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PostPosted: January 26th, 2011, 1:54 pm 
Lady of Strife
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Eä wrote:
Lothy - Layout/coding
Nurr - Layout/coding
Eruraina - coding
SilverRose - Graphics
Haldir of Lórien - Layout/coding
Ammy - Layout/coding
Pandora - Graphics/coding
JF - Layout/coding
Altariel Frodo - Layout/coding


I think that would be our list. And if needed, I could try my hand at the graphics.

But what I'd like to know is why you don't want to do graphics, Nurr? I think your banners are some of the best on AU!

And forum and site coding are both HTML or CSS I believe. Though I'm not sure how AU's coding and display settings are set up and how they would be changed. I would just like to take a look to how it's done if anything else :/ or at least given an idea. Is it all just raw html, or do we have other buttons and little scroll bars and such like on proboards? I'd like to know so I would be able to know exactly how much I would be able to help out with the coding and such.

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PostPosted: January 26th, 2011, 2:24 pm 
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:blush: Why thank you, but I never said I don't want to do graphics! I am always happy to do graphics.

It is a good list. :yes: We still need to figure out who knows what kind of coding/how things work out. Arweb says she uses WordPress. I've never used it. Has anyone here?

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PostPosted: January 26th, 2011, 2:29 pm 
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I think what Nurr means is she doesn't want to do the clean-up and stuff involved with the graphics. Of course her graphics will be featured on AU the same as anyone else who wants to. :-)

Regarding the layout, once the colour has been selected, I think that within the layout designing group (and I would think the coders as well), it should be up to a designated person or persons as to what design is used. Maybe run the idea by people as to what they have planned, but I don't think a mass vote on different designs within the group is the way to go.

Technically, one person could create the header and another the colours for site etc.

My only hope regarding the layout is that we remember what AU is about. A lot of sites out there look very samey and similiar. I know AU could do with bringing up to date etc, but generally, it shouldn't look that much different. And the headers have always been beautfiul but simple with no huge amount of layers and textures and brushes.

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PostPosted: January 26th, 2011, 4:11 pm 
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Alrighty, I'm not sure which thread I should be posting on since they're all kind of intertwined by now, but I shall make this relatively quick since I need to go soon. A-U <i>does not run on any content management system</i>. I don't mean the italics to be patronizing or anything! I just need to get it across that if you're going to have access to the server, you need to know or learn some basic code. And unless you're going to be part of the new-layout team, I really do mean just basic.

So here's what you can do. Go to any page on A-U except the index page (because that's more complex). Right, click, hit View Source (or whatever the syntax is in your browser). Look at the content between <i>table border="0" cellpadding="10" width="700" align="center"</i> and <i>td valign="top" class="border" width="2"</i> bit at the bottom. Does this make sense to you? Could you replicate it? If so, you can officially edit A-U. If not, go brush up on your code.

As to the layout artists, I have an htaccess handler (if you don't know what this is, it's not very important at this point) that allows all html files to run as php files. This mean each page on A-U has a php include file for the main header, so if all goes well, the only things you should have to modify are that include file and the main CSS linked stylesheet. But seriously, if you're thinking of being a layouter/coder, look at the source code, and you'll see what you have to deal with.

As to the news team, that part of A-U <i>does</i> run on WordPress, so you only need very minimal html knowledge to work it. But that's only for posting updates on the main site, nothing more.

Got to run, hope that all made sense, go explore some source codes. Tata.

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PostPosted: January 26th, 2011, 6:34 pm 
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Thanks Arweb. :) I don't know why I didn't think about looking at the source earlier.

I took a look. I don't often use tables, but it's not too much. Basically any of us who have coded our own websites will be fine. For some reason the main page doesn't have the header anymore, but you can see the full source on this page.


JF wrote:
My only hope regarding the layout is that we remember what AU is about. A lot of sites out there look very samey and similiar. I know AU could do with bringing up to date etc, but generally, it shouldn't look that much different. And the headers have always been beautfiul but simple with no huge amount of layers and textures and brushes.

