When the DRC site was up together years ago the web master at the time, Ted, threw in all the different options with templates he had. It has been discussed over and over to revisit the design.
About a year ago it was proposed that the site completely be rebuilt from the ground up with people writing articles, national surveys, and create a famous nationally and perhaps even globally recognized site. I think the laid back hobbyist of the clubs aren’t really motivated to do the work for that and don’t really think the DRC needs that. I think there are enough other people that agree that nothing was done.
As a compromise I’d like to just tweak the current site. Nothing major at all, but make the site a bit more simpler. We don’t need to create a wealth of content, but allow users to actually get to the content that is there. For instance check out these two images. The first is what you currently might see when a page on the DRC site loads and the second image is the sort of thing I’d like to get.
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It could be nice if when the page loads at least some of the content you actually want to see loads on the screen.
Wouldn’t take much to do this If I could get to the back end of things. I think someone should make some kind of change though as their is cob webs growing on the current design.
While I agree the site format has not changed in years I don’t necessarily see the need for it. I’d love to have more articles for the front page, and if we did we could load several at a time and enable people to scroll through different articles.
The biggest problem with changing it is no one can maintain it. Unfortunately it’s not an easy transition in to a new format, I’ve barely learned the current template, and am still not a huge Joomla fan so I’m not excited about learning anything else about it.
I don’t want to dump it on, or rely on Ted - as he isn’t really an active (at least not as active as we’d like) member of the club and no one has volunteered to MAINTAIN a new site. Creating is one thing, being available to make changes regularly (almost daily lately) is another.
I’m open to suggestion - but let’s take the baby steps first. Who’s willing to contribute an article for the front page?
In fact I’ll up the ante on it - the first 2 people to submit original, non previously published, useful articles will receive complimentary entry in to the DVRC frag swap on April 9th.
[quote=“Rosti, post:3, topic:3982”]
go for it!!! good idea[/quote]
I’d love to, but supposedly they don’t trust me to even touch a tester site behind the scenes. I think they believe the site will crash to the point where they’ll have to hire Ted to work behind the scenes on a daily basis. If you delete the words, “Delaware Reef Club Forms” and the logo next to it which is also at the top of the page somehow that will crash the server. The result would be like the button in Lost where you have to hit it every 108 minutes or the end of the world will come about. That is unless Desmond hits the back up key.
That’s ok as Ian pointed out I need to work on my own site. I guess it will stay as is.
It’s not a lack of trust but rather a greater understanding of the back end and a true understanding of the amount of time and commitment it takes to build and maintain an interactive site.
A page is one thing but an active site is completely different. Let’s be honest - who has the time to commit to it?
Trust isn’t the issue. Commitment is. Jon if you want to play, download joomla to your site and build something over there. When its fully functional we can transfer it to our servers here.
What Craig said is right, sure you can make a few changes here and there, but if it were my site I’d want to know what your understanding of Joomla and SMF consists of. You can always hack and slash something to make it ‘look’ ok, but there is a right way and a wrong way to do this and with most custom changes to most CMS out there you’re going to have to have a decent understanding of the system.
On that note, for someone to work on the site, I would recommend the knowledge of PHP, MySQL, Joomla, SMF and of course good ole HTML and CSS. If you don’t feel comfortable with those technologies you’ve got no business attempting to do mods on a production site that utilizes those technologies…IMO
On another note I believe the site COULD and SHOULD use/get a face lift, but I’m not too keen on continuing with Joomla/SMF. In my opinion.
No offense intended, just stating some facts and opinions.
Yes, I think the goal should be to tweak it now and then to make the site more user friendly but foremost, easier to maintain. We have to maintain continuity as the web meister baton gets passed on now and then. It’s a very nice site now. It can do far more than i am capable of using. but no problem. It’s still for keeping in touch, conversation, organization and fun.
My favorite feature on a site I used to use as my reef home was an aqualog built into each users CP. It would retain all of your entered data on water changes, animals, water test parameters and even graph them and even had reminders to do tests and water changes.
but I'm not too keen on continuing with Joomla/SMF
I would agree, I could live with Joomla but I would replace SMF with PHPBB
I would be willing to design a site on my own server if someone could give me an export of the SMF database.
and I am available and willing most nights to make edits as needed (to code or design not content as I am no writer)
I was a devolper with both Ikonboard and Infinite Core Technologies so I do have a background in forum software.
If you would really rather just keep things as they are I would also be willing to work on a face lift, using what we have now.
It should not be to hard to put up two sites one with what we have now and another EZP and PHPBB and let the officers beat on them for a while and then see what they like better as it’s easy to say ya that looks nice but it’s another to be the one who has to make the daily updates.
