Anfiniti Portal Design

[Reku]

Initial Concept/Quick Sketch

Some ideas/thoughts I have on my mind:
the columns on the sides could be fixed
the articles are centered
there is no forum log-on on the main page right now; not sure if it should be on the portal
I forgot the marquee. That should be added.
The width should be able to expand for higher rez, but the side columns shouldn't be so large that the middle article column be smooshed. (should be a non-issue)

http://www.anfinitinetwork.net/forum//reku/rekuportaldesign.png


Now throw out the comments. I'm trying to get the ball rolling.


edit: okay, log-in is probably needed. It could be on the top-right like it is everywhere else. I just think it'll distract from everything else.

[Solitary Seraph]

we'd need an "Advertise with us" block on the bottom of, I guess, the dream triangle. Other than that, fuck yeah reku

[skittlehawk]

That's pretty sexy, Reku. Shoot, if we can make the site look cartoony as well, it would amazing. Although, the cartoony part is just what I think might look nice. But, concept-wise, this is great since it re-organizes everything. Kinda reminds me of KoL layout.

Keep it up Reku!

[Solitary Seraph]

Steve says (12:54 AM):
ok, finally found the thread and opened it. left hand side should probably have forums, rpg, imageboard, wiki. right side would be "latest 5 posts" or something, then a list of affiliates, with an "affiliate with us" link on the bottom of it.

Steve says (12:55 AM):
only thing i worry about with the imageboard is people uploading copyrighted material.
Steve says (12:56 AM):
i know kyuu added some image only accessible on a bondage pay-site a while back.
Steve says (12:58 AM):
even google says "the following image may have copyrights"

[Mit Man]

Looks like a typical portal, but those portals always seem cluttered to me. Like I can't wait to get past them. Here's a typical example: http://bfgodsquad.com/forum/hmportal.php . Stuff all over the place. I never want to try and read all of it, especially the stuff on the right. I don't know why, but I always ignore stuff on the right...

Wikipedia does a slightly better job I think: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page They make their right column almost as prominent as their center column, so it draws more attention and isn't looked past. I think we could kind of rip this idea off, making the left column pretty thin, the middle column the largest with the announcements and whatnot, and the right column relatively large with stuff like wiki articles of the day/week/month/whatever (with a rather large except from it, like the opening paragraph or something I don't know), and the hot topics (with maybe an excerpt from the first or last post in said topics.)

I like having icons of some sort on the left as well. If we could line those up instead of just generic text lines that'd be neat.

Advertising block could be placed below the middle and right columns, like how Wikipedia has further material below their's.

My two cents. Perhaps I'll make a mockup tomorrow.

[Mindlessmaniac]

That's actually a pretty good looking design as is. If possible, I'd suggest making it small enough that no scrolling is needed, if you can get that without making it too busy. The design as is looks really good though, nice work Reku.

[Kyuuketsuki]

Okay, my post didnt get fully posted for some odd reason. And I can't delete it.

One thing I have to mention about the message board. Usually if you have a copyright notice on the bottom of each sub-board, you are good to go. For as long as I've been on the chans, only a few select sites have outed imageboards for their material. SexyFur, a furry paysite, went after some boards and its against the rules to post their stuff. As long as we take note we are not the sole creators of the images, we have no problem.

[Reku]

Somethings I'd like to note are:

1) With regard to Steve's suggestion that all the images be on one side:
When I was designing the layout, I toyed with the idea of all of the image buttons being one side and, but it detracts from the overall feel-- imo.
Furthermore, once you have four images lined up, they appear to be in some type of ranked order. Is the imageboard more important the wiki? Is the wiki more important than the imageboard? Are any of those two more important than the rpg?
Truth be told, I did bump up the wiki a notch above the imageboard-- but it's more subtle.

2) @Mit's reference to wiki and bfgodsquad's columns:
Actually, I didn't think about the idea of two wider columns. That's a good point.
However, after glancing at the wiki's portal, I find myself distracted in that my eye can't determine which column it wants to focus on first. (Note: I'm not knocking the idea, I just think it can be improved. I'm eager to see what you've got.)
And, I know I'm biased toward my design, but I like to think that my layout isn't anywhere near as crowded as bfgod's. :/

3) Mindless gets a gold star! :) (! - no sarcasm intended... okay, maybe a little)
Yes! You noticed! That's what I was going for. I know that when I've gone on other sites, the whole appeal and design of the site would up and vanish after a few mouse scrolls and it'd just be a middle column of entries and the sides would die off.
I'm not sure if it's easily visible, but there's a third article that is cut off. I was toying with the idea of only the center column--with the articles--scrolling; with the bottom border being the link to previous articles, or "Articles of Old". Note that this could just link to an actual Article page with not just old articles, but with the current ones.
Ooh! Potentially kool idea. It could be like NextShout with a twist. Instead of clicking a header table cell, you can click the footer "Articles of Old" [definitely can be renamed, and I think it'd be kool if it was] and it would show the History of the articles in a manner similar to how NextShout does it. I dunno, I just thought of it now.

