Element gaming website SITE UP (in beta still)

[Nadril]

http://elementguild.nfshost.com/

 

 

 

Progress of the site you can watch there as I update it and stuff. Very barebones right now, but it is a fully functional blog (although it has a few bugs).

 

 

 

I need to make it so that the boxes scale depending on how much content is inside of them, does anyone know how to do that?

 

 

 

 

 

[hide=Coding]Thought you guy's would be interested on how it's going so far.

 

 

 

So I've started the coding process. Since I have no experience at all with PHP I have been following a tutorial and, essentially, am going to be modifying it to my needs. (this is the tutorial I am using for those who are interested).

 

 

 

Right now I'm mostly just worrying about getting some basic blogging capabilities and a competent layout before I start and try and add all these cool widgets and stuff. Good thing is once I get the template done adding content should be pretty [bleep]ing easy.

 

 

 

 

 

[hide=CODING PROGRESS IMAGE][/hide]

 

 

 

That is a browser shot of what I have so far. Do please ignore the messed up repeating background, I screwed up the crop and it is very low on my list of things to work on, haha. I'm actually pretty proud of this so far, in a few days I've gone from no PHP knowledge at all to actually getting close to having a decent template with it!

 

 

 

I would post the code if you all were interested but most of it is like what the tutorial is, just a bit modified (and my CSS sheet I made before hand, so I'm a bit ahead of the tutorial in that aspect haha).

 

 

 

 

 

But yeah, I'm having fun with this. It's cool being able to have a working search bar and all this other stuff so far.

 

[/hide]

 

 

 

[hide=old]WIP3:

 

 

 

 

• 
   
  To do:
   
  . Clean up the main content box. I don't like the gradients there currently, but I'm trying to think of a suitable way to handle it. this is a big area of concern right now.
   
  . Flavor. I want to make sure that the site isn't just a bunch of text, so I'll be trying to implement stuff like what you currently see next to the names on the side (which are an online/offline indicator and a "pm" function, respectively)
   
  . suitable background. I know, it's lolhexagons right now. I kind of actually like how it looks, but I'll probably improve on it.
   
  . Typography. Right now I really dislike the typography I have done, I'll have to switch it up a bunch. Any suggestions for fonts is welcome (I'm using Arial and Raavi currently)
   
  

[/hide]

 

 

 

[hide=WIP2]Phew, ok. After giving it a bunch of thought and consideration I have a (hopefully much better) WIP2 up. This is on my list "to-do"

 

 

 

Those are my 3 main concerns right now.

 

 

 

 

(and, yes, the width is not larger than 960 for the layout. I just added in some extra room to see what a background would look like)[/hide]

 

 

 

 

 

[hide=OLD]Another project of mine which probably will go no where. :)

 

 

 

My goal is to try and make a replacement site for http://element.guildhosting.org/index.p ... e&Itemid=1 , my current Aion guild's web site. Now as a whole it isn't a terrible looking site -- sure the banner is a bit bad, but it looks pretty cool I have to say. However the problem is it's a guild template sort of thing, and I want to see what I can do by personalizing one. :)

 

 

 

I'm using a similar layout but trying to mix it up a bit. Right now everything is pretty much just text, very little images so do understand that when giving C/C. (I'll have a more fancy looking vent thing and recruitment status, ect. soon)

 

 

 

 

 

 

(ps: the banner is a 5 minute WIP which is a mismatch of some Aion concept art from the fankit I threw together, alongside of our guilds logo who another designer in the guild came up with)

 

 

 

 

 

The background will probably end up changing as well as the links will end up looking better. :P[/hide]

[Patrik001]

Alright, I've been browsing your threads about webpages for a while now and being a webdesigner myself I thought I'd give you some pointers

 

 

 

- All of your designs looks basically the same, and they're quite boring to be honest - they look like the webpages that were done in 01-03

 

- The font: Don't use smooth when showing off a design, it just looks bad

 

- Don't make the width of the page any larger then 960px

 

 

 

 

 

Decided to post a few of my recent designs, incase you wanted some inspiration or whatever - the first one is sold, the other two are not really for sale, was just messing around in photoshop when I was bored;

 

 

 

[hide=Webdesign for an event company][/hide]

 

[hide=Just a blog design which was made when I was bored][/hide]

 

[hide=Just a portfolio design which was made when I was bored][/hide]

[Sam]

Scanlines look very prosaic.

