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thelonetiel · Post by **thelonetiel** » 11 Feb 2006 06:50 pm

*mutters* Was the page redirect why I was logged out when I came here this morning?

Well, its good for me, whenever I link people to the site I end up going to the Wikipedia article and copying the "safe" address rather than expose them to the adult content of the slashcity one because I've been to lazy to change my bookmark link.

A design contest sound great, I think a simple layout like the one the old site had would be best...

I only have a basic understanding of PHP, but if I started coding something with just the raw HTML available through View>Source, will it be difficult to re-add the PHP into the code? Or should I get around to making a server somehow so I can actually practice and learn PHP?

Joeno · Post by **Joeno** » 11 Feb 2006 07:51 pm

It really depends on how much programming experience in general you've got. If none, it's extremely important to see what happens when you make changes.

However, there's no direct need to get a hosting place. There are several programs that allow you to run a small webserver on your own computer to test what you write directly. I personally use the free XAMPP.

sterlinglyons · Post by **sterlinglyons** » 11 Feb 2006 07:53 pm

If anyone is curious as to the feel of our old site and the options available, you can view them here:

Most recent listed on web archive.
http://web.archive.org/web/200504010854 ... urs.co.uk/

This one has the news feature with Sam's commentary on the new colour options. I rather liked this feature. Perhaps would could have a moderator, or different member do this each week:
http://web.archive.org/web/200411290912 ... urs.co.uk/

Incidentally, the "News" link has a wealth of Sam's archived comments.

thelonetiel · Post by **thelonetiel** » 11 Feb 2006 08:08 pm

Oooh, thanks for the link. I was trying to figure out this stuff at school, downloaded Apache, MySQL, and PHP and had no idea what to do with it, and was thinking that I'd have to drag out an extra harddrive, figure out how to connect it to my laptop and then try to make it into a server, that site sounds like it will be a lot easier.

But, my understanding of PHP is that I can't get to the actual PHP codes, it is automatically converted to HTML by the server as they are now, (though you could upload them as a text file or some such and I could view them) and because of that I wouldnt be able to test what the HTML would do the PHP because all I get from the view source is the HTML the PHP generates.

Granted, I only read the first few pages of my little tiny PHP book before realising I had to actually get a server to be able to test and learn PHP at all effectively, so I'm still pretty clueless as to how exactly PHP works and stuff and I might be entirely off track.

If this is making no sense, I'm sorry. ^^ I've got to run for a little bit now, but I can try to explain myself more clearly later.

lavender · Post by **lavender** » 11 Feb 2006 08:14 pm

I would love something close to the original - like the softer colors, the layout of the new pets...
And remember how Sam would announce the new colours/pets and write his opinions of it (also included news updates) - I think that'd be a fun thing to do. I believe it was mentioned a *long* time ago to resurrect that... we were even throwing around names of who should do it... ah, nostalgia.

oogabooga · Post by **oogabooga** » 11 Feb 2006 08:32 pm

Yes, news/commentary would be lovely. We even had sort of auditions, though nothing ever came of it. I really miss Sam's delightfully snarky analysis.

Joeno · Post by **Joeno** » 11 Feb 2006 09:16 pm

thelonetiel wrote:But, my understanding of PHP is that I can't get to the actual PHP codes, it is automatically converted to HTML by the server as they are now, (though you could upload them as a text file or some such and I could view them) and because of that I wouldnt be able to test what the HTML would do the PHP because all I get from the view source is the HTML the PHP generates.

Yeah, that's true. You'll need to have FTP-access (or similar) for that.

If you want to work on a layout, the PHP bits are relatively easy to add in, so no need to worry about it.

As for actual programming, that'll be a bit more thorny. Although I wouldn't mind opening the source at some time in the future, it's a quite complex piece of code, and (at the moment) not really a feasible point to start learning PHP programming.

