PGD's New Index Page

[WILL]

I would like to know what you guys think about the new index page.

Do you find it easier or harder to find what you want? Is it more visually appealing or less so? What sorts of things would you like to be seen there? ...and what, if anything, really bugs you about it?

Tell us all and hold nothing back. We want to know what can be done to improve upon it.

[Eric]

Silly question maybe, but what new index page are you referring to? :toothy:

I've bookmarked http://www.pascalgamedevelopment.com/forums/ since the hack/crash took out the old main page...
It's vanilla phpBB, but I don't mind, as it's easy on the eyes. The old theme with the dark background wasn't convenient to read for me (being somewhat colorblind), and I pretty much had to "Ctrl+A" to get readable text.

[AthenaOfDelphi]

Personally, I like the new index page, especially using the blue AcidTech theme as its much lighter on load times than the PGD theme.

I only have one complaint... when I first view the page (I use Mozilla), it doesn't load properly and the widths are all wrong. Refresh and its OK. But apart from that minor gripe, I've got no complaints.

[Sly]

The current site layout is so much clearer and easier to use than the previous PGD site.

[WILL]

You guys do realise that the only 'supported' theme right now is the 'pgd' theme.

Otherwise you miss out on the handy header that shows all the sections of the site. Which pretty much reduces the PGD site to a crumby forums only site. :? You miss out on the staff written articles, the PGD Library, Links section, etc...

But anyhow, back to the main topic here...

So you guys find the new index page [size=9px](the one that shows all the news items, recent poll and other 'main page' type stuff)[/size] to be better or worse than the old one.

Lemme put some pros and cons out on the table here just to help jog your memory on the old one.


[size=9px]Pros to the new one:

• Has the 'Full Story' or 'More...' feature for news items that I had planned to add to the old one, but didn't have it yet.
  
• Has new Recent Poll box, allowing you to see and vote on the last forums poll, right from the index page.
  
• 'Who is Online' and 'Statitics' boxes were moved up from the footer to the right side where you can see them better.
  
• News system intergrates with the forums so that everything that is in one place, not two
  
• Basically any post can be made into a news item now, which saves time and effort for the staff members.
  
• It can later be made to work with other phpbb themes allowing for members to be able to select a 'visual style' of their preference.

Cons to the new one:

• It is far less graphical then the previous. (news icons are gone and new article notification icons are gone aswell)
  
• The script to upload an image to the site for the news items is now gone. (replaced by some external, 3rd party place to store them --not very reliable)
  
• The News Archive (system) and all the old DelphiGamer news items are gone. Aswell 'Announcements' in the forums do not work their way into pages like the normal posts do, they all remain in the first page. And since ALL the news topics are 'Announcements' it makes for one very long and growing page to load.
  
• New Articles and Library items are no longer seen on the main page. You have to go to the 'Articles' and 'Library' sections and look to see if anything new was added. This puts both sections out of plain sight of the visitors.
  
• Not many know of this, but 'member only' and 'staff only' news items are gone too. This removes previous options for informing registered members of the site about specific events or site specific activities.
  
• 'Recent Posts' box is less custom than the previous planned 'finished' version.
  
• PGD Staff blog system harder to intergrate, if possible anymore.

[/size]


Well I think I've generally covered it. There are more subtile differences but those seem to be the major changes.


Anyhow... Please, further oppinions...

[Traveler]

I wouldn't put too much time in it anymore and keep what we have. Recent activity hasn't exactly been great, despite the competition.... :?

[WILL]

I think that has directly to do with the 'image' of the site. We've suffered quite a lot due to hackers, scripting bugs, modivation issues, and lack of time to fix things.

Hopefully with the competition aside we'll be able to then focus on fixing the site up the way it should be and getting our PR and advertizing wheels rolling. We can finally start to bring in a bigger audience and hopefully some new life into the community.

[savage]

[quote="WILL"] You miss out on the staff written articles, the PGD Library, ]

This is incorrect. The other 2, non pgd, themes have links to all these sections and can be viewed accordingly. I made sure of that when installing the new forums. There is a slight SQL bug at the top of the articles section, but it does not stop you reading the articles there. So all current themes allow you access to all the sections mentioned above.

[Eric]

The other 2, non pgd, themes have links to all these sections and can be viewed accordingly

I'm using subsilver, when you click on "Articles" you go to the page that list the articles, but when clicking on the links there, you are redirected back to the same page for "The lost key in the world of game development". Other links seem to work.

[savage]

Hmm, I'll have to look at that when I have a spare moment....

I just changed my theme to subsilver and checked the articles link and they all go to the right articles. Is there something else you are doing?