window,
so that visitors are not navigated away from the Fan Force site?

 

FYI, the first version of the new site is now live. Comments welcome.

 

___ Very Very Nice ___



_ ____Hoosier Alliance Website____ _



.

 

The new website design looks AWESOME...

But, I was wondering if it'd be possible for me to submit another picture for use on the website? The one I have on there (tuxedo pic) has been taken "out of circulation". Thanks!

 

Certainly! Do you have my email address, Lito? You can just email me a pic and I'll put it up there, or if you have a web site I can grab the picture off of just let me know the site address and which pic.

 

Tim, Could you upload a picture of Sam?

 

Sure. Same as I mentioned to Lito, either email me the pic you would like to use or indicate one that you would like (i.e. there are several pics of Sam in our photo gallery; I can use any of those).

General note to everybody, in accordance to regular net practices I will not put up any identified picture of a minor without prior consent of a parent/guardian (i.e. there are already pics of Sam up in the gallery, but none of them have his name attached). This also means that no minor will be listed as a member without prior consent of a parent/guardian. Not something we normally have to worry about, but just so everybody knows why a new member might not be added to the site immediately.

 

Oh, and another small note, in order to make sure people are going to the correct web site in the future, I will be turning off/disabling the dev/test site(s) for a while.

 

A note to Eric, the link to the Hoosier Alliance Website at the top of the boards isn't working for me, nor is the contact link for atataboy...

 

I have to say the site is A+. Exactly what I was hoping for! Many thanks again Tim!

 

I know, Im having trouble figureing out the HTML for it.

 

Can u use the picture of him standing with Tom Kane?

 

If you want send me the HTML and I'll see if I can give you a tip or two.

 

Thats the problem. I dont know what the proper code should be. It has code for color of his name,the style and then the link to his profile. I PM Dajuon and she said she would just fix it. I have a lot to learn, but thanks for the offer Tim.