@Radu a.k.a PaperMan:
If you noticed on the bottom of the sketch, there is the "Marine" text in the selection box. Maybe if I have time, or if someone wants to take up the torch, they can make a "Sketchy" or "Paper" Anfiniti theme. Then it should be a simple matter of choosing the theme :D

@ Kyuu Kyuu- Copyright:
Now that you mention it. I remember Sean being worried about having worries about having Bman in a banner or something. (I personally don't think it should be in the formal banner. Maybe in an ad banner, or the title banner of a skin [!?]) I was wondering if--anyone can answer, but Kyuu made me remember my thought--a cartoon replica (sorry my drawing of Bman is lacking) could be in order.



And to Sean, skittles, and everyone else I didn't mention: Thanks for the complements, really. It brought a smile to my face. (Not in Ledger-Joker sort of way.)

[Reku]

Crap. Can't edit.

I also wanted to point out that I hope I'm not coming off as snooty. I just want to spark some debate on the design. You know, for it to be a collaborative type of thing.


edit: If you clicked to read the latest post, and this is it, please look at the one directly above this double post.

[Solitary Seraph]

I agree with Mit, though, that a lot of the portals that are out there now are basically what you did, so we'd have to figure out a way make it seem unique.

Also, if we have scroll the side bars down, that'd get really obnoxious quickly unless we think of a way to make it unobtrusive: as it is now it's kinda distracting watching the whole thing move down and a white column appear where it was then fill in with the side bars.

[Reku]

I'm not sure if I phrased it correctly, but skittles came up with a good comparison-- KoL. I didn't mean for the side columns to be floating layers, but rather fixed layers (sort of like a picture frame). So there wouldn't be the gap of white that shows while the columns play catch-up. The only thing that would scroll would be the inside. (If any of you played KoL, I hope this makes more sense. The Articles section would be like the "adventure screen," where everything takes place.)

Additionally, I'd like to reiterate that Mindless had the right idea. There wouldn't be any substantial scrolling involved, as far as the overall picture is concerned. This could be further accented by implementing a NextShout-type of way to look at previous articles. It would probably need to be optimized for the portal, though. Perhaps a categorical history would be in order? It could function like the channels do in NextShout.

I dunno. It's an idea. I hope it's at least somewhat "unique" :/

[Reku]

Does this animation help any?

http://www.anfinitinetwork.net/forum//reku/rekuportalanimation3-optimized.gif

[Solitary Seraph]

heh, yes. that's really neat, actually.

[Reku]

I looked over the other thread, "Well guys, we need some ideas," and I'm inclined to agree with the recommendation Ryan made (http://www.anfinitinetwork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=119946&postcount=34).

It'd probably be a good idea to have the articles continue on to the forum, for commenting purposes. I'd really like that. Plus it wouldn't call for an entirely detached "Article" section of Anfiniti. It'd further emphasize the "Network" in "Anfiniti Network."

[Ferret]

A few things how I've thought the front page should be.

Front page should seem more an entity of its own, and not just a template front for a forum.
- Keep it in one colour scheme only.
- Article should load to a new page. It shouldn't be a redirect to a forum thread.

Won't the scrolling up and down thing for the articles result in a bothersome sliding thing wedged in between the articles and the right boxes?

Refer to the picture for clarification.

Otherwise I think it looks really good.

[Reku]

I'm pretty sure you can cheat and make the scrollbar be the same color as the background color.

Or you can make a sexy-looking scrollbar that is thin and fashionable.
(can we use this..? http://www.hesido.com/web.php?page=customscrollbar)

The second idea is probably the better idea, b/c it's important enough of a UI that visibility is fairly crucial.




edit:

Keep it in one colour scheme only.
:o ... (?_?)

[Ferret]

:o ... (?_?)

None of that bullshit about switching between different styles like you can on the forums. That's why I put a red x over it on the picture.
Adding the style option just makes it feel like a smack dab forum portal thing.

