Kermitu Kleric Katie
KULT OF KERMITU
What's this? It looks interesting.
Our Site
- Thread starter Lex
- Start date
What's this? It looks interesting.
Lex
Administrator
It's a Studio BentStuff book (same people who do the Ultimanias), and tbh that's about all I know about it for now. The name seems pretty self explanitory but I don't even know if there's a translation of it anywhere? Google will help me later, for now it's nap time since I'm about to keel over 
Splintered
unsavory tart
I love this idea, connecting fans with other fans. FF is so old it has wealth of content fans put out, I've seen podcasts that break down music composition of Final Fantasy, video analysis, etc.
Strangelove
AI Researcher
- AKA
- hitoshura
It's also been translated as 'Dismantled' (or using its Japanese name 'Kaitai Shinsho').
Not to be a downer, but it actually isn't as interesting as it seems.
Monterosa
Pro Adventurer
- AKA
- Tom
Agreed with all of this. It was the website and not the forum that had me looking at TLS several years ago. It was only recently that I joined the forums (and I'm happy to be here!), but I repeatedly came back to this site for all the content. I'm very inspired by all the love and dedication to detail for FFVII at TLS. Keep it up and you can definitely say this is the number one source for information.
I don't know FFVII inside-out like many members here (FFVIII is my area of expertise), but I'd like to contribute somehow if I can.
Lex
Administrator
Well if there's anything on that list you want to tackle, let me know or feel free to post here. I should have the page up for the VII Original Sountrack as a kind of template by Friday at the latest for people to have a look at. I'm also going to tackle the snowboarding mobile game page too, since I might enjoy learning a bit more about that one anyway 
Lex
Administrator
Can we create/edit tables in the visual editor on Wordpress? Highlight->Align->Centre Align not only fails to centre the table, it left aligns it and moves the right edge of the table to go all the way out to the edge of the screen, like this:
EDIT: I ask because the soundtrack pages' track lists need tables, and I am not excited about the prospect of doing it bit by bit in HTML.
EDIT: I ask because the soundtrack pages' track lists need tables, and I am not excited about the prospect of doing it bit by bit in HTML.
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Fangu
Great Old One
What it does when the table turns out like in your picture, is
which WP is default to change <table align="center"> into, to avoid confusion on tables used in menus, etc. Edit: It's the "display: block" that pushes it all the way over the width.
I've looked into this now via a draft and Inspect Element in Opera. There is no easy fix to avoid this. One option could be to set specific rules for .entry-content, .entry-summary table, however the transformation from table align="center" into class="aligncenter" doesn't happen in the CSS, it happens somewhere in the WP PHP code. Which makes me believe it would require writing a filter function in the functions.php file. And that would take some looking into.
The backup is to make the table in a visual editor program (like Gimp) and then upload it as a picture. It's a nose twitcher, but it's the only thing that works right now.
The reason for not being able to center tables is probably that WP is a blog/news oriented publishing system, and in those media you usually want to publish stuff left aligned.
It's not a bug, it's a feature
Edit: Forget all of that. Found a hard fix. "Try adding <div align="center"> to the beginning of the code, and add </div> to the end of the code."
It works.
Code:
<table class="aligncenter">which WP is default to change <table align="center"> into, to avoid confusion on tables used in menus, etc. Edit: It's the "display: block" that pushes it all the way over the width.
I've looked into this now via a draft and Inspect Element in Opera. There is no easy fix to avoid this. One option could be to set specific rules for .entry-content, .entry-summary table, however the transformation from table align="center" into class="aligncenter" doesn't happen in the CSS, it happens somewhere in the WP PHP code. Which makes me believe it would require writing a filter function in the functions.php file. And that would take some looking into.
The backup is to make the table in a visual editor program (like Gimp) and then upload it as a picture. It's a nose twitcher, but it's the only thing that works right now.
The reason for not being able to center tables is probably that WP is a blog/news oriented publishing system, and in those media you usually want to publish stuff left aligned.
