I’ve spent the last couple of days working on the site to make it look a little more professional and to help organize things a bit more. I went with Mambo for the CMS. So, I’ll be transferring the new site today in my free time. The front page may therefore go down, but the forums will remain up. Hopefully the new site will help attract people. Although I am using a very basic template, so if anyone wants to help on that end, I’d love it. I’ll be working on getting a wiki up after this is finished.
I get back when the new site is up.
Ok, new site up. Be gentle… I’m not a web master.
I voted “needs a lot of work” before arriving to see this thread.
The old site was minimal, but functional.
I found the new site much harder to navigate through in order to find things, like the link to the forums.
I almost went with “worse than the old site”, but I think there’s probably a lot of promise, and I don’t know that the new site has been worked on long enough to justly compare the two.
-Mike
Yeah, the menu needs a lot of work. I find myself finding it hard to follow links… and I made the damn thing. I’m going to try to keep everything visible (rather than click on jME to see the remainding, etc)
Ok, I revamped the menu a bit. Does that ease navigation?
Yeah, that’s definitely better.
You might also consider renaming “Discussion” to “Discussion Forums.” Discussion always makes me think of “Overview” or “Technical Analysis”
-Mike
Done.
Thanks, keep the suggestions coming 
I like the new site. The colour scheme is both readable and attractive. Navigation is simple, too. Overall, it’s a great overhaul!
A few things, though:
- I'd like the jME information page to have a basic overview of the engine as the default view with perhaps links to the contibutors and additional info.
- I'd like the option to turn off the polls/latest news bar. I like as much screen space as I can possibly have. (Not quite sure how you'd accomplish this. Ask me in about three weeks, and I'll take a look.)
- Change the site icon from the default Mambo one
- Can I post news?! :P
[/list:u]
I'd like the jME information page to have a basic overview of the engine as the default view with perhaps links to the contibutors and additional info.
Ok, good idea.
I'd like the option to turn off the polls/latest news bar. I like as much screen space as I can possibly have. (Not quite sure how you'd accomplish this. Ask me in about three weeks, and I'll take a look.)
I check into it. Still learning the software.
Change the site icon from the default Mambo one
See above :)
Can I post news?!
Yes... or at least you should be able to...
Err… I get a "You are not authorized to view this resource." message when attempting to submit news. Perhaps the permissions are messed up somehow?
A few minor problems in the download page :
- The “ant” link is erroneous (mojomonkeycoding.com/ant.apache.org)
- The “download” link doesn’t exist (it should link to the same files as “Jar list”
)
- I didn’t find how to go back to the main site from the Forum ?
And it would be great to have a direct link to the cvs browser.
However, thanks for this new revamped site. I bet there’s some hard work in it !
It’s ok. I find the text harder to read, and the general “busy-ness” of the page to be a little more overwhelming. (irrelevant rant)Then again, I’ve never really liked websites that put a banner on the top, a left panel, a right panel, a banner at the bottom, and then you might find some content in a 1" x 1" spot in the middle, with an advertisement halfway in the text, while you click away the pop-up advertisement over your window.(/irrelevant rant)
In my personal opinion as the new guy:
0) Text is way small and much harder on the eyes.
- Links are no longer clearly evident, especially in content pages. Just being bold makes them no different than some of the section headers.
- The right panel, Who’s Online balloon, and Hit Counter ballons are just visually cluttering up the area without really adding much in the way of content. Maybe a seperate page out of the way for that. The poll is okay… maybe on the left panel instead? And all you need for “RSS” is the RSS button itself… either you know what RSS is, or ya don’t. Maybe you can tuck that into a corner out of the way.
- If you can’t submit news, web content, or “check in my items”, we shouldn’t get those links at all.
- (removed, was being too picky)
- Some of the left links take you to a list page with a bunch of irrelevant stuff (page date, contributor, number of hits, a sequential list nav bar, a max-results pulldown, etc) that requires digging the actual link out of the middle again. A good example is the Information link with only 1 choice, or the “Apps and Demos” link with only 2 choices. I’d suggest:
a) Set up the main links so they always point to exactly 1 page, so you don’t need a seperate list page. Like the “Documentation” link.
b) Clean up the list page so it doesn’t have all the irrelevant stuff. If “Apps and Demos” consists of two choices, then that’s exactly what I should be presented with: “Demos and Tests” or “Applications and Utilities” (Better yet, make these two links on the left and link directly to their content instead) If a list is absolutely necessary (like for a news archive of 100 entries) then take out all the irrelevant stuff… just news subject and date, for instance. If there’s not at least 3 sub-choices to choose from, I wouldn’t use the list page.