[Reku]

Yeah, no problem. I was only foolin :)


...So now that we're on the topic:
We should probably decide what kind of color scheme [and/or style] we're looking for.

Marine? It's used on the rpg.

[Atrophius]

Could you guys make a WordPress blog look like the designated theme? If so, I think we'll just use WordPress as the front for the site and give the design team free reign to make it look how it's supposed to.

I can install a test blog today for you to play with, if you want.

[ZombieG]

I think it'd be a good idea to include polling on the front page. Just a thought.

Also, is there any way we could include mini-summaries of articles from the Wordpress if/when it goes up?

[Solitary Seraph]

If we do the wordpress I think it's a default feature that it does that, Ryan.

And yeah, we'll poll about it.

[Indigo]

If we don't want to bother working with Wordpress's style thingy, it'd be painless to code a front page that pulls threads from an exported forum RSS feed. Though since we can use the same database, pulling from the DB would be just as easy, really.

[Reku]

I recall Sean talking about increasing our page rank. Would creating a Wordpress--as opposed to our own thing--help facilitate that?

[Solitary Seraph]

I don't think the wordpress would do anything different towards gathering PR, but don't quote me on it.

[Atrophius]

I recall Sean talking about increasing our page rank. Would creating a Wordpress--as opposed to our own thing--help facilitate that?

Yes, for one reason. Service pinging. Having technorati and places like that informed of new articles on the site generates links into Anfiniti, which will increase the site's page rank.

[Mit Man]

I think the idea of original content is quite nice. I also say forget Wordpress and just generate them from forum topics. That way we can easily add posts to it from the forum, and we can easily comment on the stories within the forums.

Original content may not gather new members per se, but it will certainly keep members around (especially when they get to know the authors) and encourage more discussion.

[Solitary Seraph]

Well Mit, there are vb to wordpress bridges that we can use.

[Mit Man]

Well peepee.

Still seems like it'd be easier to manage just doing it through the forums and 1337 Indigo skillz though. Although I suppose Wordpress would be better if it helps our page rank.

[Atrophius]

If Steve thinks it's a good idea to move forward with it, I'll upload a test copy of WordPress and give people access to work on making it look the way we want it to. Once that's finished, and some content goes into it, we could then move it to the front page.

[Mit Man]

My draft of this will be finished tomorrow (I have a Sonic contest entry to finish today, but after that I'll be free from working on it).

[Mit Man]

http://img301.imageshack.us/img301/3227/portalsh0.png

Finally got around to finishing it. Some things to keep in mind are that the size of it is pretty small (most people have 1280x1024 now) so things will look a bit larger and less cluttered in a larger, real version of it. Also, the Announcements/Articles section could be moved down a bit to put a welcome box above it or something (atleast for people who aren't logged in).

The login box at the top could also disappear after logging in or something (maybe replaced with some account option links or something).

[Atrophius]

I love you, Mit. <3

Can anyone here take this and beat WordPress into submission to make it look like this mockup? Sean setup WordPress and access can be given to you guys to work on it.

[Mit Man]

So, I have no idea how to edit wordpress or anything, but would it even be possible to make it look like this?

I suppose it could from what I've seen at sites like GoNintendo that use it. I have no idea though.

[Sam]

I like the above layout. Graphical, unique, and easy-to-navigate. Perhaps you can switch the log in box to the
" Welcome, Sam.
You last visited: Today at 10:24 AM
Private Messages: Unread 0, Total 27."

deal.

[Chaos Bard]

Hey, that's pretty bitchin'. Althought I'd never see it considering I bypass the mainpage straight to the forums. XD

[Solitary Seraph]

Hey, that's pretty bitchin'. Althought I'd never see it considering I bypass the mainpage straight to the forums. XD
It'll be in your JOB description to contribute to the main page.

[Chaos Bard]

It'll be in your JOB description to contribute to the main page.

You shit. Why? D:

Also GET OFF MY POST SPREE.

[Solitary Seraph]

cause its not all posting and frolicking in the staff area!

[Chaos Bard]

;-; Fine. But it better not have shit to do with coding. I already told Jeremy, I can't do that.

[Solitary Seraph]

No, it's about article writing and general stuff like that. :(

[Sam]

I want a sort of "Official Reviews" system going on with this portal. Maybe a little panel on the right between "Wiki of the Week" and the forum stuff. Kind of like this: http://eclipstice.com/images/review.jpg (the basic idea).

If we want to save space, I would recommend getting rid of detailed forum infos.
http://anfinitinetwork.com/forum/showpost.php?p=125065&postcount=13