It's not a bug, it's a feature
Edit: Forget all of that. Found a hard fix. "Try adding <div align="center"> to the beginning of the code, and add </div> to the end of the code."
Code:
<div align="center">
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>one</td>
<td>two</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>three</td>
<td>four</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</div>It works.
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Lex
Administrator
OK, thanks. Having said that, the track listings are going to have to be left-aligned anyway, so alignment should matter for those. I don't mind HTML'ing the smaller tables, that's what I've always done anyway.
Does our visual editor have a feature to create tables? I couldn't find it, but it's entirely likely it's because I've been staring at the screen for a ridiculous number of hours and am tired.
As an alternative if the above doesn't exist, I could try importing tables from word, since importing from word is a feature. Photoshopping is another alternative that could potentially result in some really nice looking tables, but it would be time consuming and is definitely not ideal for the ~12 soundtrack articles that need to be written.
EDIT: When I figure out how to approach this table business I'm going to implement that "review" section using the posts from that time we did the FFVII music tournament a while back, so everyone can pitch in with feedback when it's done and we can decide if it's a feature that should stay.
EDIT2: (Just saw your edit fangu) - it's actually pretty easily fixable switching to the HTML editor and deleting what the visual editor adds. I'm mainly worried about creating and aligning tables exclusively in the visual editor, since switching between the two isn't ideal
Does our visual editor have a feature to create tables? I couldn't find it, but it's entirely likely it's because I've been staring at the screen for a ridiculous number of hours and am tired.
As an alternative if the above doesn't exist, I could try importing tables from word, since importing from word is a feature. Photoshopping is another alternative that could potentially result in some really nice looking tables, but it would be time consuming and is definitely not ideal for the ~12 soundtrack articles that need to be written.
EDIT: When I figure out how to approach this table business I'm going to implement that "review" section using the posts from that time we did the FFVII music tournament a while back, so everyone can pitch in with feedback when it's done and we can decide if it's a feature that should stay.
EDIT2: (Just saw your edit fangu) - it's actually pretty easily fixable switching to the HTML editor and deleting what the visual editor adds. I'm mainly worried about creating and aligning tables exclusively in the visual editor, since switching between the two isn't ideal
Fangu
Great Old One
It doesn't, sadly.
But
This should work. It might end up in some strange HTML, so create a document with just the tables, and make sure the spacing between them is neat (like 2 or 3 line breaks).
The alternative is to use a program that creates HTML tables, like Dreamweaver; however you should make sure to make them plain old vanilla tables (not style the fonts, etc.)
The third alternative is to get an assistant to type up the HTML. Anyone up for some fame and glory?
I see your point. Hold on let me check if WP deletes the div.EDIT2: (Just saw your edit fangu) - it's actually pretty easily fixable switching to the HTML editor and deleting what the visual editor adds. I'm mainly worried about creating and aligning tables exclusively in the visual editor, since switching between the two isn't ideal
Edit: It doesn't, however the table does not show up as centered in the Visual editor. It is still centered on the main site preview though. So at least your tables should be safe. However as you're saying, if you write a lot of HTML yourself that WP doesn't like, those can be in danger of being changed. The safest thing is usually to use the Vis editor exclusively, but that one has its limitations.
We never really finished completing the settings in the Vis editor according to people's wishes, however we didn't have a lot of info on what the preferences would be like. Now it's been almost a year, so I guess it would be cool to take a look of the preferred h1, h2, h3's you guys use, colors, other wishes... then maybe it could be implemented in the Vis editor sink.
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Lex
Administrator
That's a good idea, everyone should share feedback if they have any. I don't really have a problem with anything the way it is right now though, aside from the aforementioned table woes.
I found this plugin for the visual editor, and it's free. Can it be implemented easily? - Tablepress.
Also what happened with the whole social media plugin thing for front page posts, it's been a while since we've said anything about that (apparently when I can't sleep I ask a million questions instead).