As for the other stuff... A news option is on my todo list (which will go online on the plans page once I finish typing it out. My current idea is that certain members will have access to a separate 'admin' section of the site where news can be updated, old poses can be uploaded, and some other things. It'll be some sort of permission-based system: a person can get access to just news, just old poses, or a larger set of member administration, news and the interesting colours section. Member administration in this case being limited to functionality on the site, although membership, registration and so on can/will be pulled from the forums.

thelonetiel · Post by **thelonetiel** » 11 Feb 2006 09:38 pm

Okay, cool, thanks for clearing that up. ^^

The news posting thing sounds like an excellent idea. =) I'll look forward to seeing it in action, though should we rehold those auditions we had a while back for front page posters?

Website · Post by **Kamil** » 11 Feb 2006 11:58 pm

For the record, Kamil doesn't care what you do with the names/urls/etc. She's just happy it's all starting to work again.

=D

Post by **Huggles** » 12 Feb 2006 05:32 am

I like the monochrome design of the old site because it let the pets remain the actual focus. I'd like to see Jazzy's banner brought back, and the grayed out background for unreleased colors. Customized themes would be nice, but it's not something I'd put at the top of any list. I noticed the trading post list at the end of your plans, and I'm not sure that would be needed. When Sam first implemented that feature, the trading post would only show one page of results in no specific order. Now we can see every page and the newest lots. Unless you have something else in mind, that just seems like extra work for you.

Everything so far looks great, and I'm not even sure I understood the first question before changes had been made.

I do think we should resurrect the faq and perhaps add forum rules to the main page too. Um...Did we ever even make a list of rules aside from not being a jerk?

Joeno · Post by **Joeno** » 12 Feb 2006 12:25 pm

Huggles wrote: and the grayed out background for unreleased colors.

This is planned, but will take some time for me to figure out completely. It's more complicated to get this than it might seem.

Customized themes would be nice, but it's not something I'd put at the top of any list.

It's a design choice. I can implement a single layout now, and hack around it to allow for further customization - or even just a couple of changes to it - later, or I can do things the right way from the start. The latter will, when tallied, amount to less work. Even if we're not going to get user-customizability, we will want to change our layout occasionally to accomodate new wishes, features, and so on. Considering that it isn't a huge problem anyway - the basics could be done through just a different CSS-file and image path, whereas I already have a more feature-filled layout engine ready to be used for these kind of things.

I noticed the trading post list at the end of your plans, and I'm not sure that would be needed.

It's no longer necessary on its own, but together with a list of auctions, it's the most convenient way for me to get lists of items that are available in Neopia, which allows me to do all kinds of cool stuff with that information, and would provide a convenient way of retrieving more usernames for statistics gathering about pets.

Then again, it's at the end of the list - it'll take a while before I'll actually reach that bit

oogabooga · Post by **oogabooga** » 12 Feb 2006 04:05 pm

Huggles wrote:I do think we should resurrect the faq and perhaps add forum rules to the main page too. Um...Did we ever even make a list of rules aside from not being a jerk?

http://web.archive.org/web/200407210535 ... k/faq.html

There are some general rules for the forum in there. Mostly, yes, just "don't be a jerk."

Website · Post by **Jazzy** » 12 Feb 2006 04:10 pm

Oh! Yes. I'll be writing a real forum FAQ soon. Probably this week.

Website · Post by **Kamil** » 13 Feb 2006 03:46 am

thelonetiel wrote:*mutters* Was the page redirect why I was logged out when I came here this morning?

Well, its good for me, whenever I link people to the site I end up going to the Wikipedia article and copying the "safe" address rather than expose them to the adult content of the slashcity one because I've been to lazy to change my bookmark link.

Although it sounds like it's been fixed so it no longer matters, for the moment there's no content of any sort (save a mood icon set for LJ and a few icons, none of which are graphic . . . except for the part where they're well, graphics, but they aren't graphic graphics, so to speak *stops rambling*) to expose them to, so you're safe from that angle.

Eventually I'll reconstruct my site and then there'll be actual adult content to worry about, but until I can make up my mind what I'd like it to look like, we're safe from that happening. =D

Zap · Post by **Zap** » 13 Feb 2006 04:41 am

How about the RSS feed? The one on Kamil's site is pointing to JWCF on pkmn.net.

Neocolours

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