Promotion of www.nwnx.org

Papillon · x-man Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 1060 Location: Germany

Author: Manuel
Posted: Dec 27 2004 - 01:02 AM
Subject: Promotion of www.nwnx.org

Should we begin to promote this website as the definitive source of NWNX information? If yes, when should we do so? I'm hesitant to begin refering NWNX users to the new web presence unless Pap explicitly says to begin doing so.

Papillon · x-man Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 1060 Location: Germany

Author: Papillon
Posted: Dec 27 2004 - 09:12 PM
Subject: re: Promotion of www.nwnx.org

I've posted bits and pieces on the nwvault page, on the sourceforge page, and on the Bioware NWNX Help guild yesterday. That's not much advertising, but those where the easiest ones.

So if you want to publicly announce the website, go ahead. It's not complete as of yet, but the foundation is there, IMHO.

I'm currently thinking about replacing the current forum with phpBB. If that will happen, it will be soon, tomorrow or Wednesday maybe.
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Papillon · x-man Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 1060 Location: Germany

Author: Senalaya
Posted: Dec 28 2004 - 03:26 AM
Subject: re: Promotion of www.nwnx.org

What about creating a 'powered by NWNX2' logo as a link to this site?
The '<href...>' tag could then be published in the various forums and your signature.
I'd be happy to include something like that on our server web-site.
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Papillon · x-man Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 1060 Location: Germany

Author: Manuel
Posted: Dec 28 2004 - 05:34 AM
Subject: re: Promotion of www.nwnx.org
Thanks for the clarification...

Yes, phpBB would be a welcome change.

JeroenB · Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 228 Location: Netherlands

Yeah, it looks much nicer Smile

NoMercy · Joined: 03 Jan 2005 Posts: 123 Location: UK

Well I'll probably sound rude, but my first impressions are positive as far as the basic theme, but it lacks polish, the use of frames for the layout is also not a nice feature of the site.

There's vast numbers of negatives to frames, the page appears to be auto-generated by a CMS, so there should be facilities in that to produce a generic template to cover the header and menu.

I've roughed up a quick version, http://www.tomb.org.uk/nwnx/ though getting phpbb to sit inside a website without using frames of one sort or another can be difficult.

Apart from the obvious, the page being 800px wide set into a background, I changed the bullet list to a real bullet list, the <h1>'s now produce there own line underneath them instead of requiring a image, the side menu is no longer a set of images, which unless there's some form of rollover is rather pointless simply including text in images. The table at the bottom I didn't touch, and I only did the one page.

No idea if any of the things I did are applicable to be included in the main page or if the CMS supports the things which I did to a static copy of the page, but I can offer my limited assistance to improving the page if you need it, or you can poke the page I've created and use any parts you like from it.

Papillon · x-man Joined: 28 Dec 2004 Posts: 1060 Location: Germany

You are not sounding rude in my opininion, because basically, I am thinking the same about the current website. Yes, it is based on a CMS (typo3) and the frame based layout is there to integrate phpbb more or less well with the rest of the site. If you have an idea how to have phpbb inside the typo3 framework without using frames, any input would be greatly appreciated (yes, I know, there is a neglected expansion that does that, but it is not really worth the effort with its current buggy state). Another issue to think about is the width of the site: Your suggestion of using 800px does not leave enough space for the forum.

The menu to the left originally had a rollover effect (which explains why it is a graphical menu), but when I realized I was spending more time on colors than on content I left it at the current state and decided to move on. If you have a suggestion for a rollover effect, I would like to include it in the menu.

I'll check out the other things you mentioned soon - and what is doable with typo3 will be included.

And Hey! It is a programmer's web site! It is not THAT bad for a start Laughing

_________________
Papillon

JeroenB · Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 228 Location: Netherlands

programmers web-site..if I had known that!

Maybe it is an idea to move the forum to a new window (or tab in the browsers who support tabs). That way the user can continue browsing the web-site while at the same time he has the forum open.

Senalaya · Joined: 29 Dec 2004 Posts: 82 Location: Germany

NoMercy · Joined: 03 Jan 2005 Posts: 123 Location: UK

I have tried to fit phpbb into small spaces before, it does work but doesn't look to good.

I can think of 3 reasonable options:

Horizontal navigation bar along top of page allowing forum to take up 800px width when in the forum section.
Totally seperate forum page.
Flexible layout which can take up any width.

I'd go with the first, peoples suggestions that right click open in new window/etc is akin to the seperate forum page, the flexible layout is probably the most dificult and would require composing the top header image in the browser akin to how nwvault scales to any size page.

Rollovers, the style of the page doesn't seem overly graphical, so really the only decent rollover option would be grey text changing to black on mouse over, which can be done with images or just text, though the one extra that images does give is the soft anti-aliased font Smile

Fitting phpBB into a CMS, my cheating way was to edit the phpbb template so that it looks like a page generated by the CMS when really it isn't. But hey I'm a programmer too, just more of the graduate type and not the seasoned professional Wink

JeroenB · Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 228 Location: Netherlands

that is a possibility, but it is fairly standard to open up the window with target=blank or something like that. So, then always the forum is opened in the new window.

sorry if i answered to seriously.. its getting late here Smile

NoMercy · Joined: 03 Jan 2005 Posts: 123 Location: UK

I absolutely despise forcing pages to open in new windows, I prefer to retain the choice between the same window, a new window or a new tab.

JeroenB · Joined: 31 Dec 2004 Posts: 228 Location: Netherlands

Maybe you are right... I have lots of troubles lately as my firewall blocks popups etc, so it will also block the forum window Sad

. I better start thinking about this tomorrow when I am a bit more awake.

Grim · Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 12

Jay Watamaniuk · Joined: 04 Jan 2005 Posts: 1 Location: Edmonton, Alberta

Howdy,

It just so happens that I need a Wed item for..<cough> this Wednesday. My plans for before the holidays did not work out and I was wondering what my chances of getting a reply to the following questions by tomorrow were (it's Monday, Jan 3)?

1. Can you explain what NWNX is?
2. What limitations in the original NWN engine made you want to make these changes? What issues remain?
3. What has changed from the first version of NWNX?
4. Did your persistent world of Avlis spring from NWNX or was it the other way around?
5. Do you think persistant worlds are the future of NWN?
6. Where does a beginner go to learn about setting up a persistant world?

I am going to go ahead and fire off an interview in hopes that it can be completed for Tuesday the 4th so that I can hand it over to my webguy for markup.

Also it would be excellent to get 5-7 screenshots of NWNX in action (a visual element for all the text). Perhaps a few shots of Avlis as well.

...and yes this is the real Jay W. Smile

Send an email to jay@bioware.com to reach me.

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