http://tesivpositive.animolious.com/
http://www.gamesas.com/bgsforums/index.php?showtopic=1111532

TESIV:POSItive New Layout Discussion

It's time for a change, a big one. Moving the site off of Google Sites's is
going to give me alot more flexibility with the organization of content. The
goal with the new layout is to make as much information relevant to the user's
purpose in visiting the site available without much effort. The other goal is
to have the content that the user sees somewhat conformed to the users's
experience level and, in some cases, the user's hardware specs as well. This
discussion will not address the content of pages, but the layout will
determine how the content is divded.

Google Sites version issues:
- formatting is horrible: color scheme, page layout, font, etc.
- important or frequently accessed pages are hidden
- some pages are still too long
- the general organization can still be improved
- it is tedious to update and make sure that the same information is updated in
every place that it appears

Goals with the new layout:
- nicer formatting: color scheme, page layout, font size, consistency, etc.
- accessibility: give user choices to change the font size or and color scheme
- improved navigation: generate navigation paths for user on main page, provide
a quick links sidebar (toggleable) as well as the regular side bar
- semi-dynamic content generation: prompt user for system specs, experience
level, preferred installation method, certain mod groups, etc.
- updating: use templates so that info can be updated with one change
- no information overload: shorter or more succinct page content

Main (left) Sidebar Layout


(New) Landing Page


BROWSE THE SITE
Drop-down Nav Bar with Sub Menus?
Prompt user for specs, experience level and preferred installation method

Implementation ...so far

Navbar(s)
- semi-static, modified with jQuery
- second bar for quick links (which are all subpages of other pages)

Colors Scheme and Font
- CSS
- jQuery for limited options for changing the color scheme
- One option should be earthen/natural tones

Content
- everything in one page (load appropriate PHP template, reprint everything)
- all content in PHP templates

TO-DO List Updates - http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1091580-tesivpositive-performance-optimiation-stabilization-information/page__view__findpost__p__15926037

On the subject of drop down lists, I much prefer static (or semi-static, like expandable sections) links to mouse hover lists myself. As for colour schemes, I always liked the earthen/natural tones of Dev Akm's site, it makes for a pleasant viewing experience IMHO.

A universal CSS file is always great for easy updating, as is SSI (especially for navigation links). When dealing with fonts, I'd recommend using em to define their sizes, as that's the best way I know of making text easily scalable for accessibility. AJAX is brilliant stuff too, if you can implement it well.

Anyway, I'm sure you probably knew all that already. I'm interested, as I do a bit of web work as a hobby, using whatever I learn along the way, and it'll be good to see what you come up with.

I'm in the middle of trying to do some sort of decent formatting for the opening post, but I have to just jump in and say I loves CSS, and you can be sure that that is what I'll be using. I agree with the color scheme too. When it first comes up, there will probably just be a lot of black and white, however. I'm thinking of doing expandable sections, where clicking on the top tab for a section (i.e., Stabilization) will expand that sections options in the side bar. That should keep the size down. I use AJAX, jQuery, actually. That way I can give the user the ability to choose from a limited selection of color schemes.


Edit: I just need to find good hosting somewhere...suggestions anyone?

Edit: I'll add this to the notes.

Do we have a URL yet?

Oh fantastic! While this site was becoming a cluster of information, it is largely responsible for my new "BAIN only" attitude since the whole idea of the anneal function is so perfect in its application.

My only comments...

1.) Make sure you keep your mod load order, BAIN package order, and OBSE plugin lists in-case we want to follow you more precisely....even installing many of the mods you do, to provide your complex and stable setup.

2.) I loved the section to where other user mod orders where uploaded...it would be wonderful to have a uniform uploading guide so it is easy to compare one mod's pros/cons to another along with a simple star/voting system so popular or stable load orders can be recognized..

3.) PICTURES! I love pictures....instead of typing one huge paragraph explaining what to check in a bashed patch...arrows and quick "Check this" notations would be great.


P.S. Examples, the more the better it seems! Good luck and have some fun with a a dedicated site...I want to hear about it as soon as it's public.