EDIT: Never mind, that requires WordPress 3.5 and we're on 3.4. However, there's an older version that should work - here.
Also what happened with the whole social media plugin thing for front page posts, it's been a while since we've said anything about that (apparently when I can't sleep I ask a million questions instead).
EDIT: Never mind, that requires WordPress 3.5 and we're on 3.4. However, there's an older version that should work - here.
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Fangu
Great Old One
We can upgrade WP, no problem. I think this should be looked into.
Yes that... I found one I found to be sufficient even if a bit fugly, Yop said eeew, so we didn't really get anywhere with that
It's a priority though.Damn we're bad maintenance people. (No I mean it. I feel guilt almost every day.)
Dude you've been up since yesterday? Maybe you should get some sleep. I can relate to the feeling of NO I'M AWAKE! though
Lex
Administrator
I think the functionality of a social media plugin is more important than appearance (unless it like completely defaces the entire page or something) but if the Great Old One hated it that much... he is the master of all
So can we get WordPress updated and this plugin installed then (the one for tables)? Is it as simple as I think it is? I mean the buttons are all there to just upgrade it whenever but I don't want to touch it incase the site implodes or something. Also installing plugins seems to be super simple too.
So can we get WordPress updated and this plugin installed then (the one for tables)? Is it as simple as I think it is? I mean the buttons are all there to just upgrade it whenever but I don't want to touch it incase the site implodes or something. Also installing plugins seems to be super simple too.
Fangu
Great Old One
Well... I'm about 75% sure it wouldn't mess anything up to just install the plugin, but the icons wouldn't show up on the front page, they would only show up on the separate paged posts, and also on the blogstyle newsfeed (the one you see when you click "News". We've done some tweaks to WP so there's always room for little bugs creeping in. It should be done while at least one of us (Yop or I) are present. Knowing Yop he'd probably want to be there for it.
Same for the upgrade, or, especially for the upgrade. Sometimes they change small stuff that can definitely affect the output on the front page.
Same for the upgrade, or, especially for the upgrade. Sometimes they change small stuff that can definitely affect the output on the front page.
Shademp
420
1) Why is the frontpage down? It doesn't load for me. All I get is a blank white page.
2) Will it somehow make stuff easier (whatever that stuff may be) for the programmers, Cthulhu and Fangu, if I use the Visual editor instead of the HTML one for articles?
3) Any advise on how I can (in the visual editor?) restore the Unused Text articles so they have either two or three different table styles to show the different categories of used/unused text therein?
I seem to recall being told to post here about the tables, but do tell me if this should be a separate thread.
2) Will it somehow make stuff easier (whatever that stuff may be) for the programmers, Cthulhu and Fangu, if I use the Visual editor instead of the HTML one for articles?
3) Any advise on how I can (in the visual editor?) restore the Unused Text articles so they have either two or three different table styles to show the different categories of used/unused text therein?
I seem to recall being told to post here about the tables, but do tell me if this should be a separate thread.
Cthulhu
Administrator
- AKA
- Yop
1. I'm not sure what happened there, but I restarted some shit and it's back in working order now.
2. For us, it might, but using the HTML that Wordpress generates based on input from the visual editor will ensure consistency and remove headaches from yourself to not only write an article, but write HTML and whatnot too. I mean, take images; Wordpress generates neat resized images with title, captions, fancy full-screen views and whatnot if you use the media library and the visual editor. That can be replicated in HTML, but it's a headache.
3) Nope. This one's for Fangu <3
2. For us, it might, but using the HTML that Wordpress generates based on input from the visual editor will ensure consistency and remove headaches from yourself to not only write an article, but write HTML and whatnot too. I mean, take images; Wordpress generates neat resized images with title, captions, fancy full-screen views and whatnot if you use the media library and the visual editor. That can be replicated in HTML, but it's a headache.