[quote=“TimH07, post:10, topic:3982”]
My favorite feature on a site I used to use as my reef home was an aqualog built into each users CP. It would retain all of your entered data on water changes, animals, water test parameters and even graph them and even had reminders to do tests and water changes.
Could something like this be made on DRC?[/quote]
Yes it could, and maybe even make it with a view only option on it so it could be shared to show trending when testing a new product maybe.
I think thats the problem i always encounter. when writing a reply that’s longer than the edit box, it keeps scrolling back to the top before i can type the next word. very frustrating. i though it was just my puter. I guess not.
I occasionally ran into that as well when using IE(both currently and last couple of versions before that) with both Windows 7 and Windows Vista.
Hudzon I really think you could get really bogged down with lots of really neat features and actually never release anything. Leaving the site as is and just removing redundant and broken things would be greatly beneficial. For instance you’ve been logged in for X number of days even when you had to type your user name and password 30 seconds before reading that? Who even cares if that thing worked right.
Just removing the spell checker would make the site look cleaner and hide something that doesn’t work. We don’t need to see the logo twice or the date in extended format:March 10, 2011, 02:32:06 AM (or at all). There are multiple search buttons.
Just a personal opinion, but I don’t think there should be club forum"s". We don’t really have moderation control on that crappy other forum and received a heck of a lot of bad press from the newbs that frequent over there. That’s a personal opinion though i know others disagree.
Hudzon, no offense intended. I’m not sure how much folks here know you, I’ve been out of the loop for awhile, but I doubt you or most folks are going to get a dump of the database. (I don’t have server access here either!) I can’t speak for the club and I hope I don’t offend or discourage you.
With that being said anyone can work on building a new site on their own server, and they don’t need any of the current db information to do so. Just make sure you pick a platform that can import SMF easily or you know how to do so (i.e. setup an SMF site with mock data and import it into your site). If that is what someone wants to do, they should work with the club on their development and design.
I like phpBB and suggested it a few years ago, but had no biters. I haven’t looked into it much recently, but then it was a pretty dynamic and frequently updated platform.
Again, I’m not speaking for the club on any of this, just my own opinion.
So how about some content for the new site? No one willing to write an article?
Jon you’ve got a ton of information that you can share - I’m sure you can come up with a kick as$ article on QT, acclimation, lighting, plumbing, exotic animals, common reef misconceptions. Anything?
I’m open to redoing some things on the site but if I’m going to give it a face-lift I want to have more content to put on it.
I agree with a lot that was said. No one pushed harder for this sites creation or made Ted pull more of his hair out trying to make the changes. I will be the first to admit I needed a person saying hold on Al.
Their are some things that have worked in the past that have stopped. The scroll feature when typing a long post started this past year. The problem of having to log in again and again is a recent problem. In fact I lost this post due to this exact problem. The spell check needed a addon that was never activated or it had issues(I beleive).
Some back history:
We are using an older verison of Joomla to allow the use of a bridge to SMF, This allows users to log in once and jump to both sites without logging in. This is not a necessity but was thought to be needed back in the day.
We currently need to update SMF or possible reload the current version to eliminate some current issues.
One of the biggest issue in the past for all those who want a content rich site is CONTENT. I tried contest and begging but we got little in the way of submissions. Most non-club meeting info articles on the site were contributed by Craig or myself. Not bragging or complaining just stating a content rich site looks bare when we only have 6 articles. We need to put a mechanism in place to deliver the content on a regular basis.
The reason building the site on someones own server is that it limits the hands in the cookie jar. What if 5 people want to make site designs and delete / change Smf files or Joomla files and we loose the use of the site or worse the data in SMF?
Before everyone who has the ability to create a site does and then it is decided not to use and feelings get hurt we should determine once again what is important to the users.
Need would like looks good dont need definetly don’t want
I disagree with removing the link to RC although it might be nice to add additional sites. This site and the creation of the club was to spread knowledge and help others. Who here can say they did not gain knowledge or meet other people through Reef Central? Why deterime for new reefers what they should be exposed to. I still go their to check out the DIY info. It has a wealth of knowledge. Yes they had mods who overused the ban feature but it is their site.
I am not against updates but lets not jump in. Work out the details of what we would like and see what platform facilitates the changes we want to become.
Ian I also suggested a move to phpBB a few years ago probably about the time you came to the club but it was not deemed by the marjority as a necessity at the time. Things change.
I will even go one step farther as I have a web site that I started playing with but have not really put content on (on Host gator). If we can decide the above questions and agree on what changes we would like we could use my site to run as a test. I will only give it out once we decide we are going to do it.
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