New Suggestions For DCHomebrew Site

Well, the post about DCHomebrew's new URL was starting to get a little off-track, so I thought I would start this topic. Anyone that has suggestions on a new look for the DCHomebrew site, or anyone with thoughts on how the new site should look, please post here.

My submissions:

General Idea of what the site would look like:
http://www.sesonsite.com/Ten-321/DCS...Template6.html
General Idea of what an actual content page would look like:
http://www.sesonsite.com/Ten-321/DCS...Template5.html

I'd like to suggest that these two should be combined:

http://www.sesonsite.com/Ten-321/DCS...Template4.html

http://www.sesonsite.com/Ten-321/DCS...Template5.html

I like the colors ;) of the template4 and the right forum overview of the template5!

Chris

I kind of liked the colors on Template4 as well, but Wraggster said he was thinking of some light-blue look. I will draw up a quick new template with the grays again, though.

Done. Check it out here: http://www.sesonsite.com/Ten-321/DCS...Template8.html

Great! Only the "light-blue" font color is still there on left and right column. But otherwise it's good IMO.

Changed the light-blue color on those links to white.

Another New Look: http://www.sesonsite.com/Ten-321/DCS...Template9.html

I pilfered some images from BoardMod for now.

BTW - In order to get the look I was going for on Template9, I had to change one or two of the colors in the css file, so Template8 may not look quite right anymore.

:o I love the look of Template9! Keep those ideas coming!

I am really starting to like the look of it, too. Hopefully Wraggster likes the look of it, too. I think the way it is set up will really make it easy to navigate DCHomebrew (a lot easier than it is, now). It will also help set it apart from DCEmulation even more.

Had a look earlier seems to be coming along nicely

godknows when dchomebrew will be ready for work, damn ztnet wont answer my emails

That sucks. Hopefully you'll know something soon. It will be nice to get DCHomebrew updated.

BTW - This topic is for anyone with suggestions or examples of what DCHomebrew should look like. If anyone else has mock-ups that they'd like to show, please do so.

Hey curt. I really like your newest template, I think the layout is perfect. I dont know if I would put the screenshot where it is now though (but when I think about it I cant think of anywhere else suitable), the colours are a bit dull aswell (though they work together nicely :D). I definatly think it should head in this direction though.

I may make a mock up tonight, see if I can put something decent together lol.

Upon my request, WaCk0 added some new graphics to the template. Here is what it looks like now:

http://www.geocities.com/wackoemu/dc/DCHomebrew.htm

I'd be interested to see what you come up with Mikey.

WaCk0 has added one new graphic to the page since I last posted. He added a really nice looking "DCHomebrew" logo at the top of the page. Check it out. Same address as above.

Looks good - but the screenshot should be under screenshots: and the Original Brews list should be longer to compensate.

I'll give that a try, and see how it looks.

Here Curt Â*;)
http://www.geocities.com/wackoemu/dc/DCHomebrew2.htm

I liked this way

That looks good, but I don't know what's going to happen if we have more than one screenshot. I worked on it a little bit, too. Here is what I did:

http://grymala.com/~curtiss/DCHB/Template10.html

I think it may have too many scrollbars, but I wanted to set it up so that everything would fit on the page. I'm open to suggestions.

You guys are fantastic 8)

[quote author=WaCk0 link=board=homebrew;num=1085357014;start=15#16 date=05/28/04 at 23:39:24]Here Curt ;)
http://www.geocities.com/wackoemu/dc/DCHomebrew2.htm

I liked this way[/quote]I really like the way this looks. You know what would be neat, and would solve the problem with having more than one screenshot at a time? Set up a script that displays an image from a list, with arrows at the bottom that flips between the images on the page. You could even have a randomizer script set in place that displays a different image each time on the first page, and the other script picks up on that list where the randomizer left off.

:) that's a great idea!

Something like this:

http://www.cyberdogcastle.com/dchomebrew/index.html

;D almost perfect that is!

links to the websites could be added to the author's name as usual.

