Classic RMXPU & SEO Overhaul

[Marked 197]

Hey everyone, I'm pleased to announce my return and the first of the updates which will complete our transition to the upgrade.

 

Classic RMXP Unlimited

The trademark skin of RMXP Unlimited is back! However first of all let me tell you that it is not finished, though close, and I will be working to finish it over the next few days. Hopefully you guys will give me some criticism and point out the flaws, and I'll go fix 'em up.

 

The skin was made starting with the original skin that comes with the software. I started it 4 days, learning a bit of CSS in the process. So I really hope you guys like it and are happy with it. The parts most in need of attention are the profiles and topic view(what you're looking at now).

 

To create this, I resurrected an old backup from '07 which had this skin, and got to work on the reconstruction. The menu system hopefully, for those who remember the old one, looks a bit better. The icons are properly indented and even better I discovered a method of sprites. That means, every icon in that menu comes from 1 image. If you get the chance you will see the icons suddenly appear at once. That's irrelevant to the topic, I just thought that was cool :rolleyes: The menu may look plain at the moment in terms of content, or options, but it will certainty develop over time, epically in the next few weeks I would think. It also may seem very repetitive, identical RMXP and RMVX section as well as identical links in the bar below, but this is on purpose and for the sake of shortening the topic, I'll leave it at that.

 

There's also a hint of RPG Maker around the place. I used some RMVX icons for some things, but I dont know how great it looks. What do you guys think? Can you even spot them?

 

SEO Overhaul

SEO stands for search engine optimization, and to simplify it further, it means being friendly with google.

 

The impact of this on RMXP Unlimited is that URLs have changed, both on the site and forum. Now, I'm not a big a fan of forum friendly URLs(which for example would change index.php?showuser=1 into index.php/user/1-marked/), however apparently the do help with SEO. Which of course means more traffic. The friendly URLs on the forum are an experiment. After enabling and testing them about 10minutes ago I did run into a few issues with the breadcrumbs and 404 pages. So, we'll see. I'll need your feedback to decide whether to keep the friendly URLs or revert back.

 

Similarly the websites URLs have changed, and unlike the forums the old URLs will bring up 404 pages. This will surely have a negative effect with the website having an enormous impact on traffic coming through via search engines, but in the long term I am sure this will prove beneficial. We were already using friendly URLs on the website, but the new system is way more friendly and just looks good(as far as text in the url bar goes :P ). It has changed, for example, the RPG Maker XP homepage from index.php/rmxp.html to /rmxp. How friendly is that?

 

That's it in terms of SEO. The rest will be backend stuff, and google'll never want to leave. Ever.

 

Well that's it for now. More announcements to come in the very near future... :)

 

Updates Log

This is just a log of minor updates that may or may not worth announcing...

-Avatar upload limit increased to 500kb

-Global Upload Space increased to 5mb

-Personal Photo size limit increased to 500kb

-Max number of storable messages increased to 1000

-Created a 'Top Points' module for the homepage

-Fixed images in blogs, gallery and downloads manager

-Fixed signatures stretching the forum - thanks to Tomo2000

-Increased topic-view width & author info bar styling (unfinished)

[Kiriashi 117]

I caught a glimps of the skin before I logged on, but now that I am logged on, it is gone. And I don't see where I can change the skin. :(

 

 

Everything sounds cool though.

[Marked 197]

I removed the skin changer, so you cannot select a skin. I updated everyones skin choice, see it now?

[Kiriashi 117]

Yup! And I'm loving it!

 

The VX icons are gone now.

 

Also, one thing that needs some edits while your at it, is the emoticons panel. When you click the face (when you are making a "quick reply") it should load all of the emoticons.

 

 

I noticed the default color is black now, which is awesome.

 

EDIT: How to I add tutorials to this section? Do I need some sort of permission?

[Polraudio 122]

Like the skin. Wish i could have viewed it before it came but i like to be surprised.

Love the URL idea makes it easier to find out your member number.

[Gary The Duck 8]

Thanks for the new skin! I really love it. By the way, the Blogs icon wont be shown. (It just says for ex. Gary The Duck's Blog with text)

[Tomo2000 60]

Yay! It's finally back! I love it. The skin used before this one sometimes crashed my browser which caused me to not be able to post in certain topics but now its all better :D . The SEO system works fine to me, I never really had a problem with either one. Good job :D .

 

Edit: Man I love this happy face :D .

[Kiriashi 117]

I hate that happy face actually. I think it looks corny. Use :lol: instead... for my sake.

[isaacsol 10]

Looking nice Mark, by the way, do you want me to upload that MySQL access thing I told you about?

[Marked 197]

Also, one thing that needs some edits while your at it, is the emoticons panel. When you click the face (when you are making a "quick reply") it should load all of the emoticons.

 

EDIT: How to I add tutorials to this section? Do I need some sort of permission?

The emoticons is not actually a skin thing, I think its defined somewhere in the settings, but I'll take a look at that for you.