Yup, but I'm not telling until I feel smarter. I spent about an hour lamenting over only being able to upload files and not directories. Then I was about too do search for "FTP Clients" when I remember....I already have one!!! Grrr... Yup, I'm failing right now, but I am about to start on the style sheets and the landing page. The PHP and "fancy" content loading will come later.


1) Yeah... Those need to be updated too. It takes about 15 minutes to load my Installer tab, but I'll get to that, haha.

2) There was a uniform template, but the updating thing...will do. Right now, I only have stable load orders uploaded. However, I will try to push for expansion once the new site gets to some sort of stable state.

3) Yup, those are coming now that I am back at my desktop. I am not sure that I want to have images loaded by default in every section, but I am open for suggestions as I build.


I'll post the link once I get the basic content up again.

Progress Plan:

- basic layout is nearly done, codewise
- I have to port all of the site pages, but I expect to finish with that tomorrow (but I cannot promise to have all of the titles emboldened by that time.)
- still trying to figure out how I want to implement searching, probably do not want the auto-guide pages turning up as results
- the next big step is implementing the complete guide generator, but I want to update the original pages before adding multiple versions
- things that need a position in the layout: search box, color scheme chooser

I have been using your current site for my installation and I've spent more time I would like to trying to track down things such as pyffi.

Your new organization solves this completely. Awesome! My only suggestion is that you add a search function for specific words.

Would it be easier if you used Wiki software to do this? I'm thinking from the angle of creating, editing, cross-linking pages etc. Discussion page could be useful for tracking changes and other users could contribute, with approval from yourself, of course.

Just an idea. Let me know what you think, or whether it would be viable. :wavey:

I do not know what Wiki software is...haha. Anyway, there are still many missing pages, and the layout needs some work. That will come in time, and I am tired of formatting (and cleaning up auto-generated formatting.)

http://www.tesivpositive.animolious.com/
http://sites.google.com/site/oblivionpoinfo/index

Hello Tomlong,

Wow, you have been busy! The new site is looking good. And you use jQuery... what an advantage! For me, jQuery provides the framework I always felt javascript was missing.

I don't have much to add at this point, although, I can comment on the wiki aspect. Generally speaking, it's best to pick a wiki solution first and then build your site with it. Of course, you can add a wiki component at any time, but it often ends up being another site (done in one wiki or another) linked to the main site... and it's usually painfully obvious. CSS can solve a lot, but it gets tricky as I'm sure you can imagine!

Also, on a more fundamental level, your site probably doesn't fit the wiki model anyway. You have spent a lot of time laying out procedures for people, explaining why you do them the way you do them, and so on. It's a wonderful piece of work... I'd almost go so far as to say it is authoritative! Anyway, the main point of a wiki is to allow people to collaborate on a subject quickly (in fact, wiki loosely means "quick"). I don't think that's really what your site's purpose is. If you have too many chiefs, well, you know how it goes. Further, this forum provides a place for interaction/collaboration now, and there is already a well-established TES wiki site.

So, if I were you, I wouldn't spend any time at all on adding a wiki. You have provided multiple ways for paople to give you feedback, and that's plenty AFAIC. If too many folks started adding to your site, it would slowly but surely become less focused and definitely less authoritative.

Alternatively, a content management system (CMS) could be in your future. Loopy_Cecil makes a good point about cross-linking and especially tracking changes. A good CMS can do this for you, and much more, but again you generally want to start with the CMS and build from there. Just some food for thought.

Keep up the great work!
veg

@ Vegtabill

Thanks for your anolysis (and kind words). I envisioned Tomlong75210 having a small team helping him with the wiki - not "chiefs" (although I do appreciate your point), just a few reliable people assisting him to update the content - say version numbers, broken links etc. As you say, CMS could be better for that.



Edit: Also, an RSS feed could be offered for people wanting to stay up-to-date with the site content, important updates etc...

I don't want to get off-topic, but quickly... for what it's worth, the line between wiki and CMS is getting blurrier every day, especially with the surge in social networking over the past few years. Wikis typically have content management components, and today's CMSs typically offer [optional] wikis. So, it's not like it's cut and dry, by any means! But in this case, it seems collaboration is much less important than the content itself, which in turn would steer me towards CMS. Of course, a talented dev can make lemonade out of lemons, but why work harder than you have to? lol!