I like that idea MetaFox. I think I will play a little with that thought. I don't like the fact that it has to actually go to a different HTML page the way it is now, but I might be able to figure something up that will do it on the same page (I would use layers, but I don't want to use javascript at all in this site, so that everyone can view the site no matter what).

I'm thinking of throwing the "Sub-Menu" into an iFrame, instead of having it on a scrolling div. That way, the height of the Sub-Menu can be variable, depending on the height of the table within which it is contained. Unfortunately, I don't think that can be done with a scrolling div. Being that we are going to use SSI, it won't make much of a difference in the long run.

Being that the sub-menu is currently a fixed height, that was the only real thing causing problems with the amount of content inside the main content area. Once I take care of that, the descriptions can be as long as they need to be, and it won't effect anything.

Try this one on for size: http://grymala.com/~curtiss/DCHB/Template11.html

I'm still looking into some way to accomplish what Metafox suggested with the screenshots, without using javascript (maybe use iFrames for each of the screenshots, too). However, like I said, now the content can be as long and as detailed as it needs to be, and everything will still appear the way it is supposed to.

Shoot - I just realized there is no place in there to download the projects. I will have to fix that. Any suggestions on where to place it? I was thinking maybe on the left side, underneath the main menu. Maybe not. I don't know.

If anybody has any suggestions, please let me know. I don't really like the format of the "download table" that is currently being used on DCHombrew, so I would be looking for something a little more elegant.

I might get a chance to play with it a little bit this afternoon. If anyone else has any suggestions, please post them.

Until then, check this out and let me know if you think I'm headed in the correct direction.

http://www.grymala.com/~curtiss/DCHB/Template12.html

I'm currently working to find out if there's a way to manipulate the iFrame border.

Fixed the iFrame border situation (turns out you have to use the "frameborder" attribute instead of the simple "border" attribute). Re-upped the file. Same link as last post.

Mmh. Not bad, but I liked the way Metafox had the arrows to skip thru the screens.

Idea for more info/desrciption:
Place the shot-section before the actual description follows, so one can give as much info about the game as needed but the layout at first look stays for every item the same.

Download links should be placed on the lower part of the site (together with tutorials and tools for: Quake, DivX, etc) so you look at a similar site like it is at the moment and have to scroll down to come to the additional links for downloads, tuts and tools

I like Metafox's idea better, too, but there is one fundamental problem with it, as far as I can see:

You have to choices on how to accomplish it:
a) You can set up a different HTML page for each screenshot, so that you would end up with 4 different pages with the same content (with different screenshots) if you have four screenshots of the project.
b) You can use javascript to create some sort of image changer script, but that will be completely ineffective for a large number of people that have javascript disabled in their browsers.

I like your idea about putting the description below the screenshots. I will see what I can do about working that out (stupid nested tables. they're such a pain in the butt to fool around with).

[quote author=curt_grymala link=board=homebrew;num=1085357014;start=15#29 date=05/31/04 at 02:16:07]I like Metafox's idea better, too, but there is one fundamental problem with it, as far as I can see:

You have to choices on how to accomplish it:
a) You can set up a different HTML page for each screenshot, so that you would end up with 4 different pages with the same content (with different screenshots) if you have four screenshots of the project.
b) You can use javascript to create some sort of image changer script, but that will be completely ineffective for a large number of people that have javascript disabled in their browsers.

I like your idea about putting the description below the screenshots. I will see what I can do about working that out (stupid nested tables. they're such a pain in the butt to fool around with).[/quote]You also have c) Set up a PHP/CGI script that loads an image on a new page using the existing template - meaning you don't have to manually create a new page for each image. You still will technically go to a new page (ie. when you click on the arrow you go to http://www.dchomebrew.org/3dinvaders...dinvaders2.gif).

