Design and Layout Suggestions

[zourtney]

Wow, this (desktop) theme for the forums is much better than our old one. It still needs a few tweaks in the header region (like the login/user info box), but overall, I like it. Maybe we can model the main site to look similar to this.

I added a themes folder into the SVN repository. They're empty for now, but I'll be playing with it. And if anyone has any good ideas, just chuck it in there. On a laptop somewhere I started a Garland-derived theme.

[Nick]

I see. In that case we need to add another such link to the bottom of the page.

[Nick]

Dude, what are we going to do with the site?


Better question: What should be on it? How should it be divided? What should be on the landing page? Do we even want a unified landing page? Should we have a bunch of related blogs instead? Should the forums takeover and use some static-page-making plugins? Should we put it all in a bottle and see if it floats?

[zourtney]

Ok, this is just one man's opinion...

Randomland[proper] should primarily be a chronology of projects and adventures. These will be predominately (nature-seeking) outdoorsy and (beater) automotive activities. A smattering of musical, electronic, and woodworking projects fit the bill nicely, too.

Maybe I think it should be this way, because that was its genesis (Tempo!). The "long form" stories and single-post how-tos are the meaningful ones that stick out in my mind. Tuffy may have been a whorefeline flusey, but it didn't exactly add, anything other than comical, value to the site.

Browsing through the "Rec" and "Motors" section, we actually have some content I like. We need a way to "promote" the longer write ups, because they get lost amongst the "I promise we're doing stuff!!!!1" posts. Maybe making them pages is the way to go? Maybe better landing pages is the answer.

Maybe making the site look less twenty-oh-four is the answer  We desperately need a new theme...I'll mullet over.

Do we dare switch back ends again? What are the options nowadays? I can write a better website with my recent skilllzzz, but have no interest in creating yet-another-CMS from scratch.

[Cody]

Well, I agree with your opinion. Some pages with tutorial like content about projects might actually attract people. A better version of my water rocket for example. (which there is a lame video of on Facebook if anyone cares.) Granted there are lots of tutorials about those already.

As for the theme...well, yes. It probably should look less 8 years old as you said. How? I have no idea. But that's my two cents.

[Nick]

With reguards to the backend; Yeah. It's not a problem of 'can', it's a problem of "There are 16 already made, lets just use of those." But what one?

If you make a rough of a suggested sitemap it would help me see what you are envisioning.

Promoting content of the site is hard. Most all of the content I come across on the 'net is from search results or aggregate sites. Unless it's a forum I don't ever hit 'Home' and see what else a site has to offer (with the exception of company and government site that I HAVE to use.) So having pages appear in search results is the best way for people to find them. But not having any way for people to find them otherwise is not a good move either. Hmmm.

[zourtney]

Yos. I was going to install a BBCode plugin that allows for "floated" text, but it seems to be out of date. Would this be useful to anyone else?

The code looks super-simple to update to be compatible with our current version (2.0.4?)

[Nick]

Go for it if you think it's useful.

[zourtney]

Not for viewing forums on my phone app, but yeah, could be good.On topic of this thread, should we do some site visuals upgrades? (oh noes, every time I think of this I go down the "swap out the backend" rabbit hole...oh nevermind.)

[zourtney]

Cleaned up the main site a little, removing dozens and dozens of "default galleries" auto-generated by the spam users.

[Nick]

Thank you... that was a daunting task.

[zourtney]

I found the batch edit selection, and filtered by type. That was a LOT better than what I thought I'd have to do - delete each one individually! Still thinking about The Sevens?

[Nick]

For the image stuff yeah. And I just realized how ugly the main site is

[zourtney]

Yeah, it's bad, and hasn't aged well. I was thinking of mocking up some general idea in Balsamiq and discussing from there. A little Twitter Bootstrap could go a long ways.

[Nick]

That Balsamic thing looks cool. Not sure on the twitter thing. It looks clean, but how useful is it past a basic site?