RSS is a good idea. So is Twitter. And both are easy!

EDIT: that's a great sig, by the way Loopy!

New layout looks excellent & noob friendly (thumbs up from me lol)!! oh I posted a thank you to you & others that have helped me build my version of oblivion:
http://www.gamesas.com/index.php?/topic/1095511-thank-you/

I don't know why I didn't post it on here or one of your threads in the first place! duh lol

Great work!, Thanks

I am unfamiliar with CMS, but I can look into it. The forums and PMs have been great methods of collecting feedback, so far. You are right in that I do not wish for this site to explode. That is not to say that the page count will not increase, but I absolutely do not want users to get lost searching the site. Everything should be at the top level. The old site is over 200 pages because of the CPS Library and Real Load Orders, and I expect those to keep expanding. More pages will also be added for the tutorials and whatnot, but the site should appear to be the same size, the main menu should be increase in length or anything. The organization is very important.

I would also agree that the site is authoritative in many respects. Of course, there a lots of ways of doing various things, but, at some point, offering variation becomes distracting. There are many posts that just say "I want step-by-step instructions to do X Y Z" and that is what the site offers. It also has pages that go down another level to explain the whys for those who really want to understand what is going on, and then they will be better equipped to come up with their own variations. The guide-like pages will often only show one way of doing things, in order to prevent confusion, but explanations should be available elsewhere, as well.

I'm pretty anol when it comes to consistency, but I think that that personality is wrapped in the site as well. For example, Psymon's BAIN thread is very useful, clear and informative, but some people will look at it and be turned away by the blocks of text.. I try very hard to make all of the pages "quick reads." It would be great to have someone help port the 200 plus existing pages and help add content, but I would want to make sure that everything was written in a certain manner. Taking someone else's work and completely rewriting it would be extra work for me and feel sort of odd...

Anyway, CMS and RSS and sound worth of looking into, and I will probably have to ask for help figuring out how to integrate those. For now, life is going to get in the way of me doing anything Oblivion-related, so all projects are on hold for a few days. I still need to write code for the CPS library, the Real LOs database, full site search, the nav helper, and a few specific pages (i.e., "Downloading Mods", which is currently cut off part-way through.) I think I will tackle the first three (because they are part of the original site) and then get screen shots up for the existing pages. I also have to write a few new pages, as you've probably seen with the 404 not found errors. I also have to go back and catch all of the corrections from the main thread.


Thanks for the input, all!
- Tomlong75210

Just a opinion here, so take it as such, but if I were you I'd plan on taking that step if/when you're ready to do TES4POSitive 3.0 (assuming this new one is 2.0, lol). It's not that it's anything that complicated, but you have already put a lot of time and work into what you have now, and switching to a CMS now _could_ mean scrapping a good deal of it. I'm guessing you'd rather not do that!



Yes! And stay steadfast on consistency (that's an admirable trait, and will serve you well).



Already addressed CMS, but RSS is pretty easily implemented and adding it to your site should not be difficult. I have a pretty full plate myself right now, but if I can help out in any way with anything don't hesitate to ask. I work in Java 99% of the time, but am familiar enough with PHP to be somewhat useful, lol!



Are you kidding? After all the help you have provided? No problem at all... you rock!

Cool. I have to learn Java this summer for work. My last web project, which I will be putting up this summer as well, required much more Javascript, and I was kind of surprised to find that I have not used much yet. I'll need it for the images and whatnot.

I hope the new organization makes sense. I am about to start working on the code for the cps and load order libraries. The framework I am starting with will be similar for the two. I am just creating a couple of forms for submission purposes. Only the sections and table labels will differ. I may even be able to direct people to forms whereby they could submit their load orders and CPS candidates...

Knowing your knack for organization and attention to detail, I think you will like it a lot. It is [much] more strict than PHP, but in ways I _think_ will make sense to you.


The new organization looks good to me so far. I think you are on the right track. You mentioned tables... just out of curiosity, is this a database driven site? Or are you referring to HTML tables?