This is the best idea in my opinion - and the one that I was touching upon when I first brought up the arrow idea.

unfortunately, i know nothing about cgi or php, so i'm going to need to leave that up to someone else. good luck everyone.

BTW - I played a little bit and made it into an SSI file to see how it would turn out. I also used Christus's suggestions on this new template, to see how it would look with his ideas.

Here is the page: http://www.sesonsite.com/Ten-321/DCS...SSITemp1.shtml

Here are the individual files, if you want to edit things the way they are (right-click on these links, and choose "Save As"):

http://www.sesonsite.com/Ten-321/DCS...B/DCHBTop.html
http://www.sesonsite.com/Ten-321/DCS...CHBBottom.html
http://www.sesonsite.com/Ten-321/DCS...SSITemp1.shtml

It looks cool Curt. I like this last template. I was thinking about the screenshot things, the easy way is using javascript... and its client side code, you dont need to reload the entire page just to change a picture. I think most people still use javascript. ActiveX is crap, and ppl always turns off, not javascript.

I think you are slightly wrong about the javascript thing. You have to remember the audience that we are targeting with this site, and I am pretty sure that quite a few of the people in this scene have javascript disabled in their browsers (I know for a fact that burnerO keeps it disabled on his browser, and I will probably disable it on mine once I eliminate javascript from the other sites I have designed - that's my next major project).

However, I remembered that there was a topic along these lines in the HTML support forums that I visit regularly. Someone wrote up some PHP and some Perl code that should be easily modified to do what we want. Here is a link to the topic:

http://forums.htmlcenter.com/showthr...;threadid=1019 <-- That's a link

If I get a chance later today, I will play around with it a little to see if I can get it working. I will probably mess with the Perl script first, since I know a little more about Perl than I do about PHP. If anybody else wants to mess with it, go right ahead.

EDIT - Once I get it all straightened out, I am probably going to re-do the entire page to get the nested tables set up a little more efficiently, and to try to make it a little easier for people to create new pages from this template. I may end up using quite a few SSI calls, to break the site up, so that the only thing included in the template are the actual SSI calls, and the information that people will need to edit. We will see how it goes.

I have a fantastic form handler that works in PHP (instead of working in Perl/CGI), that I may be able to use to set up a submission form of some sort, so no one actually needs to edit the HTML itself. We should be able to set up the form so that people can simply fill it out, and it will email the completed page to the recipient of choice.

I re-did the layout (should look the same, but I just cleaned up the HTML code). Just thought I'd post it here. I have not split it up into SSI sections yet. I worked all day cleaning up the HTML to make it a lot easier to work with. I did not get a chance yet to play around with the screenshots, yet.

Anyway, I fixed one or two minor aesthetic errors, and really cleaned up the code. All of the specific information for the project is now contained within one table (it was contained within three or four different tables, and the sub-menu was in between two of those tables).

Here it is: http://www.grymala.com/~curtiss/DCHB/Template13.html

Hey - I just had a thought that would make this think look a little nicer. Does anybody have any suggestions on how to get the right-hand side of the main table to match the bgcolor of the "submenu" IFrame? Unfortunately, I don't really know how to achieve this without messing up the appearance of the title of the main content table. If anybody can play with it and get it worked out, that would be cool.

One more update:
http://grymala.com/~curtiss/DCHB/Template14.html

I'm not sure the colors are dead-on, yet (I'm color-blind, so it's hard for me to tell), but I got it basically looking how I want it. Now I just need to work on the Screenshot script.

You can also use a CSS to make scrollbars gray on IE. Like this forum. WinXP uses colorful themes so its not as Win98 gray thing, and they look a bit off the site look. Just a thought...

I was planning to mess with the scrollbars once I got the layout completely down. Unfortunately, though, that doesn't effect any of the scrollbars within Mozilla. We still get the same crappy scrollbars. That's one of the reasons I keep forgetting to do that, because it doesn't effect me at all. I will probably get that done this evening.

a new layout would be nice. what exactly happend that all the links went bad? ???