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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 24th, 2011, 1:54 pm 
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Johnny's Fan wrote:
The Hobbit will be it's own specific section most of the sections that are currently on the navbar will be included in the Hobbit section. Book, films, gallery, cast & crew biographies and anything else we can think of. :-)

Ok cool, I think this is definitely where we'll get most of our traffic from now on and until well after the release of the second part of The Hobbit. I only hope that it's possible to keep the section easy to navigate. :)

Ifwe are not going to have a featured site (which I assume we are not at the moment?) I suggest putting the forum link there?

Also, I'm slow and I didn't even see that we got a Donate buttom... perhaps we could put it over the Featured site (which might change to Forum) - at least in a short period when we try it out.

As for chatroom... I say we should keep the option.. It might not be the best chatroom solution out there but it's nice to have the possibility of mass chats.. later on we might find a spiffy chatroom solution but until then (if the day ever comes) I'd say we should keep it.. It doesn't have to be visible on the navbar though..

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 24th, 2011, 2:57 pm 
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I asked people in the FB group whether they wanted it kept. so far only three people have replied, but they all said they'd like to have the option of going on the chat. So I say keep it, and then revisit the idea of maybe getting rid of it if it's still not used at all.

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 25th, 2011, 1:58 pm 
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Okay guys, I think we've got our header. Check out how it will look at http://arwen-undomiel.com/sample1.html . I've de-greyified Arwen and compromised between tinted and non-tinted A-U text, so there's just a vague hint of other colors there. So if there are no more objections, let's get cracking on implementing this!

Re the forum having a more prominent place, I agree that we should advertise it more, but now that you guys have got the nav links pared down to just a few, I think it's fairly visible - at least far more so than on the previous layout's very cluttered navigation. The text is also bigger and far easier to read now. And lastly, I am lazy. I don't really want to redo the header navigation :-P

However, if you take a look at the sample page, I hope you agree with me that we should probably cut out a lot of things there. Do we need the "Welcome to Arwen-Undomiel.com" graphic? Probably not. Do we need the completely outdated useless welcome paragraph that no one ever reads? No. Are we going to have a featured site? I don't know, but we don't need it for now. So I think we can replace some of this extraneous stuff with more prominent advertising for the forum, as well as moving the donations button up to be more visible somewhere. From a financial standpoint, we also might want to tweak the placement of the ads so more people might click on them. We could even do something drastic like *gasp* switching the news to the right column instead of the left, or doing away with the two-column system entirely. Or anything. Those are my ideas. Back to you guys!

Oh, btw, we'll also have to image-map out the navigation. Does anyone else want to take care of that, or should I do it?

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 25th, 2011, 2:05 pm 
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It looks beautiful, Arwen :)
I agree that we probably don't need the welcome image and intro text. As for placement on other things, I think a few changes would be nice, but not to the point where you can't tell it's the same site as before.
What should we do about the chat, though? People on the fb group are very positive about keeping it! (and I agree with them :P )

EDIT: When the layout is changed, should we put up a news post explaining what has happened to the old links in the navbar? Like, what's been deleted, what's been put together, and just generally where stuff can be found...

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 25th, 2011, 3:05 pm 
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Looks awesome!! Love it! :)

I agree that we might want to get rid of the Welcome to A-U graphic

However, I think we should keep and update the welcome text. We have many first time visitors and it's nice to have a brief overview over the greatness of the site! AND this is where we could advertise the forum and letting people know what a great community we have.

Like I mentioned earlier, I wouldn't mind putting the Donation button right under the nav bar on the top right where the Featured site is now - and then get rid of the Featured site.

I don't like the idea of giving ads a more predominant placement.. I think ads are annoying and the more I look at them the more annoying .. and umm. they might give the site a chaotic and slighty amateurish look if they're just plastered all over the site.
But when this is said I do realise they generate money to the site.. so.. I guess it's possible to find a decent solution. :)

What are the possibilities for changing the front page? Perhaps a three-column system would help feature more things at the top so people wouldn't have to scroll so much...?

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 25th, 2011, 3:15 pm 
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I think three columns might make the news posts etc look long and drawn-out. Possibly we could move the tag to a sub-page? Or would that make cause an uproar with the taggers? :P

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 25th, 2011, 3:32 pm 
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^for a three column solution I thought we could broaden the .. width of the text body. As far as I can see it wouldn't mess up with even small monitors.. if it isn't possible, then I agree with you that the text space might be crammed.

But I don't even know what options we have with the current.. err.. coding...? :teehee:

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 25th, 2011, 3:46 pm 
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I personally like the "welcome to A-U" graphic. Update it a little bit with a new font and it would look fine. The text obviously needs updating but we should keep that.

The featured site should go, as at the moment we have too much other stuff to do to be concerned with afilliating ourselves or promoting other sites. We should get a new graphic for the guestbook, and place that under the donate button. I don't see why we couldn't have perhaps... when we have an event on at the forum, like the Hallowfest etc, a special contest etc, a button on the main site advertising what we've got going on at the moment. Otherwise, the new navbar very clearly showcases that we have a forum.