Ooops, database-driven, MySQL

Ah, excellent! I must say, the more I learn about this redesign, the more impressed I am. I am beginning to think the term "site redesign" was a little modest on your part! lol

Well, it certainly sounds like you have thought this through quite thoroughly (not that I am surprised in the least by that)... Data-driven apps are so much easier to maintain (well, in theory, anyway). I keep finding myself wanting to ask more about your environent (LAMP, WAMP, XAMPP?), but that's definitely getting off-topic. Still, that kind of thing interests me immensely as that's getting really close to what I do for a living!

This weekend I am going to dedicate some time to looking over the latest stuff you have up. I'll let you know if I have any questions or suggestions.

Take care, and have a great weekend,
veg

I love talking about web design too, especially since I am a beginner. I use WAMP and Eclipse. To do the quick formatting tasks, I have relied heavily on Notepad++. I will go through and checking everything over in Eclipse, afterward, but that program takes a while to launch, making an inconvenient choice when I want to make small changes on the fly. I need to code up a few PHP files to make submission and editing quicker. PHPMyAdmin is great for making big changes (i.e., modifying tables) but it is a pain, sometimes, to insert new entries and edit the page content.

I'm in a Windows environment now myself, though I really do prefer coding in linux (ubuntu is the current flavor, though I have used archlinux fairly recently).

And Eclipse! Oh man, I love Eclipse! It was my first IDE and I still use it to this day (I have it open now, as a matter of fact). To date, I have found nothing that I could not do with it. When you get into Java, don't be surprised if some people try to sell you on NetBeans. And actually, it's a much more mature product than it was a few years ago. Still, at the end of the day, Eclipse is always what I come home to, so to speak!

I do know what you mean about quick edits. In addition to Eclipse, I always have Vim on the side in my linux environments, and yes, Notepad++ in my Windows one. Needless to say, I was very pleased to see that someone created a plugin for Oblivion scripts (for Notepad++, that is). I haven't used it yet, but plan to look into it soon-ish.

And yeah, PHPMyAdmin rocks for some things... it's one helluva lot better than MySQL's administrator interface, that's for sure. But again, it does kind of svck for adding/editing entries. An admin console would be much better, and it sounds like you're working on that.

By the way, have you considered validation for your forms? The only downside to data-driven apps is that bad data can not only bring down your site; it can also kill your database if it gets in there. I have some general validators for certain common things (names, email addresses, phone numbers, alpha only, alphanumeric only, certain symbols, etc, ad nauseum). They use regular expressions for the most part. They could certainly be improved upon, but if you haven't got anything for that yet it could be a starting point. Again, just some food for thought.

OK, back to work (massive groan... at least it is Friday!)
veg

I like coding in linux as well. I keep saying I am going to install ubuntu, but I have not gotten around to install Magic Disk yet. I will make sure to do that when I make my next build. I could probably still make use of it now, but Windows is cool for coding too. My MacBook Pro... If ever I wanted to kill that thing. I have not even done much coding on that. When I tried "code" (html) a first draft of one of the site's pages on it last weekend, and ...geez... I'll stick to using it for school and music. I have not wished I had Notepad++ so much as I did then. Actually, my real frustration over OS X's organization started when I started troubleshooting and helping users with BAIN-repackaging. Why in the world would you sort folders like that, and can I please drag a file down to a folder that is not visible in the screen, scroll and drag at the same time?! And then there are those new iPad's...grrr...

Validation, right, on topic. Right now, I only have the mysql_real_esacpe_string thing. The site does not have any forms, at this point. That is definitely something to think about, however. I am looking up security measures all of the time. I only learned about the .htaccess file yesterday, and I need to look over that some more...

I downloaded the plugin script definitions for Notepad++ a while ago, and I grabbed an updated version more recently. I'd nearly forgotten about it because I do not use OBMM much anymore, but that is no longer the case.

Going into a meeting in a few, but real quick:

I'm not much of an Apple advocate myself, so I'm right with you on that!

Somehow I got the idea that you were going to have some forms for submissions from your users, but I might have mixed up another conversation. But if you do get to that point and could use some input, please do let me know.

veg

I think I can get first versions of the CPS Library and the RLO Database up tomorrow. That just leaves the guides and a few other random pages. At least, there are no more dead links, woohoo...


Edit: I forgot about the related pages code. I think I can get that done tomorrow too, but who knows...