3) Nope
. This one's for Fangu <3
Shademp
420
Another issue. Currently the Dirge of Cerberus page links to fairly low-quality uploads, from 2006, of English cutscenes. Because the uploader didn't have everything piled in an ordered playlist, I had to make my own.
I now found a playlist uploaded in 2009 by 'painful 112'. Picture and sound quality are both superior to the old uploads, so I'm thinking that this playlist should replace the old one we link to. Both of these have no subtitles.
A minor difference between the two is that the one from 2006 clearly takes cutscenes from the "Theatre Mode" in the game, as demonstrated via the easter egg where Cait Sith will have one line if the scene is triggered during a playthrough, but a different one if triggered in the Theatre Mode.
Because of this, the 2009 playlist will sometimes have "Saving to memory card" icons appearing. If nobody disagrees, I'll have the DoC page link to the 2009 playlist.
EDIT: This post is not just here to take things off-topic (if it even is off-topic) but to remind people that our pages are meant to link to convenient uploads like these. If you know anything else FFVII-wise that we should link to as a way of becoming more of a hub for content, let us know.
I now found a playlist uploaded in 2009 by 'painful 112'. Picture and sound quality are both superior to the old uploads, so I'm thinking that this playlist should replace the old one we link to. Both of these have no subtitles.
A minor difference between the two is that the one from 2006 clearly takes cutscenes from the "Theatre Mode" in the game, as demonstrated via the easter egg where Cait Sith will have one line if the scene is triggered during a playthrough, but a different one if triggered in the Theatre Mode.
Because of this, the 2009 playlist will sometimes have "Saving to memory card" icons appearing. If nobody disagrees, I'll have the DoC page link to the 2009 playlist.
EDIT: This post is not just here to take things off-topic (if it even is off-topic) but to remind people that our pages are meant to link to convenient uploads like these. If you know anything else FFVII-wise that we should link to as a way of becoming more of a hub for content, let us know.
Fangu
Great Old One
And I'm gonna pass it along to Lex3) Nope
Or, maybe I won't have to. Have you seen the new section in the menu called 'Tablepress'? It's a table plugin Lex found that will help the authors create tables of all kinds. You create your table in the 'Tablepress' option in the menu, then you insert it into your page or post via a new button in the Visual Editor. You should try it out. I had a brief look at it now and there's TONS of options.
Strangelove
AI Researcher
- AKA
- hitoshura
is that a short circuit reference in dc?
Fangu
Great Old One
Right, for Demps, this is the list of changes I did to the Unused Text HTML:
* Removed link to article index and header
* Replaced all </br> with <br />
* Replaced all <table border="1" with <table> (border of 1px is default)
* Replaced all <table border="4"> with <table style="border:4px solid">
* Replaced all tables to not have a border with <table style="border:hidden"> and <td style="border:hidden"> (tr's does not need this tag)
* Replaced all <table align="center"> and <table class="aligncenter"> with a wrapping div around the table, <div align="center">. Remember to close with </div>
* Replaced all <sub> and <table><sub> with <p style="margin-bottom: 0.5em"> (remember to close with </p> as you would close with </sub></table>)
* Replaced all <table><sub><b> with <p style="margin-bottom:0.5em;font-weight:bold"> (remember to close with </p> as you would close with </b></sub></table>)
Regarding the <div> to create a centered effect, it means this
is now
Not the style="border:hidden" to get rid of the default 1px borders in this example.