[Nadril]

Alright, I've been browsing your threads about webpages for a while now and being a webdesigner myself I thought I'd give you some pointers

 

 

 

- All of your designs looks basically the same, and they're quite boring to be honest - they look like the webpages that were done in 01-03

 

- The font: Don't use smooth when showing off a design, it just looks bad

 

- Don't make the width of the page any larger then 960px

 

 

 

 

 

Decided to post a few of my recent designs, incase you wanted some inspiration or whatever - the first one is sold, the other two are not really for sale, was just messing around in photoshop when I was bored;

 

 

 

 

Thanks. As far as width though I always heard you wanted to design for a 1024x768 monitor minimum, but I'll lower width to 960px.

 

 

 

You've got a point about them looking the same, and I think I'll work on re-working this current one a lot. You have been looking at them after they have been finished though, right? I usually start with a really rough and plain WIP before getting to the final thing. (this is still a bit of a WIP, just one I got bored of).

 

 

 

 

 

As far as the font goes, yeah, it's a bad habit so I'll stop doing that.

 

 

 

Scanlines look very prosaic.

 

 

 

Yeah :/ I'm just going to re-do this design probably.

[Nadril]

Phew, ok. After giving it a bunch of thought and consideration I have a (hopefully much better) WIP2 up. This is on my list "to-do"

 

 

 

• 
   
  To do:
   
  . Clean up the main content box. I don't like the gradients there currently, but I'm trying to think of a suitable way to handle it. this is a big area of concern right now.
   
  . Flavor. I want to make sure that the site isn't just a bunch of text, so I'll be trying to implement stuff like what you currently see next to the names on the side (which are an online/offline indicator and a "pm" function, respectively)
   
  . suitable background. I know, it's lolhexagons right now. I kind of actually like how it looks, but I'll probably improve on it.
   
  . Typography. Right now I really dislike the typography I have done, I'll have to switch it up a bunch. Any suggestions for fonts is welcome (I'm using Arial and Raavi currently)
   
  

 

 

 

 

 

Those are my 3 main concerns right now.

 

 

 

 

(and, yes, the width is not larger than 960 for the layout. I just added in some extra room to see what a background would look like)

[Pat_61]

Looks good, but the banner is too busy in the center, IMO.

[Nadril]

Yeah I heard that in the thread about the banner. If I feel the need to change it I will. :D

[rangeor]

I liked the first banner a lot more. Also I think the hexagons look really cool, but then again I know next to nothing about web design... for now :P

[Nadril]

Thanks. As far as the banner goes I'm not going to change it now, and I don't like the original one I had (not to mention it's a completely incorrect size).

 

 

 

 

v3

[Pat_61]

Out of curiosity, how did you learn to design... looking at other websites, tutorial, classes?

[Nadril]

Good question probably. I've had web courses before (one in high school and one in college) but, I will be honest, I didn't learn too much from them. Coding wise I learned probably the most from my internship a couple of years ago.

 

 

 

Design wise? Just time really. I've gotten a lot of inspiration from various websites, and some of mine probably have some influences from that. But yeah really though a lot of what I learned is just from C/C from everyone and practice. :P Of course having 8+ years of experience in Photoshop and digital art probably helped a bit (which is kind of fun because I've been doing web design for a really short period of time, comparatively).

[Humus]

Just a couple of points to mention,

 

-On the left side of the banner there is a 1px blue line going from top to bottom

 

-The small [-] buttons on each content box would look better if they were centered, width wise. They would also look better if they were more simple, like the one on the news tab on the bbc website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ (weird reference, I know)

 

-The user menu section on the navigation column would be better suited at the top, underneath the avatar.

