Hey all... At the IRC Nats, Terry Lee Mckinzie was kind enough to volunteer himself to possibly updating the IRC website. He was also generous enough to volunteer my services, as well! Anyhoo, one thing we decided on right away was that the existing rules page was... dull. Sorry, but it is. So I've been playing around with different design elements to try a different look (not to mention update my coding skills. CSS is completely new to me)! Take a look at the test page and let me know what you think: Original: http://www.ircwcc.org/files/Bylaws_Rules/Rules_2013.htm New: http://mcspuds.net/ircwcc/pages/Rules.htm And be gentle...I'm entirely self-taught at web design!!
I did the current rules page, while it is lacking for graphics, I did notice the css page is not being loaded so it is not rendering some things correctly as intended (text size, hr lines, images and tables not being centred). Its not so much the rules page that is the issue, its the rest of the site (poor layout/navigation, use of java applets). I think your version does make it more difficult to read, and the the beginnings of some lines of text is rendering over your background image.
So many things about that site need attention, the rules page is not where I would begin.. Chase summarizes it well..
No problem, Chase.... wasn't knocking the current page, just trying some different looks to see if I could improve them and how. Since that one page seemed both the most text-heavy (understandably, given the content) and flat (since the css hasn't been working), I took that one to play around with formatting ideas. The primary goal that McSpuds is shooting for is getting the shiplist correctly updated (currently shows cruiser speeds as 24 vice 23 as recently voted for) and making it sortable as opposed to a flat pdf. That's something he's working on within SQL. My graphics & layout stuff is more just playing with ideas.
I actually already have the shiplist in an sql database, I never bothered finishing a page to display it because I could never get a response on being allowed to fix the rest of the site as well. I think the direction we should be headed is towards using a CMS for the website.
Never bothered to display? Currently shiplist is 2010 version. Kinda suggest something is at least updated to current ruleset. Nothing kills a sites usefulness faster than not being up-to-date. But since you've got a handle on it, I guess my help isn't needed.
It is becoming eveident that for some reason I am stepping on toes within the IRCWCC with this website issue. Just be aware that during the captains meeting at NATS the BOD asked for help on this issue and I voluntered to help Tomm Tanner. I also asked Jeff Lipp to help as well. I dont recall hearing Chase give his thoughts on this issue at the members meeting at NATS so therefore Jeff and I were only doing as the BOD asked us... to help with the website. Since Chase is so defiant against us fixing a site, then Chase can fix it.... The board and Tom will be advised that I am going to step down from working on the IRCWCC site. I will not get caught up in any dam drama over petty bulshit!
No, Chase is saying that he wanted to fix the site years ago but someone else was being very protective of the site as it was/is. Chase did an amazing job on his own region's website, but couldn't get permission to make the IRCWCC site easier to navigate/better looking.
I have better things to do nowadays. I just hope it doesn't turn out like a 90's GeoCities site again. Other than that I don't care who does it. Honestly. I'm not going to be one of the people to tell you it looks good if it doesn't though.