* Removed link to article index and header
* Replaced all </br> with <br />
* Replaced all <table border="1" with <table> (border of 1px is default)
* Replaced all <table border="4"> with <table style="border:4px solid">
* Replaced all tables to not have a border with <table style="border:hidden"> and <td style="border:hidden"> (tr's does not need this tag)
* Replaced all <table align="center"> and <table class="aligncenter"> with a wrapping div around the table, <div align="center">. Remember to close with </div>
* Replaced all <sub> and <table><sub> with <p style="margin-bottom: 0.5em"> (remember to close with </p> as you would close with </sub></table>)
* Replaced all <table><sub><b> with <p style="margin-bottom:0.5em;font-weight:bold"> (remember to close with </p> as you would close with </b></sub></table>)
Regarding the <div> to create a centered effect, it means this
Code:
<table align="center">
<tr>
<td><img src="http://iloapp.worldofbits.com/data/_gallery//public/24/1317567905_resized.png" /></td>
<td><img src="http://iloapp.worldofbits.com/data/_gallery//public/24/1317567906_resized.png" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><sup>English game</sup></td>
<td><sup>Japanese game</sup></td>
</tr>
</table>is now
Code:
<div align="center">
<table style="border:hidden">
<tr>
<td style="border:hidden"><img src="http://iloapp.worldofbits.com/data/_gallery//public/24/1317567905_resized.png" /></td>
<td style="border:hidden"><img src="http://iloapp.worldofbits.com/data/_gallery//public/24/1317567906_resized.png" /></td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td style="border:hidden"><sup>English game</sup></td>
<td style="border:hidden"><sup>Japanese game</sup></td>
</tr>
</table>
</div>
Flintlock
Pro Adventurer
At the last staff meeting, it was agreed that we would continue working on the design of our front page over this summer, time permitting. Since then, I've been thinking about what needs to be improved, and today I got around to knocking up a draft of what I think we should be aiming for.
Before I show it to you, I have a caveat. It is important to note that I have only semi-considered what is realistically possible to build. I have included features that I don't have the knowledge to implement myself, and for which there may or may not be existing plugins or widgets. It would be pretty rude of me to say "here's what we're doing, now you (Fangu and Yop, probably) go off and do it, because I don't know how to do it myself". So I'm not saying that. Everything in my draft is an idea only.
Now you can see it I've also made a comparison image with the current site, in the state it was when I took the screenshot to be the base of my draft, but you'll need a stretch limo of a monitor to see it all at once.
And now I can talk you through the changes, of which there are many. Perhaps too many, in fact, for a year in which we said we'd work on improving the design rather than overhauling it, but I figured I might as well present all my ideas, even if we end up only implementing half of them.
When making the draft, I started off with our current design and tried to make it three things: neater, more informative and more professional. Let me know whether you think I failed or succeeded with those goals, and feel free to give me any other feedback as well.
Before I show it to you, I have a caveat. It is important to note that I have only semi-considered what is realistically possible to build. I have included features that I don't have the knowledge to implement myself, and for which there may or may not be existing plugins or widgets. It would be pretty rude of me to say "here's what we're doing, now you (Fangu and Yop, probably) go off and do it, because I don't know how to do it myself". So I'm not saying that. Everything in my draft is an idea only.
Now you can see it
I've also made a comparison image with the current site, in the state it was when I took the screenshot to be the base of my draft, but you'll need a stretch limo of a monitor to see it all at once.And now I can talk you through the changes, of which there are many. Perhaps too many, in fact, for a year in which we said we'd work on improving the design rather than overhauling it, but I figured I might as well present all my ideas, even if we end up only implementing half of them.
The C of "Content" in the menu bar is now aligned with the T of "THE" in the logo. There are dozens of similarly minor alignment changes in this draft, and I won't bother pointing them out after this one. I've just tried to make all the spacing consistent.
The search bar and RSS icon have been vertically centred within the navigation bar, and have been joined by icons for Facebook and Twitter (no disrespect to our Tumblr and G+ accounts or the people who maintain them, but they aren't really on the same level as Facebook and Twitter yet). These icons should simply link to our pages/profiles on the social networks, while individual articles should have "share" buttons on them, as discussed.
The Materia orb in the "happening now" bar, and elsewhere, has been replaced with a nicer, more glowing one. I have requested that change at least a couple of times before I've used the orb more sparingly in this new design, as I think that it loses its effect if it is overused.