I personally like the way the text is for the news. People have to scroll down to read stuff on all sites.

The tagboard should stay on the main page, and probably where it is, lower down than the other stuff.

But the header looks great Arwen. Awesomeness on Oreos.

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 25th, 2011, 5:47 pm 
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[Alright, I lied.. I actually just clicked an ad.. Armstreet.com.. medieval/fantasy clothes and costumes.. looks great and not too pricey.. me wants!!! :P]

Sorry for my somewhat incoherent first post earlier, I also forgot to mention the chatroom. Could we put it under.. Site.. or Misc. or some other place.. just to keep it? It might be handy to have around.

For the tagboard.. I vote for it to stay on the site.. though lower placement would be okay too - the people who use it will know to find it :) - but I think this is what adds life to the main site, so I'd like it to stay. :)

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 25th, 2011, 6:46 pm 
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Keep the chat. It won't hurt to have it on the navbar even if for the moment it isn't in use, as you never know when we'll want it later on.

I also want to just say sorry I haven't been around much lately doing things, there's been a lot going on here than I expected this week, and I just haven't been feeling very motivated lately.

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 26th, 2011, 12:59 pm 
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Hey y'all, just to keep things moving along, I've image-mapped out the new navigation. Everything's working at http://arwen-undomiel.com/sample1.html , although there isn't a Fun or Hobbit page yet so they're yielding an error 404 message. What's the next step?

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 26th, 2011, 1:19 pm 
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Yay,the new green makes me happy. :)

So is it just me.. or would the next step be to put it up? :teehee: Even though the sub-pages aren't finished yet we're gonna have to take it step by step but putting the new layout up would be a historical milestone in the ongoing A-U history. Plus it'll look spiffy, of course! :D

I don't know why I've missed out on the discussion on what goes on the navbar but the order we've chosen for the links and what links to keep and what to throw or add seems a little.. random to me. Not that it's a big deal.. I was just curious now that this is what we're focusing our attention on at the moment. But the Site link seems to be randomly placed between Fun and Misc (also Misc. is such a not-very-explaining title as it could be anything and everything ;)). And the Links.. although it's a great resource once we get it updated, we might choose to dedicate the space to something on A-U (especially because there are only just a handful of good and regularly updated LotR sites left)?

Sorry, to be so slow and bringing this up again...

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 26th, 2011, 1:54 pm 
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Well I think the way the links are on the navbar look fine. Most sites have links reading downwards and make it alphabetical or longest words at the bottom shortest at the top. Navbars allow people to have a somewhat random and differently placed look without it being formal but still readable.

I hate to say this, and I'm sorry I never noticed it before, but the links section I believe, really shouldn't be there. It really serves no purpose at all, as I reckon most of the sites there are gone anyway, and if we wanted a similar section, I'd add it to the site page or maybe even misc. It will be a total pain for Arwen to remove the "links" part and re-arrange the others so maybe we can think of something else to simply replace that link so it's easier.....

The misc section will be perfect when we remove the games and crosswords that should be in "fun" for the tutorials Arwen has made and if any others are to be added. I think as we are quite heavily a graphic community it's good to be able to help people make stuff themselves. Maybe we could expand that area into tutorials and help for all sorts of stuff we as a forum community enjoy, art perhaps.

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 26th, 2011, 2:01 pm 
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Well, I can redo the navigation if need be - it wouldn't be too hard. I was going off what Nicole had started, which I thought had been the general consensus for what should be on the navigation, but truth be told I hadn't been following that discussion all that closely :-P So if anyone wants to quickly rethink what links we should have and what order they should be in, I'm all for it. But the whole wait-for-ten-people's-input deal has been killer for the revival lately, so we should try to move ahead as soon as possible.

JF, we could replace the Links, er, link with Humour. That's always been a popular section and it would be kind of sad to stick it under something generic like Fun. Or we could put the Chat back on the navbar.

We certainly don't have to have sub-pages finished - for things like The Hobbit page, we can just put a "Coming Soon!" placeholder for now and that will be good enough. As long as it's not a generic error 404 page, it's fine.

Once we've gotten the navigation completely sorted, can anyone absolutely commit to implementing the new header and CSS? I know we technically have a coding team, but I'd like to get a firm sense of who will be able to put the new layout into action instead of saying "Okay, back to you, someone else to do it" and have everyone look around at everyone else.

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 26th, 2011, 2:43 pm 
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I vote to put the chat back on the navbar. Since we need something to replace links with anyway. Other than that it looks great, Arwen. And I can see what Eä means about "misc" sounding a bit vague, but unless we can think of a different word that's perfect, I think "misc" is as good as anything else.

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 Post subject: Re: A-U Revival: layout & coding
PostPosted: June 26th, 2011, 2:52 pm 
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Yep, the chat should be added back. :yes:

Well I think we wanted Humour to be added to Funm just because it made things look neater, and really the two go together as under fun would be the games, crosswords and then the humour section. But I guess if Chat goes back then we can just keep Fun, nice and simple.

Well... I think Haldy was one of the top coders who would be able to do the bigger stuff, but I haven't seen her around for a few days so I'm not sure if she would be interested in doing that.

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