slow down, Folks! I don't understand the problems. Chase updated the rules section a couple of years ago, thanks Chase. The whole site is in bad shape and we need help. I started that site many years ago (it was all hand coded without any bells and whistles). The board decided that it need updating and another fellow took it over and used a web page editor. The problem with web editors are though they produce glitzy stuff, they tend to add a lot to junk to the HTML code and make the site difficult to easily update. (Put a page of text though MSword and have it produce a web page to see what I mean.) Yes, some of us have a concern about those web page editors because we find it difficult to update the current site because of the junk put in by the editor. You guys who volunteered at Nats, don't give up so easily! Yes, you will have to "sell" the updates somewhat, but what is wrong with that. In case you have not guessed! This is Marty Hayes
I actually mostly liked the older version that Marty had done by hand. Simplicity can be its own reward, even if it dated itself a little in spots. What I think a lot of people get caught up on is two things: 1) people doing a redesign tends to want to do something flashy and cool 2) they focus on the parts they use. The problems with this are that 1) flashy and cool tends to not age well or work consistently (see current site) 2) in focusing on the parts they use and how they want to use it, the folks with the redesign task tend to ignore the larger audience of people who are 'prospective visitors' --> potential new captains. I think it is very important that during this redesign, to start with, you need to take a hard look at how your site would be viewed by a prospective new captain, someone who has just stumbled on to the site. You should focus on making the site simple, easy to navigate, and consistent across browsers. This will likely mean redoing some of the page hierarchy (Seriously, why are the rules and shiplist under 'Members Area' ?) and relegating other things to footnotes (sorry, IRCWCC history isn't so important to a visitor that it deserves to be the 2nd menu item). Personal comment: please , please, please stay away from graphic backgrounds on pages if you want a modern look. Repeated texture tiles are very out of style, and making different ones on each pages really causes a disjointed user experience. If you want to go with a modern graphic background that has been all the rage recently, the stretched photo, fixed in position with centered content on a solid background is the thing. Off the top of my head examples: http://www.burning-eye.net/ and http://kq.com.uw.edu/ (note that the Kaplan Quartelry page also used a partial fixed header/menu bar, another popular thing lately - I'm not entirely sold on it, but I think it has more staying power than most of the faddish web stuff that we've seen in the last decade. Full disclaimers and comments: I am not a paying member of IRCWCC. My local club follows a variant of IRCWCC rules, and we point people to the IRCWCC website periodically. I have spent extensive amounts of time on the IRCWCC website over the years. Part of my day job is development of web applications and user experience.
It's just forums so not anything terribly special but I have done other styles of sites: http://www.ontarioattackforce.ca
Nice. I agree about the CMS.. I have always wanted a ship list that would let me choose ships based on a few factors like weight or length and units... a database for the shiplist that contained links to pictures of the real ship and builds..etc. Maybe it will happen.
There's a tablepress plugin for Wordpress that makes it easy to do tables of information, and be able to search in that table or sort a table. We've done it on one table at http://www.strikemodels.com/products/ship-plans/.
Thanks for all the replies & encouragement. I agree that the rules page I posted up still needs "tweaking" (lose the background or tone it down, some placement / buffer issues). As Spuds' and I understood from the Captains meeting, the priorities were to make the site a bit more rookie-friendly, create some sort of "news" or "bulletin board" type section (in addition to the "upcoming battles" part), some sort of avenue for members to upload files / photos (to be vetted prior to publishing), and updating some areas that were a bit tired (rules are current, but shiplist is not, captain's page very dated, etc. Marty, I couldn't agree more w/ you regarding most "webpage designer" software. Most is garbage & creates garbage code. I do most of my coding using Notepad to keep it clean. Terry is using the database (shiplist) part as a unit of his school project. Goal will be a fully sortable shiplist, with links. We are evaluating several CMS (content management solutions /software) for suitability, such as PHP-nuke. Most likely we will pick & chose elements of different systems to suit our unique needs. For the links part, possibly make the ship class-name (in the shiplist) be a link that would open the appropriate Wiki page in a seperate window?
Wikipedia links for ship classes would be extremely cool, but may need some maintenance over time. I also wish the ircwcc shiplist was as accurate as the mwci shiplist and included stuff like the rudders and props. I use the mwci shiplist most of the time instead of the ircwcc shiplist because they are close enough in most cases and the mwci list is sort-able and has the extra information. Please fix the Caliber of the Nagato Main Armament, its a typo from 1989 or so and was present in both shiplists for a long time. Ron Hunt
Okay, I hope the dust has settled some by now! I think that you all can communicate and work together. Tommy seems to have volunteered to be the coordinator. I think everyone agrees that the present site leaves much to be desired. A better ship list, rules presented front page, improvements to most of the pages are certainly needed. Please not too many bells and whistles. INHO Marty