Speaking of the "happening now" bar, I think we should keep it, but completely disable it when there is nothing going on. We have a habit of putting something there that either a) goes out of date very quickly, or b) is a somewhat mundane link to our forum, which is somewhat redundant, so I think we might as well hide it when nothing is happening.
The images have switched from a 2:1 size ratio to a 16:9 size ratio. I've become increasingly frustrated with the former, as it has forced me to crop parts of screenshots, Youtube videos (see the current featured image for an example of that), and so on. 16:9 is a common standard, and not radically different from 2:1, so let's go with it. We'd need to do a one-off conversion of some old images - four at most - to the new format, but after that, it would be so much nicer. I've made the large image 400px by 225px and the others
320px by 180px. I think we should hard-code those sizes in, so that even if someone sets a featured image which is the wrong size, it won't break the layout. The second, third and fourth images have grown a bit from their current size, which was made possible by switching them from a horizontal to a vertical layout. I think that is more consistent with the way people read websites nowadays, particularly on mobile devices (though I'm aware we already have a vertical mobile layout). I've seen many news websites use that layout, too.
The headlines for each article must not take up more than two lines on the new design. Ever. I hate seeing things overflow, like the three related articles on the current design. I put together the new draft with that in mind: a headline that takes up the full two lines when it is the top story should also take up the full two lines, and no more, when it gets pushed down the list. The only thing that could go wrong is if a headline has a couple of unusually long words that force new lines, but we can just watch out for that. If it's not possible to hard-code the two-line limit, then we should instruct all our authors to edit their title if it takes up more than two lines, or we'll edit it for them.
Each article is now accompanied by a proper description, not just the first article, and not just the first sentence chopped off half-way and appended with an ellipse. I pushed for this change last year, but it didn't happen, and I can't remember why. Anyway, it is a vital part of making our site look more professional, which has been my goal with this draft. We should find a way to allow the descriptions to be set manually, because they might not always be suitable as the introduction to an article. The descriptions are also fully justified, rather than left-aligned, which looks smarter and is standard on news sites.
Instead of the lead story linking to three others in the same category, now every story links to one. This gives us a greater variety of stories on the front page, and somewhat alleviates the problem of having related articles that were published years ago, if the top story is in a seldom-used category. For the second, third and fourth stories, there isn't enough space to put a whole article title in the "related" bit, so I've edited them, which I still think looks better than having an ellipse. Perhaps there's a way to manually set a long title and a short title for articles - we can look into that.
To encourage people to our forum, the top story now also contains a discussion link. I know this might seem unnecessarily strict, but I think every single article we publish on the front page should link to a related forum thread. The front page and the forum still feel too separate at the moment (more on that later).
The podcast gets a starring role in this draft, heading up a new right-side column. I had to edit Pixel's logo a bit to make it fit the box, but I'm sure we can come to a compromise on that. I put it there because I think the podcast has the potential to be really successful for us. As I wrote in the podcast thread, I'd like for it to be a bit more regular than once a month (and a bit shorter each time as a result), but I guess I was in the minority there.
Also making its début on the right-side column is "recent article highlights". I'm still in the process of recategorising and tagging all our old posts (I got a lot of it done this week), and the more I did it, the more I felt that our best articles are also our most original articles, in which the author shares some insight on the game that most players don't have, or presents a thorough analysis of some topic that most players would never have time to do. That's why I created a category called "Insights and Analysis". It is the posts in that category that are shown as highlights on the front page of my new draft. Of course, there's nothing to stop us from defining a highlights category (or tag) separately, in case we wish to include other types of posts, like translations (although we haven't published any of those in a while). Once a highlighted article has slipped off the list on the front page, we can assess whether it's been popular enough to add to the highlights part of the top menu, which should be reserved for our most historically popular articles.
