RMXPU Design Concept

[Marked 197]

Hey guys,

 

A while back a was working on a new site concept, basically an upgrade to this site with a new name.

 

I only had about 3-4 hours a day to myself, and I spent a few working away on concepts, and even started developing a theme. Sadly my motivation and confidence was struck a harsh blow so I stopped it altogether.

 

 

I don't mind harsh criticism. Some things, such as the banner design, footer design, and sidebars (which actually does a full a circle around the site: top, bottom and sides :pinch: ) are not really part of the final thing, just there in place of what hasn't been made yet. Oh and also, my resolution is small but I think this is fixed width. If not, it will be.

 

I'd like you guys to vote in the poll.

 

Menu demonstration

To test the various levels of the menu system, follow this: Engines -> RPG Maker XP -> Level 3

 

This will show you what the menus will look like as you navigate pages through the site. But I'll make the sub-nav links to appear on mouse-over. If you don't understand that, when you roll over 'Engines' the 'RPG Maker XP' link will automatically appear instead of having to click engines to make that link show up in the sub-nav.

 

Here it is: http://rmxpunlimited.net/gdu/engines/rpg-maker-xp/level-3

 

EDIT: Best to test this is firefox. I think I only added some CSS features for firefox and not IE or Opera, so things like rounded corners wont be working for this one.

[isaacsol 10]

I like the new layout, but I don't think we should change our name. Our name is what identifies us as we are, changing it would lose many things (like our page rankings etc.); it is up to you though Mark.

[Marked 197]

Yes you're right, these day's it would be a risky operation. I guess I did infer I would change the name, but I'm not thinking about it at the moment and if I did, a theme change would come before that so its not an issue at the current point in time.

 

If I did though, I would repurchase the domain and setup 403 redirect (which is actually what google recommends as its like being the same link) and I think with a little regex you can change all the links to the new domain with just one line.

 

But, I don't see that happening until we increase activity a lot more to reduce the impact.

[kellessdee 48]

I really like the layout idea! Nothing wrong with the bars being all around the page, I kinda like that concept.

 

Also becoming a general amateur game development community (well I guess technically it already is) could *hopefully* draw a crowd of game developers that use other engines, which would be cool as long as the rmxp crowd isn't alienated.

[Marked 197]

I really like the layout idea! Nothing wrong with the bars being all around the page, I kinda like that concept.

I'm glad you like it :) I think you mean the bars at the sides? Those are just placeholders. You know if I post something that doesn't look good overall, people cant help but look at the overall picture. Just like the tutorials app.

 

Also becoming a general amateur game development community (well I guess technically it already is) could *hopefully* draw a crowd of game developers that use other engines, which would be cool as long as the rmxp crowd isn't alienated.

Right now all other engines are alienated, and we've been 'supporting' several engines for years. It's pretty clear to me that having an RMXP only forum is pointless, there is little chance of decent growth.

[rgangsta 43]

That menu demo is nice and a lot cleaner, too. If you need any help with graphics, let me know. I can help out with a logo and stuff along those lines. :biggrin_002:

[Marked 197]

Thanks for the offer :) I could really use a nice logo down the track when I start converting this to an IPB theme.

[Marked 197]

Six votes isn't very representative, but regardless I have started converting the theme for the forums.

 

What I'm going to show you an explain is the sidemenu system. The following has had all forum specific CSS removed to stop interference as I build the main layout. So ignore what I've crossed out:

 

You guys may have noticed the icons have changed from the website above. Actually, no one really commented on the menu items in the sidebar. They are going to be really cool new features, particularly the dashboard which is going to be a major part of the site, and probably the starting point when you first open the page. The sidemenu is one of the main features, and it appears globally across the site so you never miss a notification.

 

Ok lets talk integration. The breakthrough I mentioned in my status was being able to make joomla modules appear in IPB. I did achieve this, but it's efficiency is questionable. But for some reason I want to tell you guys how its done.

 

First of all, there is syntax from joomla's API that allow you to load and display a module, given its position (which acts almost like a unqiue key) and what pages it can show up on (you just set it to show up on all pages so the module will load). You then make a component and use its raw output feature. This was mainly for ajax to make it more efficient, it just returns raw output (the html generated by the module, which is of course PHP) rather than the entire page. That's the important part. So if you have a component which only loads a module, you basically have an accessible URL that returns the modules HTML. Now all we have to do it take that html and insert it into IPB. I thought this was impossible at first, but I got it to work. I am going to make an IPB hook for this so the module is loaded faster, rather than load it via javascript in the head. Using JQuery, you can use the following code:

 
jQuery(function(){
  jQuery('#load_sidebar_here').load('http://localhost/gdu/index.php?option=com_module&view=default&id=5&format=raw');
});

The load function is actually ajax. What this does is place the returned contents of that URL, and inserts it into the following:

<div id='load_sidebar_here'></div>

 

And there you have it, joomla modules loading in IPB.

[ShinyToyGuns 29]

It's looking really great! I hope you follow through with this :D

[FranklinX 37]

I perfer we keep IP Board. I think the forums itself look great. Other forum software looks boring, and the profile pages are boring.

 

I don't like the banner. It doesn't seem to be related to gaming.

 

I like everything else. The site layout looks unique.

[Broken Messiah 20]

I like it because it has a better, more efficent home page, not to mention that it has a fresh look :alright:

[Marked 197]

It's looking really great! I hope you follow through with this :D

I'm starting to get that reputation aren't I... :(

 

I perfer we keep IP Board. I think the forums itself look great. Other forum software looks boring, and the profile pages are boring.

 

I don't like the banner. It doesn't seem to be related to gaming.

 

I like everything else. The site layout looks unique.