- I agree, the big monkey at the top of the forum page should link back to the main home page.
"Jeramie" wrote:
6) I agree, the big monkey at the top of the forum page should link back to the main home page.
While I agree with most of the other points, I use "the Big Monkey" at the top of the forums all the time to return to the main forum page so I can then click on "View posts since last visit." While I could click on the tiny link under it, it's not near as easy to hit.
I also suspect it's harder to change the forum behavior.
-Mike
Err... I get a "You are not authorized to view this resource." message when attempting to submit news. Perhaps the permissions are messed up somehow?
Give it a shot now. Developers will get Author status, but Registered should be able to submit news. It will then have to be approved by me, I have a God complex.
- The "ant" link is erroneous (mojomonkeycoding.com/ant.apache.org)
Fixed, thanks.
- The "download" link doesn't exist (it should link to the same files as "Jar list" )
I'm not sure which download link you mean.
- The "download" link doesn't exist (it should link to the same files as "Jar list" )
Ok, searching for the link in the forum software right now. However, as Mike pointed out he uses it for forum navigation. What's the general consensus here?
And it would be great to have a direct link to the cvs browser.
Done.
0) Text is way small and much harder on the eyes.
1) Links are no longer clearly evident, especially in content pages. Just being bold makes them no different than some of the section headers.
2) The right panel, Who's Online balloon, and Hit Counter ballons are just visually cluttering up the area without really adding much in the way of content. Maybe a seperate page out of the way for that. The poll is okay... maybe on the left panel instead? And all you need for "RSS" is the RSS button itself... either you know what RSS is, or ya don't. Maybe you can tuck that into a corner out of the way.
This is all controlled by the Template, which I don't know how to change... yet. I'll try to learn how to build a template, but if someone already knows how and would like to make a custom jME template...
3) If you can't submit news, web content, or "check in my items", we shouldn't get those links at all.
Trying to fix it so everyone can submit, which will then require approval.
5) Some of the left links take you to a list page with a bunch of irrelevant stuff (page date, contributor, number of hits, a sequential list nav bar, a max-results pulldown, etc) that requires digging the actual link out of the middle again. A good example is the Information link with only 1 choice, or the "Apps and Demos" link with only 2 choices. I'd suggest:
a) Set up the main links so they always point to exactly 1 page, so you don't need a seperate list page. Like the "Documentation" link.
b) Clean up the list page so it doesn't have all the irrelevant stuff. If "Apps and Demos" consists of two choices, then that's exactly what I should be presented with: "Demos and Tests" or "Applications and Utilities" (Better yet, make these two links on the left and link directly to their content instead) If a list is absolutely necessary (like for a news archive of 100 entries) then take out all the irrelevant stuff... just news subject and date, for instance. If there's not at least 3 sub-choices to choose from, I wouldn't use the list page.
I'll see what my options are.
6) I agree, the big monkey at the top of the forum page should link back to the main home page.
See above.
Thanks for all the suggestions, I made those changes that I could. I'm working on the ones that I couldn't.
Ok, made the text a bit bigger… learning css in the process… unfortunately.
What's the general consensus here?
I rarely, if ever, use the logo for forum navigation. I think it'd be best if it linked back to the homepage.
Attempting to submit news now reports "The page you are trying to access does not exist." I'm not quite sure which is more disconcerting: being refused access, or finding out there's nothing there anyhow. :)
As for the text size increase, perhaps you went a bit too far in the other direction. I'd prefer to see the menu kept at its original smaller size, and only the content font size increased.
Hmm... something to think about: would it ever be possible to share user accounts across both the site and the forums? It'd be nice not to have to maintain two separate logins.
Hmm... something to think about: would it ever be possible to share user accounts across both the site and the forums? It'd be nice not to have to maintain two separate logins.
I would have to use Mambo's forum... losing everything here.
Regarding The Big Monkey… would just be handy to have a link back to the home website somewhere at the top of the forum. Doesn’t have to be The Big Monkey per se. The forums are just sort of a one-way out of the home website, requiring me to dig through my insane bookmark list to find my way back, heh.
I also agree that a link back to the main page somewhere would be handy.
If the monkey icon is the only [easy] way to do that, I can live with clicking on the Forum Index text.
my 2 pennies is big monkey goes to the site home, leaving us with clicking on the text link for forum home.