Finally on the right side, there is a box for the forum post of the week. It's been in discussion for a while now, but nothing has happened yet, so let's pull our finger out and do it. If nobody else will, I'll do the choosing myself each week and update the front page (I expect it will be done through a widget). Consider that a threat, if you want! The feature is another way to get people to visit our forum. I think people are much more likely to click through if they see a snippet of an actual discussion, rather than just a thread title. Besides, the way we currently present forum activity on the front page is problematic: we have to hide various sub-forums' threads from being shown already, but even so, we get threads with swear words appearing on the front page. I don't have anything against swear words, I should stress, but it doesn't look good. Other thread titles appear truncated, which is just weird: "The Love Triangle Debate thread of KNEEL BEFORE...", for example. Fangu did a great job with the forum feed last year, but it is my design which is the problem; I hold my hand up for that.
Moving back to the left again, the "more news" box has gone, because I felt like it would have been very isolated on its own, once the corresponding forum box had gone. It doesn't blend in very well with the current design anyway, and the font we use for the "more news" text itself looks a bit squished at that size. The new format is much simpler and tidier. It does away with the dates of posts, because a) we weren't showing them on our top four articles anyway, which was inconsistent, b) they're not particularly important, and c) they can highlight periods of front page inactivity, which we don't want to be drawing attention to! Additionally, in order to avoid weekly roundups dominating our front page, I think we should only have one (or perhaps two) of them in the top four articles at once. The others can get shunted down to this section. My reasoning for that is that they are usually not FFVII-oriented, which is what most people come to TLS for. They contain mostly relatively minor news, so it's worth losing them from the top four in order to give other articles more exposure.
Finally - and this is a very minor change indeed - the right-hand border of the main div has gained the 1px dark green border that is present on the left, but has been missing on the right
The search bar and RSS icon have been vertically centred within the navigation bar, and have been joined by icons for Facebook and Twitter (no disrespect to our Tumblr and G+ accounts or the people who maintain them, but they aren't really on the same level as Facebook and Twitter yet). These icons should simply link to our pages/profiles on the social networks, while individual articles should have "share" buttons on them, as discussed.
The Materia orb in the "happening now" bar, and elsewhere, has been replaced with a nicer, more glowing one. I have requested that change at least a couple of times before
I've used the orb more sparingly in this new design, as I think that it loses its effect if it is overused.Speaking of the "happening now" bar, I think we should keep it, but completely disable it when there is nothing going on. We have a habit of putting something there that either a) goes out of date very quickly, or b) is a somewhat mundane link to our forum, which is somewhat redundant, so I think we might as well hide it when nothing is happening.
The images have switched from a 2:1 size ratio to a 16:9 size ratio. I've become increasingly frustrated with the former, as it has forced me to crop parts of screenshots, Youtube videos (see the current featured image for an example of that), and so on. 16:9 is a common standard, and not radically different from 2:1, so let's go with it. We'd need to do a one-off conversion of some old images - four at most - to the new format, but after that, it would be so much nicer. I've made the large image 400px by 225px and the others
320px by 180px. I think we should hard-code those sizes in, so that even if someone sets a featured image which is the wrong size, it won't break the layout. The second, third and fourth images have grown a bit from their current size, which was made possible by switching them from a horizontal to a vertical layout. I think that is more consistent with the way people read websites nowadays, particularly on mobile devices (though I'm aware we already have a vertical mobile layout). I've seen many news websites use that layout, too.
The headlines for each article must not take up more than two lines on the new design. Ever. I hate seeing things overflow, like the three related articles on the current design. I put together the new draft with that in mind: a headline that takes up the full two lines when it is the top story should also take up the full two lines, and no more, when it gets pushed down the list. The only thing that could go wrong is if a headline has a couple of unusually long words that force new lines, but we can just watch out for that. If it's not possible to hard-code the two-line limit, then we should instruct all our authors to edit their title if it takes up more than two lines, or we'll edit it for them.