Keep in mind that in the above image I stripped the IPB of all CSS. It's still IPB :P Oh, I do plan to have my own custom made profile pages, suited for game developers. IPB profiles are too generic.

 

Hopefully I can get RGangsta to do a banner :) That banner is a placeholder.

 

 

I like it because it has a better, more efficent home page, not to mention that it has a fresh look :alright:

I'm glad you like it :D I still hope to improve on it a great deal. It's a slow process creating the styling for both softwares, but the transition from when you goto the forums back to the website is seamless. Its as if the forums are a part of the website software.

 

 

Thank you guys for the extra votes. It really helps me with motivation to finish things :sweatdrop:

[FranklinX 37]

What is the estimated released for this new layout?

[Polraudio 122]

I love the look. I love the thing on the left.

I think it would be an awesome idea to use that. It would make things seem way more friendly.

Right now it actually does feel like its 2 different sites.

[Marked 197]

What is the estimated released for this new layout?

I really don't know at this point. I think the most likely date is during my semester break which should be... late june early july. But its rather complicated as I'm use joomla 1.6 for the theme and we're currently using joomla 1.5 here, so it will probably take me a while to transfer the content that i can save. And I'll have to upgrade components such as the shop, project cards, chat etc. Its a big move.

 

 

I love the look. I love the thing on the left.

I think it would be an awesome idea to use that. It would make things seem way more friendly.

Right now it actually does feel like its 2 different sites.

Glad you like :D It's one of the main features of the layout.

 

Right now I'm trying to make the decision whether the right-hand sidebar appears globally or not. It may make the topic-view look odd and significantly increases the page length (Because obviously text doesnt stretch as far), but it has its advantages too.

[madanchi 18]

I quite like the appearance of the new site your doing, also the drop down menu I think will be a nice touch (its probably because im used to it here). It feels more like a game website to me, rmxpu currently does too tbh, but the new one has a bit more of an edge to it, sort of what you may expect from a games(development) website - not sure, maybe it's just me who thinks this

 

Right now all other engines are alienated, and we've been 'supporting' several engines for years. It's pretty clear to me that having an RMXP only forum is pointless, there is little chance of decent growth.

 

So, will there be more engines such as Game Maker or 3D Game Studio etc? If so, that should attract other developers sort of like Kellessdee said, and if rpg engines or similar are dieing, then maybe it's a necessary requirement to involve more game engines to keep the flame alight

Edited April 27, 2011 by madanchi

[Marked 197]

What I would like to try and do is exactly what you said, create a 'games(development) website'. Engine support comes hand in hand with any site similar to this. But what I want the new focus to be is on making games, and providing a place to display and discuss your games. The engines are just the tools, and our users can use whatever engine they like.

 

However, there were be a defined list of engines the support has to support. Making a forum labeled 'Game Making Support' is probably too risky (I'm aware its what we have now, but we have prefixes at the moment). Instead, I'm leaning towards a whole new content concept which I won't discuss here :) But I'm not sure what that list of engines will yet be (I have a strong preference for enterbrain software at the moment) and I'll have to think about going into 3D game makers...

[kellessdee 48]

Sweet! I like that idea. It is true a lot of game development engines/tools get left out of the mix, I think this could draw in a lot more users of all kinds of experience. And depending what engines are supported, some of the skills could be interchangeable..also it could introduce more engines that some people may end up liking better than rmxp. I have been thinking of actually switching to SDL with ruby bindings (only because I do not know C yet :/)

 

Either way I think this is cool! You could always set up for specific engines to be supported, and also have an "Other" or general game support, for any engines that don't fall in the specific categories...or could that cause people to not realize where they should be posting a put their topics there(even though they don't belong)?

[Runefreak 1]

I voted yes, it looks great. :D

 

Although I really like how the look of the site is now T.T

I guess I'd still go with the new GameDevUnlimited.

 

Question, were you the one who designed the RMXPU theme? :o

[Marked 197]

Either way I think this is cool! You could always set up for specific engines to be supported, and also have an "Other" or general game support, for any engines that don't fall in the specific categories...

That's what I was thinking :)

 

 

Question, were you the one who designed the RMXPU theme? :o

The current theme? No I wasn't. You can find it here: http://www.yootheme.com/demo/themes/joomla/2010/enterprise/index.php?preset=default However I converted that to an IPB theme. So the websites theme was made by yootheme, and I copied it to the forums to make it look the same. I also did other things like create an IPB hook to replicate Joomla's menu system. The main menu you see when browsing the forums (and top menu) is nearly identical to when you're on the homepage, but its entirely done through IPB. Yoothemes menu designs have the most over-complicated HTML I've ever seen... it took me forever to distinguish the HTML through three levels of menu... With this design, I'm going all out with integration :P

 

This project isn't just a design with basic html and css being written up for it. I actually just deleted a paragraph continuing on from the previous sentence, but I'll stop there :P I really appreciate everyone's replies to this topic, it really makes me want to work harder :D

[ShinyToyGuns 29]

I'm kinda interested to know what the status on this is :)

[Marked 197]

The status is that I just finished my last mid-term test this morning, and as I type this (in safe mode) I'm transferring my files across our network so I can reinstall windows so this thing functions properly. I purchased a new laptop but I got refund because it got trapped in a building after a quake.

 

So, I should be continuing work on it shortly :) I have to download a few programs first though, which I used to write stuff.

 

In terms of a release date, its very difficult to say. My best estimate is probablly really inaccurate. One of the reasons for that is if you see the side menu, a lot of those things are custom applications that I had planned for the new site. But I could just hide them, making a pretty empty looking menu. We'll see, it all depends how it unfolds.

[Noob Saibot 38]

It has potential, but I don't like the background (see attached image).