Re: New Site Betatest

[Bert Peers <rat@larian.com>]

Christian Reiniger wrote:

> it's a broken HDD with important data on it), which has delayed this a bit,
> but now it's finally time.

On a side note, the low response may perhaps be because of the
surprising
complexity of the site.  I expected a simple redesign but it turns
out to be a very flexible and very nice solution.  Great work !!

But it takes a while to fully check it out :)

> * The "resources" part is still a bit chaotic, as its category scheme is
> way too coarse for the large number of entries. I'll add some more
> categories as temporary fix tomorrow (Wed),  and there are already rather
> detailed plans for a new category system.

The obvious thing to me seems to make this a two-level
tree.  Every resource would be in a category, with subtypes in
that category for finer control.  Currently there is only a
'Type' field, but a 'Type' and 'Subtype' may be helpful.

Type could be :

- Tools.  Subtypes : Programming, Graphics, Scripting
Note : perhaps add Soundediting; Webpage building; Resource
Management (links to CVS interfaces, test management..)
Possibly we can also list GUI builders here, which are
used to build the tools for editing the game.

- Libraries/SDK; subtypes: 2D Graphics, 3D, Sound, Networking,
General Purpose, Utilities (GUI, Font, img loaders)
Note : I noticed the SDK page currently lists everything just
flat; especially here I think subtypes would be nice.

- External : Game Projects, Cool Sites, Misc.

Perhaps over the top for only these resources, but as you point
out, when more stuff arrives a type/subtype split up may be
necessary.  Perhaps the resources menu can initially list only
the types, and when one clicks such a type the type 'opens up'
by listing the subtypes below it, slightly indented.
(ie classic treeview imitation, as on www.exaflop.org).

> * Right now only my articles are present on the site. That's because the
> code requires that article authors have a user account. This is a bit of a
> hassle, but that way the site code can let authors update their articles
> directly (via web form). So please, authors, create a user account and tell
> me the username.

I registered as "Bert Peers".  There used to be 2 articles up
there which were very nicely formatted by Paul into multiple
pages.  How will that work in the new automated submit ?
Not that it's urgent :)  I have the original around, so resubmitting
is not a problem.  There's also a small 3rd one ready.

> (2) News and resource links can be submitted by everyone. Of course stuff
> submitted by some stranger isn't immediately placed on the public pages,
> however. It's stored in the DB like a "good" entry, but marked as
> "unapproved".

If I understand correctly, then being the maintainer of a subsection
would involve being the 'moderator' of any submitted entries, new
or updating, verifying the 'worthiness' of a submission and giving
it the go ?  I think I still have time for that (if the task otoh
would be to hunt for SDKs and make the summaries myself, as in the
original site, it may be trickier timewise).

> 4) External Articles: We don't have a good system for handling links to
> interesting articles written elsewhere. <> It's not *that* easy
> though, 

What's the problem ?

> 2) Forum: The code for web-based discussion (we're using Phorum) is there,
> but it isn't integrated into the site yet. I'll look at this soon, but
> some parts of that are most likely of the tricky sort, so don't speculate
> on a date yet.

A great alternative is UBB.  I've found it is very stable, very easy
to set up if you have perl (duh) and there are no caveats in the
license -- there's a totally free version.

Bert
-- 

-=<Short Controlled Bursts>=-

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