 

 

 

A part from those minor changes, I like the site so far. :

[Nadril]

-On the left side of the banner there is a 1px blue line going from top to bottom

 

 

 

I'll be damned, there is. I'll be sure to fix that haha.

 

 

 

-The small [-] buttons on each content box would look better if they were centered, width wise. They would also look better if they were more simple, like the one on the news tab on the bbc website: http://www.bbc.co.uk/ (weird reference, I know)

 

 

 

I'm probably going to get rid of the [-] buttons, just because I don't need that extra functionality for the site right now.

 

 

 

-The user menu section on the navigation column would be better suited at the top, underneath the avatar.

 

 

 

Solid point, you're right about that. When I get to the coding I'll be sure to have that kind of widgit up top.

 

 

 

 

 

Right now I've moved into the coding stages of the site. I've chosen Wordpress as my CMS of choice, which means I am currently learning PHP to do the custom template in. This should be interesting. :thumbup:

[Nadril]

Thought you guy's would be interested on how it's going so far.

 

 

 

So I've started the coding process. Since I have no experience at all with PHP I have been following a tutorial and, essentially, am going to be modifying it to my needs. (this is the tutorial I am using for those who are interested).

 

 

 

Right now I'm mostly just worrying about getting some basic blogging capabilities and a competent layout before I start and try and add all these cool widgets and stuff. Good thing is once I get the template done adding content should be pretty [bleep]ing easy.

 

 

 

 

 

[hide=CODING PROGRESS IMAGE][/hide]

 

 

 

That is a browser shot of what I have so far. Do please ignore the messed up repeating background, I screwed up the crop and it is very low on my list of things to work on, haha. I'm actually pretty proud of this so far, in a few days I've gone from no PHP knowledge at all to actually getting close to having a decent template with it!

 

 

 

I would post the code if you all were interested but most of it is like what the tutorial is, just a bit modified (and my CSS sheet I made before hand, so I'm a bit ahead of the tutorial in that aspect haha).

 

 

 

 

 

But yeah, I'm having fun with this. It's cool being able to have a working search bar and all this other stuff so far.

[ElkNight]

I for one would like to see the code.

[Nadril]

• 
  
  
  
  <?php if( function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') && dynamic_sidebar() ) : else : ?>
  
  
  
  
• 
  
  <?php include(TEMPLATEPATH . '/searchform.php'); ?>
  
  
  
  
  
  

• <?php _e('Calendar'); ?>

  
  
  <?php get_calendar(); ?>
  
  
  
  
  
  <?php wp_list_pages('title_li=

Pages

'); ?>

<?php _e('Categories'); ?>

<?php _e('Archives'); ?>

• 
  
  <?php wp_get_archives('type-monthly'); ?>
  
  

• 
  
  <?php wp_list_cats('sort_column=name&optioncount=1&hierarchical=0'); ?>
  
  

<?php get_links_list(); ?>

<?php _e('Meta'); ?>

• 
  
  <?php wp_register(); ?>
  
  
• <?php wp_loginout(); ?>
  
  <?php wp_meta(); ?>
  
  

<?php endif; ?>

<?php if(have_posts()) : ?><?php while(have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>

<?php the_title(); ?>

<?php the_content(); ?>

<?php _e('Filed under:'); ?> <?php the_category(', ') ?> <?php _e('by'); ?> <?php the_author(); ?>


<?php comments_popup_link('No Comments »', '1 Comment »', '% Comments »'); ?> <?php edit_post_link('Edit', ' | ', ''); ?>

<?php endwhile; ?>

<?php posts_nav_link(); ?>

<?php else: ?>

<?php_e('Not Found'); ?>

<?php endif; ?>

[Nadril]

http://elementguild.nfshost.com/

 

 

 

Thought you guy's would be interested in the progress of the site. Still very barebones, I'm going to be tweaking the code, adding widgets and all that cool stuff.