Site Design

Pixel

Pixel

The Pixie King
But this one, I made specifically for graphics and the look of the site because things were getting muddled in the layout and site structure side of things.

The only time graphics discussion starts up is when there is talk of changing "site design", and I step in. Then I'm reasured that things arent going to be changed too much. This is the first im hearing of any issue with the glowing graphics. And its not because of communication or me not being part of staff convos. Minutes were taken, which I commented on with regard to graphics, and that was not brought up.

I know you took issue with the glow on the social media icons, but thats the only time Ive seen anyone bring it up.
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
I would rather you were a part of staff conversations Pixel, since you tend to get pissed when you're not around and someone else creates something in your absence. I really don't see a problem with collaboration. Many hands make light work and all that?
 
Channy

Channy

Bad Habit
AKA
Ruby Rose, Lucy
I'm on my phone and lazy but want to contribute.... What about Wix.com? It's free and/or very affordable for a higher end site.
 
Claymore

Claymore

3x3 Eyes
I quite like Newspaper: http://themeforest.net/item/newspaper/full_screen_preview/5489609

* lightweight
* has a nice featured articles area,
* blocks for different highlight sections - podcasts, remake news, audiobooks, fanfiction, VII articles, etc...
* customizable sidebars
* sticky / unsticky menu
* has 11 different posting styles - so there will certainly be one you either want to stick to, or a couple you rotate through for specific topics (examples: http://demo.tagdiv.com/newspaper/td-post-if-you-only-knew-how-much-your-relative-churn-rate-matters/
http://demo.tagdiv.com/newspaper/td...ow-that-launched-video-into-the-stratosphere/
http://demo.tagdiv.com/newspaper/td...puters-that-could-be-heading-our-way-in-2015/
http://demo.tagdiv.com/newspaper/td...-of-the-best-and-worst-moments-from-the-show/
* The only question is how customizable the colours are, but I think that's changeable. I was given the theme for free if you guys want to test it out somewhere
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
Wix would be easier for us, but we can't make that switch when all of our content has already been built on wordpress. As far as I can tell there's no easy way to just port all of it over, it'd be a logistical nightmare.

Changing the WP theme is bad enough, because we're going to have to comb through every page and make sure it hasn't borked custom layouts in articles (which it more than definitely will). Changing to Wix is like... changing your OS to Mac when you've been using Windows all your life (and you quite like Windows even though Mac is more user-friendly, and all of your work implodes in the process).

It's definitely a thought though, I didn't even know that existed.
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
Claymore said:
I quite like Newspaper: http://themeforest.net/item/newspaper/full_screen_preview/5489609

* lightweight
* has a nice featured articles area,
* blocks for different highlight sections - podcasts, remake news, audiobooks, fanfiction, VII articles, etc...
* customizable sidebars
* sticky / unsticky menu
* has 11 different posting styles - so there will certainly be one you either want to stick to, or a couple you rotate through for specific topics (examples: http://demo.tagdiv.com/newspaper/td-post-if-you-only-knew-how-much-your-relative-churn-rate-matters/
http://demo.tagdiv.com/newspaper/td...ow-that-launched-video-into-the-stratosphere/
http://demo.tagdiv.com/newspaper/td...puters-that-could-be-heading-our-way-in-2015/
http://demo.tagdiv.com/newspaper/td...-of-the-best-and-worst-moments-from-the-show/
* The only question is how customizable the colours are, but I think that's changeable. I was given the theme for free if you guys want to test it out somewhere
Click to expand...

I quite like newspaper also, that's a good shout.

Remember we're making a decision by December (so I want a theme chosen by the end of this month) so that we can do testing and customisation in December with a view to have it up and running by January along with/ prior to our Xenforo move.
 
Flintlock

Flintlock

Pro Adventurer
Remember when we talked about goal-oriented design? Perhaps it would be a good idea to list the things that we're looking for in a new theme. I know we covered some of them already but not in this thread, as far as I'm aware.
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
- Better access to our "featured" content
- A "less is more" approach to how "news" posts are presented
- A more obvious link to our forums/ possible integration
 
vaderSW1

vaderSW1

Dark Knight of the Red Wings
Hope you guys don't mind that I copy the below into this thread. I posted this in the Lifestream 2015 thread and I wanted to make sure Lex and those making the design decisions saw this:

vaderSW1 said:
There should be a way, when we do the site redesign, that we can do like a scrolling news box. Similar to the way that He-Man.org has their news box. It would feature the latest 5 stories and it just scrolls through them every few seconds. It would give all stories a top billing if you will. Plus we could still give viewers a chance to go through older news stories as well. Also, if you look at that He-Man.org website you can see what I have been talking about with the Wiki-style ability to let our users build a games/collectibles database. Take a look at how it's set up. Whenever a user adds something new or edits an existing entry, it has to be approved by an admin first. The database also allows users to add entries to their own personal collection. Then on the home page of He-Man.org, they run a little widget that randomly showcases a particular item/collectible or a collection from one of the users. It's pretty nifty and something I feel we could offer on TLS that no other FF fan site is doing.
Click to expand...
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
That site is so fugly I can't even.

However, I agree about a scrolling newsbox. I would just specify that it actually scroll, as in slides a new story in from right to left with arrows etc.
 
vaderSW1

vaderSW1

Dark Knight of the Red Wings
Lex said:
That site is so fugly I can't even.

However, I agree about a scrolling newsbox. I would just specify that it actually scroll, as in slides a new story in from right to left with arrows etc.
Click to expand...

Yeah, as far as ugliness is concerned, I agree for the most part. However, it's not really the layout I was wanting you to see more than it was the functions that I have been talking about that I wanted you to see an example of. The scrolling news box would give our most recent stories top billing. We'd have like 5 stories or so that scroll. And that news box is updated whenever a new story is posted. And I really wanted you to see the collectibles wiki on the site. I think that is a very doable thing for TLS and it would offer something nobody else is doing.
 
Cthulhu

Cthulhu

Administrator
AKA
Yop
Yeah, what Flint said, we need a list of Goals (more than three points, but not too specific as in 'link in top left'), followed by a sketch of the layout of the page (and a site map of sorts). I think there should be resources online explaining it better than I do.
 
Claymore

Claymore

3x3 Eyes
Lex said:
- Better access to our "featured" content
- A "less is more" approach to how "news" posts are presented
- A more obvious link to our forums/ possible integration
Click to expand...

On that last check point, have we researched a plugin that will allow cross-posting from Xenforo to Wordpress? So that users can just have one log-on so that they can post comments directly on the main site? Or, how I've seen it in some places (though don't know how it is done), a thread is automatically generated for every news posts into the forum and the comments made in that thread appear in the comments section in the front page somehow.

That would be neat.

To possibly add to that list:

- Customizable sidebars (though you can add this via a plugin if a theme does not support it directly). This would negate having pages as 'stubs' and would allow you to highlight content within a section or to other connected sections.
- Ad / banner friendly. A lot of the newer themes have this integrated and allow you to have banners in all kinds of places without disturbing the overall feel of a theme.

Mind is blank. I think everything else we need is kinda plugin dependant rather than theme specific. Like Vader's idea of having customizable user collections and such. That can all be gotten via individual plugins.
 
Mage

Mage

She/They
AKA
Mage
Okay so I've decided to learn CSS and HTML, partly because my own website is laughably crap, partly because I want to be useful here. Don't hold your collective breath, it'll be a while before I produce anything noteworthy.
 
Claymore

Claymore

3x3 Eyes
I knew I forgot to do something. A quick search brings up this plugin / add on for the bridge that was previously mentioned.

https://xenforo.com/community/resources/xenscripts-wordpress-to-xenforo-bridge.604/

* Login to WordPress with your XenForo account (user authentication is entirely handled by XenForo)
* Automatically create XenForo threads for new WordPress posts and pages
* Store WordPress comments as thread replies on XenForo
* Sync and display XenForo avatars within WordPress
* Fully compatible with bambua’s WPXenCSS dynamic WordPress theme
Click to expand...

That's pretty cool and is exactly what is needed - bypassing the need for separate accounts (which should prompt / tempt users to post more comments across the entire site), new thread are auto generated, and replies are posted in the relevant threads.

This one is an old version. I'm not sure where the main add on sections for Xenforo is but there will surely be a more up to date version.
 
Lex

Lex

Administrator
Yes, that's exactly what I mean :monster:

It's not something I think would be particularly difficult to do though (if say I or someone else were doing it), but since you're here anyway :D
 
Mage

Mage

She/They
AKA
Mage
Would it be easier if the vB posts were archived? It negates trying to port over lots of TL;DR and yet provides reference for the sake of continuity. We could always copy the last page of posts so there's a jump-off point.
 
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