Each article is now accompanied by a proper description, not just the first article, and not just the first sentence chopped off half-way and appended with an ellipse. I pushed for this change last year, but it didn't happen, and I can't remember why. Anyway, it is a vital part of making our site look more professional, which has been my goal with this draft. We should find a way to allow the descriptions to be set manually, because they might not always be suitable as the introduction to an article. The descriptions are also fully justified, rather than left-aligned, which looks smarter and is standard on news sites.
Instead of the lead story linking to three others in the same category, now every story links to one. This gives us a greater variety of stories on the front page, and somewhat alleviates the problem of having related articles that were published years ago, if the top story is in a seldom-used category. For the second, third and fourth stories, there isn't enough space to put a whole article title in the "related" bit, so I've edited them, which I still think looks better than having an ellipse. Perhaps there's a way to manually set a long title and a short title for articles - we can look into that.
To encourage people to our forum, the top story now also contains a discussion link. I know this might seem unnecessarily strict, but I think every single article we publish on the front page should link to a related forum thread. The front page and the forum still feel too separate at the moment (more on that later).
The podcast gets a starring role in this draft, heading up a new right-side column. I had to edit Pixel's logo a bit to make it fit the box, but I'm sure we can come to a compromise on that. I put it there because I think the podcast has the potential to be really successful for us. As I wrote in the podcast thread, I'd like for it to be a bit more regular than once a month (and a bit shorter each time as a result), but I guess I was in the minority there.
Also making its début on the right-side column is "recent article highlights". I'm still in the process of recategorising and tagging all our old posts (I got a lot of it done this week), and the more I did it, the more I felt that our best articles are also our most original articles, in which the author shares some insight on the game that most players don't have, or presents a thorough analysis of some topic that most players would never have time to do. That's why I created a category called "Insights and Analysis". It is the posts in that category that are shown as highlights on the front page of my new draft. Of course, there's nothing to stop us from defining a highlights category (or tag) separately, in case we wish to include other types of posts, like translations (although we haven't published any of those in a while). Once a highlighted article has slipped off the list on the front page, we can assess whether it's been popular enough to add to the highlights part of the top menu, which should be reserved for our most historically popular articles.
Finally on the right side, there is a box for the forum post of the week. It's been in discussion for a while now, but nothing has happened yet, so let's pull our finger out and do it. If nobody else will, I'll do the choosing myself each week and update the front page (I expect it will be done through a widget). Consider that a threat, if you want! The feature is another way to get people to visit our forum. I think people are much more likely to click through if they see a snippet of an actual discussion, rather than just a thread title. Besides, the way we currently present forum activity on the front page is problematic: we have to hide various sub-forums' threads from being shown already, but even so, we get threads with swear words appearing on the front page. I don't have anything against swear words, I should stress, but it doesn't look good. Other thread titles appear truncated, which is just weird: "The Love Triangle Debate thread of KNEEL BEFORE...", for example. Fangu did a great job with the forum feed last year, but it is my design which is the problem; I hold my hand up for that.
Moving back to the left again, the "more news" box has gone, because I felt like it would have been very isolated on its own, once the corresponding forum box had gone. It doesn't blend in very well with the current design anyway, and the font we use for the "more news" text itself looks a bit squished at that size. The new format is much simpler and tidier. It does away with the dates of posts, because a) we weren't showing them on our top four articles anyway, which was inconsistent, b) they're not particularly important, and c) they can highlight periods of front page inactivity, which we don't want to be drawing attention to! Additionally, in order to avoid weekly roundups dominating our front page, I think we should only have one (or perhaps two) of them in the top four articles at once. The others can get shunted down to this section. My reasoning for that is that they are usually not FFVII-oriented, which is what most people come to TLS for. They contain mostly relatively minor news, so it's worth losing them from the top four in order to give other articles more exposure.
Finally - and this is a very minor change indeed - the right-hand border of the main div has gained the 1px dark green border that is present on the left, but has been missing on the right
When making the draft, I started off with our current design and tried to make it three things: neater, more informative and more professional. Let me know whether you think I failed or succeeded with those goals, and feel free to give me any other feedback as well.
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