 

As for the tutorials section, that is a complicated matter. When I first introduced the website to RMXPUnlimited you could submit content to all of those sections and I was really proud of getting the bridge to work between the forum and site which allowed for members to login to the website and submit their own content. However it was unpopular and those members who did submit content did it poorly, I think because it was because there was an HTML editor and not a forum-like bbcode one. Since the bridge is gone, it is only possible to submit content to that section in the backend, in the admin control panel. However I am planning on removing that section and replacing it with one similar to how the RGSS Scripts Archives work. Which is basically filling out forms, uploading images. Simple as that, and they come out the other end nice and styled. I think you have seen the video, but its a similar process to this:

 

I will go over this in a lot of detail in my next announcement topic which will be regarding RMXPUnlimited in the future.

 

Thanks for the new skin! I really love it. By the way, the Blogs icon wont be shown. (It just says for ex. Gary The Duck's Blog with text)

Glad you like it Gary, though much work to do. Thanks for pointing out the blog error. This is basically a whole bunch of images left out from the images directory somehow. Easy to fix, I'll get to that soon.

 

 

Looking nice Mark, by the way, do you want me to upload that MySQL access thing I told you about?

If it's not too much trouble, that would be great. Just reply to the PM you sent me before.

[Agckuu_Coceg 5]

Yes, Marked, it is done really mightily, devilish.

[Kiriashi 117]

(So I asked the question in here.... silly me... xD)

 

 

I see. Well I would really like to be able to submit my own tutorials in there.

[Marked 197]

Yes, Marked, it is done really mightily, devilish.

Thanks Agckuu_Coceg :)

 

I see. Well I would really like to be able to submit my own tutorials in there.

If all goes to plan, everyone will be able to. I'll PM you about it.

 

 

If anyone finds any errors or abnormalities or just bad looking parts of the skin, please report them in this topic. I will be searching, correctly and altering all the things that need it over the next few days and hopefully we'll up with a nice, complete skin. Also I have added a change log to the first post with some minor things I have and will be doing.

[Gary The Duck 8]

Glad you like it Gary, though much work to do. Thanks for pointing out the blog error. This is basically a whole bunch of images left out from the images directory somehow. Easy to fix, I'll get to that soon.

Well, atleast that's fixed now but I just noticed something at the memberlist; The "views" thing is outside the box.

Hopefully that will be fixed soon. :P

[Marked 197]

Well, atleast that's fixed now but I just noticed something at the memberlist; The "views" thing is outside the box.

Hopefully that will be fixed soon. :P

Oh hmmm, I'll get on to that today. By my own editing I did cause that, so I'm definitely aware of it, and I will try have it fixed by the end of the day. It's one of the tricky parts so I was kindof putting it off, first though I will get to work in the profile view.

[Kiriashi 117]

Are the amount of comments on profiles someone has made saved anywhere? If so, can you display it on the profile pages please? I need to beat Polraudio in more things he beats me in. :P My comments > his comments, my profile views < his profile views. :(

[Marked 197]

Are the amount of comments on profiles someone has made saved anywhere? If so, can you display it on the profile pages please? I need to beat Polraudio in more things he beats me in. :P My comments > his comments, my profile views

Everything is stored. The difference is that when you get a profile view, it simply increases a variable. When you get a comment, it adds a row in the database. I pretty sure I can write the query to get the amount of comments on your profile, its a matter of where do i write the query and how do i display the result in the profiles. I've never done it before. HOWEVER, if you were to use the tracker I would definitely have a go at this. At the moment my top priority is completing this skin until it's errorless.

 

I made a new category for features:

http://www.rmxpunlimited.net/forums/index.php?/tracker/project-2-new-features/

 

You don't have to use it though. It would be useful, I have 2 months worth of work to catch up on :P

[Kiriashi 117]

I'm not quite sure what you mean.

 

I don't know how to use this "Tracker" system. Am I supposed to get my comment amount for you?

[EmilyAnnCoons 7]

:dragonshock: NEW SKIN! Keep up the good work ^^

[Noob Saibot 38]

I thought this skin looked familiar Marked.

[Marked 197]

I'm not quite sure what you mean.

 

I don't know how to use this "Tracker" system. Am I supposed to get my comment amount for you?

Well this is just an idea, to aid the progress and production of user-features. I made it myself as an example: http://www.rmxpunlimited.net/forums/index.php?/tracker/issue-2-comment-no-in-profiles/

 

The idea behind is similar to a project, such as developing software. I suppose it may be inappropriate to do so with a forum or site as a whole, but i would like to try out the tracker...if it fails to provide any benefit, we'll ditch it.

 

:dragonshock: NEW SKIN! Keep up the good work ^^

Hey Emily, hope you like it :) I put some good hours into this one. I started with the default skin, so I nearly touched every part of it to get it to look how i want. Although it's not exactly a new skin, it is a replica of the one we used for the majority of the time we've been around.

 

I thought this skin looked familiar Marked.

Yeah, it should. We used it for a good 2 and half years. Around the time you were admin.

[Noob Saibot 38]

Yeah, it should. We used it for a good 2 and half years. Around the time you were admin.

 

Those where the days. ;)