Agreed. Pretty much just changing color and picture is what I was thinking. And making the forum button a bit more prominent, as we discussed. I have no problem with one person making it, either, as long as we actually decide on something! ;)

http://arwen-undomiel.com/layouts.html may be helpful for us seeing what stays constant and what changes.

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PostPosted: January 26th, 2011, 7:02 pm 
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Hmm, is the header really not loading on the main page after refreshing? There were some problems earlier today because of the server shifting things around, but it's showing up for me now.

I'm fully aware that some of my coding is TERRIBLE from a tech standpoint (I'm lazy and this was all years ago), so if anyone wants to clean things up, go for it. If you don't want to use tables and can think of a better way of organizing things, I'm all for it. If someone very enterprising even wants to shift A-U over to a content management system, be my guest.

Um um um...what else...as to the forum, anyone who's mucked about with phpBB should be fine. A-U runs a very modified version that's also kind of out of date (any brave soul want to upgrade to 3.0?), but you don't need to have a ton of php knowledge to change things up. As for the forum layouts, to my own surprise I was smart enough (go me! go me!) to save the old stuff. So there are in fact five old layouts that I can upload (or, if you'd prefer, just archive into a zip file and send it to someone and you guys can take things from there) if you decide you want to give members alternate forum skins.

As to creating <i>new</i> forum layouts, from what I can recall of the process this needs little to no coding. You merely size your header image, use a graphics program to change the color of all the little images (like the "new topic" or "post reply" buttons and such - as well as the "profile", "pm", "www" etc. buttons at the bottom of every post), and play around with the colors in the CSS stylesheet until everything looks dandy. The only "technical" knowledge is getting the hex codes for each color =P

Questions, comments, Frodo-chicken-dances?

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PostPosted: January 26th, 2011, 7:09 pm 
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Frodo chicken dances! :kick:

Yeah, for some reason the header won't show up. Or any of the news feed. Maybe I just need to give it more time.

:yes: You can do more with the CSS that allows you to get rid of tables, and makes things generally easier to change around. For the galleries we'd probably still want to do tables, but the rest could be shifted.

Oh, that'd be nice if we could have the old layouts! I know Eru mentioned skins, and it'd be great if we could have a few options on standby. (Maybe one would even match the new layout.) ;)


And thanks for helping us all get on our feet! :hug:

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PostPosted: January 26th, 2011, 7:23 pm 
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I've looked at the view source before, and I must say that I recognize and at least have an idea of what everything is. So really I could do that. And I know HTML tables really well. In fact, that's one of the things I was best at when I was at the top of my game with coding. They're not really that hard... (What I mean by the 'top of my game' was back in 2006 I took a web design/html class, and excelled faster than the rest in my class. The teacher gave us a tabling project that shoulda taken us two days, but took me an hour. The teacher erased my work and made me start again >.> and I was the first to catch on to how Javascript worked and to get it to actually work.) But I'll agree with Nurr that tables probably do make it harder to add and adjust content unless everything remained about the same size.

And I would love to see some of the old skins be used as alternative choices to the default. That seems like an awesome idea to me.


Oh, and I checked out the main website too. The banner, links to other pages, and news feed have all disappeared. And I refreshed several times, and am on a pretty fast browser.

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PostPosted: January 26th, 2011, 7:32 pm 
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Cool, I'm glad it seems like it will be workable so far for you guys :) Just to warn you, the bit that's in the PHP includes is only part of the layout, so if you want to do away with tables completely, you may have to do a gigantic Find/Replace marathon with all the html files to make your new layout consistent. It's not too bad if you have a program like NoteTab that will allow you to open tons of documents and operate a Find/Replace command across all of them.

Ummm...as to the main site, seriously try it in another browser. Or clear your cache/temp files/whatnot. It's working for me on my laptop, and even though the header didn't load when I tried it on this computer, it showed up after I refreshed the page. Don't know what else to tell you =\

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 Post subject:
PostPosted: January 26th, 2011, 10:16 pm 
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^Tried it on another browser(Firefox first, now IE), still not showing up. But... maybe it'll 'fix' itself later, as it's known to do for me.

