Website

Website

Postby StefanP.MUC » 26 Feb 2011, 17:30

The custom-style wiki is nice for a begin and later for documentation of development related things. But I think, sooner or later you should try to get a nice looking "normal" website up and running (for example with a milestone like OD 0.5).
I think something like http://openttd.org/ or http://openclonk.org/or http://frogatto.com/

I think that would be more "user oriented" for gamers that don't know about OpenSource, Coding and "Snapshot releases" and theese things: So for gamers that simply want to play a nice game.
StefanP.MUC
 

Re: Website

Postby svenskmand » 27 Feb 2011, 00:53

That would be nice, but I have no knowledge about writing webpages :S and Xapantu is mostly busy with STK I thing, and it takes time to make a good looking website IMO. But if your game I say go for it :)
Jamendo.com - The best music store on the net, uses CC licenses.
User avatar
svenskmand
OD Moderator
 
Posts: 1850
Joined: 09 Dec 2009, 00:07
Location: Denmark

Re: Website

Postby Bodsda » 28 Feb 2011, 14:48

If anyone is willing to create a website, I can provide a web server.

Bodsda
User avatar
Bodsda
OD Moderator
 
Posts: 195
Joined: 18 Feb 2010, 08:19

Re: Website

Postby svenskmand » 28 Feb 2011, 15:10

I think SourceForge will suffice as a webserver as we are already using it for the wiki :)
Jamendo.com - The best music store on the net, uses CC licenses.
User avatar
svenskmand
OD Moderator
 
Posts: 1850
Joined: 09 Dec 2009, 00:07
Location: Denmark

Re: Website

Postby oln » 28 Feb 2011, 15:15

Probably. I have webspace as well if it should be needed.

Setting up a cms, that possibly integrates the wiki is not a big job, i could probably have a look at it.
We would need a nice looking design though.
User avatar
oln
 
Posts: 1020
Joined: 26 Oct 2010, 22:16
Location: Norway

Re: Website

Postby StefanP.MUC » 28 Feb 2011, 15:36

Using MediaWiki is OK. And you already have a basic layout direction on the SF wiki. But it still has the mediawiki "monobook" arrangement. I never liked it for "regular" websites (not even on Wikipedia).

I think it should go in the Direction of having a domain (opendungeons.net or something) and then use a good MediaWiki skin (there are a lot free out there that could be used by changing some logos and background colors to fit to the OD style). And then you could add links to all important other resources (Forum, Bugtracker, Downloads, Blog etc) that are displayed within the style of the skin (if possible).

In the style of like OpenClonk, OpenTDD, SuperTuxKart and others.

All for the regular user not needed elements of MediaWiki (like edit, history, ...) shouldn't be visible on an "official" non-interactable website.
StefanP.MUC
 

Re: Website

Postby svenskmand » 28 Feb 2011, 15:43

We could just make opendungeons.sf.net point to the website you talk about and then make a link on that to opendungeons.sf.net/wiki that points to the wiki, imo.
Jamendo.com - The best music store on the net, uses CC licenses.
User avatar
svenskmand
OD Moderator
 
Posts: 1850
Joined: 09 Dec 2009, 00:07
Location: Denmark

Re: Website

Postby StefanP.MUC » 28 Feb 2011, 16:24

Yeah, that should be OK.
StefanP.MUC
 

Re: Website

Postby StefanP.MUC » 09 Mar 2011, 09:30

I just did a quick mockup in html/css. See attachment (7z, contains the html files). It consists only of a header. My inspiration was OpenClonk and OpenTTD, because I think these two projects have excellent websites (I only rarely see websites this good or even better).
I think the OD website should go this way:

Always display a header like the one in the mockup. And when clicking on navigation link the main body displays the content. By always giving the same frame, header and navigation links it will be a lot easier to track the project and escpecially for newcomers to find their way into it. The content can still come from external applications (MediaWiki, WordPress, Trac, etc.) - only the css defintions of these apps have to be adjusted to fit the style.

