Topic: Time for a change.....

[Blacklord]

Time to change things a little - the forum portal is ok, but somewhat "stale" and "old fashioned".

My intention is to do a relaunch of the site with the forums just being a part of it. We have shitloads of hosting space so we can add as much as we like - of course as long as it's Commodore related!

But my artistic and design skills are on a par with those of a spastic monkey - ie none at all.

Sooooo......   i'd like to ask for help with a site redesign - any one up to the challenge ?

[BigDumbDinosaur]

But my artistic and design skills are on a par with those of a spastic monkey - ie none at all.

That makes you a Picasso compared to me.

[airship]

I LIKE "stale" and "old fashioned"!

Shoot, I AM "stale' and "old fashioned"!

[wte]

Shoot, I AM "stale' and "old fashioned"!

That's why we are here! 

Regards WTE

[RCtech]

Hm, what should be changed too much? It's not that there has to be used more because it's possible. There are enough other C128 pages in the web, so there mustn't be another one. The forum look is also ok, it's simple and the most important information are displayed on the main page. It also uses the whole width of the windows, there are forums which only use a very small part of it. To get a more retro touch the forum could get brownish (don't know the english word) colors and a logo like the C128, but it isn't neccessary.

Better would be a faster server. I'll get very often a pop-up window with the message 'High server load' or something like that.

[Blacklord]

Hm, what should be changed too much? It's not that there has to be used more because it's possible. There are enough other C128 pages in the web, so there mustn't be another one. The forum look is also ok, it's simple and the most important information are displayed on the main page. It also uses the whole width of the windows, there are forums which only use a very small part of it. To get a more retro touch the forum could get brownish (don't know the english word) colors and a logo like the C128, but it isn't neccessary.

Better would be a faster server. I'll get very often a pop-up window with the message 'High server load' or something like that.

The high server load should be gone by now - I was using that as a monitor while I did some tweaking and it was set a little low. Shouldn't pop up too much from now on.

Colours - that's a theme change and is relatively easy to do either by putting up a new theme (and breaking most of the mods!) or simply a few changes in the CSS. Some time back there were a few complaints about the colours used in the default theme as I recall. the older forum software we used several years ago (PunBB) used darker shades of blue than the default of SMF. Don't know if this is still an issue for some people.

What I may do on the next update of SMF is back out all the mods and put in a  few extra themes then reinstall the mods. I could do that now I guess.........

[Blacklord]

Added a poll - let the users decide!

[Blacklord]

Actually one thing I'd really, really like to add is a wiki (using MediaWiki) - this would I think be 'a good thing' as it would pull the huge amount of info on the forum into something resembling order. I believe there may even be a bridge to allow cross-overs in users which would make things somewhat easier.

As well, a code repository would be very useful as well as there are a lot of snippets scattered across the forum.

However, all this will take a fair bit of editing/administration - so most definitely will need to be a community effort.

Thoughts ?

[Hydrophilic]

I think the look and feel is pretty nice right now.  If I would change anything, it would be to use simpler HTML.  For example the site looks okay in IE5 but trying to click on somethings makes the screen scroll so you can't click... which means it probably wouldn't work on IE3... which means it probably wouldn't work on a Commodore web browser.  One of these days I'll get some kind of ethernet adapter for my Commie to test such things.  I don't really expect this to be possible (revert to lower HTML)... just wishful thinking!

On a more serious note, I think a wiki would be a good idea.  I could copy / organize some of the posted content / code examples into some categories.  I a few areas of experience, but am pretty ignorant about things like BBS, CP/M, and most peripherals.  So this would really need to be a community effort like you say.

[Blacklord]

I think the look and feel is pretty nice right now.  If I would change anything, it would be to use simpler HTML.  For example the site looks okay in IE5 but trying to click on somethings makes the screen scroll so you can't click... which means it probably wouldn't work on IE3... which means it probably wouldn't work on a Commodore web browser.  One of these days I'll get some kind of ethernet adapter for my Commie to test such things.  I don't really expect this to be possible (revert to lower HTML)... just wishful thinking!

On a more serious note, I think a wiki would be a good idea.  I could copy / organize some of the posted content / code examples into some categories.  I a few areas of experience, but am pretty ignorant about things like BBS, CP/M, and most peripherals.  So this would really need to be a community effort like you say.

IE5 ?  Please tell me you aren't serious! It seriously isn't supported by anything anymore - and definitely not on SMF!

The Wiki is definitely looking like it'll be on though - have the space so that's no issue.

cheers,

Lance

[Blacklord]

Further - IE5 has limited support in SMF 1.x but dropped in SMF 2.x.

(Both versions are current)

But for this particular site (on SMF 2) I can't imagine how IE5 would render the pages.

For really basic browsers you might get away with the WAP version of the site - it's at http://www.commodore128.org/index.php?wap2

Cheers,

Lance

[Blacklord]

Just tried the WAP2 link on Lynx and ir renders fine - in fact it looks a little like an old school BBS

[RobertB]

Just tried the WAP2 link on Lynx and ir renders fine - in fact it looks a little like an old school BBS

I concur.  It looks fine on my C128 + Desterm 2.01 + shell account + Lynx text browser.

Truly,
Robert Bernardo
Fresno Commodore User Group
http://videocam.net.au/fcug

[Andrew Wiskow]

I think the look and feel is pretty nice right now.  If I would change anything, it would be to use simpler HTML.  For example the site looks okay in IE5 but trying to click on somethings makes the screen scroll so you can't click... which means it probably wouldn't work on IE3... which means it probably wouldn't work on a Commodore web browser.  One of these days I'll get some kind of ethernet adapter for my Commie to test such things.  I don't really expect this to be possible (revert to lower HTML)... just wishful thinking!

On a more serious note, I think a wiki would be a good idea.  I could copy / organize some of the posted content / code examples into some categories.  I a few areas of experience, but am pretty ignorant about things like BBS, CP/M, and most peripherals.  So this would really need to be a community effort like you say.

IE5 ?  Please tell me you aren't serious! It seriously isn't supported by anything anymore - and definitely not on SMF!

The Wiki is definitely looking like it'll be on though - have the space so that's no issue.

cheers,

Lance

But IE5 was the final release on Windows 3.1, so on my machine that runs that OS, it can't be upgraded further. Likewise, on machines running Windows 95/98/Me/2000, IE6 is the highest you can go. I always get a chuckle when I go to websites that say "you are using an old browser that may not be supported. we recommend you upgrade to a newer version." ... and I'm thinking, OK, and how exactly am I supposed to do that?