Anyway, I WAS going to put this on the thread made to decide coloration(the poll thread in your life), but I started getting into technicallities with color, and thought it better to be posted here instead. So far most like the idea of colors that match Arwen's corination dress...

Hmm... so... I looked into such colors that were like Arwen's dress. I took colors directly from pictures of the dress, but they turned out very brown as you can see here:
http://i53.tinypic.com/687u35.jpg
^The last four are not taken right from the dress, but instead matched in a way.

I've singled them out for you:
http://i55.tinypic.com/2exc6dt.jpg

And the next two are seeing what they would look like against black and white backdrops:
http://i53.tinypic.com/2hqb3x0.jpg
http://i55.tinypic.com/2hx9grd.jpg
And in all the pics I did the hex codes in both black and white so you can see which goes better, BUT, these are just rough samples thrown together quickly so you have an idea of color(though I doubt exact colors will be used).

And that's for if this is the idea that gets set on, just so you know.

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PostPosted: February 1st, 2011, 12:27 am 
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Like I'm doing in a few of the other threads, here's a recap of the discussion so far. Let's keep this rolling. :)


Coders:
Tim4x
Lothy
Nurrantiel Mashiara
Eruraina
Haldir of Lórien
Ammy Dawne
Pandora
Johnny’s Fan
Altariel Frodo
Larael

Graphic Designers:
Lothy
Nurrantiel Mashiara
SilverRose
Haldir of Lórien
Ammy Dawne
Pandora
Johnny’s Fan

[As you can see I've volunteered myself for coding, but a warning, I only know basic HTML from long ago when I attempted to code my own site.]

JF mentioned teams -

- Writing (biographies, updating any written information inc history of AU etc)
- Graphics (removing old graphics and adding new)
- Gallery (arranging screencaps, adding new images)
- Fan art (removing old stuff and preparing for new)
- Humour (removing old humour and searching for new)
- Hints & Tips (adding new stuff that caters for different program users)
- General tidying (creating new sections for the Hobbit, possibly for games and anything else we think there should be)

Have we got leaders for these and do we know who will be involved with each section?

Other topics brought up so far:
- layout countdown party
- skins
- layout colour
- embedding youtube vids
- getting traffic

Thoughts? Comments?


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PostPosted: February 1st, 2011, 12:35 am 
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OK, well this is where I am going to stick my neck out and say:

I would like to be a member of (if this is what we do)

- Writing (biographies, updating any written information inc history of AU etc)
- Graphics (removing old graphics and adding new)
- Gallery (arranging screencaps, adding new images)
- Fan art (removing old stuff and preparing for new)

As well as when it comes to it, the hints and tips. As I think at some point, quite a few of us site owners and graphic makers might want to add our widsom in the shape of tutorials and stuff. But I guess adding new stuff will be a luxury almost for when all the really important stuff is done.

I would also like to jump in and say that I would very much like to be the leader for the graphics. I know I'm the first to volunteer to be a group leader, but someone's got to do it. :P It is probably the easiest of the groups to be so involved in, so if any other groups come up short in leaders, I'll do that as well because I have more time on my hands than most. :-)

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PostPosted: February 1st, 2011, 12:38 am 
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I know you guys don't know me that well but I am willing to help out with general tidying etc. I don't know much coding (very basic coding from my proBoards forum and that's it) and I can't do graphics but if there's anything else you need help with I'm willing to do it. :)

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PostPosted: February 1st, 2011, 12:41 am 
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^ I know you quite well from seeing you around the forum and talking about LOTR concerts in London and stuff... but fame and notoriety do not determine who does what. ;)

Any help will be greatly appreciated. :-)

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PostPosted: February 4th, 2011, 3:57 pm 
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Is anyone else willing to step up for any of these groups? I fully support anyone who will do it. :-)
We really need a few people who can be the Keeper of Passwords.

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PostPosted: February 4th, 2011, 5:06 pm 
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- Gallery
- Fan art
- Humour
- General tidying

^I would be willing to help with those sections. Especially the fan art since I've volunteered to do the deviantart weekly/monthly feature thing.

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