In the mockup I have the following links:
  • Home - Should conatin a basic overview (latest stable version, one or two of the latest news, short summery of the game, small screenshot)
  • About - more detailed summary, larger screenhots, maybe a video, short history summary of development
  • Download - overview of all downloads, including links to the unstable dev builds (later hopefully also nightlies) and separate Media/Binary ones
  • Development - Entrance point for interested contributors. Summary of the tasks and general structure of the code and media base
  • Documentation - two parts: 1) table of content to the User manual and 2) toc to coding and designing guidelines
  • Forum - Display this thing here
  • (Blog) - optionally, I think this would make it easier to write news (plus giving the possibilitie to track via RSS).
Attachments
odweb.7z
(61.45 KiB) Downloaded 462 times
StefanP.MUC
 

Re: Website

Postby svenskmand » 09 Mar 2011, 11:32

StefanP.MUC {l Wrote}:I just did a quick mockup in html/css. See attachment (7z, contains the html files). It consists only of a header. My inspiration was OpenClonk and OpenTTD, because I think these two projects have excellent websites (I only rarely see websites this good or even better).
I think the OD website should go this way:

So you want the less is more concept. Seems good for newcomers. By the way the stone and parcement textures are way too tiled, but we can fix that.
StefanP.MUC {l Wrote}:
Always display a header like the one in the mockup. And when clicking on navigation link the main body displays the content. By always giving the same frame, header and navigation links it will be a lot easier to track the project and escpecially for newcomers to find their way into it. The content can still come from external applications (MediaWiki, WordPress, Trac, etc.) - only the css defintions of these apps have to be adjusted to fit the style.

In the mockup I have the following links:
  • Home - Should conatin a basic overview (latest stable version, one or two of the latest news, short summery of the game, small screenshot)
  • About - more detailed summary, larger screenhots, maybe a video, short history summary of development
  • Download - overview of all downloads, including links to the unstable dev builds (later hopefully also nightlies) and separate Media/Binary ones
  • Development - Entrance point for interested contributors. Summary of the tasks and general structure of the code and media base
  • Documentation - two parts: 1) table of content to the User manual and 2) toc to coding and designing guidelines
  • Forum - Display this thing here
  • (Blog) - optionally, I think this would make it easier to write news (plus giving the possibilitie to track via RSS).

Where is the wiki in this list? It should have a link.
Jamendo.com - The best music store on the net, uses CC licenses.
User avatar
svenskmand
OD Moderator
 
Posts: 1850
Joined: 09 Dec 2009, 00:07
Location: Denmark

Re: Website

Postby StefanP.MUC » 09 Mar 2011, 11:38

The wiki is implicit there. ;) If the user clicks for example on "About" then the content of a wiki page containign the about page is displayed under the header. We should use the applications like MediaWiki and Wordpress for easy content generating. And this content is displayed within an self-created "framework" (global header + global navigation + content area for external content)
StefanP.MUC
 

Re: Website

Postby svenskmand » 09 Mar 2011, 11:41

But it should still have real link called wiki, I think?
Jamendo.com - The best music store on the net, uses CC licenses.
User avatar
svenskmand
OD Moderator
 
Posts: 1850
Joined: 09 Dec 2009, 00:07
Location: Denmark

Re: Website

Postby oln » 09 Mar 2011, 11:48

The mockup looks nice, i agree with the organisation.
I think we should use a blog as you suggest, and if possible link it to the forum.
I suggest we go for some cms system to organise the frontpage and blog.
The documentation should preferably be on the wiki, so either we send most of the links to relevant pages on the wiki, or we use some plugin to embed the wiki pages in the CMS.
User avatar
oln
 
Posts: 1020
Joined: 26 Oct 2010, 22:16
Location: Norway

Re: Website

Postby StefanP.MUC » 09 Mar 2011, 11:53

svenskmand, why should the normal user be able to access the wiki? The normal user doesn't need to "register" on the wiki. He doesn't need the "History" and "View Source" buttons or the MonoBook navigation bar at the left. He only wants the content. And we, as the content providers, are in charge of providing a good overview and all needed links (and ONLY the needed ones) in a clean way.

