TF Views

Dominic wrote:We need to figure out exactly what content we will have, and what we plan to have. I have seen pages go from "easy to use" to "impossible to figure out/use" for not considering this.

The scripts I have in mind for this let the moderators build as many subcategories deep as they want, so it really doesn't matter right now.

-hopes he answered the question asked.

Again, not even remotely. I need to know HOW it'll look, not what will go inside it.

Ooh, ooh, I know! Like a site!

The best thing to do is get something basic together, and 'then' ask for suggestions. It's far easier to criticize than to come up with something new.

I terms of what it will look like, maybe borrow a page from DvD?

I find that easiest to use.

Dom

Onslaught Six wrote:Ooh, ooh, I know! Like a site!

The best thing to do is get something basic together, and 'then' ask for suggestions. It's far easier to criticize than to come up with something new.

Aaaand yet, here you guys are.

Dominic wrote:I terms of what it will look like, maybe borrow a page from DvD?

I find that easiest to use.

Not for an unlimited-expansion concept like this. His page is already kinda "full" thanks to Hasbro's endless new lines.

Besides, I'm literally taking time off right now from work to tell you guys that without a solid design in mind, not just a rough idea, this is a VERY difficult thing to put together.

Ack, JT, do not take time off from work. Yeesh.

Maybe just use the Nav-grid like DvD has?

The first square would be the "home" link. We could have a forum link of course. Then, links by era.
We would occasionally have to add to this, but it would generally be managable. The "era" labels could parallel the forum "era" labels.

Each "era" link would being users to a menu listing "toys", "comics", "TV", and other.

Does that help?

Dom

While I appreciate your enthusiasm, it's really not what I mean. There's so much to making a webpage for this sort of thing beyond the header links. Look at what Steve's done with http://www.collectionstation.com , the way the categories break down, the way the individual item pages look and behave, all that stuff has to be worked out either as you go or ahead of time, and that's the sort of thing I need to put on the page. HTML isn't a vertical medium by trade, it's up to web designers to make it fill the page and put elements where they go. Also, what elements need to be there? How do categories break down? Something like http://www.IMDB.com doesn't happen by accident, you have to conceptualize it.

I get it, JT, but the thing is none of us really know what it should look like either.

So do what I said, and throw something together. "Okay, this over here, this up there, done."

Then let us rip it to shreds and tell you you're an idiot, and we'll go from there.

Hmmm...there might be merit to this.

How long would a haphazard "draft" page take to assemble? It might be helpful to have something "solid" to fiddle with.

Dom

Really, that's the only thing you 'can' do. My aunt asked me back in March to make a website for this place. And I was all "Alright, er, what do you want it to 'look' like?"

"A website."

"Okay, that helps me zero."

So I took it upon myself to design something 'I' thought good, and then over time slowly morphed it over more to what she wanted. "Change this background here, make this font different, change this colour, add this page," crap like that.

Dominic wrote:Hmmm...there might be merit to this.

How long would a haphazard "draft" page take to assemble? It might be helpful to have something "solid" to fiddle with.

Dom

I've done that too much lately for work, I don't have it in me right now to just slap something together. Keep in mind how little I've actually done with our forums here since we started, it's just been a very busy time. Maybe after my birthday next week...

At the very least, come up with pertinent data fields that would need to be on the dang page.

Also, I've run into a conceptual issue in the form of image management, as the scripts I've been looking at don't have any way to get images up.