Using software like MediaWiki and Wordpress for projects like OD should only be a help for the admins for easy content generating. The user shouldn't be "overwhelmed" by to much buttons and options (these are good for projects like Wikipedia and similar, but not for a game content website).
StefanP.MUC
 

Re: Website

Postby svenskmand » 09 Mar 2011, 12:00

Well I wanted it as a easy link to the wiki for us developers, instead of having to type in a long url I often go to opendungeons.sf.net :S
Jamendo.com - The best music store on the net, uses CC licenses.
User avatar
svenskmand
OD Moderator
 
Posts: 1850
Joined: 09 Dec 2009, 00:07
Location: Denmark

Re: Website

Postby StefanP.MUC » 09 Mar 2011, 12:05

A small quick link should be OK, yeah. ;)
StefanP.MUC
 

Re: Website

Postby StefanP.MUC » 10 Mar 2011, 17:24

I just installed local Apache and PHP and try to put something working together.
StefanP.MUC
 

Re: Website

Postby oln » 10 Mar 2011, 19:59

That's cool.
I have had a look at integrating stuff with wordpress before, it should be possible to use the headers from wp around mediawiki, and then we can use WP as the main website shell.
I can throw up a test installation on my webhost to see how it works.
Then we need someone who do the design bit and style it.
User avatar
oln
 
Posts: 1020
Joined: 26 Oct 2010, 22:16
Location: Norway

Re: Website

Postby StefanP.MUC » 10 Mar 2011, 20:14

That's a possibity, too. I thought more of a way like this: create a "header.php" (+css styles) that contains the OD logo and global navigation bar. Then we only need to change MediaWiki and Wordpress to always show this header. I tested this locally with Wordpress and it works pretty well. This way we could maybe integrate other web apps more easy into the design.

So basically there are two possible ways:
(1) Integrate the design into the used web apps.
(2) Integrate the used web apps into the "global" Wordpress (or other) container

Don't know what way is easier or more "comfortable" or "future-proof".

About the designing: On my local tests I noticed that my CSS skills got a bit "rusty" over the years (my last big project is two or three years ago), but I should be able to get this done.
StefanP.MUC
 

Re: Website

Postby oln » 10 Mar 2011, 20:19

The advantage of using the CMS as the container is that you don't have to mess around in the code to change the menu entries and other things.
Though, the disadvantage is that we may have to do some css fixing so that the styles used by the two applications don't crash.
User avatar
oln
 
Posts: 1020
Joined: 26 Oct 2010, 22:16
Location: Norway

Re: Website

Postby StefanP.MUC » 10 Mar 2011, 20:24

I think some css fixing has to be done in all cases (on some maybe more than in other cases). But I think you are right with the advantage. So, yeah, we should do it this way.
StefanP.MUC
 

Re: Website

Postby oln » 10 Mar 2011, 20:45

I tested it and putting the wordpress header on the mediawiki page is very easy.
User avatar
oln
 
Posts: 1020
Joined: 26 Oct 2010, 22:16
Location: Norway

Re: Website

Postby svenskmand » 10 Mar 2011, 20:59

oln {l Wrote}:Then we need someone who do the design bit and style it.

I can work something out if you give me a quick sketch of you want the layout to be, is it only the header with some links, like Stefan made? I do not make html, php, css or any other fancy webstuff, but I can produce all bitmaps you need, and make a design for you with mock-up.
Jamendo.com - The best music store on the net, uses CC licenses.
User avatar
svenskmand
OD Moderator
 
Posts: 1850
Joined: 09 Dec 2009, 00:07
Location: Denmark

Re: Website

Postby oln » 10 Mar 2011, 21:01

Yes, that should be sufficient.
User avatar
oln
 
Posts: 1020
Joined: 26 Oct 2010, 22:16
Location: Norway

Re: Website

Postby StefanP.MUC » 10 Mar 2011, 21:06

Yes, it should be really simple. A good unique header that helps the user "identifying" the website/game and a clean navigation bar with the most common links. Everything else that is visible to the user should be plain and tidy content (any not-really-useful-links/stuff would only would be a turn-off for the user because he's overwhelmed with unneeded stuff).
StefanP.MUC
 

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest